Alan Minter the former undisputed world middleweight champion has died at the age of 69 after a battle against cancer.
While Minter wasn’t among the elite group of world middleweights, his place in Britain’s boxing history cannot be denied. He was the first British boxer to win a world title in Las Vegas, when he claimed the middleweight crown from Vito Antuofermo at Caesars Palace in 1980. He would hold it for only six months, but he was unlucky to have to face Marvin Hagler.
He won an Olympic bronze medal, beat Emile Griffith and Sugar Ray Seales in his professional career, was British and European champion numerous times. For all that, possibly his greatest wins were three 15-round tight decisions for the British title over his greatest rival, Kevin Finnegan. They helped to establish him as a mainstream sports star in the UK in the Seventies and Eighties.
Minter achieved a lot during his career, despite suffering his share of bad luck, tragedy and being vulnerable to cuts. He suffered four defeats inside one year early in his professional career, each time stopped due to cuts in an era before technical decisions. His southpaw style was more effective than flashy. He could outbox opponents and outfight them. He lacked a huge knockout punch but he was never afraid of going toe-to-toe with anyone. Rarely was there a picture of him after a fight without blood on his face.
Cuts had denied him the national ABA title in 1971, but the selectors still picked him to go to the Munich Olympics the following year. He returned with a bronze medal, but it should have been better.
Having beaten the favourite for gold, Valery Tregubov, of the Soviet Union, Minter was the victim of a shocking decision from the judges in his semi-final against West Germany’s Dieter Kottysch, the eventual gold medal-winner. The verdict was so poor, Kottysch apologised to Minter and even sent him a Christmas card.
In his professional career he was managed by Doug Bidwell, his former amateur trainer and future father-in-law. He was known as “Boom Boom” Minter, because of the snorting sound he made when throwing a punch. He wasn’t to everyone’s taste. One fight he had with Jan Magdziarz (who had beaten him twice on cuts) at the Albert Hall was so lacking in action that Harry Gibbs, the veteran referee, disqualified them both for ‘not giving their best’.
He would earn his place back in the public imagination with three epic British title fights against Kevin Finnegan. They met three times over 15 rounds, all the fights went the distance. Minter won all three by margins of one, one and two rounds respectively.
Wins over an ageing Emile Griffith in Monaco (in Griffith’s final fight) and Olympic champion “Sugar” Ray Seales pushed Minter up the world rankings, although he was stopped on cuts by Ronnie Harris. He won the European title in Milan in 1977 by beating Germano Valsecchi, lost the title to Gratien Tonna (on cuts) in the same arena seven months later before travelling to Italy again in 1978 to box Angelo Jacopucci for the vacant title in 1978.
The Italian took a terrible beating and was knocked out in the twelfth round. They went to dinner afterwards, but Jacopucci later collapsed and fell into a coma, dying three days later. The tragedy led to the European Boxing Union becoming the first significant sanctioning body to reduce title fights from 15 rounds to 12.
Two years later he was a world champion after beating Antuofermo, the Italian-American champion via a 15-round points decision at Caesars Palace. It was a split decision and controversial. Two judges had it close -one for Minter, one for Antuofermo – but the British judge, Roland Dakin, gave Minter 13 of the 15 rounds, with another one shared.
He beat Antuofermo back in London in his first defence, the former champion retiring after eight rounds, before facing the feared Hagler, who felt had been robbed a year earlier when his title shot at Antuofermo was judged a draw.
Things got particularly nasty after Minter told a press conference that “there was no way he was going to lose his title to a black man”, a remark he said in anger after Hagler had gruffly refused to have his picture taken with Minter.
Hagler made his point in the ring at Wembley Arena. Minter did his best to stand up to Hagler’s attacks, but the American punch straight through his defences, battering Minter in three bloody, painful rounds before the Englishman was rescued.
Worse was to follow, as a group of Minter’s supporters then threw cans and bottles onto the ring. Hagler was denied his moment of triumph, as he was shielded by his cornermen and then rushed by police back to his dressing room. It was one of British boxing’s darkest nights.
In later years Minter would be mortified whenever reminded of his statement. He made peace with Hagler and the pair met many times afterwards, but it left a cloud over his career and undoubtably hindered his chance of ever getting a place on the Honours List. It was a gripe of many within the sport that while some who achieved far less in their sporting career were honoured, Minter was not.
His last fight was back at Wembley against Tony Sibson in September 1981 when he was knocked down and stopped in three rounds. Sibson’s punches split Minter’s nose right up the middle. It meant another trip to hospital to get stitched up again. This time they found the roots on an infection that could have killed him. Minter would later tell Sibson he had saved his life.
His son, Ross, would follow him into the ring, winning the English welterweight title. Tragically, he died just two weeks after his father, Sid, died aged 91.
“I was three times middleweight champion of Britain, three times champion of Europe and the undisputed middleweight champion of the world, which is something you don’t hear of too much these days,” Minter said in an interview with Hannibal Boxing last year. “Put that lot together in my lifetime, and I’m very happy of what I achieved in the ring.”
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for Boxing Scene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.
