Ringside Report Looks Back at English Boxer Billy Knight

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

1972.

As what appears like a full-scale war has been launched towards the territory of Israel, I sit and write of a time that many felt was a far more naïve period in international relations. There is a feeling that the past is not just a foreign country but one where there is little from then which we have learnt.

The events of the 1972 Munich Olympics are well documented in many places and Sky in the UK have just launched a new documentary which tells the tale of what happened at that fateful Olympiad. Using the major players from then as they are now, including one of the terrorists themselves, it is an eye-catching piece, a worthy watch and a learning curve.

But it is easy to forget that this event was what overshadowed a celebration of sporting excellence and not what ought to define it. Runners ran, jumpers jumped and of course, boxers fought.

In the middleweight division, the United Kingdom sent a young Billy Knight, 18-5-1, 12 KOs, as part of a nine-man team to represent their country. Alongside Knight there were Ralph Evans, Maurice O’Sullivan, George Turpin, Billy Taylor, Nevell Cole, Graham Moughton, Maurice Hope, and a future opponent in the professional code, Alan Minter.

The process to pick the fighters for the Olympics in 1972, was according to Steve Bunce in his excellent Bunce’s big Fat Short history of Boxing, “was both comical and insulting.” Bunce goes into the sort of detail which in the book where the twists and spurns of the process are summarized like only someone who has told the tale a hundred and more times could relate. 1972, for British boxing was a tough place – but Knight was going to Munich. To fight at middleweight. But he didn’t fight at middleweight.

Knight’s record at the Olympics was a short one, and the Amateur Boxing Association (ABA) champion of 1972 from Lynn Amateur Boxing Club, got past the first round by defeating Julius Lupa of Zambia before finding himself up against a Cuban – Alejandro Montoya. Montoya was not to go any further than the Quarter Finals when he found himself up against America’s Marvin Johnson but in 1975, he heralded the beginning of Cuban domination in the Pan American Games when he won the middleweight title that year.

As for Knight, his amateur career also did not stop at the Olympics. In 1974, in Christchurch, he boxed to light heavyweight gold, and was the 1974 ABA champion at that weight too. He also had the 1973 ABA title in between. The story of what else went on at the Commonwealth Games selection process, involves a Scottish team helping set up a new country to compete, a former policeman funding that team and sending an English team reject to New Zealand to get to the final in his weight category; on the way there he beat the man select ahead of him by the selectors to show just how wrong they were.

The Commonwealth Games for Knight were two fights over five days that brought his greatest bauble – Commonwealth Gold. Having beaten Samoan Tolai Liuteine on points he beat Northern Ireland’s Gordon Ferris when the referee stopped the fight in round three. It set up a final against home bow New Zealander, Bill Byrne. Unfortunately for Byrne he injured himself in his fight against his Nigerian semi final opponent and Knight got the medal on a walkover.

Later in 1974, he became a professional boxer. Now, unlike the man who had the golden opportunities allegedly laid out for him in his Olympic team – Alan Minter – including being picked for that Olympiad, Knight was not to reach the heights of world titles. A hardy pro with an unflattering career, he saw active service in the professional square ring 24 times. His debut came on the 1st of October 1974, at the Empire Pool in Wembley where he stopped Ralph Green in the third round of a scheduled six.

Then, on the 27th of April 1976 he was to come face to face in that square circle with old Olympic colleague, Alan Minter as Minter was defending his British middleweight title. Minter was on his way to earning the right to keep the belt and stopped Knight in the second round when Knight was felled three times.

The rest of Knight’s career was a series of fights noticeable for Knight himself, but which did not light up the skies above in the boxing firmament. He did manage a couple of good away days – in 1976 to Roma where he drew with Roberto Benacquista and then to Fontvielle where he beat Willie Warren. But on the 30th of October 1978 in Nottingham, Knight had his last fight when he was stopped in the first round by Greg Evans.

Given the heights he had scaled as an amateur, I can hardly think that his professional career was going to rank alongside it. Instead, it is a tidy reminder of the differences between the two codes but also, that 1972 was more than a year in which disaster came calling. It was a year of opportunity which may not have borne fruit then but will have been warmly remembered often thereafter for this Knight of the square circle.

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