Two of my favourite all-time boxers are Herol Graham and Andy Lee. Both fought around the middleweight division, Graham in the 80s and 90s, Lee in the 2000s and 2010s. Graham is called the Best British Boxer never to win a World Title. Lee was the first Irish traveller (though he spent much of his childhood in London) to win a World Title (a couple of years ahead of his cousin Tyson Fury).
Graham was so good, Chris Eubank openly admitted he didn't want to fight him lest he was embarrassed. He was the first great product of Brendan Ingle's gym in Sheffield. He was brilliant, elegant and could be unhittable.
Lee was also a skilled boxer but in the end it was not his skill that took him to the heights Graham never achieved, it was that undefinable one punch power.
There was a remarkable symmetry in their two stories.
The tragedy (the word is, sadly, probably correctly used here) of Graham's career is defined by his loss in 1990 to one of the most famous punches in boxing history. Fighting for the WBC middleweight title, Graham was dominating a clueless Julian Jackson to the extent the referee was considering stopping the fight when was knocked out cold by one counterpunch by Jackson. The end.
Graham never won that world title.It was looking the same way for Lee more than 20 years later. His early promise had slowed, he'd lost a couple of fights, his trainer and mentor Emanuel Steward had died, he was trying to kickstart his career, but being dominated for the first five rounds by none other than Julian Jackson's son John Jackson.
Then, this ...
The similarity is remarkable, chilling. Lee, with a similar though slightly less spectacular one-punch turnaround, became world champion in his next fight against Matt Korobov.
As for John Jackson, he hasn't followed his father in being world champion. One punch is sometimes all it takes.
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