Paul Pender vs Terry Downes 2

Terry Downes became world middleweight champion at the Empire Pool, Wembley, on the night of 11 July 1961, when Paul Pender, the holder from Brookline, Massachusetts, was retired by his seconds after nine rounds of a scheduled 15-round contest. Both men weighed 11th 5lb, or 159 pounds, and the referee was Ike Powell. An estimated crowd of 12,000 filled the building, where the heat, noise and absence of air-conditioning added considerably to the severity of the work. Downes won not by a single decisive blow but by maintaining a pace which steadily wore down the champion and left him cut, tired and unable to answer the bell for the tenth round.

The meeting was a return contest arising directly from Pender’s victory in Boston six months earlier. On that occasion, Downes had been stopped with facial cuts, and Pender had shown himself the more accurate and composed boxer. Since then, the American had strengthened his position by defeating Carmen Basilio over 15 rounds, while Downes had kept active at Wembley, stopping Willie Greene in three rounds and Tony Montano in five. The challenger, therefore, entered the return with two recent victories behind him, but also with the knowledge that he could not afford to allow Pender the room and time which had served the champion so well in Boston. Pender, who had twice defeated Sugar Ray Robinson and had lost only five of 46 professional contests, remained a difficult man to dislodge.

Downes carried an unwelcome mark into the ring before a punch had been struck. A cut on the bridge of his nose, suffered in sparring with the former British welterweight champion Wally Swift, remained plainly vulnerable. Pender attended to it early. The champion boxed with greater economy in the opening round, using the left hand to measure the advancing Londoner and following with the straighter right. Downes, as expected, came forward behind a high guard, seeking to bring the fight to close quarters, where his shorter punches and physical strength could prevent Pender from settling into an orderly rhythm.

The cut on Downes’s nose was reopened in the second round, giving Pender an immediate target and recalling the manner of the challenger’s defeat in Boston. Downes did not allow the sight of blood to alter his purpose. He continued to press, crowding the champion and throwing in numbers rather than waiting for clear openings. In the third round, both men suffered further damage. Downes was cut on the left cheek, while Pender received a wound above the left eye. From that point, the contest became less a matter of clean, long-range boxing and more a struggle for command at middle and close distance.

Pender still produced the more polished individual punches. When he could step back and obtain room, his straight right and short counters checked Downes’s advance. He was unable, however, to hold the challenger off for long. Downes drove forward repeatedly, working to the body and head and obliging Pender to give ground or fall into clinches. The American began to grab and lean upon his opponent with increasing frequency, using his weight in the holds and seeking a respite from the challenger’s continual activity. Downes was not always tidy, but he was the man setting the pace and forcing the conditions of the fight.

By the middle rounds, Pender’s work had lost much of its earlier authority. Downes remained close to him, punching with both hands and giving the champion little opportunity to compose himself. In the sixth round, Pender was wrestled or bundled to the floor during a rough exchange, but it was not counted as a knockdown. The incident nevertheless illustrated the direction of the contest. Pender was being made to fight at a rate and in a manner which did not suit him. His punches came less frequently, and much of his effort was now directed towards holding, smothering and attempting to interrupt Downes’s attacks.

A cut subsequently opened above Pender’s right eye, leaving the champion damaged on both sides of the face. Blood interfered with his sight, but exhaustion appeared at least as serious as the wounds. Downes continued to force him backwards, seldom allowing him to remain at long range for more than a few seconds. The challenger’s own face was marked, and the earlier cuts had not disappeared, yet he remained physically the stronger man. Each time Pender attempted to restore order with a straight punch, Downes answered by closing the distance and making him work again.

Pender attempted a late rally as the ninth round progressed. Faced with worsening cuts and the possibility that the contest might soon be stopped, he threw with greater urgency and tried to regain the initiative. The effort brought no lasting change. Downes absorbed the return, continued pressing and sent the champion back to his corner in a greatly spent condition. Pender sank heavily onto his stool. His seconds examined the cuts, called referee Ike Powell across and informed him that their man would not continue. The official result was recorded as a retirement after the ninth round, rather than a stoppage during the tenth. No scorecards were required.

The crowd’s response was immediate and prolonged. Downes, at 25, had reversed the Boston result and become Britain’s first world middleweight champion since Randolph Turpin. It was not a victory founded upon elegance. Pender remained the neater boxer and, while fresh, the more accurate one. Downes prevailed by denying him comfort, maintaining pressure through the heat and continuing to punch after the champion’s movement and confidence had begun to fail. Pender later regained the championship by defeating Downes over 15 rounds in Boston in April 1962, but at Wembley the result belonged unmistakably to the challenger. Pender’s damaged eyes contributed to the finish; Downes’s pace, strength and refusal to give him rest produced it.

I’ve always thought Terry Downes was better than his crude, charging style sometimes made him look. He wasn’t pretty, but there was method in the madness. Six months earlier in Boston, Paul Pender had cut him up and stopped him after nine rounds. Pender was an experienced, clever champion who had twice beaten Sugar Ray Robinson and had just retained his title against the teak-tough Carmen Basilio. Most people expected the same result when he came to Wembley.

Downes understood that he couldn’t stand off and box with Pender. He had to crowd him, rough him up and make every minute uncomfortable. Pender started neatly, reopening the cut on Downes’s nose and landing the cleaner straight punches, but Terry never stopped coming. He forced Pender backwards, worked with both hands and made him fight at a pace he didn’t fancy. It wasn’t textbook boxing, but it was intelligent pressure.

The turning point came when Pender began cutting around both eyes. Downes found another gear in the eighth and ninth rounds, while Pender increasingly held, leaned and looked for breathing space. By the end of the ninth, the champion was exhausted, bleeding and unable to continue. His corner pulled him out before the tenth.

I don’t buy the idea that Downes merely won because of cuts. He caused the damage by staying on Pender’s chest and refusing to let him settle. Pender was the smoother boxer, but Downes was stronger, busier and mentally harder on the night. It was a proper working fighter’s victory and one of the finest performances by a British middleweight.