Boxer Ken Buchanan has told how he and his father cried in a Puerto Rican ring after Scotland’s greatest ever fighter became light heavyweight champion following the death of his mother.
In a new BBC documentary exploring the extraordinary life of the Leith-born boxer, Buchanan, 76, recalled the pain of losing his ‘greatest ever supporter’ before the September 1970 bout that saw him claim the WBA and The Ring belts.
Cathy Buchanan died at the age of 51, two years before the showdown in 40-degree heat against Panamanian Ismael Laguna.
Ken would go onto make history as undisputed light heavyweight champion of the world a year later when he defeated Ruben Navarro in Los Angeles but he described the emotional moment he realised his mother had tragically missed out on his landmark achievement.
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“Tears were running down my face because the person I wanted to be there was my mum, that's what she always wanted, to see me being a world champion,” he told Undisputed: The Life and Times of Ken Buchanan.
“I was completely shattered after the fight but me and my dad just held each other greeting because I’d done it.
“Laguna thought I would have went down the swanny easy because of the heat and what it was going to do to me because he was Panamanian and he was used to the heat.
“He actually said to me afterwards: 'I expected you to collapse after about seven or eight rounds, when it hit the 11th or 12th round I kept on saying to my manager 'what's keeping him up?'”
Buchanan’s son Mark and East Lothian fighter Josh Taylor, who emulated his feat by becoming undisputed light heavyweight champion in May this year, are also featured in the documentary.
Buchanan remains the only living British fighter in the international boxing hall of fame following his induction in 2000.
In October last year, it was revealed he had been given a heartbreaking diagnosis of dementia and was now living in an Edinburgh care home.
However he has no regrets from a career that spanned almost 20 years and took him to every corner of the globe.
He said: “I think I'm a Jock Tamson, I don't put myself above nobody.”
Everybody is on the same level as me and I'm not feeling bad about my life.
I've had a good life, a great life, I've done things that nobody in this country has done and I enjoyed it."
He added: “I've got no axe to grind. I've just lived my life and that's it because if I were to sit and worry about it I would never get any sleep.
"I'm just Kenny Buchanan, I was a world champion but that's all behind me, finished and done with."
Undisputed: The Life and Times of Ken Buchanan airs at 10pm on Tuesday, September 14 on the BBC Scotland channel.
