Gordon: Prodigous pop made Julian Jackson a star in Vegas

But his eyes still have that youthful twinkle, his smile still warm and welcoming and his hands probably still packed with power.

A strong, stiff handshake would suggest as much, anyway.

“My trainer told me, ‘Julian, you don’t have to force the punch. All you have to do is punch because it’s natural. It’s there,’” the former junior middleweight and middleweight boxing champion recalled from Resorts World Las Vegas.

“It turned into something that — it’s happening right now. I’m inducted because of that.”

Prodigious punching power propelled Jackson to the pinnacle of his profession. To 21 fights in Las Vegas, where he won his first world title in 1987 and fought in six additional world title bouts. And to the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame, in which he was honored Saturday at Resorts World Las Vegas alongside the 26 other boxers and boxing contributors who comprise its 2020, 2021 and 2022 classes.

He claimed 49 of his 55 victories by way of knockout, unofficially qualifying as one of the most devastating punchers in boxing history and officially earning enshrinement in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the hall’s annual gala — and delayed Jackson’s return to Las Vegas.

“Las Vegas is almost my second home,” said Jackson, who lived for four years in Las Vegas after retiring and was also inducted in 2019 into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

“Las Vegas is the place that made me what I am.”

Packing a punch

So too did the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Jackson was raised by a single mother and struggled to focus without the structure that boxing would eventually provide. She was deeply spiritual and he is too, crediting God for the sporting achievements that include championships at 154 and 160 pounds.

But he used to lack the self-esteem that boxing would develop, revealing that he “didn’t realize that I was going to become anything, until I got involved in boxing.”

He was 12 at the time and convinced to box by a fighting friend whom he’d follow to a local gym, thereby fulfilling his mother’s request that he commit to a craft.

By 16, he was brimming with confidence — and enough pop in his right hand to drop a local professional in sparring. He hadn’t yet knocked anyone out, let alone world champions like Baek In-chul, Buster Drayton and Terry Norris.

“I ran over to him. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’ And my coach screamed out ‘No, don’t do that! … This is part of boxing. It happens,’” Jackson recalled. “I couldn’t believe it, but after that, I realized there was something special about my punching ability.”

Special is an understatement.

Try generational or legendary.

‘Good to be back’

He’d one-punch opponents with either hand and occasionally point to the spot on the canvas where’d the fall unconscious. His favorite shot is still the short right that stopped Norris on his feet in Atlantic City the night of July 30, 1989.

“I caught him with a couple punches going down, but to tell you the truth, that one punch was it,” he says with that smile.

Countless other ones were equally effective.

Each and every knockout would build his billing — and that of his beloved Virgin Islands.

”The Virgin Islands are only 32 square miles. You can run that so easily,” Jackson said. “Coming from such a small island, nobody knows who you are, nobody recognizes you. You’re just a dot on the map.”

Everybody seemed to recognized Jackson this weekend though at Resorts World Las Vegas. He with the graying hair, warm smile and yes, the heavy hands that made him a star here so many years ago.

“It feels good to be back in Vegas, man.”

Welcome home, champ.

Contact Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on Twitter.