In a sport of true champions there is one other boxer
perhaps lost in the shuffle of what that means and that is Sean Mannion.
He was based in Boston and in the ring when Hagler, Leonard, Duran
and Hearns were in there too and at their peak. He did not fight this fabulous
four but fought their equal in Mike Mc Callum who was then the world
middleweight champion in 1984. To get that shot he first faced E-Choi- Beck,
who was then 26-0 with all his wins coming by knockout but Mannion gave him his
first loss. Yet, Beck survived for another day and many more days after that
with a total of 47 fights and 43 knockouts and never gave Mannion another
chance to blemish his record a second time. Because of Sean’s win it was on at
last between him and Mc Callum.
Mannion climbed into the ring prepared as he ever was going
to be despite a cut eye in training that required seven stitches. Mc Callum
climbed in too with a world title on the line and that same world pressing down
hard on his shoulders: his girlfriend and mother of their child had died only
12 weeks before while he was preparing for this fight.
The fight in the end was a shutout for Mc Callum for Sean
never got that close but no dignity was lost either. It showed that Sean could
and mix it up with the best, the very best. I watched it live as it happened
and became hoarse from shouting and expectation hoping against the odds that
Sean would do it. He won in every other way: his courage,
tenacity, and humbleness were all on display for the world to see. Someone up
there liked him and down here too. But his biggest battles were yet to be
fought and all outside the ring.
Sean was in constant struggle with bad management where he
would earn more labouring on a building site than from the ring.
Unscrupulously, promoters and middle-men, more wise to the commerce of
dishonesty, made sure Sean stayed there for any chances or money from fame
was soon parted from any would be fortune.
Sean began to drink more in despair consigned to the Boston Irish bars and
stories of the ‘almost were champions’ and there was not to be much money
either to be made from losing.
No wresting matches came along, no fighting with doped up
aging bears at the circus, and no free drinks unless it was a story they had
not heard before or did not mind hearing again of what might have been. In the
end the only story left to be told was that Sean returned to his native and
beloved Rosmuc in Connemara.
Sean is still there and still in the business of
fighting and never giving up on his dreams. In this part of the country Sean
put Rosmuc on the map when even people living in Galway city did not know where
it was and that map is still being redrawn by him today.
Sean trains another generation from Rosmuc and afar, encouraging
them and giving them the wisdom about the road that they have yet to travel. A road
he knows well. If there was ever a song that needed to be sung or a requiem to
a middleweight yet to be written, surely it need to be about Sean Mannion, one
the greats among fighters where even losing made him a winner, and gave power
to the trying of it all.
By Barry Clifford
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