Paul Weir “Excellence in Boxing”
Although he was born in Glasgow on September 16th 1967 former two time world champion Paul Weir spent most of his life in Irvine Ayrshire where his parents, especially his mother, became renowned for being stalwart workers for charity.
Ayrshire produced many great Scottish ring men such as World flyweight and British bantamweight champion Jackie Paterson, featherweight Evan Armstrong and Andy Wyper. Paul Weir’s feat of winning a WBO world title fight to become champion after just five bouts against mainly journeyman type opposition showed that the Irvine man deserved to be mentioned in the same ring company as Paterson, Armstrong and Wyper.
Weir attributed his early involvement in amateur boxing to schoolboy curiosity when he went along to a local boxing club and discovered that he had a talent for the hardest game. A 180 bout amateur career saw Weir demonstrate the truth of the old Scottish saying of ”guid gear in sma’ bulk as he not only won a Western district and three Scottish titles but won Bronze and Silver medals in international competitions boxing for Scotland in places like Sydney, Norway, Canada, Sweden and India where he demonstrated the kind of natural boxing talent, boxing skill and confidence; Attributes that had pundits raving about his potential long before he eventually turned pro with promoter Tommy Gilmour in Aril 1992 where he blew away one Eddie Vallejo inside two rounds in Glasgow.
By March 1993 Weir was unbeaten in six bouts, mainly six and eight rounders, when his management team stunned the boxing traditionalists by announcing in April 1993 that despite never having fought a ten round, area title or British eliminator bout, the Irvine man was going to challenge Fernando Martinez at Glasgow’s S.E.C.C. for the vacant W.B.O. Minimum weight title. The response of the boxing media was as understandable as it was almost uniform in questioning how a six bout undercard fighter could box for a world title but Weir gave the best possible answer from his point of view by stopping Martinez in the seventh round: With Paul ahead on all three ring judges cards when the referee halted matters, making Weir the first ever Scottish boxer to win a world title after just six pro starts.
Five months later Weir made even more Scottish ring history by becoming the first Caledonian boxer to defend a world title in a private members boxing club in Scotland’s St. Andrew’s Sporting club when on October 25 he outpointed tough South African battler Lindi Memani over 12 rounds with scores of 116-111; 116-113; 117-112.
So when Weir’s manager Tommy Gilmour upped the title ante by providing Weir with the chance in February 1994 to become the first ever Scot to win two world titles against a relatively unknown Latino fighter called Josue Camacho at Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall the scene seemed set fair for another triumph but as Weir’s fellow Ayrshiremen Rabbie Burns once wrote ”The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft agley..” And that is what happened for not only was Paul handicapped by cuts which required post fight stitching in his dressing room but the wily, smart, Camacho beat his Scottish challenger unanimously on points although Weir bitterly complained about the scoring believing, as many did at ringside, that he had indeed won, not Camacho.
In the meantime Weir talked about going into business for himself and for a time ran his own sports equipment company: No surprise to those of us who knew of his quick intelligence, self-confidence and self-belief bordering on brashness that the young man from Irvine displayed in those days. Similarly Paul’s management team didn’t hang around after the Camacho loss and let him fall in self pity because in November 1994 Paul Weir notched up yet another Scottish first by becoming the first Ayrshire boxer to fight for and win a world title, a record making second world crown, on his own native Ayrshire heath when he annexed the W.B.O. Light-flyweight title at Irvine’s Volunteer Rooms by outscoring another tough Springbok boxer Paul Oulden over 12 rounds.
Five months later and Weir followed up by successfully defending his light-flyweight crown against Filipino Ric Mogramo in the same Volunteer Rooms in Irvine who was also outscored over 12 rounds. But good fortune lived up to its reputation as being a very fickle friend when Paul elected to defend his W.B.O light-flyweight title against a tiny South African called ‘Baby’ Jake Matlala who not only looked like another South African great, Jake Tuli, who gave Scottish ring great Peter Keenan a tough battle at Cathkin in 1955,but Matalala proved to be even tougher than Tuli. True, the fifth round stoppage at Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall in November 1995 which cost Paul’s his crown was due to an accidental butt which terribly cut the Ayrshire man’s eyebrow but the truth was that the less than five feet tall ‘Baby’ Jake was the kind of opponent that most boxers encounter at least once in their careers: The guy against whom they are never likely to look good against or beat. A judgement proven five months later after the first defeat by the South African when the diminutive Springbok once again stopped Weir retaining his world title in the tenth round at Liverpool’s Everton Leisure Centre in April 1996. Similarly, a brave attempt to succeed in Randers, Denmark where his stablemate from Bonnyrigg, Keith Knox had failed previously by challenging erstwhile Knox conqueror Jesper Jensen for the cunning Dane’s European flyweight title failed as Weir was stopped in round eight; and a similar challenge a few months later for the vacant Commonwealth title against African Alfredo Zveniyika which ended in eleventh round stoppage defeating Glasgow marked the end of Paul Weir’s career as a championship contender and world champion.
Of course, there are those who will claim that Weir didn’t have the long hard apprenticeship of other Scottish world champions like Johnny Hill, Benny Lynch and Jackie Paterson but as the Ayrshire man was living in vastly different times that was hardly his fault. Again post fight career, ex- world champion Weir unfortunately followed in the footsteps of former American world champion Aaron Brown ”The Dixie Kid” who was convicted in 1924 in Leith for being on the wrong side of a drugs bust by Scottish police and this may be mooted as a reason to raise questions about the Ayrshire boxers induction into the Scots Hall of Fame. But the fact is that Paul Weir has paid his debt to society for the drugs related incident for which he was convicted and in the American Hall of Boxing Fame the fact that middleweight Rocky Graziano, Archie Moore and many others all did custodial time at various periods of their lives did not disbar their subsequent induction at Canastota to the American Hall of International Boxing Fame.
Today, Paul Weir is trying to put something back into boxing by working as a boxing coach with pro boxers like Gilmerton, Edinburgh welterweight Gary Young.
Text by Brian Donald
