‘There was nothing tragic about John. Nothing tragic at all’
Nearly 40 years after his untimely death in the ring, Merthyr Tydfil boxer Johnny Owen’s legacy still lives on as Anna Lewis discovers
HIS death left a dark scar on the world of boxing forever. At 24 years old, Johnny Owen – better known as the Matchstick Man or the Bionic Bantam – had already taken on some of the sport’s biggest names and returned home with its most impressive titles.
After a childhood growing up on the Gurnos estate in Merthyr, his fights saw him travel the world.
Today in his hometown and further afield, the legacy of an impossibly thin and desperately shy champion lives on nearly 40 years after his final fight.
Born one of eight children, Johnny’s interest in boxing started at age eight, presumably as a way to stand up for himself.
For the next 12 years he would remain an amateur boxer winning 106 of his 124 bouts under the guidance of his coach and father Dick.
Reaching only 5ft 6in in height, his professional career would only last for four years but in that time he took on 28 fights. Of those, he won 25, drew one, and lost two.
In such a short time he saw off Welsh champion George Sutton for the Welsh title, before claiming the British and Commonwealth bantamweight titles. Asked how he would celebrate, the teetotal boxer replied “a glass of orange juice”.
Tragically, his greatest skill was his endurance and stamina – a skill that would see him last 12 rounds in his final, furious, fight.
“Johnny was a machine. His great skill wasn’t his strength – though he never took a backwards step and could punch as hard as anyone of his weight – it was his stamina,” Merthyr boxing writer Winford Jones explains.
“He could fight for hours, and would wear opponents down by outlasting them. You could see this talent far more in 12 and 15-round professional fights, than you could in the three rounds allowed in amateur boxing.”
Although undeniably skilled in the boxing ring, Johnny lacked the same confidence in day-to-day life.
In a sport centred around confrontation, during a weigh-in he would simply shake his opponent’s hand and avoid conversation altogether.
During his lifetime he chose only to do a few select interviews out of the flood of media requests that came his way.
Reporting in 1980, Observer journalist Hugh McIlvanney wrote: “In the street, in a hotel lounge or even in his family’s home on a Merthyr Tydfil housing estate, he is so reticent as to be almost unreachable, so desperately shy that he has turned 24 without ever having had a genuine date with a girl.
“But in the ring he has always been transformed, possessed by a furious aggression that has driven his alarmingly thin and unmuscular body through the heaviest fire and into the swarming, crowding attacks.”
Both of Johnny’s defeats have made their mark in boxing history.
His first was against Spanish boxer Juan Francisco Rodriguez, in a fight for the European belt. Despite failing the weigh-in, the Spaniard proceeded to the match.
In what has been regarded as a “home-town decision travesty”, Rodriguez was awarded a fight he had so obviously lost.
It was only one year later when the Merthyr Matchstick Man avenged his defeat by beating his opponent in a rematch in Ebbw Vale.
In early September 1980, Johnny, along with his father, arrived in Los Angeles for what would be his biggest, and last, fight.
The bout was a world bantamweight title fight against Mexican idol Lupe Pintor in the Olympic Auditorium known as Little Mexico.
Bursting with pride, Dick later described Johnny as calm and composed.
“Johnny had no nerves at all and I was a very proud man,” he said.
As the fight wore on, Johnny, in his signature style, refused to give up.
By his final knockdown he had been swallowing blood from a cut lip for seven rounds.
A round nine knockdown was the first time he had been on the floor in his professional life.
After falling once more he returned to his feet. However after a second knockdown in the 12th round, he never got up. Welsh boxing journalist Gareth Jones described him as “a marionette that had had its strings cut”.
A stretcher was brought in, and as the men carried him out, they had urine and beer thrown over them.
Johnny was taken straight to the Lutheran Hospital in the American city where on September 19, 1980, surgeons tried to remove the clot on his brain.
By this point the Bionic Bantam was in a coma which he would remain in for the next two months. His death came 46 days later on November 4, 1980, after pneumonia took over.
It was only after his death it was discovered that Johnny was born with an unusually fragile skull and thick jaw, meaning his death could have happened during any fight.
On the day of his funeral the people of Merthyr lined the streets to pay their respects.
His brother Kelvin, however, is determined that Johnny’s death should not be treated as “tragic”.
He said: “There was nothing tragic about John. Nothing tragic at all.
“John loved boxing, he loved life, and he was living his life the way he wanted. Thousands of people loved him. Not a lot of us can go to our grave saying that so many people truly loved us, that we achieved something in our lives, and that we really enjoyed our lives.”
In the years following Johnny’s death, his family encouraged his last opponent to keep on fighting. It was said that the Mexican struggled emotionally after the 1980 fight.
When, in 2002, a bronze statue of the Matchstick Man was unveiled in his hometown, the Mexican flew to Wales to mark the occasion. The collective reaction of Merthyr has been described as “tremendous”.
As the statue covers came off, Dick Owen laid a hand on the boxer’s shoulder. In decades since Johnny’s death his legacy is still clear to see.
Gyms and bars were named in his honour. In 2009, former world boxing champion Mike Tyson visited the south Wales town to lay flowers at the Bionic Bantam’s statue.
For the people of Merthyr Tydfil, the Matchstick Man remains a hero.