WBA Lightweight madness - Kenty v O'Grady - Two losers that Won...

Before Thomas Hearns there was Hilmer Kenty......Good looking....Talented...A Good talker and a nice wholesome family orientated boy....Emanuel Steward's first Champion.....Kenty beat Ernesto Espana for the title in 79 and defended his title three times mainly in Detroit....

Sean O'Grady was a good looking white Irish kid...Tough..Heavy handed with an Aggressive style......Whilst he had been fed patsies (Matinee idols oft-were, Gerry Cooney) on Cable on his way up...He did give the WBC Lightweight champion a rough ride before an eye stoppage helped/saved respected Jim Watt a few months before Kenty.....Along with an early loss to the former Feather champ Danny Lopez it was one of only two defeats....O'Grady had an amazing 76 fights before he challenged Kenty....

Anyway Kenty was a big favorite but their was scepticism about both fighters before the first bell......Rumours of Kenty struggling with the heavy flu in the build up leading to lack of training (Steward wanted him to pull out, He actually had pneumonia)

Conversely O'Grady's habit of coming in at 132/133 regularly led observers to think he was Overtrained.....O'Grady was trained by his ambitious Dad (A guy that started his own alphabet organisation and put his Son in as Champ)....AAU I think..Could be wrong.

In a tough fight O'Grady soundly outpointed an under par Champion who stoically survived several knockdowns to make it to the final bell..

Sadly Kenty's biggest payday and O'Grady's proudest moment were both fleeting Boxing high points......Kenty fell out with Steward and had a stop start career retiring at 29.........O'Grady found out that Claude Noel the former champ had to be fought in a small amount of time after the Kenty fight and told the WBA to **** Off.....Both never fought for the title again....

However Kenty started a successful Construction business in Detroit raking in big bucks and O'Grady became a succesful realtor and a color Boxing commentator...

Kenty v O'Grady is a weird footnote in history as no one really won......The winning would come later for both !!

Very, very late to the party with this one, but nice article here Truss.

O'Grady must have had one of the most bizarre careers of any world title holder of his era. Him and his old man certainly had a novel way of going about things. Vacating that WBA in favour of his old man's tin-pot title, before promptly losing it to the unheralded Ganigan out of nowhere, proved to be a horrendous piece of misjudgement though. Talk about a cherry pick gone wrong.

Two further things about O'Grady. First off, I honestly think he was outclassing Watt, quite badly at times, and had the fight gone to the cards it appears he'd have been the victim of a rank injustice, because how the judges had Watt ahead on points (never mind the headbutts and resultant cuts) is beyond me. For a young pup to go into the champion's backyard like that and make him look as clueless as he did for a long time is a great credit to O'Grady, because as we know Watt was no mug.

Next, I think O'Grady's fight against Shig Fukuyama might be the most blood I've seen a fighter losing in a fight, before he roared back to save himself and force an (admittedly slightly dubious) stoppage. Boy did O'Grady bleed heavily once he was cut.

The title that O'Grady had after the WBA title was the World Athletic Association, WAA for short.

88Chris05 wrote:Very, very late to the party with this one, but nice article here Truss.

O'Grady must have had one of the most bizarre careers of any world title holder of his era. Him and his old man certainly had a novel way of going about things. Vacating that WBA in favour of his old man's tin-pot title, before promptly losing it to the unheralded Ganigan out of nowhere, proved to be a horrendous piece of misjudgement though. Talk about a cherry pick gone wrong.

Two further things about O'Grady. First off, I honestly think he was outclassing Watt, quite badly at times, and had the fight gone to the cards it appears he'd have been the victim of a rank injustice, because how the judges had Watt ahead on points (never mind the headbutts and resultant cuts) is beyond me. For a young pup to go into the champion's backyard like that and make him look as clueless as he did for a long time is a great credit to O'Grady, because as we know Watt was no mug.

Next, I think O'Grady's fight against Shig Fukuyama might be the most blood I've seen a fighter losing in a fight, before he roared back to save himself and force an (admittedly slightly dubious) stoppage. Boy did O'Grady bleed heavily once he was cut.

WBA was the lesser belt in the late 70s early 80s.......Pretty much like the iBF in the 80s.....Arguello being WBC didn't help at this weight....

Leonard was regarded as the real champion when he fought Hearns etc..