Wayne McCullough

Wayne McCullough
Wayne McCullough
Data
Birth Name	Wayne William McCullough
Fight name	Pocket Rocket
Weight class	Bantamweight, super bantamweight, featherweight
nationality
birthday	July 7, 1970
place of birth	Belfast
style	Left-hand boom
size	1.70 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	34
Victories	27
Knockout victories	18th
Defeats	7th
Profile in the BoxRec database

Wayne William McCullough (born July 7, 1970 in Belfast , Northern Ireland ) is a retired Irish-American boxer . He won the 1990 Commonwealth Flyweight Games and the 1992 Olympic silver medal in bantamweight.

As a professional boxer, he held the North American championship title of the NABF and the world championship title of the WBC in bantamweight.

He is married with one daughter and lives in Las Vegas . In 2005 he was named the first ambassador for peace and friendship in sport by the WBC.

Amateur career

McCullough grew up with six siblings in Belfast and began boxing at the age of eight. He started for Ireland and played 319 amateur fights, of which he lost only 11. At the 24th Summer Olympics in Seoul in 1988 , he started in the light flyweight division and won against Fred Muteweta from Uganda 5-0, but was eliminated in the round of 8 by 0-5 against Canadian Scott Olson.

At the 14th Commonwealth Games in Auckland in 1990 he won the flyweight gold medal without losing a round.

At the 6th World Cup in Bombay in November 1990, he won the bronze medal in the flyweight division. He won in the preliminary round against the Indian Manoj Pingwale and in the quarterfinals against the South Korean Park Duk-Kyu , before losing to the Bulgarian Serafim Todorov in the semifinals .

At the 6th World Championships in Sydney 1991 he won the bantamweight against the Portuguese Felipe Costa and the Australian Joseph Zabakly, but was defeated in the quarterfinals by the Cuban and reigning world champion Enrique Carrión .

His greatest success came at the 25th Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992 . In the preliminary round he defeated the Iraqi Ahmed Ghanin 10-2 on points, in the quarterfinals the Nigerian Mohamed Sabo 31:13 on points and in the semifinals the North Korean Li Gwang-Sik 21:16 on points. In the final he was defeated by the Cuban Joel Casamayor with 8:16 and thus won the silver medal. Then he switched to the professionals.

Professional career

For his professional career he emigrated to the USA. By July 1996 he won each of his 20 professional fights, 14 of them by knockout. He boxed almost exclusively against weak opponents . Among his first twelve opponents were only three boxers with a positive match record. His first major opponent was Jerome Coffee on November 30, 1993; Although he had boxed as an undefeated challenger for the IBF world title in 1985 , he lost the fight on points. Since November 1991, he had also lost each of his four fights. McCullough won the duel in Pensacola early.

On January 18, 1994 he won the NABF title by knockout against Javier Medina. Medina had previously only fought four fights, including one draw. That he was also made for larger tasks and that he had accumulated a lot of experience through the numerous build-up battles, he proved in his title defense on June 17, 1994 in Atlantic City , when he defeated the former WBC world champion Víctor Rabanales by unanimously winning points. On November 12, 1994 he won by unanimous points victory against the multiple European champion and former IBF world champion Fabrice Bénichou .

After a subsequent knockout win against the Mexican Geronimo Cardoz (22-6-2), he got the chance to win the WBC world bantamweight title on July 30, 1995 against the Japanese title holder Yasuei Yakushiji (24-2-1, 16 K. o.), who has now defended his fifth title. McCullough had to travel to Nagoya for this duel and defeated Yakushiji there by split decision on points. Yakushiji then announced his retirement from boxing.

In his first title defense on December 2, 1995 in Belfast , he played what was probably the most successful fight of his boxer career. His challenger was the undefeated Dane Johnny Bredahl (26-0), who had already become European and WBO world champions. Wayne McCullough dominated the fight and was on the slips of all three judges before he knocked out the Dane in the eighth round and thus finally established himself at the top of the world. On March 30, 1996, he defended his title by winning points against the Mexican ex-world champion José Luis Bueno .

Then he put down the title to move up to the super bantamweight. There he tried to secure the WBO world title against Daniel Zaragoza (53-7-3) on January 11, 1997 , but suffered the first defeat of his professional career when he lost just on points. In a subsequent build-up battle, he also managed only a narrow point win against the already relegated ex-world champion Juan Polo Pérez , who had already accumulated 16 defeats.

Nevertheless, McCullough rose to another weight class in featherweight and boxed there on October 31, 1998 against the undefeated WBO world champion Naseem Hamed (30-0, 28 knockout), the undisputed number 1 in the world rankings in this weight class. He survived the defending champion's tough attacks, but in the end lost significantly on points. His attempt to secure the WBC world championship in super bantamweight also failed on October 22, 1999 when he lost points to the undefeated Erik Morales (34-0), who defended the title for the eighth time.

After three knockout wins in a row, he boxed again on March 22, 2003 in Glasgow for the WBO featherweight championship belt, against the new title holder Scott Harrison (18-1-1). McCullough lost again on points. On February 10, 2005 he was allowed to box against Óscar Larios (55-3-1) for the WBC super bantamweight title, but lost again on points. In the rematch five months later, he also suffered the first knockout loss of his career. In September 2005, he was granted US citizenship. His last boxing match was on June 20, 2008 in the Cayman Islands for the NABF North America title , but lost prematurely.

Web links

• Portrait of Wayne McCullough on BoxRec Wiki
• Wayne McCullough in the BoxRec database
• Official website

predecessor	Office	successor
Yasuei Yakushiji	Bantamweight Boxing Champion ( WBC ) July 30, 1995 - January 1997	Sirimongkol Singwancha