How a trip Stateside rejuvenated Scots ring king Ken Buchanan
Ken Buchanan was burnt out and fading away but America did not forget him ... and Hall of Fame induction helped the Scot rediscover the riches of his own boxing legacy
TO kick off our new series on Scots who grabbed the sporting spotlight on the world stage, Sportsmail looks back on how a trip Stateside rejuvenated a boxing great.
IN Ken Buchanan, America discovered a hero. In America, Ken Buchanan rediscovered himself. Thirty years separated these moments of revelation, but their legacies continue to be felt to this day.
The first part of the love affair, of course, is a pillar of boxing lore. Fresh from travelling to Puerto Rico to tear the WBA lightweight title from Panamanian Ismael Laguna three months earlier, Buchanan was invited to top the bill alongside Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden on December 7, 1970, with a ten-round bout against Canadian welterweight champion Donato Paduano.
In the ring, his range of technique and movement won the decision against a hitherto unbeaten opponent weighing in ten pounds heavier and paved the way for the 25-year-old Scot to make seven more appearances on American soil during his career.
Out of it, came a legend Buchanan has long dined out on. Asked to share a space behind the scenes with Ali, in just his second fight back from refusing to be conscripted for the Vietnam War, this boy from Northfield, near Portobello, drew a line down the middle of the dressing room and warned ‘The Greatest’ he’d be risking a bang on the chin if he dared to step across.
The second part of the love affair — the emotional reunion, if you like — is less well documented. It took place 250 miles upstate in a marquee in the small town of Canastota on June 11, 2000, and crystallised in the heart-wrenching moment Buchanan fell into the embrace of his father Tommy, weeping uncontrollably as an audience filled with fighting royalty rose in his honour.
The confidence that marked those verbal skirmishes with Ali had long since dissipated. Buchanan, by his own admission, had lost all perspective on the significance of his own achievements.
He was a forgotten figure in Scotland, his glory as an undisputed world champion tarnished by a long run of negative publicity over ending his career in unlicensed fights, recurring issues with alcohol, business failures and the loss of his Edinburgh hotel in a costly divorce.
Aged 54, and no longer working as a joiner after suffering lasting damage to his back when reacting violently to an attempted assault, he was living in a room in shared accommodation in the Greenfaulds neighbourhood of Cumbernauld — world championship belts, incredibly, kept under his bed amid a treasure trove of photographs and old newspaper clippings — when word came through from the States that he was being inaugurated into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
He stopped drinking ahead of the journey, travelled in the Buchanan tartan he wore so proudly on his shorts in his pomp and, from the moment he stepped off the plane, found himself transported back to those sunlit days at the top of the world.
Assigned a four-strong team of red-shirted security guards, he was addressed as ‘champ’ by almost everyone he encountered.
Bars burst into spontaneous rounds of applause when he entered. One fan drove 500 miles from Pittsburgh just to ask him to sign a poster. The likes of Joe Frazier and Marvin Hagler welcomed him like a long-lost brother.
It was so overwhelming. So different from the low-key, largely anonymous existence he had become used to at home.
If he had somehow forgotten the scale of his achievements as a result of all those setbacks, disappointments and self-inflicted problems down the years, America certainly hadn’t.
And of all the remarkable scenes witnessed during that visit, nothing matched the moment Buchanan, who had controlled himself so admirably until then, left the stage in the aftermath of a nervous acceptance speech and buried his face in the shoulder of his dad, also his cornerman throughout his career, their bodies convulsing as they shed such tears of concentrated emotion together.
‘I feel I would die happy tomorrow because of the way this week has worked out,’ he confessed in a quieter moment on that trip. ‘I can rest in the knowledge people will be turning up at the Hall of Fame 100 years from now and being made aware of my achievements.’
To be with Buchanan that week was to see a man return to life and remember what it was to have faith in ambition and possibility. He had forgotten how loved and respected he was — and was a joy to be around.
That recognition also reintroduced him to the public in his homeland after a long spell in the wilderness and allowed the focus, at last, to centre purely on his sporting acumen. The rise of another uniquely talented east coaster in current WBA and IBF super-lightweight world champion Josh Taylor has continued to keep his standing strong.
Taylor, from Prestonpans, has spoken widely of his hunger to follow Buchanan in becoming the undisputed king of his division. They meet regularly. Having signed a promotional deal with US-based Top Rank, Taylor is also determined to fight in his friend and mentor’s old domain of Madison Square Garden.
Theirs, you see, is a bond that goes back some time.
As an international-class amateur, Taylor travelled with his team-mates from Lochend ABC and coach Terry McCormack, who remains a key member of his corner in the pro game, to Los Angeles and the famous Wild Card Gym run by legendary trainer Freddie Roach back in 2012.
Buchanan was invited to go with them and, again, the welcome he received offered Taylor an early introduction to what could await for him should he go on to make a name for himself across the Atlantic. ‘We had seven of our boxers and