Fifteen years have elapsed since he fought for a world title at Madison Square Garden, five since he last boxed in anger, but Sean Mannion is at it again.
No, the 41-year-old Rosmuc native isn't plotting a comeback (although the pugilistic landscape is dotted with recidivists older than he), but a series of recent events conspired to put him back in the gym for the first time in years.
Mannion had agreed to train 22-year-old Declan Fagerty, a former Irish Youths champion who emigrated to Boston a year ago. Fagerty had given up boxing after being injured in an auto accident a few years ago, but wanted to try his hand in the New England Golden Gloves tournament later this year.
Mannion approached Tony Cardinale, the prominent Boston attorney who had managed him throughout much of his early career. Recently returned to the sport, Cardinale now co-owns the Somerville Boxing Club. When Sean asked about using the premises to train young Fagerty, the lawyer had another idea.
"One of our fighters, Billy Rollins, is fighting on a televised card at the Cape Cod Coliseum on July 12th," said Cardinale. "He's boxing a lefthander from New York named Scott Lopeck. I'd been just about ready to go out and hire a southpaw to spar with him when Sean came to me, and it set me to thinking: where could I have gotten a better lefthanded sparring partner than Sean Mannion?"
In October of 1984 Mannion, then ranked the world's number two light middleweight by the World Boxing Association (WBA), fought top-rated Mike McCallum for that organisation's title, which had recently been vacated by Roberto Duran. The battle was a full-fledged rout. While the thoroughly overmatched Mannion did not, by most accounts, win a single round, he came away with a legion of new admirers off a gritty performance in which he hung in for the full 15 rounds.
Following the McCallum defeat, Mannion enjoyed a modicum of success, winning several more fights under the tutelage of Angelo Dundee.
Mannion fought most of his early career in Boston. The McCallum fight was his fifth career loss, and most of the others had come on cuts. He closed out his career at 42-14-1 with several fights in Europe, where he served as a "name" trial horse for several up-and-comers. A couple of them - Germans Henry Maske and Darius Michelczweski - went on to win world titles at lightheavyweight.
For the past five years Mannion has been a member of Local 88, working on a long-term highway Boston construction project known as the Big Dig. Notoriously undisciplined in his boxing days, he has become relatively domesticated of late. He is engaged to Eleanor O'Rourke, and for several years has lived with her and her four children not far from the Somerville Gym.
For the next several weeks he will be there sparring with Rollins, an 11-1-1 super-middleweight, and training young Fagerty with an eye toward this fall's Gloves campaign.
If all goes well, revealed Mannion, "we might turn Declan pro after that."
"It's good to be back in the gym, and to be honest, I could do with losing a bit of weight anyway," said Mannion, who in middle age has become a full-fledged heavyweight.
"But don't think this will give me any ideas about coming back. I'm a family man now. I retired from boxing five years ago, and I'm going to stay retired."
