Barry McGuigan has spoken about his tragic fight with Young Ali in 1982 after he won by knockout but Ali spent six months in a coma and tragically died at the age of 21 as he admitted the trauma nearly made him hang up his gloves which moved him to dedicate the important win over Eusebio Pedroza to the Nigerian.
McGuigan who was speaking about his career on The Gary Newbon Sport Show won by knockout in the sixth round at the World Sporting Club in London but sadly the Nigerian didn’t regain consciousness, and the former featherweight said the trauma had a devastating effect on him.
He eventually decided to carry on with his career, and going into his massive world title bout with Eusebio Pedroza in 1985, he made it his mission to win the fight and dedicate it to Ali after the final bell.
He recalled: “I was thinking about him all week and [I thought] if I win and I get over this hurdle then the first thing I’ve got to do is reflect back to that horrible night in 1982 where I had the tragic fight with the kid, after that I didn’t know if I wanted to box or not. If I can do this sort of damage to someone… it happens, but it’s such a tragedy and it’s the one thing we as boxing fans don’t want to ever happen again.”
“But it happened before and it will happen again. I happened to be in a very unfortunate position but I wanted to dedicate the fight to him.”
McGuigan went on to beat Pedroza by unanimous decision at Loftus Road and he recalled how emotional he became as he called out Ali’s name, insisting he wanted to remember him at the most important time of his career.
‘I was crying by the time I got round to mentioning his name because I was thinking about it and (presenter) Harry Carpenter was able to articulate what I was saying to the 19million people watching on the BBC,’ he added.
“It was a very sad time for me and at the pinnacle of my career I wanted to remember him. It was really important time for me and that was a really important moment.”
