ON THE rare occasions it’s not raining, mountains can be seen in the distance from many vantage points in Seattle.
They inspire you to climb, and Boone Kirkman did climb, both the mountains and the boxing rankings. He conquered four of the five highest peaks in Washington State, and at his own peak was ranked among the world’s best heavyweights.
But while he bagged the “big one” in the great outdoors – Mt Rainier, all 14,400ft of it, and eight times, no less – in the ring, the top prize – a shot at the world title – remained elusive.
Of that, Kirkman says: “It used to bother me. It was one of my dreams. But the older you get, you just think, ‘oh well’.”
With age often comes such pragmatism, and inevitably reflection. Kirkman looks out of the window of the cafe in a strip mall where he has met Boxing News and says: “I remember when this was all swamp – that’s how old I am.”
He turned 80 two days ago (February 6) and remains mentally sharp and enthusiastic. Only a few age-related maladies have slowed him physically, and not by much – only enough to stop him completing the five Washington peaks. Kirkman has stood atop Mounts Rainier, Adams (12,281ft), Baker (10,786ft) and St Helens, which he summited before a 1980 volcanic eruption took more than a thousand feet off its 9,677ft elevation. Glacier Peak (10,541ft) is the one that got away, and that will remain the case.
“I did a lot of hiking until I had Bells palsy in 2014,” he says, referring to a form of nerve paralysis that primarily affects one side of the face but can also have wider effects. “People think I’ve had a stroke or got Parkinson’s, but I’m okay.”
He’s fit enough to drive and walk well, and so Kirkman takes BN on a tour of his hometown of Renton, a suburb 12 miles south of downtown Seattle. First, we swing by the Melrose, now a restaurant but formerly a pub, one of the oldest in the state, having opened in 1901 and which Kirkman owned in the ‘70s. While running a bar might not sound like the best idea for a competitive athlete, Kirkman made best use of the premises.
“There was a brothel upstairs before a fire destroyed the upper floor,” he says, referring to a time long before he owned it. As for when he did: “I trained there, skipping rope and hitting the bag. People liked to come in and watch.
“I was working the bar from six till two in the morning. Around 10 or 11, you’d get the drunks coming in. There was rarely any trouble, though.”
Which is no surprise, given who was running the place – and some of the clientele it would attract.
“Joe Frazier came through to drink in my bar,” says Kirkman. “He was in Seattle. Real nice guy. The next day, I took him running, then he invited me over to his gym to help him with sparring before he fought Joe Bugner [in 1973].
“I asked him what it’s like being heavyweight champion. He said it’s like a job.”
A job that Kirkman no doubt wanted to try his hand at, but while he never would take home a title belt, his accomplishments have been immortalised in Renton. Next stop: a restaurant bedecked on one side by a large mural paying tribute to the town’s favourite fighting son, depicting all the things he’s known for: boxing, the mountains, the Melrose, and the truck he drove for a living after he hung up his gloves.
Kirkman strikes a pose in front of his likeness; something he must have done innumerable times since its completion in 2018. The mural was the idea of a local councillor, Fay Moss, who told the Renton Reporter newspaper that Kirkman “was such a hometown hero and there has never been anything done to remember him”. She secured $5,000 of funding from the Renton Municipal Arts Commission and Port of Seattle, and artist Will Schlough got the job.
It serves as a vivid reminder of how ‘Boom Boom’ Kirkman towered over the Pacific Northwest sports scene, while the accompanying numbers provide context. The years, 1966-1978, will resonate with any boxing fan, for it was when many of the greatest heavyweights the world has known simultaneously occupied the ranks, and the win-loss record, 36-6, shows how well Kirkman did in their company.
He fought the likes of George Foreman, Ken Norton and Ron Lyle. He beat Jimmy Ellis, Eddie Machen, Doug Jones, Jose Roman and Ron Stander, who all fought for world championships while Kirkman didn’t. On his way up, the Seattle Post called him a “young Jack Dempsey”. In June 1968, he was on the cover of The Ring, and in early 1974, after he had beaten Ellis, the magazine ranked him no. 7 in the world.
“Boxing was real big when I was young,” he says. “Everybody was a boxing fan. It was before Seattle had any franchise sports. They didn’t even have [American] football.”
“My dad took me to boxing matches when I was young. I told him, ‘one of these days, you’re gonna see me up there.’ Nine years later I won the Seattle Golden Gloves. I was 18. My dad said, ‘even if you do nothing else, I’m proud of you’.”
But he did plenty more. There were further regional Golden Gloves wins, in Tacoma and Portland, before Kirkman won the AAU national heavyweight championship in Toledo, Ohio, in 1965. The following year he turned pro with veteran manager Jack Hurley.
Hurley was 69 by then and had been managing boxers for nearly 50 years, but had never taken one to a title. He saw in Kirkman one last chance to do that, and was experienced and connected enough to build ‘Boom Boom’ into both a box office attraction and a legit contender. But their relationship soured in the wake of Kirkman’s biggest fight: a Madison Square Garden main event against Foreman on November 18, 1970.
Foreman, just 21, was the big attraction, as an Olympic gold medallist with a 23-0, 20 KOs, pro record, but Kirkman, at 25 and 22-1, 18 KOs, was not far behind. It was a keenly anticipated meeting of young heavyweights, but unfortunately for Kirkman, and for Hurley, it resulted in a quick defeat. Foreman won by second-round stoppage but, while Kirkman concedes Foreman was both the best boxer and hardest puncher he ever faced, he claims he was disadvantaged by a combination of injury, poor preparation and a brazen foul.
“The first thing he did, he ran across the ring and shoved me over,” he says. “It wasn’t a punch, it was a push, and I hurt my collarbone.
“I first broke my collarbone playing with my brother as kids, then I broke it again sparring. I hurt it again when Foreman pushed me down. I heard a crack. I won the first round, but he got me in the second. I would have continued, but I was in too much pain.
“I just felt wronged – my collarbone, the push, and I wasn’t prepared. Hurley hadn’t got me any good sparring partners. There were a lot of things. We split up after that fight.”
Kirkland took two years out to let his collarbone heal, and by the time he came back, Hurley had passed away anyway. He never did get his champion, and Kirkland would never get his title shot. He would, however, get a rematch with ‘Big George’, in bizarre circumstances.
Four and a half years after first fighting Kirkman, Foreman was an ex-champ trying to rebuild his once formidable reputation. As part of this effort, he declared he could beat five men in one night.
Don King – who else? – set up the challenge and put it on in Toronto on April 26, 1975. Each fight was scheduled for three rounds and, though they were officially exhibition matches, they were full-contact. Kirkman was the last of the five. He entered the ring fresh, while Foreman had contested nine rounds in seeing off the first four opponents (three by stoppage).
“I thought if I did well, I’d get another shot at him,” says Kirkman.
He did better than the first time, lasting the distance. “It was an exhibition, but it was a real fight. He hit me with a good shot in the first round and he said I broke his rib.”
After the first Foreman fight, Kirkland had regrouped well, with 10 consecutive victories, most notably the December 1973 split decision over Jimmy Ellis.
“He was a real good boxer,” says Kirkland of the former WBA champion. “He knocked me down in the first round, but I’d trained real hard for him. I worked my jab and beat him pretty good. It was my best win.”
But it was followed, four months later, by his worst loss.
In a result that barely looks feasible on paper, the seventh-best heavyweight in the world was knocked clean out in three rounds by a journeyman who’d won only five of 27 previous bouts.
“Al Jones was the nightmare of my boxing career,” winces Kirkman. “I’d just got a new promoter and I went down there [to Dallas] for a tune-up – and I got tuned out.”
It was going exactly as expected, with Jones having been floored four times in the opening two rounds. But, within 15 seconds of the third, it was Kirkman who was down and out. A single right hand had done the damage as Kirkman moved in.
“He hit me with a good shot, then I hit the back of my head on the canvas,” he recalls. “It was the only time I was knocked out cold.”
It was a calamitous result at the worst possible time, but while it forever scuppered the world title dream, it did, under boxing’s weird logic, lead to big fights against Ken Norton and Ron Lyle. Kirkman lost both, but says he had overtrained for Norton (“I kicked his ass the first three rounds and then ran out of gas. I broke one of his ribs, too.”) and was ahead against Lyle when he was stopped on a cut in round eight.
“Two more rounds and I might have got a shot at Ali,” he says.
That was Kirkman’s other big dream. Title or not, he’d always wanted to fight Ali. “I had a style I thought could beat him,” he says. “He liked to dance for six, seven rounds and then move in. But I’d get him on the ropes and work the body.
“I did a lot of body work because I didn’t want to hurt my hands. I broke my hand in the Tacoma Golden Gloves.”
Broken hands, broken collarbones, cuts and shock defeats – it seems the fates were conspiring against Kirkman. And yet he did what so few fighters do – he finished on his own terms.
By September 1975, he was on a four-fight losing streak and verging on journeyman status. An 18-month break was followed by a reset and a final run that saw Kirkman score four wins, including three of the best of his career, against Roman, Stander and Pedro Agosto.
The latter gave him a scare. “Agosto knocked me down in the first round. I went back to my corner and my cornerman said, ‘Okay, Boone, it’s the last round’. I couldn’t remember anything! But I beat him in a 10-rounder.”
After that experience, and one more win, Kirkman was content to call it a day in January 1978, aged 33. He drove trucks until 2010, when he retired fully.
“I was still getting [fight] offers but the money was no good. I had a family and wanted a stable income,” he says, “and I was just tired.”
Not so tired that he wouldn’t go scrambling up some of the highest mountains in the United States, cycle thousands of miles a year on a bicycle, and generally reconnect with nature; a passion instilled in him as a child by his father, who gave him the name by which he is best known.
Boone was born Daniel Kirkman, but when accompanying his dad on fishing, hunting and hiking trips, he would often get distracted by his surroundings and cause delays as he stopped to examine plants or wander off. “I couldn’t keep up. Dad used to shout, ‘Come on, Daniel Boone!” after the popular 1960s TV show about the famed frontiersman of that name. The name stuck, as did Kirkman’s love of the outdoors.
“I never get tired of hiking,” he says. “Looking at the woods, the trees, the lakes and waterfalls – that’s my heaven.”
