By Tony Becca - From The Boundary 
JAMAICA HAS produced some of the world's best sportsmen and right up there, alongside the likes of George Headley, Herb McKenley, Arthur Wint, George Rhoden, Michael Holding and Courtney Walsh, is Mike McCallum.
A former junior middleweight, middleweight and light heavyweight champion of the world, McCallum boasts a record that is as good as any other Jamaican in any sport, that is better than many boxers around the world who have been rated above him, and it is good to see that his class has been finally recognised.
HALL OF FAME
Two Sundays ago, McCallum was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame and every Jamaican, boxing fan or not, should be proud and should be happy for the great Jamaican. It is an honour well deserved, and as one who has always felt that he never did get his just reward, the proper recognition for his skills in the ring, McCallum, "the Body Snatcher", must now be a happy man.
To be inducted into the Hall of Fame, however, is one thing, to be toasted by people in the business is something else and what was really wonderful were the tributes from the experts that followed the induction and which really underlined McCallum's greatness.
The list of boxing greats include Thomas Hearns, Evander Holyfield and Oscar de la Hoya. Like McCallum, all three fought out of the Kronk Gym where Emmual Steward was the trainer. He trained all four and in his opinion, McCallum, the man who knocked out Donald Curry with a beauty of a left hook, was the "most natural" boxer he ever trained.
After admitting that McCallum's talent was never properly appreciated, Steward said of McCallum, "he had tremendous natural talent and did everything with tremendous ease".
Coming from a man like Steward, that is high praise. And that was not all. Another big name in boxing, Angelo Dundee - the man who trained Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard - also was full of praise for the skilled Jamaican.
"Mike McCallum was an artist," said Dundee. "He had some moves that reinvented in the art of boxing. A tremendously interesting fighter because he was able to counteract a lot of styles and beat a lot of people. He was a heck of a fighter."
Both men, Steward and Dundee, are right. McCallum was a natural, his talent was never properly appreciated, he was a heck of a fighter, and he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
SHOT AT HEARNS
By saying what they have said, however, Jamaicans, and possibly also McCallum himself, must be once again asking themselves this question. Why was McCallum, who fought Roy Jones Jnr. when he was past it at age 40, denied a really big fight and never got a shot at Hearns or Leonard?
Maybe the answer lies in some of the words of Steward, who also trained Hearns, and Dundee, who trained Leonard.
Maybe there was a fear that McCallum possessed too much natural talent and that his body shots eventually would have exposed Hearns' chin.
Maybe there was a fear that McCallum was so good in counteracting styles that he would have confused Leonard and, as he did to Curry, knocked him flat and out for the count.
