HURRICANE' JACKSON Obit per NY Times 1982 "Mr. Jackson attended P.S. 44 but never learned to read, and could write only 'Best Wishes. Tommy Hurricane Jackson.' " Tommy (Hurricane) Jackson, the Rockaway Beach heavyweight who lost a bid for the world championship in 1957, died yesterday morning at Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens. He was 50 years old. Mr. Jackson, who fell on hard times after he was forced to retire from the ring at the age of 24 (?), had been struck by automobile last month on Merrick Boulevard in Springfield Gar dens when he was getting into the gypsy cab he drove for a living. The heavyweight, whose windmill style won him his nickname, met Floyd Patterson for the championship at the Polo Grounds on July 29, 1957. Patterson, in his first title defense, stopped Jackson in the 10th round. Jackson, never shy of punches, took such a pounding that the State Athletic Commission barred him from the ring afterward. Patterson, now a member of the commission, visited him in the hospital last month. The fighter was a popular figure in Queens in the brief time of his fame. His mother, Georgia, operated a luncheonette in Rockaway Beach while raising eight children. Mr. Jackson attended P.S. 44 but never learned to read and could write only ''Best Wishes. Tommy Hurricane Jackson.'' A Whirlwind Puncher He was a fierce fighter, lashing out from all directions and rarely ducking. He sometimes sparred 20 rounds a day while training for a fight - an enormous number of rounds for a boxer. The late columnist Red Smith described his style this way: ''Hurricane Jackson fights like a swarm of gnats, a cloud of mosquitos, a visitation of wasps. He doesn't knock people out. He drives them mad.'' Jackson's record when he was forced into retirement was 34 victories, nine losses and one draw. His first j ob when he left the ring was shining shoes on the stree ton Jamaica Avenue. He still lived at home with his mother. In an interview at that time with Robert Lipsyte, he said he still thought of his time i n the ring: ''I sit in the house and I think about the past, all the managers I had, five or six of them, how they truck me along so fast, how I never had sense enough to back off, and I get all teed up. Then I go to sleep.'' Mr. Jackson was married in 1956 and settled down in Jamaica, Queens. He resented being called a has-been, narrowing his eyes under the ridges of scar tissue. ''Has-been?'' he said. ''There's no such thing as a has-been. The only has-been is somebody that's not in the world anymore. If you're still alive, you can't be a has-been, only a gonna-be.'' Mr. Jackson is survived by his wife, Hallie.
Doesn't surprise me, most fighters turn to boxing to escape poverty. Sadly most that do have a successful career and make a lot of money end up broke. There really are very few feel good stories in the sport. Earnie Shavers in his book Welcome to the Big Time said well over half the opponents that he faced ended up dead, destitute, or in jail. I think there should be a mandatory rule, that a small percentage of every fighter's purse goes into a retirement fund, so after their career is over there is some money there for them after retirement.
I really didn't know too much about Jackson....Box rec listed him at 6-2, with an 80 inch reach. BEYOND ENDURANCE Floyd Patterson mercilessly thrashed the hapless Hurricane, but the champ's incredible foe would not stay down and out By Martin Kane | Sports Illustrated | August 5, 1957 It was a most unsatisfactory ending for a championship fight. The pride of two gallant fighters was hurt. Both Champion Floyd Patterson and Challenger Tommy (Hurricane) Jackson felt cheated. But Referee Ruby Goldstein had seen quite enough of a hapless Jackson absorbing, in round after round, punches that no man should be asked to endure. For all Jackson's vaunted stamina, and it is almost beyond belief, the cumulative effect of the head beating he suffered must, in the end, be of lasting damage. So, last Monday night, in the 10th round of their second fight, after Jackson had been knocked down three times in the previous nine, after he had bravely returned, round after round, for further cruel punishment, Referee Goldstein stepped between Jackson and Patterson and stopped the fight. The Polo Grounds crowd was stunned. Floyd Patterson is still champion, though not the happiest who ever held the crown. It was obvious in the very first round that he wanted, more than anything, the satisfaction of a clean knockout, to prove the deadly quality of his fists and to silence critics who have held that he has defeated no one of stature. And that, indeed, a true champion should surely knock out a Jackson. But Jackson, in his own peculiar way, is a foe worthy of a champion. His resilience is astonishing. From the first round on it was obvious that he had no chance. The bell saved him from a count in that round. He was down again in the second, and up at the count of two. He sagged to the canvas again in the ninth, and this time took a count of four. Each time he bounced back, almost gaily at times. But on no official card did he win a single round. His feckless fists, pawing the air in awkward gestures, did more harm to midges swarming under the lights than to Patterson, who suffered not a single clean, hard blow. Patterson was clearly puzzled by a problem he had been unable to solve in their first fight. He wanted to weaken Jackson with body blows, to which he is vulnerable, and thus overcome The Hurricane's ability to take head blows all night. But Jackson fooled him again. He protected his body with his long, flailing arms and a curious, forward-leaning stance. Thus he forced Patterson once more to go to the head, and that is where Tommy Jackson is invulnerable. Blood poured from his nose, his left eye was half closed, his jaw was rocked, especially with rights, and still he came on, crowding Patterson to deprive the champion of punching room. At the end of the ninth round Patterson looked to the heavens in wonderment. Neither he nor anyone in the crowd of 18,101, who came to New York's first independently promoted championship fight in many a year, could understand what permitted Jackson to remain conscious. In the end, with Patterson swarming over him, Jackson was still on his feet. It seemed that he must go down again, though he was giving no signs of being distressed when Referee Goldstein stopped it. No fighter in the heavyweight ranks today could have survived as long as Jackson under the terrible barrage Patterson laid down. The forecast now must be for a long string of knockouts in Patterson's future appearances. His next will, of course, be on August 22 at Seattle, where he meets the insolent and opulent amateur, Pete Rademacher. Rademacher would do well to practice ducking. The fight, held under the threat of rain which did not come, was a moral victory for Eastern Parkway Fights (Emil Lence, president), though it was not one to make them richer. Not since 1949 had any promoter other than the IBC (James D. Norris, president) dared to put on a heavyweight championship. "We have established a beachhead," Lence said after the fight. "We are here to stay." The fight served also to restore to boxing the lush oratory of Harry Balogh, author of the deathless "May the better participant emerge victorious." On this night Balogh topped himself. Introducing the fighters, he prayed that "the arm of the outstanding adversary will be raised in token of victory." Cus D'Amato, Patterson's manager, expressed full satisfaction with Patterson's performance, though he seemed puzzled when Goldstein stopped the fight. So did Patterson. Both wanted a clear KO. "He was extraordinary," D'Amato said of Jackson. "No one could take the punches he took." That about summed it up. Next day Tommy Jackson was in a hospital for a urinary condition.
