All Hail King McKinney

When he was at his peak, he was known among fighting circles by two words. King McKinney.

Title fights, Madison Square Garden, Las Vegas, the king was able to see it and do it all.

Flashy fluorescent lights bearing his name on the welcome signs of sold out arenas across the country symbolized what everyone around him already knew, the world was in the palms of this man’s hands.

Fame followed him wherever he went. Fortune tagged along as a willing passenger.

He truly was royalty among the world of sports.

“I had it all,” McKinney proudly boasts. “I really was on top of the world.”

Today, this king has no throne, nor a robe. He’s without a rod, or a staff. This king doesn’t have so much as a crown.

The fortune he spent his life earning? It’s mostly all gone, having been taken by creditors.

His hair shows all of the signs of his storied life’s challenges, flickered with just a few remnants of black strands in a now otherwise predominant mass of gray. His now 45-year-old body is just as grizzled, battered from years of in-ring punishment, post-ring partying and his admitted flirtations with drugs.

But on this day, none of that matters. Former Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion Kennedy McKinney is in his element and is truly happy.

The king is back in his castle, the boxing ring.

“That ring, that’s always home,” McKinney explains. “The location may change, but the ring is always home.”

The former prize fighter lunges at his opponent with his right hand before ducking his head and moving from one corner of the ring to the next.

The footwork is still flawless.

He taps a jab before putting his guard up to block the offensive onslaught by his opponent.

The bell sounds and this round is officially over.

It is then, and only then, that it becomes apparent that the roles are different this time around.

Kennedy McKinney isn’t preparing for a fight, those days are long gone. He’s not in any way interested in becoming the next in a laundry list of fighters who hung around too long and got beat up in the name of one last payday.

Instead, this former world champion is preparing another fighter for a bout, serving as a coach at Bayouside Boxing Club in Golden Meadow, a long way off the beaten path of greatness he once walked, but it’s a life he said he has embraced nonetheless.

“This is where God wants me to be,” he says.

His goal? To breed a world champ.

His message: “Get where I got, just don’t follow the path I took to get there.”

“I want to train a champion,” he says. “I want to give a person on this bayou the chance to do all of the great things I did. I want to serve as a mentor or a guide to stand for both what to do and what not to do because, trust me, I’ve done my share of things on both sides.”

The Beginning: Boy Meets Ring

Now more than 30 years removed from the day, McKinney still smiles looking back on when he met his first love.

It was a warm summer afternoon in the late 1970s in the boxer’s native Memphis, Tenn., where he grew up with his mother, Robbie McKinney, and seven siblings.

McKinney had just graduated sixth grade and was enjoying his summer vacation by doing what kids do during break, nothing.

“I was sitting on my porch and a friend of my brother comes by the house and says, ‘Yo, is Kevin in the house?’” Kennedy recalls. “So I go in my house and I get my brother Kevin, and I notice he has a gym bag in his hands.

“So I go back out and I sit on the porch and I notice his friend had a gym bag, too, so I’m just thinking they are about to go do something. So I asked them, ‘Let me go with y’all,’ and they said, ‘Nah, nah, nah, you too little.’ I asked again and they said again, ‘Nah, nah, nah, you too little. Stay home.’ So I said OK and they left.”

Like any inquiring younger brother, Kennedy didn’t obey his brother’s wishes.

“We lived in the second house from the corner,” the former champ says. “Once they hit the corner, I ran there myself and I watched them.

“I’d hide behind light posts and then, when they’d get a little bit farther, I’d run and hide behind another pole or even a car, anything to make sure they didn’t see me.

“Sure enough, it worked. They never saw me.”

The final destination for the boys was a Memphis boxing gymnasium where classes were offered to anyone interested in learning the sport.

McKinney’s brother and comrade entered the gym with their bags in hand.

No more than three minutes later, little Kennedy walked in and started to hit a hard bag, taking advantage of the fact that his brother was changing into his workout clothes and still didn’t know he was there.

“Excuse me, sir!” McKinney remembers hearing a man say on that day. “You want to box?

McKinney still lights up like a child thinking of this monumental day in his life.

“Sure,” McKinney replied. “I’ll box.

“So the man says back to me, ‘OK, that’s good. But you need some shorts and a T-shirt.’ … I went home that night and cut the legs off my jeans and decided I was going to give it a shot.”

By that time, McKenney’s brother had finished changing and noticed what was going on.

But it was too late. There was no turning back now.

Kennedy McKinney was in love.

“The next day, I went to the gym and I just started boxing,” the champ said. “I just fell in love with it. After that first day, it was over. I had my new crush, it was her, it was boxing.”

McKinney spent every waking moment with the love of his life after that first day.

He and boxing were inseparable.

“I figured I was too small for football. In eighth grade, I got knocked out on the field one day, so I said forget it, I’m done with this s—,” he explains. “In basketball, I wasn’t tall enough. In baseball, I wasn’t strong enough. I could catch the ball and I could run, but I couldn’t hit that damn ball for a home run.

“But boxing? I could do this s—. See in boxing, you fight guys your own size, so I said ‘To hell with it, I won’t play anything else. I’m only going to box.’ So that’s what I did. Every, single day after the eighth grade, it was only boxing. I boxed every day from the seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade and 12th grade, that’s what I did, I boxed.”

Uncle Sam Wants Kennedy

Like all teenage relationships, McKinney had ups and downs with his love.

With graduation looming and a new chapter set to begin in the teenager’s life, McKinney dumped the apple of his eye and became resigned to the fact that he’d never box again.

“Memphis ain’t got no professional boxers,” McKinney remembers saying to himself. “You see these guys making $500 or $600 a month fighting once every couple of months … You can’t make no living like that, so I had to do something. I decided to move on. It was tough, but I had to do it. I had to get rid of her, the love of my life.”

McKinney enrolled in the U.S. Army in 11th grade and was shipped away immediately following his high school graduation to begin basic training.

“My first duty station was in Aberdeen, Md.,” the fighter recalls.

He says he wrote home occasionally to keep contact with his friends and family.

Five months into his service, things changed.

McKinney heard from her.

“I had about 15 minutes left in my lunch break and the mail man came in,” McKinney recalls. “And he throws a magazine on the table and it had two boxers on the cover.

“So I’m saying to myself, ‘What the hell? They have boxing in the Army?’ I read through the magazine and it was a story about this guy stationed in Fort Hood, Texas who had just won the national title.”

Immediately after reading the magazine, McKinney called his boxing gym back in Memphis.

He hoped someone there would have contacts with the Army’s Team, or most notably, its coach, the legendary Kenny Adams.

“It was a long shot,” McKinney remembers.

It paid off.

“‘PFC McKinney, the First Sergeant wants to see you,’” McKinney remembers being told. “I was outside working on some radioactive s—. I didn’t know what was going on. So I got in the jeep and I went to see what he wanted.”

McKinney’s wish had come true. His coach in Memphis had gotten in touch with Little Rock trainer Ray Rodgers, who knew Adams.

McKinney was officially fighting for the Army.

“He told me, ‘Your order is coming in, go pack your s—, you’re leaving in the morning. You said you wanted to go box, right?’” McKinney still says with a smile. “So I’m like what? Hell, yes. The next morning, I’m on a flight going to Fort Hood. That was the first good break of my life. That day started it all for me. … Without that day, nothing that came later would have ever happened.”

Fighting in Fort Hood, The Good and Bad

McKinney trained for 30 days in Fort Hood before his first fight, a tournament in Albuquerque, N.M.

“The very first night of the tournament, I had to fight the hometown hero, the No. 1-ranked amateur in America, some kid named Johnny Tapia,” McKinney recalls.

“Nobody told me who this kid was. Coach Adams didn’t tell me. Nobody told me. To me, he was just another guy. I just had to go out there and do my thing.”

McKinney knocked Tapia out, cold.

“In the second round, the referee had to stop the fight,” the fighter remembers, still proud of his work. “I ended up winning and I was the most outstanding boxer of the tournament. It wasn’t until then that Coach Adams told me, ‘Mac, you know who you just beat? You just beat the No. 1-ranked amateur in the world.’

“I was shocked. It was then I had that little rumble in my gut that I could maybe do this thing for real. … At first, I was the new guy. Now, I’m the hero. All these girls are coming at me and everybody wants to be my friend.”

With his newfound popularity, McKinney continued his dominance in the ring.

He won All-Army for two-straight years. He also finished twice as the national runner-up in the 112-pound weight class.

“Lost to the same guy both times,” the fighter said. “The first time, he knocked my ass out. The second time it was closer and I lost a decision.”

Popularity eventually caught up to McKinney. He got in his first spat of trouble while preparing for his third shot at Nationals.

“I bought a stereo off my buddy,” he said. “I didn’t know my buddy had went and stole it off of somebody. I kept it for two days, but I was running low on money, so I thought, ‘OK, this was a bad decision. I’m going to pawn it and get some money to get through these next few days before payday.

“No more than 5 minutes after I pawned it, my buddy’s friend came to tell me not to pawn it because it was hot. … So I went get it out of the pawn shop and changed the serial numbers on it and took it to a different pawn shop.

“They caught me. I was found guilty. I ended up being sentenced to 63 days in the jail on the base.”

Once again, McKinney was forced to split with his love, this time, he knew it was for good.

“I f—ed it all up,” he remembers. “I did my time and I had to get off the post, so I’m like ‘What am I going to do?’ It was over. There was no way in my head at that time that I could make up for the mistakes that I had made.”

Lessons Learned and a Spot in the Olympics

Free from lockup, McKinney had to leave the base.

He lived on cash stipends he received for not having used a leave day during his stay in the military. He was still a member of the Army, but was no longer on active duty.

“They paid me for all my leave days,” McKinney explains. “They gave me about $5,500 or $5,600.”

With that cash in hand, he decided to remain around Fort Hood. He did so hoping to stay close to her, hoping for a second chance.

McKinney got one, almost six months later. It came just in the nick of time as he had two weeks left on his lease and was readying himself to give up for good.

“Kenny Adams came to me and told me, ‘Kennedy, if you go fight the Russians in Russia, you will earn an automatic bid to Nationals,’ so I go to Russia and I fight the Russians.”

He accomplished his goal and qualified.

But fate had just started working her magic.

“I get out of the plane and talk to my girlfriend and she tells me, ‘Kennedy, my sister done ran away from home. She took off and went to Colorado Springs, Colo.,’” Kennedy recalls. “That’s where the Olympic training center is. That’s where Nationals is held every year.

“My first thought was to go and get her ass out of there, but then when we found out, sure enough, she was a mile-and-a-half from the training center. So I thought, ‘Let’s go live with your sister, so I could get used to that thin ass air up there.’”

McKinney and company did just that and he prepared himself for Nationals.

But what the fighter didn’t know is that this year’s Nationals were different, the top two competitors earned automatic bids to the Olympic Trials for the 1988 Summer Olympics.

Like he’d done in previous years, he easily advanced to the finals and earned a spot in the Olympic Trials.

But therein lay a problem, he was no longer on active duty. To train with the Army’s Olympic qualifiers in Fort Huachuca, Ariz., that needed to be fixed.

“Kenny Adams told me, ‘If you join the National Guard and get your little ID card back, I can take you with us,’” McKinney said. “So, that’s what I did.

“I wasn’t supposed to be staying in the barracks. I wasn’t supposed to be eating in the residential hall. I wasn’t supposed to be living on base, period. But [Adams] had a little control over certain things, so he was able to get me in. … God was looking out for me.”

McKinney is the first person to tell you he had three bad habits his entire fighting career.

“I liked to drink beer, I liked to go out in the club and sleep with the ladies and I liked to smoke cigarettes,” McKinney explains. “I still smoke cigarettes to this day.

“When I got to Fort Huachuca, I decided I wouldn’t do any of that s— anymore. I focused and all I wanted to do was make this team.”

McKinney trained “balls to the walls” until it was time to leave. He showed up in the best shape of his life.

“I was so confident because my life had taken such a downturn in the Army, getting kicked out and everything,” McKinney remembers, sinking his face into his hands. “The only thing I could do was make the Olympic team or go bust. I, for sure as hell, wasn’t about to go bust.”

With the tournament under way, McKinney was pitted against the best of the best in the amateur ranks.

“All of the guys who had beat me in the finals of Nationals, those were the guys who I had to fight,” McKinney said with a laugh. “This time I knew they wouldn’t be so lucky.”

First was Sergio Reyes, no competition.

Second was Michael Collins, who had beaten McKinney once before in an amateur fight. This time, Kennedy won a close decision.

“He was a big, tall southpaw,” McKinney said. “He was just hell to fight.”

Then came a bout against Jemal Hinton, another tough victory by decision.

That left the boxer just one bout away from a place on the Olympic team, a box off.

For that fight, he had to again face Collins.

With each boxer owning a victory against the other, they dueled with a spot in the Olympics in the balance.

“Coach Adams just told me, ‘Mac, you’ve got to pressure this guy,’” McKinney remembers. “Pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure. … knock his ass out.”

McKinney didn’t knock Collins out, but he followed Adams’ game plan to perfection, blitzing Collins all three rounds and earning an easy decision victory.

He and his love were going to the Olympics.

Achieving Olympic Gold, Turning Pro

“I opened the envelope and as soon as I did, I knew it was over,” McKinney says even today, rubbing away goose bumps more than 20 years removed from the faithful day it happened. “There was no way I was going all the way to South Korea and losing after that.”

Prior to departing to South Korea for the 1988 Summer Olympics, every American Olympian gathered in Los Angeles for a sendoff party.

“We met with President (George H.) Bush and we just had a big gathering and everything,” the former world champion remembers.

It was on that day when he received his Olympic number. He believes being handed that envelope sealed his fate.

“The number in my envelope was 0316,” he says beaming like a child. “The whole time when I got it, all I was saying was ‘316, 316, that’s like John 3:16 out of the Bible.’ … When I got that number, I knew it was a sign from God.

“I knew this gold medal was mine. Hands down. Nobody is beating me over there. This is God’s way. I knew I was destined to win this gold medal because God gave me this number.”

McKinney’s prophecy proved true.

In four Olympic fights, he torched the competition and took home the gold, beating Bulgaria’s Aleksandar Hristov in the gold medal fight, becoming the first-ever American to win gold in the bantamweight division.

“I jumped up in the air and … I was just so happy,” McKinney says, tearing at the memory. “It was just something I had worked so hard for … and it was just like a relief off your back. It was just a joyous time for me. My family was proud of me. Memphis was proud of me. Everybody was proud of me. I had pride for really the first time in my life.

“I remember being on the podium and I’m on top of everybody. … And the national anthem is playing. It’s something you can’t explain or describe. It’s the most unbelievable feeling you’ll ever experience.”

On top of the world at 22, McKinney decided after the Olympics to retire from amateur boxing and turn pro.

He immediately signed with Top Rank Boxing and moved to Las Vegas to begin his professional career.

A Champions Fall from Grace

Now a pro, McKinney kept winning.

As Vegas’ newest resident, he also embraced his surroundings and the 24/7 lifestyle.

“I never stopped,” he remembers. “I got introduced to all kinds of people … all kinds of drugs.

“My third pro fight, I get popped with a [urine] test. Cocaine in my system. I got suspended for six months and I had to go to a rehab. Top Rank decided to send me and this other guy who got popped to the desert for six months to live with this guy named Bruce Blair, who recruited us to the promotion.

“We had to give up all of our vehicles, all of our transportation, everything. It’s like we were prisoners. And you know what? We deserved it. We f—ed up. Bruce wouldn’t let us out of his sight. But you know what? That s— saved my career, I think, because I got on the right path after that.”

Free from the drugs, McKinney rolled to a 19-0-1 start to his career. The draw came in a fight he dominated, but couldn’t win because of an accidental head butt.

“I stopped doing all that stuff,” McKinney explains. “But I never stopped smoking cigarettes. I only quit them when I was in camp preparing for a fight.”

With the strong start under his belt, McKinney earned a shot at the United States Boxing Association title. He won, easily beating champion Sugar Baby Rojas.

That win was supposed to make him the No. 1 contender for the world title, a belt also held by a Top Rank fighter.

“They instead wanted me to fight a former world champion to prove I was worthy of a shot,” McKinney remembers. “So I fought their guy, a southpaw by the name of Paul Banke and I beat his ass and stopped him in the sixth round. And you know what? They still wouldn’t give me a shot at the title.”

Frustrated with his inability to get a title shot, McKinney decided to leave Top Rank and instead signed with Akbar Muhammad and his promoter Cedric Kushner, both of whom promised McKinney he’d be a champ.

“I went to Top Rank president Bob Arum and asked him to let me out of my contract,” McKinney remembers. “And they did. That was it. It was over.”

But it wasn’t over yet.

Under Muhammad and Kushner, McKinney got his shot.

He became a world champion for the first time on Dec. 2, 1992, beating the previously unbeaten Welcome Ncita by knockout in Sardegna, Italy.

“That was a hard ass fight,” McKinney remembers. “He was a lot quicker than I thought he was going to be. But I ended up catching him and I knocked that ‘sum b—- out and I won the title.”

“But being the world champion? Man, that’s unreal. I had already known what it felt like to be the best in the world at something with the Olympics, but there’s just something different about being the world champion. All the fame, all the money, all the success, everything. I had it all.”

McKinney made five defenses of the title, before losing the first fight of his career to Vuyani Bungu in South Africa.

“I didn’t really train right,” he admits. “I had the big head. I thought I could beat him no matter what.”

McKinney became a world champion his very next fight on Aug. 8, 1995, beating John Lowey to win the World Boxing Union crown.

He dropped that title on his own, agreeing to vacate it to create a super fight opportunity against WBO champion Marco Antonio Barrera, a fight he lost. It put him back to the middle of the pack among bantamweights.

After a handful of “pick-me-up” fights, McKinney got his last shot at the title on Dec. 19, 1997 against Junior Jones in Madison Square Garden.

Jones won the title by beating Barrera.

None of that mattered against McKinney, who became a three-time champion, scoring a fourth round knockout.

“To get it that third time, that’s one of the things I take the most pride in,” McKinney remembers. “If you do it once, they say it’s a lucky punch. If you do it twice, there’s still some doubt. … Not many people were able to be champions three times.”

But immediately after that fight, things began to change for the three-time champ.

Now in his 30s, McKinney began to notice something different when he was in the ring.

“I could still see everything, but I couldn’t react the way I used to,” he remembers. “By the time I’d let go of my hands, it’s like I was a half-second late now.”

This Las Vegas guy admits his love for partying, beer and cigarettes had finally won.

He was no longer the king, but was just a common man in the ring.

McKinney lost his fight title defense to Luisito Espinosa. Two fights later, he lost a decision to Jorge Antonio Paredes, which forced the fighter into a three-year retirement.

“I was done,” McKinney remembers.

He had a brief comeback tour in 2002 and 2003, but he never regained his form, nor his position in title contention, retiring after an April 4, 2003, loss to little-known Greg Torres.

But even in retirement, Top Rank still came to his door to do business.

Today: Ready to Breed a Champion

Home in Memphis as a 35-year-old retiree, McKinney heard a tap on the door of his beautiful home.

Most times, that’d mean an old friend was in town or a loyal fan was coming to meet his hero.

This time, it was different.

“I was getting sued,” he said. “The man handed me the letter and walked away.”

When McKinney got “released” from his contract under Top Rank, he signed the walking papers and left the promoting conglomerate’s office thinking everything was over.

But they never signed in return.

His entire career, he legally belonged to the company. They never said a word, opting to sue him for their percentage of all of his prize fights after his retirement.

“My whole f—ing career, I’m paying the people who I think are my new promoters,” McKinney remembers. “Then, the second I retire, they serve me this injunction saying they want $180,000 for their cut in all the big fights I’ve had. … See, they do that s— on purpose. They didn’t want to do that when I still had money coming in, because they knew I’d have been able to pay them and wipe my hands of them.

“They prey on the guys once they are retired because they know they can take everything from you that way. … They know they can get the last laugh. And you know what? It’s on me. I f—ed up. I shouldn’t have got out of my contract. I have no one to blame but me. Top Rank didn’t screw Kennedy. Kennedy screwed Kennedy.”

McKinney attempted to file for bankruptcy when handed his ruling, but the courts told him he had too many assets.

In a settlement, McKinney had to surrender his house and all of his cars n all of which were paid for.

“They took my house, my land and my cars,” McKinney remembers. “I had to start over.”

He now has nothing, except boxing.

That’s why he’s here today, in a warm Golden Meadow gym on a summer afternoon.

“Move,” McKinney shouts to a fighter he believes is loafing in the ring.

“Pick up the tempo,” he may say to another.

“You have to be dedicated to do this s—,” he adds later. “You cannot do boxing halfway and get where I did.”

McKinney trains fighters at Bayouside Boxing Gym. He shows up every day the gym is open.

After being the first person into the gym, he’s usually the last one to leave to lock the doors of the quaint Golden Meadow building owned by Damien St. Pierre.

When it’s over, he trades his former comfortable Memphis home for an apartment in the southern part of the small Louisiana town.

“This is my home now,” he says. “Money and all that, that’s just material stuff. Having a true home, that’s really what’s most important.”

To the kids he trains, he’s mostly a tutor or a guide of what to do, and what not to do to be successful.

“He’s the best,” fighter Randy Cheramie proclaims. “Someone right here who’s done it all. … The best teacher they got.”

“Having him here is just awesome,” St. Pierre adds. “He knows the sport like no one else and he just gives us a different dimension. … He’s incredible.”

But to McKinney, it’s about staying close to the love of his life, the sport.

That and guiding someone through the roller coaster that is a successful career as a professional boxer.

If he can do that, he’ll be happy.

“I want to coach a champ,” he says repeatedly. “And I don’t want to do it for the money or the fame or to get back the s— I lost. … Sure, that comes with it, but I want to do it so I can introduce those things to someone else and to show them the top the same way I got there. It’s really not about me. I had it all. I’ve done it all. I’ve seen it all.

“My goal now is to give back. Boxing gave everything to Kennedy McKinney. It gave me money. It gave me fame. It gave me the life I dreamed of. For plenty of reasons, I don’t have that stuff anymore, but I don’t want another turn. I used to be the King. What I’m doing now is trying to take my crown and put it on someone else’s head. Boxing deserves a new king. I’m here to train and crown him.”

Anything for the sport and his fighters.

It’s the Queen of this King’s life.

Three-time world champion and 1988 Olympic gold medalist Kennedy McKinney poses inside the ring at Bayouside Boxing Club in Golden Meadow. CASEY GISCLAIR