Quote Originally Posted by hitmandonny
I have a little rumour here about Barry that fly abouty in the Irish gyms:

When Barry fought Cruise, the majority of Irish peopl (and particularily Northern Irish People,) invested in what they saw as a sure-thing for our Barry.
Now Barney Eastwood, Barrys manager just to happened to own something in the region of 70% of the bookmakers shops in NI. This created a conflict of interest. Barry wins=Barney still has a world champ.
Barry loses=Mr.Eastwood obtains a substantial amount ofmoney.
The story that is commonplace here (and is not denied!) is that during the fight (which took place in a climate we as Irish people would melt in!) Barry was given no water after round 1 on the orders of Mr.Eastwood.

The reason that Barry was inducted into the boxing hall of fame is not only because of his own boxing career it is the infleunce he had on hundreds of thousands of Irish people. Anybody who's bin about the past twenty years or so should be aware of the violent turbulence that occured in our little country. McGuigan helped ease that, he was the Catholics, the protestants, the republicans and the loyalist poster boy. He was non comittal to either side, having his dad sing Danny Boy, rather Amhran na bhFhiann or God save the Queen Nobody was a touch of class.No1 had ever transcended religions the way Barry McGuigan had. He endorsed the sport, he was is and always will be adored by the Irish and indeed the British.