BoxRec

bennie wrote: ↑05 Apr 2018, 07:04 Sad to read that former good pro Vernon Vanriel is ailing in his native Jamaica. The 62-year-old who lived and fought out of Tottenham as a 10-year pro in the 1970s and '80s spent his early years in Jamaica and chased his dream when he made the move back several years ago but now finds himself in a nightmare, struck down by a mystery illness and surviving on small amounts of money sent out by his sister.
“It was shortly after moving here that I noticed that I was sweating a great deal and my left foot was giving me lots of pain,” he told The Voice newspaper. “Ever since then I've been losing weight and have grossly deteriorated physically. It's soul-destroying when I look in the mirror and see what I've come to.” Vanriel, like his contemporary Herol “Bomber” Graham, also struggles with bipolar disorder. Clearly, he lacks the physical and mental strength to hold down a job and an appeal has been set up to raise enough money for Vernon to return to the UK for medical help.
It was all so different in his fighting days. One of the few British fighters to really bring out the black fraternity whenever he fought, Vanriel found himself in obvious demand and went unbeaten in 11 straight fights at his peak, sharing Albert Hall bills with the likes of Frank Bruno, Lloyd Honeyghan and Mark Kaylor. He looked spectacular when he bombed out New Yorker Sammy Young in January 1983 (televised by the Beeb) and was given a great chance against Terry Marsh three months later in a 10-rounder for the Southern Area title but Marsh easily outboxed him to silence the pro-Vanriel crowd, and although Vernon came back with a brilliant dismissal of Gary Knight, he was stopped consecutively by Tony Laing, Tony Willis and Dave Griffiths and faded from the scene with a record of 22-10-3 (8), including wins over Willie Booth, Glyn Rhodes, Des Gwilliam and Peter Eubank.

https://www.gofundme.com/help-exboxer-vernon-vanriel



Former world title challenger Danny Stonewalker slipped away in anonymity last month at the age of 57 following a stroke. He was also suffering from dementia.
Stonewalker is not a name that most boxing fans will be familiar with but the proud Canadian surprised the boxing world back in December 1990 when he challenged Michael Moorer for the WBO light-heavyweight title at a time when Moorer was the most feared fighter on the planet. (Mike Tyson had been humbled by Buster Douglas.) Moorer went into the fight with a perfect record of 21-0 (21); Stonewalker's record read 10-4-2 (4), with only three wins in his previous seven outings.
It looked like lamb to the slaughter but Stonewalker refused to be intimidated by the robotic, almost inhuman Kronk southpaw and somehow lasted into the eighth round in one of the gutsiest showings of the year and probably the decade. It was up there with Chuck Wepner against Ali and Tommy Collins against Jimmy Carter and it won Stonewalker an awful lot of friends and a few nice paydays with the likes of Michael Dokes, Jeff Lampkin and Drake Thadzi in the ensuing years, before he retired in 1994, clearly a spent force.
Sadly, Stonewalker never found any new meaning and struggled with addiction for the rest of his life and wound up on the cold streets of Edmonton, where he was often seen shadowboxing.