Chris Finnegan

Christopher Finnegan ( born June 5, 1944 in Iver, United Kingdom, † March 2, 2009 in London) was a British light heavyweight boxer.

Amateur

Finnegan 1966 British champion, in 1967, he finished in the national championships a second place. At the European Championships in Rome in 1967, he failed already in the first round to Jan Hejduk from Czechoslovakia.

In 1968 he won the gold medal in the middleweight division at the Olympic Games in Mexico City. He defeated among others Ewald Wichert from the Federal Republic of Germany and Mate Parlov, later light heavyweight Olympic champion in 1972 and world champion in 1974. In the semifinals, he beat the U.S. champion Alfred Jones and the final Soviet athletes Alexei Kiselyov.

Professional

Immediately after the games, he was professional, with his first fights not necessarily very convincing. However, he was allowed to fight for championship in the middleweight division in August 1970. He lost on points against the Danes Tom Bogs.

Finnegan moved to the light heavyweight division and immediately zeitigte of success. DC in the second fight he was after a victory over his compatriot Eddie Avoth both British Commonwealth champion. The European Championships in this weight class waved. Although he was the first fight against the Germans Conny Velensek only draw fashion (June 1971), but the rematch in February 1972 he was able to win against Velensek in front of their home crowd. The title defense in June succeeded. His opponent, the Dutchman Jan Lubbers, he hit in the eighth round knockout.

His career was now crowned with the world champion title Finnegan. In September 1972, he met the American Bob Foster. The fight, which the Jews the Ring Magazine Fight of the Year in 1972, ended in the fourteenth of fifteen rounds, as Finnegan lost by knockout. Apparently it was the defeat so upset that he lost the European title to the German Rüdiger Schmidtke by technical knockout in the twelfth round in November.

His British and Commonwealth titles defended Finnegan in March 1973 then against Roy John through a points victory. In May 1973, was another title defense in combination with the renewed battle for championship. His opponent John Conteh won on points. Almost exactly to the day a year later there was the same fight again for the same title. And again John Conteh was the winner, this time by technical knockout in the seventh round.

A year later, in June, 1975, Conteh had now taken the British title, Finnegan lost his title fight against John Frankham. In October, a rematch was held that he could make victorious. But Finnegan now knew that his time was over and ended his career.

Finnegan died on 2 March 2009 at the age of 64 years of pneumonia in London Hillingdon Hospital.