Michael Watson (boxer)

Michael Watson
Data
Birth Name	Michael Watson
Weight class	Super middleweight
nationality	British
birthday	March 15, 1965
place of birth	London
style	Left delivery
size	1.80 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	30th
Victories	25th
Knockout victories	21st
Defeats	4th
draw	1

Michael Watson (born March 15, 1965 in London ) is a retired British boxer .

Professional career

Watson turned pro in 1984 and won 21 of his first 23 fights, one draw and one loss. Then there was his first big fight on May 21, 1989: He boxed against Nigel Benn for the Commonwealth middleweight title. Benn had won all of his 22 fights by knockout by this point, but Watson was surprisingly able to defeat him early. This earned him a WBA world title fight against the dreaded Mike McCallum , who then showed him his limits on April 14, 1990 in London, clearly dominated him and knocked out in the eleventh round.

He won his next three fights and then challenged his compatriot and WBO title holder Chris Eubank on June 22, 1991 . He lost just on points, whereupon an immediate rematch one weight class higher for the vacant WBO super middleweight title was agreed. This time Watson was the stronger until the penultimate round and was able to knock his opponent to the ground for the first time in his career. But this countered with a rainfall in the same round. In the last round, Eubank put everything on one card and still won through a technical knockout.

Watson was badly affected by the fight and collapsed while in the ring. In the absence of an ambulance, he was admitted to the hospital after a 30-minute delay. He was in a coma for forty days and had to undergo six operations to remove a blood clot in his brain . After waking from a coma, he was paralyzed and only slowly regained partial limb functionality. In 2003 he made headlines when he finished the London Marathon after six days .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Poignant end to Watson's epic journey , BBC Sport, April 19, 2003

Web links

• Michael Watson in the BoxRec database