John Conteh

John Conteh ( born May 27, 1951 in Liverpool) is a former British boxer and professional light heavyweight. His mother is from Ireland, his father from Sierra Leone, he has nine siblings.

Beginnings and amateur

He began at the age of ten years in the Kirkby club of his hometown Liverpool with the boxes. 19 -year-old he won the British middleweight Commonwealth Games 1970 in Edinburgh. The British championship he won in 1970 in the middleweight and light heavyweight in 1971. In 1971 he also took part in the European Championships in Madrid, but lost in the first fight on points against Richard Koleritsch from Austria.

Professional

Conteh 1971 professional light heavyweight and won, with the exception of one point defeat against American Eddie Duncan in September 1972, all body fights before with a characteristic counter boxes won the European Championship against the German Rüdiger Schmidtke on 13 March 1973. The title he defended three times: in two encounters with the Olympic champion Christopher Finnegan, a southpaw, and against the Danes respected Tom Bogs.

On 1 October 1974, he won the vacant WBC title against Jorge Ahumada of Argentina, who had previously boxed a draw against the legendary, but grown old Bob Foster. Since Foster had subsequently refused a rematch, he was stripped of the title. Conteh defeated the then -hitting Lonnie Bennett from the United States by a break victory due to lacerations. He used his head often unfair, so that his opponents often got such problems. In a non-title fight against Willie Taylor he tormented himself with a broken hand ends meet and was badly bruised, here also its known training showed laziness. The American Yaqui Lopez he suggested in a title defense narrowly on points. However, discussed the fight against Argentine Víctor Galíndez never came.

In 1977 he lost his title at the green table, as he did not want to compete in Monte Carlo against Miguel Cuello. When he lost the title against the Croatian southpaw Mate Parlov, the first boxer of a socialist country, who won a World Professional Championship, Conteh traveled on June 17, 1978 after Belgrade to a fight, but lost Parlov also.

After Matthew Saad Muhammad had won the title, Conteh traveled to the U.S. to challenge him. He lost the first duel in August 1979 scarce and controversial, then went in the rematch in the fourth round KO and was five times on the ground. A little later he ended his career at the age of 29 years.