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Former WBF Intercontinental
Light Welterweight Champion
Patrick “Country Boy” Washington
was by
some considered one of the best
kept secrets in American boxing
when he was coming up as a young
professional prospect in the mid
to late nineties.
From a small Florida town called
Greenville, population less than
one-thousand and best known as
the childhood home of R & B icon
Ray Charles, Washington was born
in March of 1969. He later moved
with his family to Orlando,
where he graduated from
High-school and picked up boxing
before enlisting in the army.
Unfortunately he didn’t live up
to his full potential as a
boxer, and many will claim that
him winning the Intercontinental
title barely scratched the
surface of what he could have
achieved. As is the case with so
many boxers, he missed out on
the right opportunities, despite
having the talent to go all the
way.
Washington boxed in the army as
a Lightweight, representing Fort
Bragg in North Carolina where he
served as a paratrooper in the
82nd Airborne
Division. In 1992 he married
girlfriend Dee, with whom he
would later have two daughters.
On January 7, 1994, without much
fanfare, a 24-year-old
Washington made his professional
debut on a small show in
Decatur, Georgia, beating
no-hoper Robert Woods (1-39).
The two of them didn’t belong in
the same ring, and Washington
showed no mercy in scoring a
first round stoppage.
A month later he followed up
with another first round
victory, this time over debutant
Jim Henry in Sanford, North
Carolina. Six weeks on in
Forrest City he was taken into
the third round by another
first-timer, Billy Evans, before
landing the finishing blows.
The Evans fight was one of the
preliminary bouts of a card
headlined by former WBF World
Super Welterweight Champion
Tommy Small, and with
Heavyweight contender, and
former WBF Intercontinental
titlist, Melton Bowen also on
the bill.
But more often than not, the
shows where Washington saw
action at the start of his
career didn’t attract much
attention outside the small
towns they were staged in. The
economics of the North and South
Carolina circuit restricted the
quality of opposition, but at
least he kept fairly active
while learning his trade.
Inside the first nine months of
his paid career, Washington
raced to a perfect 7-0 record,
with six of his wins coming by
stoppage. He had handled every
challenge put in front of him
with ease, and looked good doing
so by displaying slickness,
technique and power in both
hands.
But five of his foes were
entering their first pro fight,
and the two others had a
combined tally of 1-40, so it is
fair to say that he had not yet
been properly tested when he was
matched against fellow prospect
Leon Hinnant (2-0) in Raleigh on
February 17, 1995.
Hinnant had not been tested
either, and his two victories
had come by first round knockout
against poor opposition. So he
was much in the same position as
Washington, who turned out to be
a level above and won the fight
in two one-sided rounds.
Having passed his first small
step up in competition with
flying colors, Washington was
finally handed a proper
challenge on April 26, 1995. He
was booked to fight the tough
Harold Bennett (12-7-2) over
twelve rounds in Raleigh, with
the vacant WBF Intercontinental
Light Welterweight title on the
line.
“Baby
Face” Bennett had beaten another
prospect, Marlon Thomas, a few
years earlier, and fought
contenders such as Aaron Davis,
John Coward and Keith Holmes.
Also, he had gone the distance
with future WBO World Champion
Michael Loewe in Germany, so his
level of competition and
experience was far superior to
Washington´s.
But, in a time where most boxers
enter the ring to Hip-Hop or
Rock music, and seemingly not
phased by the task at hand,
Washington raised a few eyebrows
when he made his ring-walk for
what was his first main event
and first championship fight.
Perfectly fitting his “Country
Boy” moniker, he came out of the
dressing room looking more like
a farmer than a fighter, and
with the tunes of John Denver
blasting from the loud-speakers.
“I
was the main event of a card in
Raleigh, and everyone was coming
out to rap music”, Washington
explained a few years ago. “So
my manager at the time went and
got a John Denver CD, overalls,
a straw-hat and a big stick for
me. People freaked out, shocked
to see that I was a black man,
coming to the ring like that.”
And Washington delivered in the
ring that night, boxing very
well for twelve rounds to score
a clear unanimous decision over
Bennett to become WBF
Intercontinental Light
Welterweight Champion in only
his ninth professional outing.
It was a nice step in the right
direction for him, but he still
hadn’t managed to catch the eye
of any of the major promoters in
the sport. And without the
support of one of the “big fish”
it is always going to be hard to
make a break-through in boxing.
In the next two years Washington
stayed busy winning eleven
fights, but none of his
opponents were good enough to
really test him. He beat decent
trail-horses Clifford Hicks
(14-23), Benji Singleton
(15-24-1) and David Taylor
(25-35-3), but those victories
didn’t do much for his career.
Finally, in June of 1997, he was
given a big opportunity to break
onto the world scene when he was
pitted against highly skilled
Southpaw Corey “Primetime”
Johnson (21-2-1) from Detroit in
the main event of a show at the
Celebrity Theater in Phoenix,
Arizona.
Johnson was world class, and his
two losses were against Stevie
Johnston, who would go on the
become a dominant WBC World
Champion, and Kostya Tszyu in a
challenge for the Russians IBF
World title a year earlier. If
Washington could beat Johnson,
he could very well be close to a
world title-shot himself.
Unfortunately Washington was not
yet ready for someone of
Johnson´s caliber. Iron sharpens
Iron, as they say, and the
victories over boxers not in his
class had not prepared the now
28-year-old Floridian to take
the next step up the ladder.
Now fighting as a Welterweight,
Washington was knocked down in
the sixth round, and twice more
in the seventh before the bout
was stopped and he had lost for
the first time in the
professional ranks. He would
never lose again, but he would
also never fight again, and he
retired with a 20-1 (15) record.
The career-path of Patrick
Washington is not a rare one. A
boxer can have all the talent in
the world, he can have
everything it takes, but if the
right opportunities are not
there, and the right matchmaking
is absent, talent alone will not
get you all the way.
Still living in the Orlando
area, and still married to Dee,
Washington has kept in touch
with the sport he loves, and was
so good at, by working as a
matchmaker. He never reached the
absolute top himself, but
perhaps he can now use his
experiences to help a young,
aspiring boxer do so.
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