Wally Swift

Swift, Wally
Data
Birth Name	Swift, Walter
Weight class	Welterweight , middleweight
nationality	English people
birthday	August 10, 1936
place of birth	Nottingham
Date of death	November 10, 2012
Place of death	Birmingham
style	Left-hand boom
Combat Statistics
Struggles	88
Victories	68
Knockout victories	13
Defeats	17th
draw	3

Wally Swift (born August 10, 1936 in Nottingham , † November 10, 2012 in Birmingham ) was an English boxer .

Career

Wally (Walter) Swift grew up with seven siblings in the Nottingham borough of Bilborough . He started boxing at his school at the age of 10 and has already been successful in several school championships. Later he went to the army where he could continue this sport. At the age of just 21 he became a professional boxer.

He played his first professional fight on September 26, 1957 in Liverpool and came in welterweight after 4 rounds to a point victory over his British compatriot Willie Smith. At the beginning of his career he boxed mainly in north-west English cities such as Nottingham, Liverpool, Birmingham , Leicester and Derby . He suffered his first defeat on June 24, 1958 in Kensington when he lost to Albert Carroll after 8 rounds on points. In the following fights he was mostly successful. So he defeated the dangerous Ghanaian Peter Cobblah on September 25, 1958 in Middlesbrough by technical knockout in the 6th round.

On September 17, 1959, Wally Swift was in Birmingham with a technical knockout victory in the 6th round over Ray Corbett champion of the "Midlands Area", so of Central England. On December 7th, in Nottingham, he defeated the South African Willie Toweel , a boxer of very high rank at the time, who had recently lost his " Commonwealth title" in the lightweight to Dave Charnley .

On February 1, 1960, Wally Swift was British welterweight champion in Nottingham with a point victory after 15 rounds over Tommy Molloy and on March 8, 1960 he came at Wembley to a remarkable victory over the former world welterweight champion Virgil Akins from the United States . After defeating Molloy, Wally Swift was in second place in the European ranking of the specialist magazine Box Sport, Duilio Loi from Italy was the title holder , Bruno Visintin from Italy was in first place, Chris Christensen from Denmark in third and Stefan Redl in fourth from Germany (see Box Sport, No. 12/1960, page 8).

On November 21, 1960 Wally Swift fought in Nottingham against the challenger Brian Curvis for the British and Commonwealth welterweight titles and lost this fight after 15 rounds on points. Also in the return fight, which took place on May 8, 1961, again in Nottingham, he lost after 15 rounds on points.

On September 2, 1961 Wally Swift boxed for the first time in Italy and was defeated in Cagliari against Fortunato Manca after 10 rounds on points. After this fight he rose to the middleweight division and beat in this weight class on September 10, 1962 in Manchester Mick Leahy on points. He boxed Leahy three more times in quick succession. On December 10, 1962 in Leicester. This fight ended in a draw. On February 13, 1963 Leahy won over Wally Swift after 12 rounds on points and on December 14, 1964 Swift Leahy beat in the fight for the British middleweight championship after 15 rounds on points. In between he had to accept an injury-related technical knockout defeat in the 5th round in Solihull in the fight for the title of "Midlands Area" in the middleweight division against Teddy Haynes on May 1, 1963.

On November 8th, Wally Swift fought in Nottingham against Johnny Pritchett , a strong new competitor from England. He had to accept a technical knockout defeat in the 12th round. In 1966 he also boxed successfully against German opponents three times. On January 19, 1966 he defeated Heinrich Dampmann in Solihull by technical knockout in the 4th round, on June 6, 1966 he beat Horst Wieczorek in Newcastle after 10 rounds on points and on August 23, 1966 he beat in Nottingham after 8 rounds also Manfred Graus on points.

On February 20, 1967, Wally Swift went to Nottingham in the fight against Johnny Pritchett once again for the British middleweight title. Pritchett won this fight after 15 rounds on points. Wally Swift then got the chance to box on September 9, 1967 in Milan against Sandro Mazzinghi for the European title in the light middleweight division. He could not use this chance, however, because he suffered a gaping eyebrow injury over his left eye in the 5th round and was taken out of the fight by the judges during the break in the 6th round.

On May 26, 1968, Wally Swift had another chance to become European middleweight champion. In Birmingham he could not use this chance either, because he lost to the Argentine Carlo Duran (Juan Carlos Duran), who was naturalized in Italy, by disqualification in the 10th round. This disqualification, which was of course controversial, was due to repeated headbuttings by Swift by the French referee Georges Gondré. After this defeat he was only in 6th place in the European ranking of "Box Sport" behind Carlo Duran, the world champion Nino Benvenuti from Italy, Jupp Elze from Germany, Johnny Pritchett, Tom Bogs from Denmark and Jacques Marthy from France ( see Box Sport No. 14/1968, page 5).

Wally Swift continued boxing after these defeats and defeated his young British compatriot Les McAteer on points on February 17, 1969 in Nottingham . On July 14, 1969 in Nottingham these two boxers met again, this time for the vacant British and Commonwealth championship titles. Wally Swift lost to McAteer by technical knockout in the 11th round. It was also his last fight in his outstanding career.

Then he tried his hand at the typically English profession of bookmaker, but later returned to boxing and worked as a trainer, manager and organizer. Among other things, he also looked after his two sons Wally jr. and Tony, both of whom had also become professional boxers.

literature

• Box Sport magazine

Web links

• Wally Swift's fight record
• Wally Swift at Boxrec
• Article about Wally Swift
• Battle of Wally Swift against Mick Leahy on December 14, 1964