Harold Brazier: 105 Wins Out of South Bend

born 1955 · South Bend's fighter

The Sports record of this history left men's professional boxing beyond Johnny Nate's gym as a gap. The register closes it, and the name is Harold Brazier. Harold Leon Brazier was born October 22, 1955 — BoxRec gives Indianapolis as the birthplace and South Bend as the hometown; other registers print South Bend as the birthplace, and the conflict stands — and he fought out of South Bend for twenty-two years, one of the few modern fighters to win more than a hundred professional bouts. His own account gives him about thirty-one amateur fights, with a Golden Gloves title won at Fort Wayne and the Catholic Youth Organization sectional championship in Chicago in 1980. He debuted as a professional on May 18, 1982, and when he retired in 2004 his line stood at 105 wins, 18 losses and one draw, with 64 knockouts on BoxRec's count — one retrospective prints 65 — across 127 bouts, in which he was stopped only twice.

Twice he fought for a world championship. In 1988 he lost the WBC super lightweight title fight to Roger Mayweather on a twelve-round split decision, and in 1989 he lost the WBA title fight to Juan Martin Coggi over twelve rounds. The belts he did hold make a shelf of their own: the Indiana State light welterweight title in 1985, the NABF super lightweight title from 1986 to 1989, the Indiana State welterweight title in 1987, the IBF Inter-Continental junior welterweight title from 1990 to 1992, Mid-American and Mid-West light middleweight titles in 1993, the USBA welterweight title in 1994 and the WAA light middleweight title in 1996. Across his career he fought seven world champions — Lloyd Honeyghan, Meldrick Taylor, Mayweather, Coggi, Livingstone Bramble, Pernell Whitaker and Vince Phillips — and he beat, among others, Micky Ward, John Wesley Meekins, Brian Baronet and Robin Blake. South Bend saw him at home, on Century Center cards through the 1990s. At forty-eight, after a six-year layoff, he came back in December 2003 to outpoint Brooke Wellby, the Canadian welterweight champion, at Hobart, and then retired for good in 2004. Al Bernstein, the Hall of Fame broadcaster, said it on a television special and the retrospective record keeps it: "Harold never won a world title but he is indeed a champion." He still lives in South Bend, where a street carries his name, and his brother also fought professionally. He is, on the register's evidence, the best fighter this city ever produced.

Sources

1. BoxRec, Harold Brazier — the hometown and birthplace lines, the amateur account, the 1982 debut, the final record of 105–18–1 with 64 knockouts, the title list, the two world title challenges and the seven champions faced.
2. Max Boxing, "Looking Back — Harold Brazier," November 2025 — the Mayweather fight's closeness, the wins over Ward, Meekins, Baronet and Blake, the Bernstein statement, the South Bend street and residence; its knockout count of 65 against BoxRec's 64.
3. South Bend Tribune, 2003, and CyberBoxingZone — the comeback at forty-eight against Wellby and the 2004 retirement.