Kevin Finnegan R.I.P.

[Ezzard]

Real shame... Sad news.

[Scrap]

He was the most Gifted Fighter I can recall,will always remember Him mugging Tony Sibson at the RAH it was an education. If only, applied to Kevin more than most, Thanks for the Memories Kev, RIP

[stujones]

Real shame, a world class fighter in his day... such a warrior. R.I.P.

[rhino222]

what a fighter, sad sad news, i was brought up witnessing the likes of finnegan and john h etc, a great era.

[twenty six]

What a sad, sad loss for boxing.
The police had to break in to his home because he hadn't been seen for about 5 days, and they found his body.
60 is no age.
God bless Kevin wonderful memories from my early twenties.

[Poncey]

RIP.

[chris s]

what a fighter, sad sad news, i was brought up witnessing the likes of finnegan and john h etc, a great era.

What a talent he was. Like you mate, I became interested in boxing during the 70s. I remember his two bloody fights with Marvin Hagler well and of course the points win over Tony Sibson. Think he beat Frankie Lucas too. Peak Alan Minter was the only Briton who had his number. How many fighters would get in the ring with Hagler, twice inside three months?

Every fighter who beat him was a top quality operator.

It is easy to give it the old 'in my era', but what would he have done to most of the world's 11st 6lb fighters today. Not disrespect, but today's British middeweight boxers wouldn't have been allowed in the same gym!

RIP Kevin

[bennie]

It is incredible to think this man NEVER got a world title shot. He licked Sterling, Sibson, Tonna, Bouttier, Lucas, gave Hagler a real war in the first of two fights in the States (both stopped on cuts) and looked desperately unlucky in the second of three classics with Minter, who was all over the shop in the 15th round but staggered home to the points. He once won a fight with a badly broken jaw.
Quite simply, Kevin Finnegan was gifted.

[twenty six]

As his brother Chris would often say
The cream of British boxing, with more class than me.
Says it all really.

[Old bones Ian]

Kevin was fighting just before my time, but i've seen his fights with Minter on video, and he was a tough man. I've never seen his fights with Hagler, but i know he recieved 40 stitches after one of them, and he pushed Hagler close before being pulled out because of the cuts.
Its a shame that he has passed away at 60, RIP.

[stujones]

Concur with Bennie, when you think the likes of Arthur, Nick Cook and Gavin Rees (no disrespect) can call themselves legitimate world champions (I won't disrespect the intelligence of the forum by mentioning WBF/WBU/IBO champions) - to think Finnegan never got a shot is very harsh. I don't know if he would have won it, but he was worthy of one.

[TerribleTerry]

R.I.P to a hard, gritty and talented fighter.

[Boxingnut]

R.I.P. Kevin

[WildWaylon]

What a sad, sad loss for boxing.
The police had to break in to his home because he hadn't been seen for about 5 days, and they found his body.
60 is no age.
God bless Kevin wonderful memories from my early twenties.

Remember him well, great fighter, world class. Nice to see you think 60 is no age.

[SticknMove]

Very sad indeed.

An absolute quality fighter.

RIP Kevin.

PS. there was a thread on BOTP many months ago about biographies that we would have liked to have read. I mentioned the Finnegans based on the level of good, great and legendary fighters they faced. Their anecdotes and take on their careers would have been taken with the respect that they both deserved.

All fighters have pride, but I wonder whether these pair felt less in a great era of boxing than ............what came after.

FFS 60 is no age at all to be passing without anyone knowing to 5 days after.

[bennie]

Kevin enjoyed a glorious twilight to his boxing career which was totally unexpected after his wars with Minter and Hagler (five battles with those two is not conducive to a long career). In 1979 Finnegan outboxed Tony Sibson over 15 rounds for the British title, just after "Sibbo" had destroyed Frankie "The Animal" Lucas, and then avenged a defeat to the ferocious Gratien Tonna with another magnificent boxing display in 1980 in France to lift the European title (his points loss to Tonna in the mid-1970s probably cost him a shot at Carlos Monzon) and picked up a couple of nice paydays abroad in defence of the European belt. He fought well in his very last fight with Matteo Salvemini in San Remo in Italy in September 1980, dropping the local man with a beautiful counter right, but Salvemeni proved a bit too energetic and took the points.
Marvin Hagler always said Finnegan gave him his hardest fight.

[Deserter]

Marvin Hagler always said Finnegan gave him his hardest fight.

And that says it all really. What a fine epitaph for a great fighter.

[Scrap]

He was in front against Hagler, He was one of those Fighters that made you wonder if He had been serious, just how good He could have been .

[bennie]

Former British and European middleweight champ Kevin Finnegan was found dead last week in his flat in West London at the relatively young age of 60.
In the context of today's boxing scene, with 'world' titles seemingly given away, it is incredible to think this man never got a sniff at a world title shot. The younger brother of the better-known Chris licked the likes of Bunny Sterling, Tony Sibson, Gratien Tonna, Jean Claude Bouttier, Frankie Lucas, gave Marvin Hagler a real war in the first of two fantastic efforts in the States in 1978 (both stopped on cuts, just two months apart) and looked desperately unlucky in the second of three 15-round classics with Alan Minter, who staggered home to a debatable decision in 1976.
Quite simply, Kevin Finnegan was gifted, a man's man who fought hard and lived hard. His drinking exploits, even as a fighter, were legendary, and he gave Hagler such a war in Boston in that first showdown, "Marvelous" Marvin looked ready to go at one point - yes, Marvin Hagler. He drove the smooth-boxing Hagler back and whipped in the punches and the Boston Irish into a frenzy. Finnegan's fearless, clever, accurate, non-stop brand of boxing earned him a special place in the hearts of fight fans in the 1970s. He once won a fight despite a horribly broken jaw. This man was brave, talented and brave some more.
After his five wars with Minter and Hagler, both of whom went on to win the undisputed world middleweight title, Finnegan enjoyed a glorious, totally unexpected twilight to his career. In 1979 at the age of 31, he outfoxed Sibson over 15 rounds for the British title - just after "Sibbo" had destroyed "The Animal" Lucas - and avenged a defeat to the ferocious Gratien Tonna with another magnificent boxing display in 1980 in France to lift the European title (his points loss to Tonna in the mid-1970s possibly cost him a shot at Carlos Monzon) and picked up a couple of nice paydays abroad in defence of the European belt. Finnegan fought well in his very last fight with Matteo Salvemini in Italy in September 1980, flooring the local man with a beautiful counter right, but Salvemeni proved a bit too energetic and took the points.
His daughter, Lele, said of his post-boxing years: "He loved to paint, he loved nature, and as an artist he loved watching the seasons change, the colour of the trees, the migration of the birds. He was also a free sprit, untamed and unique. He loved life, he loved people." Alan Minter described him as "like a brother". Marvin Hagler said Finnegan gave him his hardest fight, while newspapers in and around Hillingdon in Middlesex, where Kevin lived, have been swamped with tributes.
This man was truly special.

[Old bones Ian]

If anyone knows of a good tool for splitting a video into parts, i have the highlights of Finnegan v Sibson on my computer, which i could put onto Youtube, but the file is too big as it stands at the moment.

[harrygreb]

goodness me, i have only just heard!! oh, dear kev.

i can only echo bennies words and those of his daughter. what a fighter and what a bloody great fella we've lost.

RIP

[slakka]

Last bell sounds for lion-hearted Finnegan
Thu, Nov 06, 2008

AMERICA AT LARGE:The British boxer proved his bravery in the ring before, unusually, becoming a gifted artist, writes George Kimball

HE HAD the courage of a lion and the tender skin of a newborn baby, not a great combination for a man who tries to earn his living in the boxing ring. By the time he was in his 30s his face looked as if he had spent his adult years trying to shave with broken beer bottles, and when he described himself a "painter", they sometimes smiled tolerantly and asked "houses, or interiors?"

Kevin Finnegan, who died a couple of weeks ago, was an accomplished artist whose work hangs in the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square. And while no one who saw him box would describe him as an artist in the ring, he was for a decade among the world's top middleweights, and won the British and European titles twice apiece.

I hadn't seen him for ages, and when, a few days ago, I learned of his death, at 60, I found myself thinking back not to his 47 professional fights but to a wild and misspent weekend over a quarter of a century ago.

Finnegan had hung up his gloves and become a full-time painter two years earlier, but when Tony Sibson challenged Marvelous Marvin Hagler for the world middleweight title in Worcester, Massachusetts, he knew he had to be there.

Intimately acquainted with both men, he had battled Hagler in two brutal wars in 1978, losing both times on cuts, and a year later had been the last man to defeat Sibson, whom he outpointed in a British title fight at the Royal Albert Hall.

On Friday, February 11th, 1983, at the Worcester Centrum, Hagler stopped Sibson in the sixth round of a one-sided bout. A massive storm dumped over two feet of snow on Worcester that night, turning the journey from the arena back to the Marriott Hotel a few hundred yards away into a Polar expedition.

With the roads all closed, hundreds of homeless fight fans wandered through the lobbies and hallways of the hotel, and our arrival there coincided with closing time at the bar. Two former world champions, Tony DeMarco and Vito Antuofermo, sat on the floor, propped up against the wall, and I invited them, along with Kevin Finnegan, back to my room for a drink.

We soon exhausted the supply on hand, but Antuofermo was working for a beer distributor, and remembered he had a case in the boot of his car. An intrepid outdoorsman was dispatched to retrieve it, and by the time that was gone, much of the company, with no place else to go, nodded off to sleep right where they were.

By the next morning it was clear nobody was getting out of Worcester anytime soon. We stayed for another night, and by mid-morning Finnegan and I set off to obtain emergency supplies, negotiating four-foot snowdrifts as we wandered through the streets until we miraculously came upon an open liquor store, and the round-the-clock party shortly resumed.

It was Sunday evening before the roads had sufficiently cleared, and we decided to risk the drive to Boston. Kevin and another stranded British boxer, former world light-middleweight champion Maurice Hope, piled into my car. They vaguely hoped to reach the airport in time to catch a flight back to London, but we wound up making a refuelling stop at an Irish pub, the Black Rose in Quincy Market, and the next thing I knew Finnegan and Hope were up on the stage with the band, being introduced to the crowd and then gleefully participating in a sing-along. They eventually did get back to London, but it was about a week later.

Five years earlier, Finnegan had been in Boston for the first of his only two fights in the US, both against Hagler. The first was postponed twice but eventually took place on March 4th.

The audience of 5,300 at the old Boston Garden that night bore witness to a brutal war. Referee Billy Connelly didn't break a single clinch for the eight rounds, and when the end came, even though he was by then blinded in both eyes by his blood, Finnegan was still hammering away at Hagler, giving as good as he got.

By the time Dr Nathan Shapiro (at Mickey Duff's behest) ordered Connelly to stop it just after the bell had signalled the ninth, Finnegan was bleeding from cuts above both eyes, another in the middle of his forehead and a severe gash to his left cheekbone. The crowd, though pro-Hagler, saluted Finnegan's gallant display with a heartfelt ovation.

"I'd heard Hagler was as strong as a horse, but he wasn't all that strong," said Finnegan that night. "I would have knocked him out if I could have seen him, but the blood kept getting in my eyes."

Finnegan, who had rocked Hagler on several occasions, was trailing on the scorecards, albeit narrowly so. A rematch was scheduled for two months later, with a near-identical result: this time the bloodied Englishman was rescued in the seventh.

The two Hagler fights occurred in what appeared at the time to be the nadir of Finnegan's boxing career, a stretch in which he lost five of six bouts, but four of the losses came against men (Hagler, Alan Minter and Ayub Kalule) who would go on to win world titles, and the fifth was to South African Charlie Weir, who would go on to fight for a world title.

And Finnegan would go on to reclaim both his British (vs Sibson, in 1979) and European (vs Gratien Tonna in 1980) titles after that.

He retired after losing his Euro title to Matteo Salvemini in San Remo in 1980. His final, 37-11-1 career ledger included three narrow losses, all over 15 rounds, to Minter, and memorable wins over the likes of Bunny Sterling, Jean-Claude Bouttier, Sibson and Tonna. But the crowning moment of his career may have been that first Boston fight against Hagler.

Back then regulations weren't what they are now, and it later came to light that Finnegan had suffered a detached retina, probably in the first fight against Hagler, but he soldiered on for almost two years after that.

Determined to pursue his dream, Kevin moved to Spain in the mid-1980s to paint full time, intending to support himself by running a pub he opened in Marbella. But he turned out to be his own best customer, and by the time he shut the bar down five years later he had gone through a quarter of a million pounds and his marriage was in tatters.

He continued to paint, and even came to look the part of the bohemian artist. (He had reportedly taken to walking the streets of Hillington affecting a beret that made him look like an defector from the Rive Gauche.) He had been living there in Middlesex, with only his dog for company, when he died of a heart attack a couple of weeks ago.

The date of his demise was fixed as October 23rd, but that's really only a guess. Neighbours who hadn't seen him or the dog about for several days alerted police, who broke down the door and found him dead on the kitchen floor.

When I heard the news, I thought back to that evening in Worcester. Soon after he had disposed of Sibson at the Centrum that night, Marvelous Marvin Hagler was answering a question at the post-fight press conference when he spotted Finnegan in the crowd. Surprised, the middleweight world champion paused in mid-sentence and pointed to his old rival.

"Right there," he said "is the toughest man I ever fought."

© 2008 The Irish Times

[Deserter]

Last bell sounds for lion-hearted Finnegan
Thu, Nov 06, 2008

AMERICA AT LARGE:The British boxer proved his bravery in the ring before, unusually, becoming a gifted artist, writes George Kimball

HE HAD the courage of a lion and the tender skin of a newborn baby, not a great combination for a man who tries to earn his living in the boxing ring. By the time he was in his 30s his face looked as if he had spent his adult years trying to shave with broken beer bottles, and when he described himself a "painter", they sometimes smiled tolerantly and asked "houses, or interiors?"

Kevin Finnegan, who died a couple of weeks ago, was an accomplished artist whose work hangs in the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square. And while no one who saw him box would describe him as an artist in the ring, he was for a decade among the world's top middleweights, and won the British and European titles twice apiece.

I hadn't seen him for ages, and when, a few days ago, I learned of his death, at 60, I found myself thinking back not to his 47 professional fights but to a wild and misspent weekend over a quarter of a century ago.

Finnegan had hung up his gloves and become a full-time painter two years earlier, but when Tony Sibson challenged Marvelous Marvin Hagler for the world middleweight title in Worcester, Massachusetts, he knew he had to be there.

Intimately acquainted with both men, he had battled Hagler in two brutal wars in 1978, losing both times on cuts, and a year later had been the last man to defeat Sibson, whom he outpointed in a British title fight at the Royal Albert Hall.

On Friday, February 11th, 1983, at the Worcester Centrum, Hagler stopped Sibson in the sixth round of a one-sided bout. A massive storm dumped over two feet of snow on Worcester that night, turning the journey from the arena back to the Marriott Hotel a few hundred yards away into a Polar expedition.

With the roads all closed, hundreds of homeless fight fans wandered through the lobbies and hallways of the hotel, and our arrival there coincided with closing time at the bar. Two former world champions, Tony DeMarco and Vito Antuofermo, sat on the floor, propped up against the wall, and I invited them, along with Kevin Finnegan, back to my room for a drink.

We soon exhausted the supply on hand, but Antuofermo was working for a beer distributor, and remembered he had a case in the boot of his car. An intrepid outdoorsman was dispatched to retrieve it, and by the time that was gone, much of the company, with no place else to go, nodded off to sleep right where they were.

By the next morning it was clear nobody was getting out of Worcester anytime soon. We stayed for another night, and by mid-morning Finnegan and I set off to obtain emergency supplies, negotiating four-foot snowdrifts as we wandered through the streets until we miraculously came upon an open liquor store, and the round-the-clock party shortly resumed.

It was Sunday evening before the roads had sufficiently cleared, and we decided to risk the drive to Boston. Kevin and another stranded British boxer, former world light-middleweight champion Maurice Hope, piled into my car. They vaguely hoped to reach the airport in time to catch a flight back to London, but we wound up making a refuelling stop at an Irish pub, the Black Rose in Quincy Market, and the next thing I knew Finnegan and Hope were up on the stage with the band, being introduced to the crowd and then gleefully participating in a sing-along. They eventually did get back to London, but it was about a week later.

Five years earlier, Finnegan had been in Boston for the first of his only two fights in the US, both against Hagler. The first was postponed twice but eventually took place on March 4th.

The audience of 5,300 at the old Boston Garden that night bore witness to a brutal war. Referee Billy Connelly didn't break a single clinch for the eight rounds, and when the end came, even though he was by then blinded in both eyes by his blood, Finnegan was still hammering away at Hagler, giving as good as he got.

By the time Dr Nathan Shapiro (at Mickey Duff's behest) ordered Connelly to stop it just after the bell had signalled the ninth, Finnegan was bleeding from cuts above both eyes, another in the middle of his forehead and a severe gash to his left cheekbone. The crowd, though pro-Hagler, saluted Finnegan's gallant display with a heartfelt ovation.

"I'd heard Hagler was as strong as a horse, but he wasn't all that strong," said Finnegan that night. "I would have knocked him out if I could have seen him, but the blood kept getting in my eyes."

Finnegan, who had rocked Hagler on several occasions, was trailing on the scorecards, albeit narrowly so. A rematch was scheduled for two months later, with a near-identical result: this time the bloodied Englishman was rescued in the seventh.

The two Hagler fights occurred in what appeared at the time to be the nadir of Finnegan's boxing career, a stretch in which he lost five of six bouts, but four of the losses came against men (Hagler, Alan Minter and Ayub Kalule) who would go on to win world titles, and the fifth was to South African Charlie Weir, who would go on to fight for a world title.

And Finnegan would go on to reclaim both his British (vs Sibson, in 1979) and European (vs Gratien Tonna in 1980) titles after that.

He retired after losing his Euro title to Matteo Salvemini in San Remo in 1980. His final, 37-11-1 career ledger included three narrow losses, all over 15 rounds, to Minter, and memorable wins over the likes of Bunny Sterling, Jean-Claude Bouttier, Sibson and Tonna. But the crowning moment of his career may have been that first Boston fight against Hagler.

Back then regulations weren't what they are now, and it later came to light that Finnegan had suffered a detached retina, probably in the first fight against Hagler, but he soldiered on for almost two years after that.

Determined to pursue his dream, Kevin moved to Spain in the mid-1980s to paint full time, intending to support himself by running a pub he opened in Marbella. But he turned out to be his own best customer, and by the time he shut the bar down five years later he had gone through a quarter of a million pounds and his marriage was in tatters.

He continued to paint, and even came to look the part of the bohemian artist. (He had reportedly taken to walking the streets of Hillington affecting a beret that made him look like an defector from the Rive Gauche.) He had been living there in Middlesex, with only his dog for company, when he died of a heart attack a couple of weeks ago.

The date of his demise was fixed as October 23rd, but that's really only a guess. Neighbours who hadn't seen him or the dog about for several days alerted police, who broke down the door and found him dead on the kitchen floor.

When I heard the news, I thought back to that evening in Worcester. Soon after he had disposed of Sibson at the Centrum that night, Marvelous Marvin Hagler was answering a question at the post-fight press conference when he spotted Finnegan in the crowd. Surprised, the middleweight world champion paused in mid-sentence and pointed to his old rival.

"Right there," he said "is the toughest man I ever fought."

© 2008 The Irish Times

Great article. Thanks for putting it up

[harrygreb]

brilliant post about kevin in the states.