David "Bomber" Pearce
Posted: 14 May 2018, 10:57
A statue of former British heavyweight champion David Pearce is to be unveiled next month in his home city of Newport in Wales, a wonderful tribute to the chirpy ex-steelworker who suffered more than most and sadly died in May 2000. No exact date has been announced next month yet.
David never got over losing his boxing licence at the crushingly young age of 24 at a time when he held the British heavyweight title. Pearce failed a brain scan and it simply destroyed him. Small for a heavyweight, David missed out on the cruiserweight division so he conceded weight to most of his opponents and got away with it up to the night he challenged Lucien Rodriguez for the European heavyweight title in France in March 1984 when he walked on to every punch thrown by the decent Frenchman, despite flooring him twice in a near-miraculous eighth round, and lost a unanimous 12-round decision. Boxing News editor Harry Mullan was at ringside and his report made such graphic reading that Pearce marched to the tiny Boxing News office in the West End and confronted Harry, who was always an absolute gentleman and Pearce quickly burst into tears, but the Board pulled the Welshman's licence a little later and a stupid fight in the States many years later against Percell Davis, a man who outweighed him by four stone, triggered the Alzheimer's and the epilepsy David battled with for the last years of his short life. He was dead at 41.
A pro at 19, Pearce feasted on his early opponents and was unbeaten when he challenged Cardiff's ageing Neville Meade for the Welsh heavyweight title in Caerphilly in January 1980 and walked into one of Meade's thumping right hands to be stopped, shockingly, in the second round. (The headline of the report of the fight in Boxing News read “Pearce's title” when it should have read “Pearce's title hopes go up in smoke”; so began a spell of enjoyable banter with big Neville, who went on an amazing run and smashed his way to the British heavyweight title in October 1981.) Pearce, a proud man who gave everything in training, took the Meade defeat badly. He was out for an entire year and then got slung out in the third round against John Rafferty when he hit the Scot on the floor after dropping him, although it wasn't a nasty shot and Rafferty made the most of it.
Pearce came back quickly and strongly, racking up six impressive wins over the likes of Dennis Andries, Gordon Ferris, Al Syben and Larry McDonald, all of whom he stopped, to secure a rematch with that man Meade in Cardiff in September 1983 in the last scheduled 15-rounder in this country. Neville, by now 35, proved dangerous in the early rounds again with his right hands but Pearce knew what to expect and he paced himself and really poured it on from the middle rounds. Tigerish at his best, he stopped an exhausted Meade in the ninth. “I did it for Newport,” he beamed, raising the Lonsdale Belt like he wanted to show the whole world. It was his and he'd earned it.
Sadly, the new champion never got the chance to defend. He stopped American “Jack” Johnson in five rounds in January 1984 in Stoke but then came the worrying Rodriguez fight when Pearce's lack of boxing skills really told against a man who threw nice straight punches, all of which slotted home. Pearce continued marching in, with no jab and “with the kind of absurd courage which borders on madness,” wrote Mullan, until he finally landed a big right in the eighth to floor Rodriguez for a count of four and then half-punched, half-wrestled him to the floor for a count of seven, which seemed remarkably slow, but Rodriguez jabbed his way to the bell and soon began dominating again. Mullan gave him 11 of the 12 rounds.
The failed brain scan soon followed, along with that fight in the States in 1990 when he was stopped in eight rounds by the giant Davis. It happened, it all happened, but Pearce will shortly stand forever in his beloved Newport still raising the Lonsdale Belt to the whole world.
David never got over losing his boxing licence at the crushingly young age of 24 at a time when he held the British heavyweight title. Pearce failed a brain scan and it simply destroyed him. Small for a heavyweight, David missed out on the cruiserweight division so he conceded weight to most of his opponents and got away with it up to the night he challenged Lucien Rodriguez for the European heavyweight title in France in March 1984 when he walked on to every punch thrown by the decent Frenchman, despite flooring him twice in a near-miraculous eighth round, and lost a unanimous 12-round decision. Boxing News editor Harry Mullan was at ringside and his report made such graphic reading that Pearce marched to the tiny Boxing News office in the West End and confronted Harry, who was always an absolute gentleman and Pearce quickly burst into tears, but the Board pulled the Welshman's licence a little later and a stupid fight in the States many years later against Percell Davis, a man who outweighed him by four stone, triggered the Alzheimer's and the epilepsy David battled with for the last years of his short life. He was dead at 41.
A pro at 19, Pearce feasted on his early opponents and was unbeaten when he challenged Cardiff's ageing Neville Meade for the Welsh heavyweight title in Caerphilly in January 1980 and walked into one of Meade's thumping right hands to be stopped, shockingly, in the second round. (The headline of the report of the fight in Boxing News read “Pearce's title” when it should have read “Pearce's title hopes go up in smoke”; so began a spell of enjoyable banter with big Neville, who went on an amazing run and smashed his way to the British heavyweight title in October 1981.) Pearce, a proud man who gave everything in training, took the Meade defeat badly. He was out for an entire year and then got slung out in the third round against John Rafferty when he hit the Scot on the floor after dropping him, although it wasn't a nasty shot and Rafferty made the most of it.
Pearce came back quickly and strongly, racking up six impressive wins over the likes of Dennis Andries, Gordon Ferris, Al Syben and Larry McDonald, all of whom he stopped, to secure a rematch with that man Meade in Cardiff in September 1983 in the last scheduled 15-rounder in this country. Neville, by now 35, proved dangerous in the early rounds again with his right hands but Pearce knew what to expect and he paced himself and really poured it on from the middle rounds. Tigerish at his best, he stopped an exhausted Meade in the ninth. “I did it for Newport,” he beamed, raising the Lonsdale Belt like he wanted to show the whole world. It was his and he'd earned it.
Sadly, the new champion never got the chance to defend. He stopped American “Jack” Johnson in five rounds in January 1984 in Stoke but then came the worrying Rodriguez fight when Pearce's lack of boxing skills really told against a man who threw nice straight punches, all of which slotted home. Pearce continued marching in, with no jab and “with the kind of absurd courage which borders on madness,” wrote Mullan, until he finally landed a big right in the eighth to floor Rodriguez for a count of four and then half-punched, half-wrestled him to the floor for a count of seven, which seemed remarkably slow, but Rodriguez jabbed his way to the bell and soon began dominating again. Mullan gave him 11 of the 12 rounds.
The failed brain scan soon followed, along with that fight in the States in 1990 when he was stopped in eight rounds by the giant Davis. It happened, it all happened, but Pearce will shortly stand forever in his beloved Newport still raising the Lonsdale Belt to the whole world.