BoxRec

Former British Lightheavy champ Tim Wood has died at age 59, due to a heart attack.
Tim Wood won the ABA heavyweight title in 1972 , as a pro he started out as a heavy weighing only around 190lbs, after losing to Richard Dunn he moved down to Lightheavy.
Tim won the British title on a 15 round decision over Phil Martin, he lost the title in his first defense to Bunny Johnson. In 1979 he fought on the same bill as Muhammad Ali in Norway, Wood on a KO, and Ali boxed an exhibition against Jimmy Ellis.

RIP

F uck me, what a shitty week. Tim was never a great fighter but he finished strongly to nick the decision and the British title against Martin, and was unlucky to run into the left-hooking Johnson in his first defence.
Harry Mullan once did a great, great feature on Tim, who I met a few times at the end of his career and who was always kind, even though the dream had gone. Tim wound up, much like Rudkin, drinking too much.

God Bless You, Tim.

Tim Wood came to a shot at the British light-heavyweight title in 1976 when a one-eyed Chris Finnegan was forced to relinquish. Fate soared like an eagle as he swooped and snatched up the Lonsdale Belt with a hairline decision over Manchester’s Phil Martin in a posh hotel in London.
The muscled Martin had repeatedly rocked Wood in the early and middle rounds of a gruelling 15-rounder on one of those undeserving dinner shows, but Wood soaked them up and kept on coming, and his heart and an eyecatching finish swung the title his way.
It was a heady time for the gutsy and likeable Leicester man. "The sky’s the limit," Tim told Harry Mullan, but fate was now creeping like a rat as he suffered a quick cuts defeat in a non-title encounter with Harry White and was then mown down in the first round by mandatory challenger Bunny Johnson – all over before it had barely begun.
Wood plodded on but his relationship with manager Johnny Griffin had broken down (I can still see him making an 'all mouth' gesture with his hand at the mention of Griffin) and new manager Carl Gunns kept him busy in a series of uninspiring eight-rounders on Tony Sibson cards until, at still only 28, the fighter packed it in.
It was all a world away from the year - 1972 - that a 20-year-old Tim showed a fine left jab and smooth combinations to win the ABA heavyweight title. Wood was never a heavyweight but, call it the George Biddles factor, bulked himself up on his wife’s fried food and saw off the dangerous Les McGowan in the Wembley final and previously the dangerous Eddie Neilsen, although southpaw Eddie would gain his revenge in the pros in seven rounds in 1974.
Wood dropped down to light-heavyweight soon after and his fitness, boxing and durability got him through against Martin, who went on to produce a string of superb champions out of Moss Side as a no-nonsense trainer.
Yes, it was as good as it would get for Wood, but in 31 outings he was only ever stopped (genuinely) by the world class Johnson and the heavy handed Neilsen - and how many fighters can say they won both ABA and British titles.
Griffin never changes. He told the Leicester Mercury yesterday that Wood was still happily married, and contented, but Wood was far from happy, far from contented. Writer Mathew Bozeat once told me he went looking for Tim in a pub at 10.30 in the morning. He quickly gave up at the sight that confronted him – men in a pub, at 10.30 in the morning.
Wood has died of a heart attack, aged just 59.