Australian Boxing Pictures Thread

errr I don't ever remember saying Ferreri wasn't a good fighter. You're getting all defensive for no reason

Which commonwealth title did he hold for 15 years? National maybe although this doesn't ring too many bells either

For the record...Zarate was beating Ferreri handily. Paul's defense was the reason the fight went into the later rounds and the fact remains that he lost and still would have lost without the cut

 

13 defences of the Comm Bantam crown.. Aust Bantam champ from 1969- 1986 (relinquished).

Bollox.. Face the facts. This man needed no extra adjustments to examplify his brilliance.

Zarate was beating him easily?? Really?? Oddly enough, Fenech needed the ring physician to halt his fight with Zarate, after suffering a cut UNDER his eye. Zarate was getting back on top.. Ferreri was only beaten by Zarate, due to cuts.. A PRIME, FEROCIOUS liver snatcher.

Just give the bloke some credit mate. Had he been graced with a 'stronger' punch, his career path may have been dramatically altered in the negative.

I'm so pleased that you've been graced as a fortune teller also. WHO knows what may have transpired in the last round vs Zarate anyway?? Boxing is not all we expect it to be in the last seconds of a bout.

 

You're right about not holding the commonwealth title for fifteen years Bollox, although he did win it several times over thirteen and a half years, winning the commonwealth bantam title for the first time in September '72 and winning it for the last time in April '86.


http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=13989&cat=boxer&pageID=1

 

That's quite an achievement and I've not taken anything away from him for it. Although when you look at his fights against genuine topflight opposition he came up short...Carlos Zarate and Johnny Owen. As I said, a bigger punch would have seen him go further. Paul Ferreri was a fantastic fighter. Was and is a local legend

Bobby....he had 13 commonwealth bantam fights in total and lost 3 of them so how can he have defended the title 13 times?

 

Without putting too fine a point on it, your comment above demonstrates you are commenting on something you don't know a whole lot about mate.

You didn't know Ferreri had probably the longest Commonwealth title reign there's ever been???

Are you aware that Ambrose Palmer taught Johnny Famechon and Ferreri to fight using the same technique that Palmer himself used? What Fammo refers to in his book as 'The Method', and the method was all about hitting and not getting hit.

Using almost exactly the same technique as Ferreri, Fammo accumulated a career record of 56 wins (20 by KO).

Based on Fammo's comparatively low KO count, do you think Fammo also needed to have more power??


It's not all about power and KOs mate. The bottom line is wins and titles.


Here's a good article that might fill in some gaps for you regarding Ferreri mate:

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=13851&more=1

 

Thanks for the condescending attitude :good

If he first won the title in 1972 then lost against Johnny Owen in 1978 for the vacant title then by that stage he'd given the title up. You said in a previous post Ferreri held a commonwealth title for 15 years. Which is an impossibility

Yes I knew he had a long reign although it was a broken one. Fenech never held a commonwealth title at all. Does this mean Ferreri should be ranked above him? Of course not. And fighting at commonwealth level for 15 years whilst admirable it also suggests that may have been his optimum level of competition

Ferreri's boxing skill level was such that against the very best it wasn't enough so yes, a better punch would have benefitted him. He could hit them although obviously not hard enough. And I wouldn't put his skills on the same level as Famechon

 

Have added some comments into your quote above.

 

Post some pictures please, FFS. You two blokes both are clearly knowledgeable about boxing, neither of you seem like wind up artists and are both good posters and it seems like you are both arguing semantics. I have to agree with you about the 'alphabet title' comment, CHB, Ferarri and the rest of those guys you've mentioned just didn't quite have enough to be the best in the world at their weights though, though surely great contenders, and that is clearly Bollox's point.

 

More than happy to leave it as it sits DB and Bollox.

.....bring on the pictures boys!

 

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This photograph was produced by the Charles Kerry studio between 1909 and 1914, when Bill Lang was the heavyweight boxing champion of Australia.

 

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Larry Foley

 

Tom Uren, Australian HW from the 1940's

Record: http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=164938&cat=boxer

Reading this i thought his story was well worth sharing.

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07/07/2008
PETER THOMPSON: Tom Uren was a boxer, a prisoner of war and a Labor Party warrior, but also a sensitive new age guy, long before there was such a thing.

TOM UREN: It's all a matter of inter-relationship and about the joy that people give me.

PETER THOMPSON: He's a romantic, a man of passion. His motto is, "Everything is connected to everything else". Having experienced some of the worst that humanity has to offer as a Japanese prisoner of war, Tom Uren developed a belief that he had one purpose in life, and that was to serve the human family. Tom, welcome to Talking Heads.

TOM UREN: Good to be here, Peter.

PETER THOMPSON: Tell me, what made Tom Uren?

TOM UREN: What made me? I think, really, the great strength of my mother, the principles that she put in me and the compassion she gave me.

PETER THOMPSON: And she called you 'Tall Dark Handsome - TDH'.

TOM UREN: I called her a silver-headed sweetheart.

PETER THOMPSON: You've been surrounded by adoring women?

TOM UREN: I don't find it hard to give love and affection to people.

PETER THOMPSON: Has that always been the case? Because you are an affectionate person, you've always been an affectionate person in the years I've known you.

TOM UREN: As a matter of fact, I remember talking at the 100th anniversary of May Day, and they asked me, and I talked about the question of love. I said, "I know a lot of you blokes find it embarrassing talking about love but that's what our struggle's all about. It's a struggle about commitment and love for other human beings, to raise their lives up."

PETER THOMPSON: One of your favourite movies is, A Star Is Born, which has been made three or four times.

TOM UREN: Yes. I saw the first one, and she ended up saying to her grandmother she'd love to be a great movie star one day, and the grandmother said, "Well, look. It's easy to dream but it takes courage and hard work to make those dreams come true."

 

PETER THOMPSON: That's been something of a motto for your life, hasn't it?

TOM UREN: Well, it's a part of my life. Yes. Well, this is where I was born 87 years ago, in this house, here. There was a great deal of unemployment at that time. My father was out of work. My mother used to go out to work when he was off, but when she was pregnant, she couldn't work behind a bar, and so they were difficult times for our family. I left school at 13 and 7 months. I was always able to earn money to assist my mother...but I really lived for boxing, and when I was 19 years of age, I fought for the Heavyweight Championship of Australia. I'd applied to join the army in May of 1939, and the war broke out in September. We embarked from Darwin for West Timor. After four days of brutal warfare, the Japanese came up on our tail. Now, we were taking prisoners of war and we had to live for three-and-a-half years under very harsh conditions. Working on the Thai Burma Railway...it was working under Weary Dunlop, and meeting him that really had a great influence on my life. Weary was able to convince the officers to put the money that they received into a central fund, and we put the bulk of ours into a central fund. And with that money, Weary would send out our people into the jungle to deal with the Thai and the Chinese traders for drugs and food for our sick and our needy. The strong was looking out for the weak, the young were looking out for the not-so-young, and the fit were looking out for the sick, and we had this collective spirit amongst us. I was then shipped to a place called Saganasaki. In the Copper Smelting Works, we had to start communicating with the old hands, eyes and heart. We found out that they disliked war the same as like we did, and so it wasn't the Japanese I hated, but militarism and fascism. They transferred us for the last three months of the war to Omuta. At first, we didn't know what it was. It was... Japanese came in and said, "The war all over. Big boom!" When we found out that the nuclear weapon had dropped the bomb, I was glad.

PETER THOMPSON: Tom, from where you were, you saw the crimson glow of the sky, of that second bomb dropping.

TOM UREN: It reminded me of those beautiful crimson skies of sunsets in Central Australia, but magnified about ten times stronger, and it's vividly... It's never left me.

PETER THOMPSON: How did you manage to get through the war without turning bitter?

TOM UREN: Well, I think I always had that hope that I would get out, and that I would really go on to follow my profession, and that I would be a professional fighter, and whatever I did...everything I did as a prisoner of war, was with my left hand. My doctor, Ewan Corlette, we went home. He said, "Tom, do you realise your left side is more developed than your right?" I said, "Well, doc, I've been working at it for years", and that's one of those things, but I had that...

PETER THOMPSON: You kept this in your head through the time of war?

TOM UREN: Always that hope. Yes. Always.

PETER THOMPSON: But for so many people, hope vanished, and they did turn angry, and really, never forgave the Japanese.

TOM UREN: Many of them were my mates that didn't do that. But you see, as I evolved and understood nuclear war, I found that it was a crime against humanity. Really...I really do think that the dropping of a nuclear bomb on human beings, generally, was a crime against humanity, and a lot of my mates don't agree with me.

PETER THOMPSON: You wanted to get back to business, which was to fight.

TOM UREN: When you are fit, you know how to go. You don't feel a punch. You're just fit. You go after them and... But what happened was, it was the malaria within the body. I was on a drug called Penidrin at that time to try to suppress it.

PETER THOMPSON: When you were at the end of the line in boxing, that was the shattering of your dreams, and that was the end of part of your life, wasn't it?

TOM UREN: Oh! You've got no idea. When I came home, I said, "What can I do?" so I went and worked as a rubber mill man for a year, kept on applying for jobs, and then, it's when I got this start with Woolworths, and I owe a lot, might I say, to the training that Woolworths gave me in my political life later. I had a certain leadership quality, even in those days, but I like saying these things, but it was always there with me. If you conform, and be good people and zombies, and don't try to challenge society at all, then you are quite free people, but I don't call that freedom. I was Mr Average until I stepped outside of conformity. I didn't end up being a member of the Peace Movement at all until I became a member of parliament, and Jim Cairns was going to the 1959 Melbourne Peace Conference, and he asked, "Would I like to come?" And of course I've been an activist for the rest of my life. We were fighting, first of all on nuclear testing.

MAN ON LOUDSPEAKER AT PROTEST: This university has voted against the moratorium.

TOM UREN: It was also the great struggle on Vietnam. Cairns himself, to a great extent, was the architect. It was a slow process to try to educate the people what was, in fact, going on in Vietnam. I certainly campaigned, not only at universities, but wherever we could, talk to groups. When the first moratorium marchers throughout Australia in May of 1970, Cairns called for the people of Australia to come out onto the streets and demonstrate against the war. Once a person demonstrates against the immoral world of Vietnam, steps outside of conformity, he's open, he's a second class citizen. The Conservatives thought that the roof of Parliament House was going to fall down. The following May, again, we had the last and final rally or moratorium, and they refused to allow us to walk on the streets.

MAN SPEAKER AT PROTEST: Demonstrators, don't move any further into King Street.

TOM UREN: And a young policeman had accosted me personally. A court case was heard. After they had lined their heads up, the inspectors and what have you, the magistrate dismissed my complaint. He only charged us $80 cost for 40 days hard labour, so I then stood up and said, "I'll do the hard labour". So, oh, my godfather!

 

PETER THOMPSON: Tom, that's not the only time you went to jail too, because in Queensland, you suffered the same fate.

TOM UREN: It was over Bjelke-Petersen anti-march laws. They wouldn't allow anybody to march down the street of Brisbane, more than three people at a time.

PETER THOMPSON: Martin Luther King had gone to jail numerous times.

TOM UREN: Yeah.

PETER THOMPSON: And he'd said something about justice which appealed to you.

TOM UREN: Well, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And the other great statement is, he says, "Hate is always tragic. It disturbs the personality and scars the soul. It's more injurious to the hater than it is to the hated. Those two comments stay in my mind.

PETER THOMPSON: You had a long and celebrated libel action against Frank Packer, when the Telegraph had accused you of asking questions in parliament on behalf of the Russian ambassador.

TOM UREN: It was intimating that the Soviet Embassy was influencing me as a dupe to ask questions on behalf of the Soviet Embassy against my own nation. Forcibly in court in NSW, full High Court of Australia, Privy Council in London, back to a second trial, a jury of 12, back for the full Supreme Court of NSW. One count went back for a third trial, and two counts went back to the High Court when Packer surrendered.

PETER THOMPSON: What did all that do to you?

TOM UREN: Well, first of all, from all the grey hairs on my head... and the costs were enormous back in those days too, and that used to worry me and I'd get depressed, and I'd... What I'd get out of this depression was that I had a recording of Paul Robeson, talking when he's in Paddington Town Hall in 1960 when he was visited this country, and I'd play this back, and it was the compassion of this man's voice, his soul. He really put it in. Not only was he struggling for justice for himself, but for the oppressed people of the world. But it was the guts and determination. I say, "Get up and fight the *******s, Uren.” I know that he went overboard with some of the Soviets. A lot of other people did at that period of history, but I have so much respect for him.

PETER THOMPSON: At the end of the day with Packer, we're talking about Frank Packer, you ended up with a holiday house, or two.

TOM UREN: Yeah. Well, I built the place in mountains, called Fairfax Retreat, and my house down the south coast was Packer's Lodge. The thing is that a lot of people laugh about it, but you had to go through that history.

PETER THOMPSON: A huge breakthrough for you in politics was to be given, in 1969, then the Shadow Portfolio for Urban and Regional Development by Whitlam. Why did he choose you?

TOM UREN: Well, he tells me later...many years later, it's the way I lived at Guildford and while I did it with my Shangri La up at Mount Wilson, because I built a paradise for myself there. In December, 1972, a Labor Government was elected under Whitlam. My Portfolio of Urban and Regional Development, and I also have the authority for the National Estate. My position on the National Estate was that we should preserve things that were unique and beautiful, and that we should retain it for posterity...things that were created by humans or by nature. Well, I hope that the people of Woolloomooloo, and I hope the people of the Estate, the National Trust, I hope the architects, I hope the unions, make sure that big business doesn't win. We really need to give people the right to work and educate and send their children to school, near where they live. That's what our motto was in the case of Albury Wodonga. We had a selected decentralisation policy. We wanted to build the quality of life on the city fringes as well, the vast housing estates that were being made out at Lalor Park, and Seven Hills, and so many other places, were heartless things. Well, the basis of the Urban Land Council is to acquire large tracks of land on the fringes of our capital cities and provincial cities, and first of all, to make land available to young people, but also, to get a better mix. We were able to convince the Housing Commission in NSW that high rise that we're building is not the solution to problems. There are three reasons why we bought the Glebe Estate... First of all, to protect the residents already living there, secondly, to protect a townscape which is over 100 years old, and thirdly, to prevent that freeway distributor from going and tearing the heart and soul out of Glebe. The car, the world over, is the enemy of the city.

PETER THOMPSON: Being in politics very often takes a toll on family life, and it did for you too.

TOM UREN: Yes, it did. Well, it did in my first marriage. That's true, and, I think, not only that, but as you know, we had two adopted children, and my wife dedicated herself to those children. She never liked travel, and I would have to go most of the way, and from time to time, I was unfaithful to my wife, and I think, in the end, she felt that I didn't need her anymore, and she went and had her own life.

PETER THOMPSON: People didn't know you'd broken up.

TOM UREN: No. No. Well, we hadn't broken up. She had left me.

PETER THOMPSON: Some might regard that as a fine point.

TOM UREN: Well, you can say that, but I would visit her at least once a month. We kept. We were very close, and I found out that she was... She had cancer, or a carcinoma, and ultimately, it got into every bone in her body, and I lived with her for two years. Where it was hell for her, in many ways, she gave me such strength in those two years because she would call me her rock because I'd always be with her, and I've always loved her and admired her, and in many ways, I felt very guilty about my own relationship and that I treated her unfairly.

PETER THOMPSON: Well, what about... Do you have regrets about that time?

TOM UREN: Well, the two regrets in my life...two major regrets in my life... the first is that I didn't fight to retain my wife...first wife, and my second regret is, of course, I talked Cairns into becoming Treasurer of the nation of Australia.

PETER THOMPSON: Did you find it easy, then... Just talking about your own character...to separate your love and loyalty for people, and what might be a coolly detached, ruthless political side?

TOM UREN: (STAMMERS) I don't say that I'm ruthless. I think I argued on a principle position, most of them. All they are chasing is the almighty dollar. It wasn't until after the inquiry into the uranium mining at Kakadu National Park, that I really got deeply involved, and I made my first contribution in addressing a major union rally. I want to make it clear...

 

REPORTER VO: Mr Hawke and the new ministry stayed at Government House for about 90 minutes.

TOM UREN: Bob became the prime minister in 1983, and he gave me the position of minister of the territories of local government.

REPORTER VO: A few left-wing members were given the less influential portfolios.

TOM UREN: I asked him, "Will I be getting Housing?" He told me he wasn't. He intimated that I wasn't competent enough to have it. (CHUCKLES) I didn't care whether or not... He was the Prime Minister. He wanted me to shake hands when it was all over. And I told him what to do with it. They had made their decision about uranium mining. It was proposed we would discipline by getting the whole ministry locked into that decision.

REPORTER VO: The government's pro-uranium decision won convincingly.

TOM UREN: One of my greatest strengths is my moral strength and I just wouldn't bow to them. As time went on and Hawke...really become to like me as a minister, because of my popularity at the grassroots level. I told them that I wouldn't be standing. I was a very lonely figure. When I left government after two elections, I said to Bob, "I've enjoyed being a minister in your government, but I never felt I was a part of your government."

PETER THOMPSON: You've always had a good way with good lines and you said that they had cash registers for hearts.

TOM UREN: Well, that was on a different thing. The question of my struggles with Japanese prisoners of war. No government, Labor or Liberal, have really given true justice to our Japanese prisoners of war. Keating was the only one that understood the compassion and feeling and struggle our people went through, because his father's eldest brother died at Sandakan.

PETER THOMPSON: You went back to the Thai-Burma Railway with Weary Dunlop.

TOM UREN: Yes. Yes, I went back in '87 with Weary and I went with, believe it or not, John Howard in 1998. It was most unusual.

PETER THOMPSON: When you went back, did you see the work that you had done?

TOM UREN: Yes, yes.

PETER THOMPSON: You could identify it?

TOM UREN: Yes. I can't identify the exact thing, but I identified the cutting and I saw the packs of cards that I had worked on too, which had collapsed by this time.

PETER THOMPSON: You were out of politics.

TOM UREN: I'm not out of politics, I'm out of Parliament.

PETER THOMPSON: Oh. OK, I'll accept that distinction. In your post-Parliament period, you've had more time for things that you love, like art and architecture. Interesting interests for someone who left school at 13.

TOM UREN: Yeah, well, I've been a slow learner, you know. (LAUGHS) Evolve as life goes on. When I decided to retire, my commitment at the Parliament was that I would fight for social justice and human rights. I would fight for world peace and the world environment. That's what my commitment still is today. Even though I'm nearly 87 and my wife is much younger than me, it's one of the most contented parts of my life and I'm grateful for that. I'm not without sin. But luckily, there's so much love and life for me. And so much love from other people towards me. It gives me a wonderful feeling. This house is very much back to nature and I feel myself, that I'm not a person of material things anymore. I'm not saying I'm spartan, but I'm really just comfortable and it's so wonderful. It's a joy for my life to share this house with Christine and Ruby, in my years of longevity. (LAUGHS) I'm interested in what's going on in America. I'm interested about our relationship with other countries. I like walking and I use public transport - ferries, buses and trains. You get to meet great people and you enter into dialogue with them. They don't know who you are and I always say when I leave, "I'm Tom Uren anyway." And their face lights up. It's all a matter of inter-relationship and about the joy that people give me. Don't have to buy it. They give it to me. (LAUGHS)

PETER THOMPSON: So, what's been the big lesson of life?

TOM UREN: That you're not always right.

PETER THOMPSON: What would your mother have said about the way you turned out, Tom? Would she have predicted it?

TOM UREN: I wouldn't say she predicted it, but she said, "You've got to keep trying to improve yourself." And I think that's what I'm trying to do now. I'm still trying to improve myself every day.

PETER THOMPSON: Tom, it's been great talking to you.

TOM UREN: Thanks for having me, Peter. It's good to be with you.