Packing a punch
So too did the U.S.
Virgin Islands, where Julian Jackson was raised by a single mother
and struggled to focus without the structure that boxing would eventually
provide. She was deeply spiritual and he is too, crediting God for
the sporting achievements that include championships at 154 and 160
pounds.
But he used to lack the self-esteem that boxing would
develop, revealing that he "didn't realize that I was going to become
anything, until I got involved in boxing."
He was 12 at the
time and convinced to box by a fighting friend whom he'd follow to
a local gym, thereby fulfilling his mother's request that he commit
to a craft.
By 16, he was brimming with confidence, and enough
pop in his right hand to drop a local professional in sparring. He
hadn't yet knocked anyone out, let alone world champions like Baek
Inchul, Buster Drayton and Terry Norris.
"I ran over to him.
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry!' And my coach screamed out 'No, don't do that!
This is part of boxing. It happens," Jackson recalled. "I couldn't
believe it, but after that, I realized there was something special
about my punching ability."
Special is an understatement.
Try
generational or legendary.
During his outstanding career Jackson
won world titles at junior middleweight and middleweight, first holding
the WBA 154 pound belt before stepping up to 160 pounds where the
Virgin Islander's power was every bit as devastating. He held the
WBC middleweight crown on two occasions.
"It's something you
are born with," Jackson told when recounting the first time he knew
he had fight-ending power. "I remember as an amateur and the first
time I threw a punch was against a professional and I knocked him
down. I was about 17 or 18 (years old). I caught him with a right
hand. That was the first time I realized I had natural power.
"I
always seemed to have that power punch in the bag. I felt the power
and my coach said I don't have to try to hit hard all I need to do
is throw the punch because my natural ability would click in. I realized
that and I really found out I had that punching ability much more
than a lot of amateurs I grew up with and trained with."
Jackson
won his first 29 professional bouts, with only two opponents hearing
the final bell, before challenging Mike McCallum for the WBA junior
middleweight crown. Though Jackson hurt McCallum in the opening round
of their August 1986 showdown it was his fellow Caribbean power-puncher
that came out on top, stopping Jackson in the following round.
Prodigious
punching power propelled Jackson to the pinnacle of his profession.
To 21 fights in Las Vegas, where he won his first world title in 1987
and fought in six additional world title bouts. And to the Nevada
Boxing Hall of Fame, in which he was honored at Resorts World Las
Vegas alongside the 26 other boxers and boxing contributors who comprise
its 2020, 2021 and 2022 classes.
He claimed 49 of his 55 victories
by way of knockout, unofficially qualifying as one of the most devastating
punchers in boxing history and officially earning enshrinement in
2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the hall's annual gala, and
delayed Jackson's return to Las Vegas.