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One of my favourite fighters, the great Kenny Buchanan, who most sadly only know as the guy Roberto Duran beat, fought a who's who of amazing fighters and talent only to be overshadowed by the great Duran.
Most that know of Buchanan and his many greats wins often overlook one in particular that while it may not, on the surface anyway, appear to be amazing, I actually feel to be one win that truly exemplifies the understated brilliance of this forgotten fighter.
Buchanan was pretty hard done by for much of his career, especially after his loss to the young Duran. With stunning wins over great HOF'ers like Ismael Laguna x 2 and Carlos Ortiz, both his most recognisable, and some of his more unknown but nonetheless really great ones over champs of various divisions like Jim Watt, Frankie Narvaez, Rene Roque, Frankie Otero, Antonio Puddu, Ruben Navarro, Carlos Hernandez, Maurice Cullen, Al Ford, Andries Styne, Joe Tetteh, Giancarlo Usai among many other great fighters and champions, one that really amazed me was his win over a young undefeated fighter named Donato Paduano.
Going into the non title fight as a 22-0 fighter against the lightweight champion Buchanan, he had fought most of his career as a welterweight and Jr middleweight having won the national WW title along with the Golden Gloves as an amateur at WW, and he came into this fight as a true welterweight at 147 pounds with Buchanan as basically a legitimate lightweight at one pound over the limit at 136. He would go on to fight mostly as a Jr MW and MW after this bout.
Buchanan at this stage had lost one fight in his career which was from all sides understood as a terrible hometown robbery decision to the fine fighter Miguel Velasquez in Spain.
Paduano had already beaten some very fine fighters in his highly promising career as an upcoming prospect with wins over Marcel Cerdan Jr (47-1), Joey Durelle (60-7) x 2 for the Canadian WW title, the undefeated Pat Murphy (20-0 who would have great fights with such guys as Rocky Mattioli, John Stracey, Billy Backus, Chu Chu Malave etc) and the fine contenders Colin Fraser and Johnny Cooke.
In what was one of his finest performances the champion Buchanan put on a boxing display worthy of Willie Pep and won nearly every round against the much bigger, fine, slick opponent. He took the ten round decision at MSG which was becoming the ground for Paduano to showcase himself after the boxing world took notice when he put on his brilliant boxing performance by beating Cerdan Jr.
After this brilliant performance Paduano would go on to beat such fighters as the legendary Luis Rodriguez at middleweight, would battle to a close loss to another legendary fighter Emile Griffith, beat the undefeated Fernando Marcotte as well as the highly touted Jean-Claude LeClair. He would also lose his national title to Clyde Gray, Ray Guerro and loss a commonwealth title shot to the great fighter Charkey Ramon. He finished with a record of 42-9 with some huge wins along with some big losses also.
Buchanan of course would go on to become one of the era's best fighters, while flying completely under the radar of all but a few knowledgeable experts. Apart from the 'loss' to Velasquez he would basically only lose once, that being to Duran, for the majority of his long career. He would get one more title shot at the very end of his career against the great champion Suzuki 'Guts' Ishimatsu in Japan and drop a close, but disputed, UD after which he had one more fight to retire on a win. His only other losses came about after he came back from retirement many years after his last title shot against Ishimatsu for financial reasons. He lost five of his last nine bouts taking his record from 56-3 to 61-8.
Overall, Buchanan was one of the truly brilliant LW's and the best fighter to come out of Scotland along with Benny Lynch. His resume is stunning and is rated as the 12th greatest ever LW by Herb Goldman.
Truly great fighter, and truly underrated. One of the best jabs I've ever seen.
Most that know of Buchanan and his many greats wins often overlook one in particular that while it may not, on the surface anyway, appear to be amazing, I actually feel to be one win that truly exemplifies the understated brilliance of this forgotten fighter.
Buchanan was pretty hard done by for much of his career, especially after his loss to the young Duran. With stunning wins over great HOF'ers like Ismael Laguna x 2 and Carlos Ortiz, both his most recognisable, and some of his more unknown but nonetheless really great ones over champs of various divisions like Jim Watt, Frankie Narvaez, Rene Roque, Frankie Otero, Antonio Puddu, Ruben Navarro, Carlos Hernandez, Maurice Cullen, Al Ford, Andries Styne, Joe Tetteh, Giancarlo Usai among many other great fighters and champions, one that really amazed me was his win over a young undefeated fighter named Donato Paduano.
Going into the non title fight as a 22-0 fighter against the lightweight champion Buchanan, he had fought most of his career as a welterweight and Jr middleweight having won the national WW title along with the Golden Gloves as an amateur at WW, and he came into this fight as a true welterweight at 147 pounds with Buchanan as basically a legitimate lightweight at one pound over the limit at 136. He would go on to fight mostly as a Jr MW and MW after this bout.
Buchanan at this stage had lost one fight in his career which was from all sides understood as a terrible hometown robbery decision to the fine fighter Miguel Velasquez in Spain.
Paduano had already beaten some very fine fighters in his highly promising career as an upcoming prospect with wins over Marcel Cerdan Jr (47-1), Joey Durelle (60-7) x 2 for the Canadian WW title, the undefeated Pat Murphy (20-0 who would have great fights with such guys as Rocky Mattioli, John Stracey, Billy Backus, Chu Chu Malave etc) and the fine contenders Colin Fraser and Johnny Cooke.
In what was one of his finest performances the champion Buchanan put on a boxing display worthy of Willie Pep and won nearly every round against the much bigger, fine, slick opponent. He took the ten round decision at MSG which was becoming the ground for Paduano to showcase himself after the boxing world took notice when he put on his brilliant boxing performance by beating Cerdan Jr.
After this brilliant performance Paduano would go on to beat such fighters as the legendary Luis Rodriguez at middleweight, would battle to a close loss to another legendary fighter Emile Griffith, beat the undefeated Fernando Marcotte as well as the highly touted Jean-Claude LeClair. He would also lose his national title to Clyde Gray, Ray Guerro and loss a commonwealth title shot to the great fighter Charkey Ramon. He finished with a record of 42-9 with some huge wins along with some big losses also.
Buchanan of course would go on to become one of the era's best fighters, while flying completely under the radar of all but a few knowledgeable experts. Apart from the 'loss' to Velasquez he would basically only lose once, that being to Duran, for the majority of his long career. He would get one more title shot at the very end of his career against the great champion Suzuki 'Guts' Ishimatsu in Japan and drop a close, but disputed, UD after which he had one more fight to retire on a win. His only other losses came about after he came back from retirement many years after his last title shot against Ishimatsu for financial reasons. He lost five of his last nine bouts taking his record from 56-3 to 61-8.
Overall, Buchanan was one of the truly brilliant LW's and the best fighter to come out of Scotland along with Benny Lynch. His resume is stunning and is rated as the 12th greatest ever LW by Herb Goldman.
Truly great fighter, and truly underrated. One of the best jabs I've ever seen.
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