Ringside Report Remembers the Late Boxing Champion Keith Mullings (1968-2021)

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

The Brooklyn Assassin may have had an all-American nickname, but the fact was that he hailed from a British former colony – Jamaica. Keith Mullings 16-8-1, 11 KO’s, was a light middleweight we recently lost at the tragic age of only 53. Active in the years, professionally 1993 to 2001, it was also quite a short career in which he managed twenty-five professional contests and was a world title challenger for an IBF belt before he shocked the world by taking the lineal and the WBC titles from Terry Norris.

As well as fighting for the IBF and the WBC titles, he was in against David Reid in 1999 for the WBA belt, as he had lost his WBC strap earlier that same year.

Retirement came in 2001 and happened a year after he lost to Winky Wright in his penultimate contest. His final fight was for the WBF championship.
Mullings’ life was forged in Brooklyn, where he attended James Madison High School. It was an auspicious start to his life and benefitted others who attended – like Senators Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, and Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

By the end of his career, and like many former boxers he was unable to deny the allure of the gym and turned his hand to training as he took up teaching at Peekskill Be First Boxing, 9 years after retiring. A community asset, the gym taught life skills as well as boxing and became quite a beacon in the neighborhood. They had laudable aims and feet planted firmly on the ground as this not-for-profit worked its magic in a tough community. Gary Pippa, the head trainer announced the news of Mullings’ death on social media.

It is quite easy to see his achievements as overachieving and we have debates constantly about the fighters of today getting world title fights easier than they ever did. That could certainly be true in comparison to the guys who have gone out and fought 40, 50 opponents in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s but 30 years ago to have managed no more than 25 contests, 3 of them world title fights, is pretty damn remarkable. To have won two of them – when he got his hands on the WBC belt and then defended it, makes his story even more laudable. From the beginning, he turned professional on the 24th of July 1993, at the Showboat Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City where he stopped his first opponent, Wayne Sharp in the 2nd round. Things began well.
But, let’s us go back to one night in 1997. Mullings is in the ring and facing him is a man who, if he gets past him will have his payday. A night dancing with Oscar De La Hoya. Heady.
The script was however written in the stars. And they did not align for Norris. In fact, they were seriously out of kilter. It was the 6th of December 1997, in Caesar’s Hotel and Casino, Atlantic City.

Norris, by the 8th round was over keen. Mullings had an over keen right hand in response, which responded by smacking Norris clean on the chin. Norris fell. Norris got up. Mullings pounded away at him for the rest of the round. Then came the bell. A time to regroup, take stock, formulate a game plan. You only have a minute.

It was not enough time as Mullings simply carried on where he left off and forced the referee to make the decision to intervene and save Norris from the beating he was taking in the 9th.
Mullings was the WBC world champion; Norris had just lost his payday.

The road to that night had seen him take up boxing in the army but the experience fighting in Operation Desert Storm left him with the scars that come from PTSD. He held his training camps when he fought as a pro in the US Army Base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and it meant he was never too far away from his army days and the influence that must have had on him.
Once he was professional, he went on a 13 fight winning streak which was then spoilt by some decidedly dodgy judging. There were two split decision losses, a draw and a loss to Tony Marshall in a 7 month spell which looked to have put paid to any pretensions he might have had.

He had lost the feet and the power of his hands which had proven so effective early in his career where he had amassed an early record which was impressive. He needed to sculpt a return which was incredible as he went in and beat Donald Stokes, who had a 39-1-1 record in the July of 1997 in Moline. The world woke up and he got a world title shot.
Two months after he was in against Raul Marquez for the IBF title. He lost by split decision, but Marquez was apparently fortunate. The unbeaten nearly lost his tag. It led to Mullings getting the shot against Norris. Bet you, it was because they thought he would be an easy touch.

Three months after, the fight with Norris turned him from bitter to winner.

He defended the belt once against Davide Ciarlante. He stopped Ciarlante in the 5th before heading to Spain and losing his title to Javier Castillejo in a majority decision loss on the 29th of January 1999.

We saw him in the UK. His final fight was to be at the Conference Centre in Wembley where he lost to Steve Roberts. Having lost his title to Castillejo, he then took on WBA champion David Reid and then Winky Wright before finally calling it a day after the third of these losses to Roberts.

The Reid fight was for the WBA title, the Wright fight for the NABF and USBA titles whilst his final fight, against Roberts was for the minor WBF super welterweight title.
Not bad for somebody who only fought 25 times. Not bad for a man who never forgot where he came from and gave service, in the military and in the gym. In fact, not bad at all. Quiet the opposite in fact.

But let me leave it to a man who knew him, in an interview online, Ron Katz, the matchmaker who made a number of Mullings’ fights, remembered him as “a kid who gave everything in the ring each time he showed up.” Amen and RIP.

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