Mike McCallum

During his lengthy and impressive career Jamaican boxer Mike McCallum won world championship titles in three different weight classes. Known as “The Bodysnatcher”, due to landing hard body punches, McCallum fought more than 200 bouts as an amateur and won multiple medals at international events. After winning silver in the welterweight at the 1974 Central American and Caribbean Games, he eventually fought in the same weight class at the Montréal Olympics, losing to Reinhard Skricek (FRG) in the quarter-finals. In 1978 McCallum won welterweight gold at both the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton and the Central American and Caribbean Games in Medellín. One year later he also won silver in the event at the Pan American Games in San Juan.

In 1980 McCallum turned professional and went on an incredible run of winning his first 32 fights over the next seven years, with 28 victories coming via knockout. His first title fight came in October 1984 when he beat Irish boxer Sean Mannion for the vacant WBA super welterweight title in Madison Square Garden. He defended his title six times, winning each time by knockout.

McCallum then moved up to middleweight in 1988, but suffered his first defeat as a professional, losing to Sumbu Kalambay in a bout for the WBA middleweight title in Italy. Just over a year later McCallum beat Herol Graham at the Royal Albert Hall in London to win the vacant WBA middleweight title. He made three successful defences of his title before moving up two weight divisions to fight as a light heavyweight. After winning the vacant WBC interim light heavyweight title in Nevada in March 1994, McCallum won the full title four months later in North Dakota with a points victory against Jeff Harding.

McCallum boxed for three more years, but lost three of his last four fights, to retire with a record of 49 wins and five loses, and one draw. He never suffered being knocked out as a professional, and was never stopped in the five fights he lost. In 2003 McCallum was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, with The Ring boxing magazine naming him as one of the best middleweight title holders of the last 50 years in 2011.