The Clones Cyclone whirls into Ennis

FOR a frenetic spell during the mid 1980s, Barry McGuigan captivated the country. The Clones Cyclone held an inescapable grip on the emotions of the sporting nation, which spiralled numerically, as McGuigan closed in on a world featherweight title.
Next Wednesday evening, Glór in Ennis will host An Evening with Barry McGuigan, a year on from Muhammad Ali’s visit to the Turnpike.
“It’s an incredible story,” Barry said of Ali’s Ennis link. “He’s a legend and someone that I immensely look up to. I’m thrilled that they have asked me to come along to the first year celebration of that visit. I’m thrilled to bits about that and I’ll do whatever they want me to do in relation to communicating with the audience,” he told The Clare Champion.
There shouldn’t be a dearth of questions to lob at the former WBA featherweight champion, who says that even if he is asked the same questions at these type of events, he can vary his answers.
“I get asked the same questions on a fairly regular basis. But it depends who’s asking it and the way they ask it to you. Different circumstances and different audiences, you answer in a different way. I love it. The question and answer is probably the best way of getting in touch with your audience. That way you can ask your question and feel part of it, whereas an after dinner speech is not the same, you’re talking at the audience. In a question and answer situation you always feel that the audience is involved,” the Monaghan man, who lives in South-East Kent, explained.
As a child, Barry regularly visited Lahinch, where his grandmother Selina O’Sullivan lived, while he won his first national juvenile title in the Parkway Hotel, Limerick.
“I trained in Thomond College for the Olympic Games in Moscow and I’m a very good friend of Keith Wood, who lives in Killaloe. I’m also a friend of Andy Lee and Gerry Mitchell is a great friend of mine. He’s a social worker and used to box with me many years ago. So I’ve many ties with Clare, Limerick and that neck of the woods,” he noted.
At his peak 25 years ago, Barry feels that his fight in 1985, with former world featherweight champion Juan Laporte, was his best and toughest. McGuigan won on points after 10 rounds, while later that year he beat the then WBA world featherweight champion, Eusebio Pedroza of Panama, on points after 15 rounds at Loftus Road. Years later, Barry can still recall in detail most of his big fights.
“It makes such an impact on your life. They are sort of burnt into your memory. You remember every one of them. You remember significant parts of the fight. Some of them you can’t remember the intricate details but most of them you can. They have a massive effect on you, not just on the fight but on your life,” he reflected.
A quarter of a century after going toe to toe with some of the best fighters on the planet, Barry knows how life panned out for most of his former foes.
“I don’t know what all of my opponents are doing but the major ones, I know what they’re doing. Pedozra is working in government. His wife is working in government in Panama. So he’s got a nice cushy number, which I’m thrilled about. He’s got some money and he’s got a nice family,” he said.
“Laporte, which was probably the best fight I ever had, is working with kids in the Bronx. He’s doing ok. He didn’t save his money, unfortunately, so he’s not particularly flush. Steve Cruz, I think, is back working as a plumber. He’s still with the woman that he married. His young fella is involved in boxing and doing well,” he added.
Cruz was the fighter who ripped Barry’s title from him in 1986 under the blistering desert sun in Las Vegas.
Although his days in the middle of the ring are years behind him, boxing still has Barry in its clutches.
He writes and commentates on the sport and recently established the Barry McGuigan Boxing Academy in Bristol, East Barkshire, Leicester and Stockport.
He is hoping that his academies will mushroom in Ireland perhaps next year.
“I want the kids to have a chance to realise their ambition academically and to allow themselves to become the best they can be in boxing. You can’t be everything to everybody but I want to do the best job that I can,” he stressed.
Oh and he also promotes and manages three young boxers.
“I was the president and founder of the Professional Boxers Association but I took out a manager’s licence two years ago and I’m managing and promoting three fighters now,” he revealed from Glasgow.
“I have my first bill on September 18 in Belfast. It’s almost sold out already and there’s three weeks to go. In fact what I’m doing now is, I’m in Glasgow with my fighter Carl Frampton, who’s heading the bill and he’s been sparring with the Commonwealth champion, John Simpson. They had eight phenomenal rounds this morning (Wednesday),” he said, noting that Gerry Storey is Frampton’s coach.
“It’s a real transition for me. I never thought I’d be promoting fights until I saw this young kid in action at the European championships at the national stadium in 2007 and went ‘I’ve got to get hold of this guy’. He’s really special,” Barry feels.
He is also tied up in several other projects.
“I’m involved in the Irish high performance team down in the Ringside Club at the National Stadium. I’m very close to Dominic O’Rourke and I’m involved with the Podium Team up in Sheffield.”
So it’s fairly clear that when Barry sits down in Glór next Wednesday, there won’t be a scarcity of topics to quiz him on. There might be a time issue though. Such is his varied involvement in current ventures before his career is even touched upon, the clock might usurp The Clones Cyclone before all angles are covered.