The road warrior who fought the very best and recovered from setbacks to win IBO and WBA super-middleweight titles as well as the British and European belts. The odds were regularly stacked against him but Brian Magee ripped up the script again and again in a golden era for super-middleweights. Andy Watters looks back on a memorable career with Brian’s manager Pat Magee.
EVERYONE wants to be a fighter’s best friend when it’s win after win on the way up. But boxers learn who their real mates are when the other guy’s hand gets held up for the first time.
One bad night in the ring can destroy years of hard work but, as they say, it’s not how often you get put down that matters; it’s how many times you get back up again. That is the story of Brian Magee.
A supremely talented fighter with a classic style, Magee was smart and fearless and he had a terrific amateur career that included Ulster and Irish titles, European Championships and Commonwealth Games medals, representing Ireland at the 1996 Olympic Games and beating Jeff Lacey to win the inaugural Muhammad Ali Trophy in Ali’s home town: Louisville, Kentucky
When he turned pro he was managed by Pat Magee (no relation) and John Rooney and had the astute Harry Hawkins, his coach from his Holy Trinity ABC days, in his corner. Magee swept all before him, winning his first 22 fights and in the 14th he beat Ramon Arturo Britez in Liverpool in 2001 to win the IBO super-middleweight title and went on to defend the belt seven times in front of packed houses at the Ulster Hall and King’s Hall. He was easily the biggest draw in Irish boxing.
“The IBO was being promoted heavily by Barry Hearn at that stage and people thought that it would take over from the WBO and become one of the big four but it didn’t happen,” Pat Magee explained.
“When Brian beat Hacine Cherifi (November 2003) we were told it would project him into the WBC rankings and we were keen to chase that title as well.”
Unfortunately those plans went up in smoke when weight-drained Magee fought Robin Reid at the Kings Hall six months’ later. Reid was experienced and a dangerous puncher while Magee was, in Pat’s words, “a wet lettuce”.
“It was Brian’s worst performance ever,” says Pat.
“He got the weight wrong. On the morning of the weigh-in, we checked him in the hotel and he was three-pounds over. We had to get him in a sweat suit and boil him down and that threw everything out the window.
“He was a wet lettuce and it told in the fight because he went down four times but despite that Jim Watt, who was one of the commentators, had Brian winning the fight.”
Magee lost on unanimous decision and Pat describes the loss – the first of his man’s career - as “an enormous setback”. Suddenly the phone stopped ring.
“I had great difficulty getting him a fight,” says Pat.
“You were either top of the bill or you were bottom of the bill in terms of money.
“This is how naive I was: Brian earned a lot of money for the Reid fight and when he was ready to come back I got in touch with Barry Hearn and said: “What about getting Brian back, we’ll get him in an eight-rounder?’
“He said: ‘Ok we’ll do that’ and I asked him what sort of money he would get.
“He said: ‘We’re talking five grand’. I had it my head it would be £25-30,000 to bring him back as a former IBO champion and I said: ‘Barry, Brian wouldn’t get out of bed for that’.
“He said: ‘If that’s the case tell him to stay in bed…’”
That reality check was a stark example of how the boxing business can operate and why so many undefeated fighters are so desperate to hang on to their prized ‘0’. With a loss on his record and no title to defend, Magee’s stock fell quickly and when he did return he had to fight for smaller purses and work his way back up the ladder.
Another opportunity came along though. Pat secured a shot at the vacant EBU European Super-Middleweight title against unbeaten Ukrainian Vitaliy Tsypko in Nuremberg, Germany. Magee’s eye was cut in what Pat views as a deliberate head-butt and he was furious after two of the judges scored the fight for Tsypko.
“I remember running into the referee and having a serious argument with him,” says Pat.
“His reply to me was: ‘What are you bitching about? Sure Magee was hitting low’. I said: ‘What’s that got to do with a cut eye’. Brian was robbed that night.”
And Pat wasn’t the only interested party the red mist fell on.
“There was another European title fight,” he recalls.
“Against all the odds the Italian who fought for it was beaten and his manager had a slap bucket in the corner full of ice and spit and God knows what. He turfed it round the officials!”
But when the dust settled the reality was that Brian Magee – the unbeaten IBO champion just a year previously - was now “in limbo”. Once again the team went back to the drawing board and he scored two wins at the National Stadium in Dublin before he was matched against a hard-hitting, tough guy from Nottingham.
British and Commonwealth super-middleweight titles: Magee versus Carl Froch (May 2006)
THE fight was originally destined for the King’s Hall but it was moved to Bethnal Green, London. Magee was dropped in the first round and a slip in the sixth was ruled as a second knockdown. Despite that, he but boxed his way back into the fight and after 10 rounds the Belfast man needed a strong finish to take a famous comeback win.
But, typically, ‘the Cobra’ found the punch he needed. A thunderous uppercut ripped through Magee’s guard, caught him flush on the chin and left him in a crumpled heap in a neutral corner.
“Froch was a hard, hard man,” says Pat, as he reflects on that fight and the subsequent career of WBA and IBF champion Froch.
“Brian was boxing the head off him and if he had known how close the fight was he could have boxed his way home in the last two rounds, won the fight and his career would have been different. “But Froch caught him with a trademark uppercut and it was a bad knockout. He wrote afterwards that Brian Magee was the toughest man he fought.”
AND so it was back to the dreaded drawing board once again for the resilient Magee. The third defeat of his career was the catalyst for a move up to light-heavyweight. Confidence was restored in undercard wins in Barnsley, Dagenham and Motherwell before he secured a shot at the British light-heavyweight belt against Tony Oakey in Dublin – the first British title fight ever held outside the UK.
“We thought weight was the problem so we moved him up but Brian was sluggish at light-heavyweight,” says Pat.
“It proved the point that Brian wasn’t the force he had been at super-middle because he should have taken Oakey out that night, Oakey wasn’t in his class. The extra 7lb made a difference, Brian’s optimum fighting weight was 12st10lb and at light-heavy he was fighting guys who were maybe 13 and-a-half stone. It didn’t work.”
Now 33, Magee’s career appeared to be petering out but he returned to super-middleweight and gathered himself for a final effort. What turned out to be a thrilling career swansong began with a British title stoppage win against Stephen McGuire in Brentwood. Afterwards Magee switched his focus to the European title and he was made mandatory challenger to Denmark’s Mads Larsen.
Vacant EBU super-middleweight title: Magee v Mads Larsen (January 2010)
“I DID a deal with Mogens Palle (Danish boxing promoter),” Pat explains.
“He won the purse bid for the fight with a bid of over £300,000 which was a record for a European title fight.”
Magee, with Bernardo Checa now in his corner, dominated Larsen. The Dane was dropped in the fifth and sixth rounds and was finally stopped early in the seventh. The new European champion defended his title in Dublin and was then offered an unexpected chance to fight Lucien Bute – the Canada-based IBF champion – on St Patrick’s Day in Montreal in 2011.
Pat explains: “The money was so good, we couldn’t turn it down and I genuinely thought Brian would beat Bute. So we took the fight and Brian lost but we got well paid.”
The Bute gamble didn’t come off but there was still the option of taking the WBA title route and Magee was offered the chance to appear in South America on the WBA’s ‘KO drugs’ tour.
“They offered us a fight in Costa Rica,” says Pat.
“It was a chance to win an interim title and we took it and of course Brian won and won well. He would have won easier but the ring collapsed in the third round!
“It was a big event in Costa Rica. The president of the country was there and sitting alongside her was Don King. It was a big, big show.”
With the interim title secured, Magee returned home but was soon packing his bags for another trip to Denmark.
Interim WBA World Super-middleweight title: Magee versus Rudy Markussen (Brondby, February 18, 2012)
ARGUABLY the performance of Brian Magee’s career. Again he was on the road, in his opponent’s backyard, but he finished off Markussen with a raking left hook to the body near the end of the fifth round.
“He knocked him out with a single shot,” says Pat.
“By then Brian had gone from a guy who was a great boxer and was prepared to win by boxing to realising that he could win by stopping guys and look exciting. Brian was exciting in the latter years of his career.
“He wanted to win inside the distance and he dominated Markussen and the main carrot for us was that Mikel Kessler was next.”
WBA super-middleweight title: Magee v Kessler (December 2012)
MAGEE, now 37, had been elevated to champion status by the time he made his third trip to Denmark to defend the belt against the ‘Viking Warrior’.
With 34 knockout wins in 47 previous fights, heavy-handed Kessler went after Magee with a body attack from the start. Magee had no time to settle and was down twice in the second as Kessler speared right hands through his guard. He battled on bravely into the third but another right hand finished it.
“Brian wasn’t able to get into it,” said Pat.
“He knew he had to be aggressive with Kessler and Kessler took him out, we had no excuses.”
That was the end of the road for the road warrior.
“Leaving out the loss in Germany when he was robbed and the only people who beat him were world champions,” Pat points out.
“He was British champion, European champion and IBO and WBA champion. Brian was a class act and that was a golden era for super-middleweights. After the Froch fight we didn’t have any promoter backing us, we had to negotiate our way through these fights and we were always the away fighter.
“We didn’t have the advantage of boxing at home and being protected and that’s how good Magee was.”
Pat Magee: Top 5 Irish fighters
1 Steve Collins
HE was a hard man and he came up the hard way. He was his own man and he dictated what he wanted to do.
2 Dave ‘Boy’ McAuley
3 Brian Magee
4 Barry McGuigan
I IDOLISED McGuigan. I think he was a better fighter before he won the world title. He didn’t seem to go on, maybe he needed to move up? I don’t know.
I was there in Las Vegas when he lost the world title. I was working in America at the time, I was a regular visitor to Los Angeles and I made a point of making a business trip to coincide with the McGuigan-Steve Cruz fight.
We flew to Vegas from LA. It was summertime and the heat was intense, it was a cauldron. McGuigan went into the ring about six or seven in the evening and the sun was beaming down. We were ringside but we moved back to get out of the sun.
People were saying it was 100+ degrees in the ring and it had to be. He had to get Cruz out of there and he put it all into the early rounds but he couldn’t get rid of him. The heat beat him in the end. He was never the same fighter after that, he never had the same intensity.
5 Freddie Gilroy
BEFORE McGuigan came along Freddie was the best fighter I ever saw. He never won a world title but he was robbed. He was a magnificent fighter – hard, a southpaw, heavy-handed, exciting… He had everything.
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