For many who had by no means seen Johnny Owen carry out, the impossibly skinny and impossibly pale man who made his approach to the ring within the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles didn’t seem to pose a lot menace. On condition that his opponent was the hard-hitting, extra robustly-built bantamweight world champion Lupe Pintor, the Welshman appeared particularly outmatched. However Pintor vs Owen defied expectations. Certainly, few might have predicted the younger Welshman’s astonishing toughness; fewer nonetheless might have foreseen the terrible penalties of that toughness.
Courageous Johnny Owen, after giving Pintor certainly one of his most grueling battles, was knocked out within the twelfth spherical. He lapsed right into a coma and a few six weeks later, he died. He was solely 24.
Hailing from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, Owen was nicknamed “The Merthyr Matchstick” on account of his slender body. After a stellar newbie profession, he had captured the Welsh belt, adopted by the British, Commonwealth and European titles. He had misplaced simply as soon as in 27 professional bouts, the sufferer of an egregious hometown choice in opposition to Juan Francisco Rodriguez in Almeria. After that struggle, the Spanish authorities held again the Matchstick’s purse, that means that he went residence, fairly actually, empty-handed. This wrestle, in opposition to the disadvantages inherent to a person modest in each background and manner, was to mark his profession. However the backside line was that nobody ought to have doubted his having earned the prospect to problem Pintor for a world title.
However Lupe Pintor hadn’t come up the straightforward approach both. Hardened by a tough childhood in Mexico Metropolis, he had turned to boxing as a way to keep off the bigger boys who bullied him. He ran away from an abusive father, selecting the streets and fascinating in fight, each licensed and unlicensed, as he sought to flee poverty. Turning professional whereas nonetheless a youngster, he rose up the ranks earlier than securing a title problem in opposition to the legendary Carlos Zarate in June 1979. Pintor edged a controversial break up choice, however the methodology of victory was irrelevant: he was now a world champion.
Quick ahead fifteen months and Pintor vs Owen was the primary occasion for an overflow crowd and whereas the title-holder could have been from Mexico, the dominant Hispanic contingent of the town handled him as if he had been certainly one of their very own. Against this, Johnny Owen and his workforce, together with his father Dick, had been jeered at and pelted with garbage from the stands as they entered the venue.
However within the first few rounds, the slim Welshman shocked the gang by bringing the struggle to the heavy-handed Pintor, aggressively pursuing and out-working him. Given his benefits in peak and attain, most anticipated him to try to out-box the Mexican, however as an alternative Owen initiated a fast-paced slugfest. Within the fifth, the gutsy challenger minimize his opponent over each eyes, although he himself sustained a nasty gash on his lip, inflicting him to swallow a big quantity of his personal blood.
Pintor got here again within the sixth, throwing hooks and uppercuts with malicious intent, and whereas the indomitable Owen maintained his personal excessive output, none of his blows carried the Mexican’s damaging energy. The champion scored with heavy proper palms within the early a part of spherical seven, prompting joyful chants and firecrackers from the gang, however Owen, undaunted, simply stored coming ahead and throwing leather-based. And within the eighth it was extra of the identical, toe-to-toe warfare, with Pintor touchdown the extra telling pictures, however Owen refusing to take a backward step.
Then, within the ninth, the start of the tip. Seemingly main on the scorecards at this level, Owen was now clearly slowing down and a vicious proper hand put him on the canvas on the finish of the spherical, the primary knockdown of his skilled profession. His satisfaction drove him to rise instantly, relatively than take the depend and provides himself time to get better.
Having been saved by the bell, Owen fought on, insisting to the daddy who educated him that he couldn’t give up now that he was so near profitable a world title. Pintor proceeded to stalk the challenger, raining down onerous proper palms and concentrating on his badly-marked face. Owen was knocked down twice extra within the twelfth, first by a straight proper after which by a brief proper hook. That blow was the final motion of the struggle and might be some of the haunting punches ever caught on movie. Watching it now, Owen crumples, virtually in slow-motion, earlier than reaching the canvas. One up to date author claimed that the Welshman fell like “a marionette that had had its strings minimize.”
Each fighters had been picked up after the ultimate bell. The champion hoisted onto the shoulders of his workforce and paraded across the ring. The challenger was ultimately lifted onto a stretcher, which had not been available, then carried out of the auditorium. As Owen’s entourage frantically rushed via enemy territory, some members of the frenzied crowd lobbed down particles. A number of members of Owen’s workforce had their pockets picked and opportunistic thieves stole nook tools and provides, rendering a troubling scene even uglier.
Owen had two mind operations and spent a month and a half on life help earlier than he handed away on November fourth, having contracted pneumonia in hospital. It was later found he had an abnormally fragile cranium, an affliction which might solely have exacerbated Pintor’s damaging blows. His funeral introduced hundreds of mourners, a lot of whom knew him, others who had solely watched his brilliance from afar. Boxing reporters centered afterwards on Owen’s shy character as a lot as his pugilistic expertise. For Hugh McIlvanney, it was a poignant irony that this “inaudible and virtually invisible [man] … discovered himself articulate in such a harmful language.”
Pintor was left distraught by the struggle’s end result, just for the Owen household to encourage him to maintain boxing. In any case, they mentioned, it might at all times have been the opposite approach spherical. The Mexican champion went on to retain his title one month after his opponent’s loss of life and competed till 1995.
A statue of Johnny Owen was erected in Merthyr Tydfil in 2002. It was unveiled by Lupe Pintor. — Rob Lownie
