Buddy McGirt vs Frankie Warren II

Buddy McGirt lost to Frankie Warren in a July 1986 10 rounder between unbeaten prospects. Eight wins later for McGirt, and four for Warren led to a rematch with the vacant IBF World Super-lightweight Title at stake at the Memorial Coliseum in Corpus Christi, Texas. The fight was shown live on ABC Sports.

Warren, fighting in his hometown, started the fight like a freight train that just couldn't be stopped, but Mcgirt showed how much he had learnt from their first encounter by boxing in a relaxed manner that allowed him to keep his gas tank from emptying as it did in the first fight.

There was not much in it as the fight reached the middle stages but by the 7th round Warren's eyes were puffing up badly, the left eye, almost shut and McGirt was finding the target increasingly easy to find as Warren slowed and found it harder to close the distance.

The beginning of the end came in the 8th round when McGirt dropped Warren with a left hook, and although the local man got up and fought on, he never got a foothold back in the fight, try as he might. 

Warren was brave to the end and deserves recognition for the mammoth effort he put into the fight, but McGirt by now was one of the best technicians in the game who would go on to win a welterweight title to add to this belt.

When the referee Barry Yeats looked at the condition of Warren's eyes at the start of the 12th round, he did the humane thing and waved the fight off. With 4 more rounds to go there was little or no chance that the Corpus Christi favourite could survive let alone win.

Warren had a further six fights before hanging his gloves up in 1989.