Christopher Finnegan

Christopher Finnegan
Data
Birth Name	Christopher Finnegan
Weight class	Light heavyweight
nationality	British
birthday	June 5, 1944
place of birth	Iver
Date of death	March 2, 2009
Place of death	London
style	Legal display
Combat Statistics
Struggles	37
Victories	29
Knockout victories	16
Defeats	7th
draw	1

Christopher Finnegan (born June 5, 1944 in Iver , Great Britain , † March 2, 2009 in London ) was a British light heavyweight boxer. He was the brother of boxer Kevin Finnegan .

amateur

Finnegan was British Champion in 1966, and in 1967 he finished second in the national championships. At the European Championships in Rome in 1967 he failed in the first round to Jan Hejduk from Czechoslovakia .

In 1968 he won the gold medal in the middleweight division at the Olympic Games in Mexico City . He defeated among others Ewald Wichert from the Federal Republic of Germany and Mate Parlov , later light heavyweight Olympic champion from 1972 and world champion from 1974. In the semifinals he beat the US champion Alfred Jones and in the final the Soviet athlete Alexei Kisseljow .

professional

He turned pro straight after the games, although his first few fights were not necessarily very convincing. Nevertheless, he was allowed to box for the European Middleweight Championship in August 1970. He lost on points to the Dane Tom Bogs .

Finnegan switched to the light heavyweight division and success was immediately apparent. In the second fight he was both British and Commonwealth champions after defeating his compatriot Eddie Avoth . The European championship in this weight class also beckoned. Although he was able to make the first fight against the German Conny Velensek only a draw (June 1971), but the rematch in February 1972 he was able to win against Velensek in front of his own audience. He also managed to defend his title in June. He knocked out his opponent, the Dutchman Jan Lubbers , in the eighth round.

Finnegan wanted to crown his career with the world title. In September 1972 he met the American Bob Foster . The fight, which Ring Magazine named the fight of the year 1972, ended in the fourteenth of fifteen rounds when Finnegan lost by knockout. Apparently the defeat had taken him so much that in November he also lost the European title to the German Rüdiger Schmidtke after a technical knockout in the twelfth round.

Finnegan defended his British and Commonwealth titles in March 1973 against Roy John by winning points. In May 1973 there was another title defense in combination with the renewed fight for the European Championship. His opponent John Conteh won on points. Almost exactly a year later to the day there was the same fight again for the same title. And again John Conteh was the winner, this time by technical knockout in the seventh round.

A year later, in June 1975, Conteh had now dropped the British title, Finnegan lost the title fight against John Frankham . A rematch was held in October, which he managed to make victorious. But Finnegan now knew that his time was over and ended his career.

Finnegan died of pneumonia on March 2, 2009 at the age of 64 in London's Hillingdon Hospital.

Web links

• Christopher Finnegan in the BoxRec database