Paul Vaden

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Paul Vaden (born December 29, 1967 in San Diego, CA) is a former professional boxer.

1 Amateur career
2 Pro career
3 External links

[edit] Amateur career

Known as "Ultimate", Vaden was an excellent amateur and highly skilled boxer. In 1990 he became the United States Amateur Light middleweight champion.

[edit] Pro career

Vaden turned pro in 1991 and began his career with 24 consecutive wins.

[edit] Rivalry with Terry Norris

Vaden became a heated rival of Terry Norris. The two despised each other and took shots at one another in the media long before they did in the ring.

The two rivals were both junior middleweight champions engaging in the first title unification in the division's history. For years they knew they would one day meet in the ring. Ring magazine wrote of the fighter's feud "Norris and Vaden despise each other with a frightening intensity".

[edit] Fight with Norris

The fight however turned out to be a complete dud. Norris jabbed and punched his way to one of the easiest decisions he ever had. Vaden, perhaps drained by trying to make weight, offered no excusses and declared the better man had won. Vaden had stated long before the fight that at 6'1" he was really at least a middleweight, but he forced himself to fight at junior middleweight so he could fight Norris.

[edit] Moving up in weight

His jump up in weight did help. He notched a few good wins and earned another title shot against WBC middleweight champ Keith Holmes. Holmes stopped Vaden in the 11th round.

[edit] Ring tragedy

Soon after, on the comeback trail, Paul would kill one of his opponents in the ring, Stephan Johnson. Paul was devastated, and lost all fighting heart from the guilt. Vaden lost his last bout, but admitted he should never have fought it in the first place because his heart was no longer in the boxing game.