Ken Buchanan Once More

I sometimes come across Ken Buchanan at the fights, sometimes at boxing dinners, a short, sparse man whose face carries the marks of battle, a man in the Hall of Fame…

The suggestion is bound to provoke a few arguments in Belfast, Liverpool, London and Merthyr Tydfil, but it is difficult to think of anyone who has represented British Boxing more thrillingly since the Second World War than the Edinburgh carpenter who became lightweight champion of the world.

When Buchanan went to his corner in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 35 years ago last month, the temperature hovering at 100 degrees (Fahrenheit), no Briton had won a world championship abroad for 55 years and he was given little chance against Ismael Laguna, the champion from Panama.

Despite badly cut eyes and the intimidating clamour of a predominantly Hispanic audience, Buchanan gained a split decision over 15 rounds and consolidated his status four months later with a decision over Ruben Navarro in Los Angeles.

Between times, Buchanan fought Donato Paduano, a Canadian welterweight at Madison Square Garden, and it was that contest that excited comparisons with the best champions to appear in the lightweight division.

A successful defence against Laguna further established Buchanan’s reputation in New York, where he was always better received than in Great Britain, even after losing his title to Roberto Duran.

Difficult, moody, but unquestionably a notable talent, Buchanan tried unsuccessfully to regain the title from Ishmatsu Suzuki, losing a 15 round decision in Tokyo on 27 February 1975. He retired five months later after defeating Giancarlo Usai to retain his European crown.

It should have been enough, but in 1980 Buchanan resumed his career in the all-to-familiar role of a hard-up fighter, possessing only the remnants of the talent that had thrilled the Garden.

On 24 November 1980 he was paid barely two thousand dollars to box Lance Williams on the undercard at Wembley Arena and was adjudged to have lost narrowly after eight punishing rounds.

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Ken Buchanan peered into the mirror set on a wall of his cramped quarters, carefully peeling back bruised lips so that he could examine the cuts inside his mouth. The soreness made him wince, and he saw a face that was no longer his own. Somebody asked why he was there.

‘Money,’ Buchanan replied bluntly.

He sank fingers into swollen cheeks, studying the effects of punches that would not have touched him in his prime. The mirror was telling Buchanan to quit. “Just one more,” he mumbled, turning away from the reflection, the words coming thick because his nose was so swollen. 

“One more, just one more.” 

Since returning to the ring two years earlier, Buchanan, by then 37 years old, had lost four of eight contests. The former lightweight champion had become, painfully, just another fighter in another ring.

He was booked to fight in Nigeria the following month, hoping that a decent purse would help him buy into a bar.

There was a tragic Hollywood touch to Buchanan’s plight, echoes of The Champion, Golden Boy and Body and Soul. The old pro clutching at one last payday.

Blood was still seeping from Buchanan’s swollen nose and where there had been clamour and acclaim, there was now only embarrassment. Some of us thought about other nights. We remembered the wall-to-wall crush, the dazzle of television lights, thrusting notebooks, the squeak of fibre-tipped pens. It was Kenny this and Kenny that and who would you like to fight next.

Now it was one more, just one more.

We remembered how it was for Buchanan when he faced Duran in the Garden: the hard exchanges and how much respect Duran had for him. And we remembered him taking to the dance floor with the Princess Royal in a smart London hotel: a bright-eyed, sharp-featured Sportsman of the Year.

Buchanan retained the body of a young man; the shoulders well shaped, his abdomen a washboard of rippling muscle, but the face in the dressing room mirror was that of pensioner.

“Look at him,” said Paddy Byrne, an astute Irish matchmaker and promoter who had negotiated all Buchanan’s comeback contests. “He’s kept himself in tremendous shape but the strength is no longer there and his reflexes aren’t what they were. There’s nothing to keep young fellas like Williams away. There was a time when he would have demolished a kid like that but not anymore. I want him to turn it in and he will after the fight in Nigeria.”

Now it was one more, just one more time.

There had been illuminating flashes of what Buchanan was when he took the title from Laguna, particularly when a left hook so rattled Williams that he went down, his plight suggesting that it might be an easy night for the Scot. But Williams recovered, and although his own work was never decisive, the cumulative effect of the younger man’s blows soon became evident.

At the back of the hall, Eddie Thomas turned away. Before their relationship ended in rancorous dispute, Thomas, the most notable figure in modern Welsh boxing, had managed Buchanan and taken him to the title. “Damn it man, I couldn’t watch Kenny out there,” he said. “I kept turning away, wanting to run from it. Fighters should be protected from themselves. Trouble is that they don’t thank you from telling them to quit. I’ve had my share of that.”

Buchanan padded wearily away to the showers and let the soothing warmth play over his wounds.

One more. Once more, and then it would be over.