THE JAWS OF VICTORY
ONE moment he was doing all he could to avoid the punches of his opponent and the next he was sitting in a hotel room watching television with his wife. He remembers the punches but not the day of the week, the room number, or what played on screen. It was quick. All of it. It was time travel, it was transference, and it was terrifying.
It had all been caused by a single blow to the chin. “The only time I was out on my feet was against Victor Rabanales,” said Wayne McCullough, who boxed Rabanales in June 1994. “I fought him in my 13th fight and he was a former world champion who hit me with some devastating shots and almost took my head off my shoulders.
“I remember I was watching TV with my wife in the hotel room after one of the punches landed. I thought I was somewhere else. It was almost a calming effect. You relax. Then all of a sudden I saw black and a flashing light and three people in front of me. I remember nodding at him and he didn’t even know. I didn’t show any real signs of being hurt but I knew I had been. I knew I had just gone somewhere else.”
That night McCullough managed to stay upright, go the distance, and ultimately win a unanimous decision after 12 rounds. He then later watched television in his hotel room with his wife – for real this time.
Had McCullough not been blessed with the ability to hold a shot, his night, and his memory of this night, might have been dramatically different. His career, too, might have been defined not by a WBC bantamweight title and heroic
