Pat "Irish" O'Connor (1950 – May 23, 2025) was a professional

light heavyweight Light heavyweight is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing Professional In professional boxing, the division is above and up to , falling between super middleweight and cruiserweight (boxing), cruiserweight. The light heavyweight class has ...

boxer Boxer most commonly refers to: *Boxer (boxing), a competitor in the sport of boxing * Boxer (dog), a breed of dog Boxer or boxers may also refer to: Animal kingdom * Boxer crab * Boxer shrimp, a small group of decapod crustaceans * Boxer snipe ee ...

from

Rochester, Minnesota Rochester is a city in Olmsted County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. It is located along rolling bluffs on the Zumbro River's south fork in Southeast Minnesota. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a popul ...

Amateur career

At the age of 16 O'Connor won the 1967

Golden Gloves The Golden Gloves of America is an organization that promotes annual competitions of amateur boxing in the United States, in which winners are awarded a belt and a ring, and the title of national champion. The organization currently owns 30 fr ...

national

welterweight Welterweight is a weight class in combat sports. Originally the term ''welterweight'' was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like muay Thai, taekwondo, and mixed martial arts also use it for their own weight division system to classify th ...

championship.

Professional career

O'Connor's first professional fight was a second-round

knockout A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, ...

win against Muhammed Smith on June 6 of 1968. O'Connor ran his record to 12-0 before facing his first "name" opponent, fellow Minnesotan

Duane Horsman Duane D. Horsman (January 23, 1937 – July 1991), was a middleweight professional boxer from Minnesota. Personal life Horsman was a native of Chatfield, Minnesota. Professional career In a career that spanned from 1959 to 1970, Duane Horsman am ...

. Despite breaking his hand during the bout, O'Connor outboxed Horsman for six rounds en route to a

unanimous decision A unanimous decision (UD) is a winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts and other sports involving striking and submission in which all three judges agree on which fighte ...

win. O'Connor would continue to win through the summer of 1972, finally suffering his first loss after 31 consecutive victories when Andy Kendall defeated him by

technical knockout A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, a ...

in the seventh round of a ten-round match. Despite the setback, O'Connor continued to fight regularly until March 1978, when he finally retired after losing three bouts in a row. O'Connor retired with a professional record of 41 wins and 6 losses, with 19 wins coming by way of a knockout. O'Connor died from Parkinson's disease on May 23, 2025, at the age of 74.Former Rochester boxing great Pat O'Connor dies at 74
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Notes

1950 births 2025 deaths Boxers from Minnesota Light-heavyweight boxers American male boxers 20th-century American sportsmen Deaths from Parkinson's disease in Minnesota {{US-boxing-bio-stub