It’s time to put McKinney in the Hall

A couple years back, I received a news tip from a close buddy of mine that said a former World Champion boxer and Olympic gold medalist was training young fighters out of a gym in Golden Meadow.

Knowing the pot of gold that had been luckily slung in my direction, I immediately drove down to the gym to confirm the news. Sure enough, the former champion was there, and had been working in south Lafourche Parish for a long time before my arrival.

We splattered that boxer’s career story all over our pages that week, detailing the good, bad and ugly that had occurred in his lifetime. There were plenty. His tale is one that should be made into a movie.

It was unquestionably the best piece of journalism this humble author has ever penned – a story that I will remember for the rest of my life.

The subject of the piece – the boxer at the center of it all – was a man by the name of Kennedy McKinney.

McKinney isn’t a household name in the sports world, but boxing purists would recognize his name immediately because of his vast contributions to the sport.

Locally, he’s well known and is a close friend to many. I consider myself to be one of his friends. Several of my very close acquaintances are even closer and maintain regular contact with the former champ.

So my personal biases aside, my column’s purpose this week is to help give my friend the due and acclaim he has long since deserved, but has never gotten for reasons that are completely absurd to me.

I’m pointing the teeth of my journalistic fangs this week at the International Boxing Hall of Fame and telling them it’s time to induct Kennedy McKinney into its halls and bestow him the honor of living forever within boxing royalty.

The Hall of Fame simply lacks credibility without McKinney. He deserves this honor and recognition.

Born in Mississippi and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, McKinney spent his youth in poverty, but rose to become a champion.

McKinney was a touted amateur fighter in the late 1980s and achieved fame in 1988. During that year, he tried out for – and eventually made the U.S. Olympic Boxing Team, which was set to compete at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.

The Americans were underdogs in that Olympics, and McKinney was one of the biggest longshots of the bunch as one of the final competitors to make the team.

Not one to ever give into others’ expectations of himself, McKinney thrived on the international stage and won five fights at the Seoul games, including two by knockout.

Of course, the most famous win came when McKinney outlasted Bulgarian brute Aleksandar Hristov by decision to officially seal his gold medal in the Bantamweight Division.

The newspaper clippings and headlines from that historic win are priceless. The look on McKinney’s face says well more than 1,000 words. He was so proud of his accomplishment and so honored to represent our country.

To this day, McKinney is the only American fighter to ever win gold at Bantamweight.

As a pro, McKinney carried his momentum forward and dominated. He was a multi-time Super Bantamweight World Champion who won 36 of his 43 pro fights with 19 knockouts.

As impressive as that statistic is, it’s actually more impressive when one considers the majority of McKinney’s losses came later in his career once he’d lost a step and dropped from his position as a world class talent.

So as one can easily see, McKinney is a Hall of Fame talent who needs his rightful place among boxing greatness.

Sure, McKinney has had multiple problems outside of the ring – issues that he’s owned and admitted in multiple interviews to anyone who’s asked. McKinney will be the first to admit that he abused drugs, wasted money and wasn’t always a humble champ.

But what boxing legend out there has a perfectly squeaky clean slate? That just doesn’t happen in the sport. If the Hall of Fame is so interested in personalities and what occurs outside of the ring then why is convicted rapist Mike Tyson in? Or how about Oscar De La Hoya, who has bounced into and out of rehab countless times in the past several years? Or what about Riddick Bowe? Yes, the same Riddick Bowe who is so cash-strapped these days that he tweets any message out on his social media platform in exchange for $20. Literally anything. Insults, zings, advertisements, promotions. You pay him the dough and the Hall of Famer does your bidding.

Hell, even Sylvester Stallone is in for a movie character that he played who happened to be a boxer.

There’s absolutely no excuse for McKinney to be excluded. None whatsoever. Maybe I’m biased, but from talking to other experts of the sport, I think I’m actually spot-on.

McKinney’s place in history is undeniable, and he’s done far more than he’s given credit for within boxing history.

Put my friend in the Hall of Fame.

He’s waited on the side and has watched other lesser fighters get in for long enough.

Now’s the time to make it right.

Kennedy McKinney