Colin Power

Colin Powers is a former British boxer who did his best work at super-lightweight. An orthodox boxer standing 5ft 8in, he was born in London on the 2nd of February 1956 and lived in Paddington. He compiled a professional record of 28 wins, 5 losses and 1 draw, scoring 20 knockouts, and he rose to hold both the British and European titles in a brisk, hard-hitting peak.

What is known of his amateur background is brief but telling: he was good enough to win a North-West London divisional title, then ran into the wrong man at the wrong time in the London finals when Graham Moughton had too much for him. Powers turned professional straight after and debuted on the 11th of June 1975, beating Kevin Quinn, beginning a run of results that marked him out as more than a ticket-seller.

He won his first eight and then hit the first real pothole in September 1976 when Des Morrison stopped him in the fifth round in a challenge for the vacant Southern Area super-lightweight title. Powers’ response to that loss was the sort of response promoters like—get back out, keep winning, and start taking names rather than numbers. In the next stretch, he beat Joey Singleton, and in March 1977, he flattened the highly-regarded Clinton McKenzie in two rounds at the Hilton Hotel in Mayfair, a result that did more than any press release to announce his ceiling.

The career-defining business was settled at York Hall on the 19th of October 1977 when Powers met Morrison again, this time for the vacant British light-welterweight title. Morrison was down three times, and Powers finished it in the tenth, a title-winning stoppage that suited his numbers: he was a champion who could fight 15, but preferred not to waste everyone’s evening if he could help it. He defended the belt in February 1978 against Chris Walker, dropping him three times before stopping him in the seventh, and the pattern was clear—he did not collect titles to sit quietly with them.

In June 1978, he went to Paris and took the European title from Jean-Baptiste Piedvache, stopping him in the eleventh round. Three months later, he travelled again, to Miranda de Ebro in Spain, and lost the European crown on a stoppage to Fernando Sánchez; accounts of that finish have long been argued over, but the record shows it as the night his momentum finally met a hard edge.

He had relinquished the British title while chasing higher honours, yet the McKenzie rivalry pulled him back to domestic centre stage. Powers regained the British championship in February 1979 on points over McKenzie, then lost the September rematch, a pair of fights widely regarded as among the best of their time, and good enough in outcome and effort to leave him recognised as an outright winner of the Lonsdale Belt for 1979. After that, the sharp edge dulled—he was stopped by Sylvester Mittee in a British-title eliminator in January 1980, returned in fits and starts, and finally signed off in February 1983 with a defeat to Lloyd Christie at the Alexandra Pavilion in Muswell Hill. What survives most clearly is the shape of the career: a Londoner with a puncher’s record, big-fight ambition, and a championship peak built on decisive wins in the proper rooms—York Hall, Wembley, the Albert Hall—and the nerve to take his trade abroad when the opportunities came.