Sport
Landmark
Ayub Kalule
born 1954
The only Ugandan to win both amateur and professional world titles
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Uganda Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
He won gold at the first World Amateur Boxing Championships in Havana in 1974, then took a professional world title — the only Ugandan to have done both.
Ayub Kalule came out of the Kampala boxing gyms in the era when Uganda produced fighters in numbers, and won gold at the inaugural World Amateur Boxing Championships in Havana in 1974, along with Commonwealth and All-Africa titles.
He left Uganda during Idi Amin's rule and settled in Denmark, turning professional in 1976. He won his first thirty-six fights and took the WBA light-middleweight championship of the world in 1979, defending it four times.
He lost it in 1981 to Sugar Ray Leonard, stopped in the ninth round in Houston in a fight that is still shown — and when Leonard was knocked down for the first time in his career in a later bout, it was Kalule's name that came up in every account of who had pushed him. He fought on into the mid-1980s and remains the only Ugandan boxer to have held world titles as both an amateur and a professional.
He left Uganda during Idi Amin's rule and settled in Denmark, turning professional in 1976. He won his first thirty-six fights and took the WBA light-middleweight championship of the world in 1979, defending it four times.
He lost it in 1981 to Sugar Ray Leonard, stopped in the ninth round in Houston in a fight that is still shown — and when Leonard was knocked down for the first time in his career in a later bout, it was Kalule's name that came up in every account of who had pushed him. He fought on into the mid-1980s and remains the only Ugandan boxer to have held world titles as both an amateur and a professional.
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