LONDON: Terry Lawless, the British boxing manager who took Frank Bruno to a world heavyweight title bout against Mike Tyson in 1989 and guided four other world champions, died in Spain on Thursday at the age of 76.
“He will be remembered as one of the all-time great boxing managers,” close friend Norman Giller wrote on the Sports Journalists Association website (www.sportsjournalists.co.uk) after being contacted by Lawless’s wife Sylvia.
The ‘maker of champions’ managed more than 50 boxers and guided John H. Stracey, Maurice Hope, Jim Watt and Charlie Magri to various world titles from his Royal Oak gym in east London. He had retired in 1999.
Lawless worked closely with the promoters Mickey Duff, Jarvis Astaire, Harry Levene and Mike Barrett who dominated British boxing from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Lawless said after retiring that he wanted to be remembered as a manager who tried to prevent his fighters being hurt.
Sports writer Norman Giller said on the Sports Journalists’ Association Web site that his best friend had been one of the greatest ever boxing managers and “also one of the nicest people in the sports business.”
