Five Decade Career of Super Lightweight Champion Saoul Mamby Ends at Age 72
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
Brooklyn, NY (December 21, 2019)– The five decades career and boxing life of former world super lightweight champion Saoul Mamby, who was in the gym his entire life long after the spotlight had faded, has ended with his passing in Brooklyn at age 72. The cause of death was disclosed. Mamby had a career record of 45-34-5 with 18 knockouts, and was stopped only once in his 40 year career, which began in September 1969 at age 22 with a six round points win over Roy Gross in Kingston, Jamaica.
Mamby was retired from fighting in the United States at age 53 by the California State Athletic Commission following a loss in North Carolina in 2000, and occasionally worked as a licensed professional trainer. In an official bout that does not yet appear on the Boxrec, Mamby returned in 2004 in Thailand and won a decision over 11-1 Thundluang Sitjanaat in a bout fought at the junior middleweight limit. Mamby’s career ended in Georgetown, the Cayman Islands at age 60 years and nine months, when he lost a 10 round points decision at junior middleweight in March 2008 to Anthony Osborne, the oldest person and former world champion ever to appear in a sanctioned professional boxing contest.
The World Boxing Council Super Lightweight champion, Mamby had a record of six wins and four defeats in world championship contests. Mamby won the WBC Super Lightweight title in February 1980 with a fourteenth round stoppage of Sung Hyun Kim in Seoul, South Korea. Mamby lost his WBC title by 15 round decision to Leroy Haley in Highland Heights, Ohio, in June 1982. Mamby was unsuccessful in two attempts to regain the WBC title. He had first fought for it in October 1977, losing a 15 round decision to then WBC Super Lightweight World Champion Saensak Muangsurin in Nathon Ratchasima, Thailand.
Mamby is oddly perhaps best known for a bout that never took place. Mamby had signed to fight the late World Boxing Association World Junior Welterweight champion Aaron ‘The Hawk’ in a 140-pound WBC-WBA junior welterweight title unification bout in February 1981, but the fight was canceled when promoter Harold Smith disappeared amid allegations he was involved in a 21.3 million dollar fraud involving the Wells Fargo National Bank. Smith was later convicted of 29 counts of fraud and embezzlement.
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