Lee McAllister - meet the Scottish belt collector with a Ghanaian boxing title

Numerically, Lee McAllister is Britain’s most decorated boxer. No fewer than 19 professional belts adorn his trophy shelf, ranging from prestigious, historic titles to straps you’ve maybe never heard of. The oddest accolade, though, is that McAllister – born, raised and living his whole life in Aberdeen – can proudly call himself the super-welterweight champion of Ghana.

Boxing takes a notoriously flexible approach to rankings, but a Scotsman being crowned king of an African country seems a stretch even for this sport. How did this title reign – which began courtesy of a third-round stoppage of Collinson Korley in Accra in March 2021 – come about?

“I was eligible because I’ve got residency in Ghana,” McAllister explains. “I’ve fought a lot of guys from Africa and have a good relationship with those countries. Now I’m involved with a company [in Ghana] and I’ve seen how the people are struggling for day-to-day belongings, so I do as much as I can to help, shipping containers over, doing good deeds and charity work. I’ve got a lot of good friends in Africa and my work there was recognised. I’ve got residency in Senegal and Morocco, too.”

Perhaps the championship of one of those countries could be McAllister’s next target as the 40-year-old “Aberdeen Assassin” seeks to finish his career with a couple of round numbers.

“I’m 48-3 and I’d like to push for a minimum of 50 wins and 20 professional titles,” he says. “I’ve got to 19, so it would be nice to round it off.”

Of those 19 titles, perhaps the best reigns were a couple of Commonwealth stints, at lightweight from 2009-10 and super-lightweight in 2011, while the best known might be his WBU heavyweight stint in 2018.

That’s right, heavyweight. McAllister, whose best work has come between lightweight and welterweight, was involved in a bizarre encounter with Danny Williams that summer. Given McAllister once scaled as low as 129lb, again we have to ask how this came about.

“I’d already had one heavyweight fight when I was overweight and jumped in at the last minute to fight Lee Kellet [in April 2018],” McAllister says.

“I weighed 90.5kg [199.5lb] and won comfortably over four rounds. I did an interview with the local paper and they asked if I’d fight at heavyweight again. I said it was unlikely, but it would be interesting to see how I’d do against a top heavyweight like Danny Williams.

“Danny heard about this and hit back, saying he’d knock me out in a round. An hour later I sent the contract – I hate being told I can’t do something.”

McAllister set about not only preparing to fight a big, once-formidable heavyweight, but also sensibly gaining the pounds he’d need to compete at that level. Simply being “overweight”, as he was against journeyman Kellett, would not be enough.

“I was eating six meals a day,” he says. “By the end I was sick to death of food. I had to consume 10,000 calories a day to keep the weight on, as I was training hard as well.”

McAllister finally weighed in at 206lb to Williams’ 260lb, but made light of the discrepancy, winning on a 10th-round retirement.

“He was obviously not the same guy who beat [Mike] Tyson [in 2004],” McAllister concedes, “but stepping all the way up from lightweight to do that is something, regardless. He was very, very strong; a big, strong guy, but I’d been doing a lot of weights to bulk up, so I was hitting hard, too, hence I dropped him three times.”

Point proven, McAllister resurfaced a year later at middleweight, following this up by winning an array of belts at super-welterweight between 2019 and 2021, and then, last time out, claiming the WBO Intercontinental title at welterweight, close to what he weighed in his peak, and where most fans will remember him.

This is because McAllister’s career for the past nine years has for the most part been conducted away from the media glare, and if you’d looked him up on BoxRec, you’d maybe think he’d retired. The site’s last entry for McAllister prior to his Ghanaian title win was in April 2013.

That was the last time he competed for the British Board Board of Control (BBBofC). Since then, he’s been licensed by the British and Irish Boxing Authority (BIBA), an alternative governing body BoxRec does not recognise.

But is BoxRec, as the “official record keeper” of boxing, being remiss by not including BIBA results? Its stated rationale is that it only recognises one commission per country, but McAllister says this is inconsistent.

“If you look at Germany, Austria, Korea, they’ve all got a couple of commissions [recognised by BoxRec],” he says. “America, Mexico and Australia have different ones for each state. Even New Zealand has three or four.

“BoxRec are not a commission, they’re not the rulers of boxing. There are thousands of fighters around the world with incomplete records. I’ve had 10 more fights than BoxRec shows, and one of them was even a WBO fight.

“It needs to be addressed. Fighters are being put at risk. You might have someone with 10 or 12 fights, they’ve fought 12-rounders, and then they switch to BBBofC and BoxRec says they’re making their debut. That’s dangerous.”

Certainly, the idea of fights not being recorded on BoxRec steers a lot of boxers away from BIBA, so why did McAllister, who boxed on a BBBofC licence for 11 years from his debut in 2002, make the switch?

He debuted for BIBA in 2016 following a spell in prison for assault in 2015 (“a drunken argument that ended up bad; when you’re a boxer, you’re always a target”, he says). He had intended to return under the BBBofC and was set to attend a meeting to discuss his relicensing application.

“I was booked in for a Board meeting on a Sunday and was travelling down from Aberdeen [to Glasgow] so stopped off at a BIBA show on the Saturday on the way down,” he says. “I was talking with the late Kenny Barr, who was the Scottish vice-president for BIBA at the time, and he was keen to get me involved in BIBA.

“I received a phone call saying I cannot appear before the Board. I’d already booked a hotel and driven for hours. I said, ‘You know what, Kenny will give me a licence today, so I’ll be happy to take that, thank you very much.’”

McAllister has been a BIBA advocate ever since, but he admits some of his finest moments came with a Board licence, and that being trained by a BBBofC coach – the legendary Brendan Ingle – was the making of him.

“My Commonwealth titles, obviously, were great titles and some great wins, as was winning the original WBU title against Craig Docherty in a massive Scottish fight,” he says.

“The highlight, though, was working with Brendan Ingle [between 2001 and 2009]. Good times with Johnny Nelson, Esham Pickering, Ryan Rhodes, Junior Witter. Brendan was one of the ones, along with my dad, who steered me in the right direction. Without him, I’d be doing a lot of jail or dead by now.”

Even so, McAllister did almost die once, though it had nothing to do with boxing or wayward behaviour – it was a motorbike accident in Greece in 2004.

“A car hit me; hit and run,” he says. “I had a broken jaw, my eye socket was crushed, the handlebar went into my stomach, my spleen was taken out. I was told I’d never walk again, let alone box. I had to get my legs straightened out.”

And yet, he was boxing again less than eight months later. As he said of the prospect of fighting Danny Williams: “I hate being told I can’t do something” - whether that’s competing again after a motorbike accident, fighting a heavyweight or getting a boxing licence back.

Now, at 40, he is similarly stubborn in the face of anyone who says he’s too old to box.

“People used to say that to me when I was 30,” he says. “I’m at that age now that I’m an inspiration for those who are being told they’re too old.

“Now, with the nutrition and high-tech routines available, you can fight as long as you want. Age is just a number.”

As are 20 titles and 50 wins – even if 10 of them are missing from BoxRec.