Johnny Lira obit

Local boxing champ Johnny Lira dies 

He was not on the list.

Johnny Lira was nicknamed the “World Class Pug,” a fearless fighter who battled his way through life on the streets of Chicago before earning accolades in the boxing ring.

“He was quite a fighter. He was a boxing champion at the park district and he went on to fight for the lightweight championship,” remembered longtime Chicago Park District superintendent Ed Kelly.

Lira passed away Saturday at Illinois Masonic Hospital from liver disease at 61.

Born July 31, 1951, Lira won the Chicago Golden Gloves Novice Middleweight title at 160 pounds, and in the Open division won a Catholic Youth Organization sectional title. He turned pro in 1976, going 14-0-1 to start his career.

In 1978, Lira won the USBA lightweight title when he knocked out Andrew Ganigan, who entered that bout 25-0. In 1979, Lira fought Ernesto Espana for the WBA lightweight title. But Espana stopped Lira in the ninth round of the bout held at the Conrad Hilton in Chicago.

Lira retired in 1984 with a 29-6-1 record, including 15 knockouts. He later served as an amateur and pro boxing referee and judge.

Lira once was interviewed in a documentary produced by Terry Spencer Hesser that aired on WTTW-Ch. 11, and talked about his transformation from neighborhood troublemaker to boxing legend.

“I had compiled a long arrest record from the time I was 8 or 9 years old, up until the time I was 19,” Lira said. “And the many judges I stood before had wanted to wash their hands with my life and they seen that I was gonna be going nowhere, and they were getting ready to lock me up and throw away the key.

“One (criminal court) judge, Marvin Aspen, took a chance. He said if I kept my life clean, he’d have a surprise for me. He turned the sentencing around and maintained as long I stood into boxing and kept discipline and lived a clean lifestyle and continued to win my fights, he’d put me on a work release program. … I became the middleweight champion of the Golden Gloves in that year.

“I am a true testimony of what boxing can do as far as … taking a young man’s negative energy and turning it to a positive direction. I should either have been dead, in the penitentiary, or both. But here I am talking to you.”

Visitation for Lira will be from 2-9 p.m. Wednesday, at the Schielka Addison Street Funeral Home at 7710 W. Addison St. in Chicago. The funeral service will begin at 4 p.m.