Kennedy McKinney

Kennedy McKinney
Data
Birth Name	Kennedy McKinney
Weight class	Half light weight
nationality	US-american
birthday	January 10, 1966
place of birth	Hernando
style	Left delivery
size	1.70 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	43
Victories	36
Knockout victories	19th
Defeats	6th
draw	1

Kennedy McKinney (born January 10, 1966 in Hernando , Mississippi ) is a retired American boxer .

amateur

McKinney was always placed in the top three at the US fly and bantamweight championships between 1985 and 1988, but never won the title. After the championship in 1988, however, he was able to prevail in the US Olympic Trials against his competitors Michael Collins and Jemal Hinton and thus qualified for participation in the Olympic Games in Seoul . There he won after victories over Erik Perez, Guyana (RSC 1st), Shahuraj Birajdor, India ( where ), the winner of the 1987 African Games Stephen Mwema, Kenya (5-0), Phajol Moolsan, Thailand (RSC 1st), and the favored European champion Aleksandar Christow , Bulgaria (5-0), the gold medal in the bantamweight division.

professional

In 1989 Mckinney switched to professional business, but he could never become a star in his home country. With a 1992 victory over Paul Banke, he qualified for a title fight of the IBF association in the super bantamweight division against the undefeated South African Welcome Ncita , which took place on December 2, 1992 in Sardinia . Ncita marched towards McKinney the whole time and McKinney had to take a lot. But in his typical way he remained very calm and never lost track, even when the African knocked him to the ground. When he tried to knock him out, McKinney saw the gap in the eleventh round and scored a heavy knockout with a right hook. In McKinney's words: "You could have counted to 1000."

But even so, he was not the focus of interest in the USA. He defended his title with a spectacular performance against the highly regarded Rudy Zavala (KO) and beat Ncita on points in the rematch, but went down again during the fight. McKinney lost the title in August 1994 to the relatively unknown Vuyany Bungu from South Africa

In 1996 McKinney challenged the WBO world champion Marco Antonio Barrera , but was largely without a chance and lost prematurely. The following year he also lost the rematch for the IBF title against Bungu on points.

Another chance for a world title he got on December 19, 1997 against Junior Jones, who had previously sensationally beaten Barrera. McKinney surprisingly won by technical knockout in the fourth round. McKinney tried to get another fight against Barrera or the British Naseem Hamed in the hope of a high exchange rate , but when this did not succeed he rose to featherweight and fought against the Filipino veteran Luisito Espinosa for the WBC title and lost in the second round by TKO.

McKinney continued to box sporadically until he retired in 2003.