Paul Pender

Pender, Paul
Data
Birth Name	Pender, Paul
Weight class	medium weight
nationality	US-american
birthday	June 20, 1930
place of birth	Brookline , Massachusetts
Date of death	January 12, 2003
Place of death	Bedford , Massachusetts
style	Left-hand boom
size	1.78 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	48
Victories	40
Knockout victories	20th
Defeats	6th
draw	2
Profile in the BoxRec database

Paul Pender (born June 20, 1930 in Brookline , Massachusetts , † January 12, 2003 in Bedford , Massachusetts) was an American boxer . He was world champion of professional middleweight boxers.

Career

Paul Pender, of Irish descent, grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts and attended Brookline High School. He was already very athletic during his school days. He played American football and boxed. Both very good. He graduated from high school in 1949 and became a New England welterweight champion as an amateur boxer that same year .

After high school he had offers as a football player from Michigan State University and Pennsylvania State University. But he decided to do professional boxing. To be on the safe side, however, at the beginning of his boxer career he drove on two tracks, as he also joined the Brookline fire department to earn a living . In the first 21 fights of his career in 1949 and 1950, he remained undefeated, mostly fighting in Boston, Mass. He suffered his first defeat on December 11, 1950 in Boston against Normann Hayes, who belonged to the extended first US top class of those years . In the revenge meeting of these two boxers held on January 8, 1951 in Boston, Paul Pender won by knockout in the 7th round and had thus achieved a victory that was also noticed outside of Massachusetts by the American boxing scene.

However, two bad setbacks soon followed, because Paul Pender lost on April 30, 1951 in Boston to Gene Hairston by knockout in the 3rd round and on March 3, 1952 against Jimmy Beau also by knockout in the 5th round. Hairston, however, was a man of the absolute top class of those years, who already had a victory over the world welterweight champion Kid Gavilán .

After fighting Jimmy Beau, Paul Pender joined the US Army and served in the Marines. He was also involved in the war in Korea for a long time . In 1954 he was discharged from the army and played his next professional fight on August 3, 1954 in Boston. He defeated it Larry Villeneuve on points. On January 6, 1955, he achieved the most important victory of his career to date in Boston. He beat Freddie Mack through tech. KO in the 4th round and had fought for a top spot in the US ranking of middleweights.

On February 14, 1955 he fought in New York against Gene Fullmer and was subject to this after 10 rounds on points. This Gene Fullmer would dethrone world champion Sugar Ray Robinson as middleweight world champion a year and a half later . In the next five years Paul Pender boxed a total of only ten times. But he won all ten fights and so had the right to challenge Sugar Ray Robinson, who had meanwhile become world champion again. The match between Robinson and Pender took place on January 22nd, 1960 in Boston and Paul Pender managed the impossible, defeating Robinson after 15 rounds with 2-1 judges' votes on points. He was the new world middleweight champion.

His first title defense took place on June 10, 1960 in Boston. Again Paul Pender faced Sugar Ray Robinson and again he won 2-1 judges' votes. On January 14, 1961, he then defeated the English challenger Terry Downes in Boston , who was stopped after two downings in the 7th round. Paul Pender also won on April 22, 1961 in Boston after 15 rounds on points against the former welterweight world champion Carmen Basilio , who had moved up to the middleweight division. On July 11, 1961, he then lost his title in London to Terry Downes. Paul Pender entered this fight with a hand injury that was not completely healed, which made itself so noticeable in the course of the fight that he could no longer defend himself effectively and had to be taken out of the fight in the 7th round.

The third fight against Downes, which in turn was about the World Middleweight Championship, took place on April 7, 1962 in Boston. Paul Pender, restored to health, succeeded in winning points and winning the world title again.

At the beginning of 1963, Paul Pender's world championship title was withdrawn from the New York Boxing Commission because he was unable to defend it against the Nigerian Dick Tiger in due time due to recurring injury problems on his hitting hand . In the appeal process, however, he was awarded the title again. However, this was a Pyrrhic victory for Paul Pender, because he could no longer box because of his hand injury and then resigned in 1963.

Paul Pender lost only six fights in his career. Apart from the injury problems towards the end of his career, he was an extremely reliable and determined boxer who fought his way up to the world title through tremendous training diligence over the years. His victories over Sugar Ray Robinson, Carmen Basilio and Terry Downes were the high point of his career.

After boxing

Paul Pender was a very down to earth person. He stayed with Boston after his career in Brookline and initially worked at Boston University. He later founded a security company and also worked as a local politician. After his death, his brain was examined neuropathologically and the disease dementia pugilistica was diagnosed.

literature

• Box Sport trade journal from 1950 to 1963,

Web links

• Paul Pender in the BoxRec database
• Portrait of Paul Pender on East Side Boxing