Jack Hurley, the tall, thin, caustic manager and promoter who has a genius for developing mediocre fighters into rich ones, began snooping around for another boxer. Into his office one day in 1949 walked a skinny middleweight named Harry Matthews, who had won 67 out of 70 fights on the West Coast, had been fighting for 12 years and had succeeded only in getting deep into debt. Hurley agreed to take him on for his usual 50%. Matthews screamed in anguish. "Listen, young man," said Hurley, "you've been boxing for 12 years and you've made exactly nothing. Now, 50% of nothing is nothing. You don't know how lucky you are. What is happening is that you are getting 50% of me." Hurley watched his new gladiator work out and was appalled. "He got all his ideas from amateurs. It's a wonder he hadn't been seriously hurt. His idea of how to defend himself was to grab and run. That's all he knew. He didn't even know how to eat. He'd eat two meals a day. I said, "if you were a truck driver, would you eat like that?' He said, 'No, driving a truck is hard work. If I were a truck driver, I'd eat like one.' I said to him, 'Let me tell you something, young man. If you and I are to stay together, you'll work so hard you'll think truck driving is a soft racket. Don't ever lose sight of the fact that fighting is a hard and brutal business, and you gotta be in shape for it. From now on you eat like a truck driver.' He did, and he finally went up to 182 pounds. "But oh, he was such a bad fighter at first. He couldn't punch, he couldn't take a punch. He was an agony fighter. Looking at a fighter that can't punch is like kissing your mother-in-law." Hurley brought Matthews along slowly and one night put him into the ring with a carefully selected opponent who had had only 12 fights and was too light to cope with Matthews. "I figured Matthews would make his name overnight," says Hurley. "He figured to knock the kid out easy. But it went 10 rounds and nobody got hit, although Matthews wins the decision. The next day Matthews comes into the office, and he says, 'How did you like the fight?' "I says, 'What fight?' "He says, 'Last night.' "I says, 'Harry, that was the most disgraceful thing I ever saw. If you and that kid were to go down to the street corner right now and go through the same antics, that traffic cop wouldn't even come over and break it up.' " But Hurley has never needed a superfighter; all he needed now was a property, and Matthews, game and willing to learn, was it. The two of them set up shop in Seattle, and Hurley began the great campaign. Traveling the Northwest like a couple of drummers, Hurley and Matthews built up a legend that still has boxing's public-relations experts scratching their heads in amazement. The soft-punching, glass-chinned Matthews reeled off a dazzling skein of 35 consecutive wins, 28 by knockouts, and even began to learn a little about boxing. Hurley explains in detail how the feat was accomplished: "I made sure he didn't fight any great fighters. I picked 'em mostly by their styles, guys that had styles just right for Matthews. So all his fights appeared to be sensational. I wouldn't put him in there with a fencer and a runner, because this guy isn't gonna fight, and he isn't gonna let you fight. By the time Matthews runs him down and gets him cornered where he might nail him, the guy jumps into a clinch and the referee rescues him, and he's off and running again. This doesn't make for a good fight or good box office, and even if Matthews wins he has hurt his earning power. So I always picked fighters that really wanted to get in there and fight and lick my fellow, and while they were doing this my fighter was counterpunching and looking great." As the string of victories began building, sportswriters started to take notice of Matthews, and Hurley decided it was time to throw his "athlete" in with a genuinely tough opponent, "Irish Bob" Murphy. At first glance the fight looked like a cinch for Murphy, and the bookies made him the favorite. Murphy was a sort of left-handed, junior-grade, muscle-bound Marciano; he turned every fight into a street fight, and few could beat him in a street fight. As a pure boxer, however, he would not have lasted six rounds with Maria Ouspenskaya. Hurley knew this, and he also knew that there was one thing Matthews could do superlatively well, and that was fight a southpaw. "He had an instinct for fighting them, and by now he also knew how to fight a guy who comes to him. The fight was a natural for him." At the end of the seventh round there came one of those moments that determine whether a manager is worth 50%, 30% or nothing. Matthews had been hit hard on the chin and generally mauled around. He came back to his corner, flopped in the chair and made it plain he could not go on. No one would have blamed him. Hurley jumped in front of the exhausted fighter and blocked his view of Murphy sitting relaxed across the ring. "What a hell of a break!" Hurley whispered. "Murphy ain't coming out!" Matthews tried to peer around Hurley for a look, but Hurley kept getting in the way. "Listen," Hurley said, "I don't think he can come out, but if he does, Harry, step around, move around and let him fall right on his face." Dodging from side to side to block Matthews' view, Hurley poured out an avalanche of phony encouragement: "What a break! And you just getting your second wind at a spot like this! Listen, when the 10-second whistle blows you stand up and glare at him over there. Now, Harry, you got your second wind, you're fine, get in there and feint and let him fall flat on his kisser." The 10-second warning blew, and Matthews jumped to his feet, staring at Murphy. Hurley recalls: "Murphy looked back at him as if to say, 'Why, that dummy so-and-so, he ain't even tired.' " The inspired Matthews went on to win the last three rounds and the decision. Later Hurley explained his psychology: "You can't sympathize with a tired fighter. He's looking for sympathy, he's abused, the poor athlete. I got to shock him. I can't give him a slap in the kisser, which is what I'd like to do, and say, 'Well, yeh dog yeh, you're in here, ain'tcha? Now get out there and fight.' No, I gotta make him believe he's caught his second wind and the other guy's through. And it worked. Matthews told me he woke up in bed the next morning and said to himself, 'How did Hurley know I caught my second wind?' " With this win, plus one over Rex Layne, Matthews and Hurley had the ammunition for an assault on the IBC's lock on the heavyweight championship and the big money. Jersey Joe Walcott was the champion. Rocky Marciano was the No. 1 contender. Hurley began a whirling-dervish publicity campaign to force a Marciano-Matthews fight, the winner to meet Walcott for the title. The IBC wanted no part of a Marciano-Matthews fight: if Matthews should score a lucky win, Hurley would become a powerful figure in the heavyweight picture, and the IBC and Hurley were deadly enemies. Hurley began making cracks like: "How about Marciano, this great star they're keeping in cellophane? Did he or did he not stink out the joint with Lee Savold?" The campaign took hold. Wrote Frank Graham later: "By word of mouth, person to person or on radio or TV, in letters to newspapers or interviews with sportswriters, Hurley created such an uproar that it reached the halls of Congress where Senators and Representatives howled that Matthews was being discriminated against." The heat was on from Washington; the IBC had to give in. Stuck with the fight, the IBC began beating its own publicity drums, but Hurley got all the lines. He lampooned Marciano's talents so convincingly that Toots Shor was moved to remark: "If I listened to Hurley for a week, I'd take off 30 pounds and fight Marciano myself." Hurley boomed Matthews as the all-American boy, told one sportswriter: "Harry and his wife are unusual people and very decent and, while I'm no softy, I'm beginning to get an emotional kick out of seeing how well they are getting along and how wonderfully happy they are. I sometimes go over to their home in the evening just to enjoy the wholesome character of the place and the lovely kind of life they live." Brushing away a tear, Hurley would go back to his hotel and wait for the quote to appear in print, whereupon he would buy 500 of the papers and mail the clipping to sportswriters all over the country, who in turn would describe the touching scene in its endearing entirety. The fact was that Matthews and his wife, later divorced, were fighting like wildcats, but Hurley did not feel that this information would help the gate.
previous post continued... The IBC sent out prefight placards bearing a picture of Hurley leaning over Matthews in the corner. No one could remember when a manager had ever been pictured on such a placard, and Hurley asked James D. Norris about it. Explained Norris: "Matthews is nothing without you." It was one of Norris' truer utterances. The fight was held on July 28, 1952. There are those who say it was a grotesque mismatch from the beginning, that Matthews never had a chance. Jack Hurley, who no longer has a Matthews ax to grind, thought and thinks differently, and he backed up his opinion with a $10,000 bet on his man. "There is a way to beat any fighter," he says. "If Harry had never heard of Marciano or even had been fighting him in his own familiar territory out West, he'd have won in a breeze. I explained to him before the fight, 'Harry, here's a case where you're safer being close to danger than out in the open. If you stand close and lean in about two inches, all his wild swings will go around your neck. And don't grab him in the clinches. He's too strong. Let him grab you, put your hands beside your chest, and as he reaches around, punch up, up. Those left-and right-hand uppercuts do murderous damage inside.' So in the first round everything went exactly according to plan. Matthews busted up Marciano pretty good and raised a knob on his eye. When he comes back to the corner I say, 'Harry, this guy's a soft touch. Now you know the way to fight him, Harry, you've proved it already, now just get out there and stay close; don't get scared and pull back or you'll get in the path of one of those wild swings.' "Matthews went out for the second round and all of a sudden he breaks out of a clinch, and he realizes he's fighting in Yankee Stadium in front of all those people, and he just gets frozen with fear. The guy threw a cuffing left at him and Matthews leaned back, and it hit him right on the bad chin. There was nothing on the punch, but Matthews leaned back, scared to death, and the fellow threw a second cuff and Matthews couldn't move. He coulda stayed close all night, but he leaned back and he got hit and he got knocked out. Let me tell you, it's a long way from that ring to the dressing room at Yankee Stadium, and all the way back people are saying, 'Where's your great fighter now, Hurley?' and there I am bleeding in my shoes." The Marciano debacle would have shoved many a fighter into limbo, which is probably where Matthews belonged anyway, but Hurley set about rebuilding "the athlete" into a card, and soon succeeded in getting him a Seattle fight with British Empire Heavyweight Champion Don ****ell. Matthews lost the decision, but a rematch was scheduled in London. Hurley began talking as soon as his feet touched British soil, and the press was goggle-eyed. "****ell is the best heavyweight you've ever sent to America," Hurley announced, knowing full well that no sportswriter in England could resist printing this line. "No British fighter has ever made such an impression on the West Coast. ****ell could beat Marciano on the best day Rocky ever knew. Marciano can't box, he's just a crude swinger. ****ell would be too smart for him. Who has Marciano ever beaten, anyway?" Said a reporter: "Well, Matthews, for one." Hurley shot back: "Matthews wasn't beaten by Marciano, he was beaten by Yankee Stadium. He was overawed. He would have beaten Marciano in three rounds if they had fought in Seattle." The sports pages were full of the fight, although a less important contest could hardly have been imagined. John Mac-Adam of the Daily Sketch wrote: "Mr. Hurley can sling words faster than either ****ell or Matthews can sling punches.... Hurley convinces you against your will that Matthews is the fighter of the century while you think in your heart he is not." Wrote Noel Joseph in the News-Chronicle: "Personally, I feel ****ell must win, but when I hear Hurley talking I feel Matthews has atomic power." The result, on a damp, chilly June night, was an attendance of 35,000 and a decision for ****ell. Hurley accepted the purse and the decision with becoming stoicism: "I thought it was a dead even thing. The referee could have given it either way." Matthews and ****ell fought a third time, in Seattle, and ****ell knocked him out. Soon after, Matthews retired; he now has a tavern in Seattle. Hurley came back into boxing's limelight in 1957 when he promoted the never-never land fight between Pete Rademacher and Floyd Patterson; he has been "between fighters" ever since. (by Jack Olsen - 1961) http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3r8GB9bSq1s/U70dvxknUvI/AAAAAAAAAoU/QHAJe93ilXw/s1600/Matthews-Hurley.JPG
Sept. 19th 1956. New York. The State Athletic Commission indefinitely suspend former lightweight champion Paddy DeMarco for conduct detrimental to boxing. The commission charged that DeMarco had a convicted gambler, Jimmy Knapp, acting as his manager "or undercover manager" in violation to the rules. Commission chairman Julius Helfand said that DeMarco was indefinitely suspended pending whether proceedings will be brought to revoke his license. Helfand announced the decision after the three-man commission board heard DeMarco and Knapp, who has no license with the commission, testify about their relationship. DeMarco, who reigned briefly as lightweight king from March 5 to Nov. 17, 1954, bitterly denied the accusation. He said he would ask for a hearing on the decision within 10 days as commission rules permit. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DsiO9-AcU...qZfmbkFolN0/s1600/paddy+demarco+commision.JPG
"Grimm took the first round by storm, slamming Johnny to all corners of the ring, with a series of two handed attacks. Dias somehow recovered his composure and kept Joe at distance with long and sharp jabs, like he had done before so efficiently. But this time he was counterpunched brutally, and blood began trickling out of his mouth. Until the end of the round, Dias was pounded with stiff shots over and over, forcing him to move backward across the ring. Only the bell saved Dias from a KO. Joe's fans were on their feet, screaming, "Go for KO!" During the break Joe was sloshed with icy water by his overzealous brother and was told he was doing great. Dias's cornermen tried unsuccessfully to stop the bleeding, while his coach was shouting in his ear. Whatever instructions he recieved, Dias made good use of them. As Joe launched a new attack, Dias used his rapid footwork, forcing Joe to punch the air while enabling his rival to land well-placed blows. At one time Dias counterattacked in full force, and Joe had trouble escaping punishment. It looked like Dias had recovered and maybe even taken the lead. At least that's what his fans wanted to believe. But, from the third round on, Joe relentlessly struck Dias's body and head with both fists to the delight of the Boy Scouts and Fall River spectators. Round after round, Joe proved himself to be the master of the ring, showing an excellent command of his actions and inexhaustable stamina. Dias fought bravely and once in a while, when he lashed with his left and right swings, his signature punches, his fans screamed with happiness. He moved a lot but could not avoid a serious battering that made him stagger, still, he remained on his feet. As for Joe, he continued to pummel him in the close sessions. In round eight Joe decided to finish of his tradional rival who had tainted his record with two defeats. He unleashed one attack after another, forcing Dias to run around the ring and be stopped (from running around) by Referee McDonald. Obviously, he was doing everything he could to escape a KO. He was not a coward and continued to counterattack, but Joe's landings came from all angles and directions and were too painful and risky to absorb. Dias was outpointed and outpunched by the little Syrian mittster, both boys were deserving the credit for their showing. With his arm raised high by the referee, Joe enjoyed the crowd that could not stop its ovations as he proudly left the arena." (Fall River Herald - April 12th 1924) The above account is from the third battle in a series of fights between two journeymen boxers, Joe Grimm (not be confused with Joe Grim, often spelled Grimm who lost to Jack Johnson and Bob Fitzsimmons years earlier) and Johnny Dias, fought at lightweight at Fall River, Massachusetts, USA in 1924. Grimm had lost their two previous battles in 1923 both over points. The pair would have a fourth contest in 1927 with Grimm winning by KO in the first round. *From the story of journeyman bantamweight boxer Joe Grimm, from the 1920s. Joe weighs 118 pounds and is flat-footed; nevertheless, he wins against boxers who are heavier than he is, he wins when he is booked as a last-minute replacement, and he wins against contenders who are headed to championship bouts. He is so gallant in the ring that the press calls him "Gentleman Joe." His career is interrupted when he and his brother are urgently called home by their immigrant parents. He leaves behind the arenas, with their cheering crowds and works as a butcher in his grocery shop bought with ring money for his family. Grimm lived to be 96 years old. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qt3DPyJ5wsc/U7k5ChBzpOI/AAAAAAAAAmY/_SInFj0ZHlM/s1600/joe+grimm.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t0kbZufPULY/U7k5VLgDprI/AAAAAAAAAmg/Ph7sG7QY708/s1600/grim-joe.jpg
London. 1979. Muhammad Ali, considered by many to be the greatest heavyweight champion of all time, was really heavy and overweight as he announced his retirement at the Royal Albert Hall. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CYz-4MHUb...471_468057253339293_3239790597803628786_n.jpg
Joey Giambra fought under a completely different set of rules in the 1950s than those afforded the fighters of today. There was no such thing as a two fight-a-year schedule with the accountants tallying up the net. Back in the day, you fought hard, you fought often and unless you were a world champion it was enough to keep the wolf from the door. The Giambra suave, good looks and colorful style held him in good stead during the days of the spinning turnstile. And Joey could fight. By Dan Hanley...(Joey was 82 years old when the following conversation took place) DH: Joey, where are you originally from? JG: I was born in Buffalo, New York. DH: Tell me about growing up in Buffalo in the 1930s. JG: Well, I grew up one of 13 kids during the depression in an Italian neighborhood where everyone was on welfare. But I was young and we knew no other life. I helped out the family by shining shoes in saloons and (laughing), earned a bit more by being the only Italian kid who could sing an Irish song. DH: How did boxing enter the picture? JG: I was about 13 years old and one day I got beat up and robbed of my shoe shine kit. I wanted to learn how to take care of myself and wandered into Singer's gym. It was there I met Mike Scanlon, who taught me how to box. DH: What kind of amateur career did you have? JG: I did well. I won the Buffalo Golden Gloves featherweight championship in 1947 and the lightweight title in 1948. DH: The decision to turn pro, was this something you always intended? JG: Well I knew there was money in it and I liked it, so it was an easy decision. DH: Who did you turn pro with? JG: Mike Scanlon was my manager and Johnny Russo became my trainer. DH: You turned pro in Canada in '49. Was there any rule barring you from turning pro in the States, since you were just under 18? JG: No, that just happened to be where I got signed on my first card and it was just over the border from Buffalo. I fought a guy who came out in a fancy robe and I was so green I didn't even know what the referee meant when he told me to go to a neutral corner. I was thinking (laughing), What's a neutral corner? But I knocked him out in the second round. DH: It's hard to believe in this day and age, but you ran off 28 fights over the next three years before you fought your first 10 rounder. And even then you were thrown in with future world champ Joey Giardello in back-to-back fights. Tell me about your first two fights with Giardello. JG: Well, the first fight I was robbed. We fought in his hometown of Brooklyn and his own fans were booing the decision. I got him in the rematch and beat him badly. DH: After the Giardello fights you really came into prominence and worked your way up to the leading contender for the middleweight title with wins over Bernard Docusen, Tuzo Portuguez and Italo Scortichini. But suddenly you disappeared for 14 months. What happened? JG: (laughing) I got drafted! I was in the Army for two years. But the funny thing was, I had been in the Naval Reserve for five years before that. (laughing) I just didn't think they'd come and get me. But I was very well known entering the service and became a boxing instructor. I gotta tell you, I felt like an officer the way I was treated and they even allowed me to continue fighting professionally. DH: You resumed your career in '55 and ran off four wins in succession on the comeback trail when you got a call for a non-title 10 rounder with middleweight champ Bobo Olson in the San Francisco Cow Palace. How did that come about? JG: Well, Olson's people knew I was still in the Army and obviously didn't think I was in shape. They were just using me as a tuneup for his upcoming fight with Sugar Ray Robinson. DH: I have an article on that fight that begins with the line, A new star glistened over the fight world today in the person of Joey Giambra. Tell me about that fight. JG: It was like the first Giardello fight. I thought I beat him and so did all his hometown fans who booed the decision in his favor. DH: After the Bobo Olson fight you were once again among the top ten with wins over Johnny Sullivan and Rocky Castellani. Then you signed for Gil Turner in Madison Square Garden. Joey, I know so little of this fight. Tell me about it. JG: It was an outstanding fight. I was very aggressive and completely outboxed Gil. I think I won every round, but still it was a good fight. Gil had a lot of class and winked at me afterwards. DH: Back then fighters seemed to have a lot of respect for one another. Did anyone ever get under your skin? JG: Ahh just once. A fighter named Tuzo Portuguez. I beat him twice but in out first fight the referee was letting him get away with all kinds of rough stuff. And once, while breaking, the ref is standing on my foot and Portuguez actually came over the ref's shoulder and decked me. Man, I just thought, I'm gonna kill that *******! DH: A second win over Rocky Castellani soon followed, as well as a rare stoppage of Chico Vejar, when you had your first two fights with Rory Calhoun. This interrupted an eleven bout unbeaten streak. Tell me about those fights with Calhoun. JG: Well, the first fight was a draw, but not too many people know that in the second fight I got my jaw broken somewhere within the first five rounds. I was wearing wires for eight weeks afterwards.
continued from previous post... ............. DH: By this time had you relocated to the west coast? JG: Yes, my manager and I had moved to San Francisco by this time, but they weren't exactly lining up to fight me. Sometimes it was tough getting fights. DH: Many years ago I read a detailed article on your third fight with Joey Giardello in San Francisco in '58. Tell us about it in your own words, starting with the events leading up to the fight. JG: Joey Giardello was really being pushed for a title fight at this time and they needed the win over me to continue this drive. We knew one of the judges had been bought but someone approached my manager Mike Scanlon on throwing the fight. He sarcastically, but unintentionally agreed. Like how you would just say, 'Yeah, yeah!', but never accepted any money and never told me. I went out there, did my job and won the 10 round decision. I find out afterwards what went on after a commotion in my corner and Mike says to me, 'We gotta get out of here!' We had to get out of the Cow Palace fast and Mike sends Johnny Russo out to bring the car around back. I was still in my boxing gear when Mike and I ran out the back, tore ourselves up jumping a barb-wire fence, and made it back to New York as quickly as we could. See, I was a kid from the street. Everyone knew me from back in the day when I was shining shoes. And it was because I was well-known that I got a sit down with Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino. The only thing that saved us was that Mike never took any money. They couldn't and wouldn't have helped us if he had and as a result they put out the word, 'hands off' of us. DH: You were off for about nine months after that fight. Were you still worried about repercussions? JG: Yeah, I was trying to get it all cleared up. DH: By the late '50s, many articles were referring to you also as a young actor. Were you trying your hand in the trade while on the coast? JG: Well, what happened was, while recuperating with the broken jaw from the Calhoun fight, I had time on my hands, so I went to drama school. I was messing around with that as well as boxing and one night, after I won a fast knockout in Reno, Clark Gable came to my dressing room telling me he loved my fights. We struck up a friendship and I got a part in 'The Misfits' with Gable and Marilyn Monroe. That was fun but I got in a bit of trouble on the set. DH: What happened? JG: There was a lot of posing and pictures being taken on the set and one day Marilyn wants to get a picture with me. Now, Marilyn was really stacked. So, we're standing together and she's really leaning them into me when one wiseguy yells out (laughing), 'Hey, Joey, you got a hard on!' Well, Arthur Miller, who was the screenwriter for the movie and also Marilyn's husband at the time, gets hot and wants to come at me. I just said, 'Hey, hey, that's not a good idea!' Miller wanted me off the picture, but Gable says to him, 'If he goes, then I go!' DH: You were on another winning streak that took you to your rubber match with Rory Calhoun in November of '60. What did you do so differently in your third fight? JG: I was still very angry over the broken jaw in our second fight. I trained very hard and fought very aggressively in this fight and won a good tough decision. DH: It appeared that right after this fight that negotiations began for a 10 rounder with former champ Carmen Basilio. Why did this fight not take place? JG: Nothing ever came of it. Carmen was a game fighter and I think it would have been a great fight. But if I was going to give my opinion on why it didn't happen. Well, it's all about the money, isn't it, Danny? DH: Joey, you had been taping your knuckles for over 10 years by this time. Did you ever come close to sitting down at a table negotiating a shot at the world title? JG: Well, Gene Fullmer was the one I wanted at this time. He was world champ, but I was never even considered for a shot. The best I got with him was an exhibition bout in the 1970s. He's trying all his rough stuff on me during an exhibition and I really had enough of it and knocked him to his knees with a body shot, just to let him know to cut it out. You know he actually came to my dressing room while I was in the shower complaining that I was too rough and it was only supposed to be an exhibition. DH: Joey, by '62, it looked like you were on the downside of your career. You were about 31 years old, had recently lost to Yama Bahama and Farid Salim, good fighters, but not in your league � and you sign to fight one of the most feared bangers in the division in Florentino Fernandez down in Miami. I don't think anyone gave you a chance. Tell me about the fight. JG: First of all let me say that you're right, he could really hit, but he was also a very dirty fighter. I mean he was butting me throughout that fight. I was always a clean fighter but I got a bit fed up and retaliated once. A purposely missed punch that I followed with a well-placed elbow. Just to let him know I had enough. As for the fight, despite his tactics, I boxed him and cut him pretty bad. At one point I nailed him with a shot that sent blood spraying over a couple of ladies at ringside and the fight was stopped in the 7th round. You know I made $7,000 for that fight, but bet $5,000 of it on myself to win at 6-1 odds against me. I cleaned up in that one. DH: In October of '62 you finally received your long-awaited title shot, but it was for the inaugural junior middleweight title. What was your feelings on this new division? JG: Hey, I didn' care. To me it was for a title. That's the way I looked at it. DH: Tell me about your 15 rounder with Denny Moyer for the vacant title. JG: We fought in his hometown of Portland, Oregon and at the end of 15 I didn't have a mark on me. I thought I won. Sonny Liston was the referee for this fight and came up to me before the decision was announced and whispered to me, 'You won it, baby!' But Moyer got the decision. DH: Your last fight was in April of '63. You came in as a substitute and lost a disputed decision to Joe DeNucci in his hometown of Boston. Even the Boston Press said you were robbed, yet, you retired. Were you just discouraged by this point? JG: Yeah, I was done with it. Y'know, it was embarrassing because DeNucci just conned me at the weigh-in. He's telling me that he just wants to get through this fight because his wife was expecting any minute now and that's all he's thinking about. Well, I'm feeling sorry for the guy, but in the ring he was ready and fighting rough. He was hitting on the break constantly and you know what? I find out later his wife wasn't due for a few months. Between this and a car accident I was in, I was just done with the game. DH: What did you get into when the boxing career ended? JG: I worked at Caesar's Palace in Vegas. I was a blackjack dealer. I worked there the same time Joe Louis was there as a greeter. DH: Joey, what was the one fight out there that just escaped you? JG: At the top of my list would have been Sugar Ray Robinson for the middleweight title. I pressed him about this at the time and he told me in no uncertain terms, 'Joey, I don't like the way you work inside.' DH: Joey, at 82, how is your health? JG: Well, I had a series of strokes awhile back and between that and the housing market bust here in Las Vegas, it really set me back. My son Joey Jr., whom I should tell you put himself in a position of great personal and financial loss, stuck with me, as did my daughter Gina. And, although I still have a few issues, I feel good today because of them. DH: What's Joey Giambra up to these days? JG: Dan, over the years I've been inducted into no less than seven boxing hall of fames and have written a book recollecting some of the events in my career. It's called 'The uncrowned champion: Boxing and the Mafia in the golden era', which was published through Author House. And today, they're even talking about a movie on my life. # # # Simply put, without the right connections in the 1950s fight game, one had less of a chance of a title shot than a 1980s heavyweight had of ignoring a buffet table. Although having his ups and downs in life, Joey has been blessed with a wonderful family, whom I also had the privilege of talking to. And, although never a world champ, the name Joey Giambra will always be synonymous with what was indeed a truly golden era. ................................................. (Many thanks to Dan Hanley who has personally allowed that transcript for inclusion on the CBS and other pages) http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p7C0x35f8...577_467997496678602_5183933584076028050_n.jpg
"My break finally came. If you could call fighting Ernie Shavers a break. I had no choice. I'd waited too long to get a fight that mattered. If it had to be Earnie Shavers so be it. I was ready. Five years before I was an eager amateur, climbing into Gleason's Gym ring against this world-ranked puncher and feeling thrilled to have survived three rounds with him. Now he was all that stood between me and my chance at the Heavyweight Title. Outside the ring, Shavers was one of the most likeable guys in all of boxing. And he was my friend. Over the years we'd sparred a bunch of rounds and hung out together. I'd found him to be an unassuming kind of guy with a nice sense of humor. Earnie was easy to be around, but push come to shove, make no mistake, he was all man. I remember one time a bunch of us were playing cards in a Cleveland hotel room and, with thousands of dollars on the table and Earnie riding a winning hand, one of the guys tried to claim a mixed deal on account of an exposed card. Earnie wasn't buying bull****. With one of his big-knuckled hands, he picked up the money and with a glare that might have made Sonny Liston nervous, said "This money belongs to me. Anybody says different, come and get it". Nobody said different. Not me. Not nobody." (Larry Holmes)
"The facts clearly show that in 1926 I tried desperately to arrange a fight with Harry Wills but the deal collapsed when my guarantee was not forthcoming. Wills and I had signed to fight with a promoter named Floyd Fitzsimmons of Benton Harbor, Michigan. Wills, I understand, received fifty thousand dollars as his guarantee for signing the contract. I was to have received one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in advance of the fight. As the date of the fight grew nearer and my money did not appear, I became anxious and asked Fitzsimmons what was the matter. He wired me to meet him in Dayton, Ohio, assuring me that he would have the money for me there. I met Fitzsimmons in Dayton who handed me a certified check for twenty-five thousand dollars and a promise to let me have the balance almost immediately. I balked at that, demanding the full amount right away. Fitzsimmons tried to placate me by calling the bank where he said he had deposited the money. The bank, unfortunately for Fitzsimmons, informed him that it did not have that much money on hand, that there wasn't enough to cover the twenty-five thousand dollar check he had given me. Furious, I returned the check to Fitzsimmons and told him the fight was off. Later, the Fitzsimmons syndicate financing the fight sued me for failure to honor a contract. I won the case." (Jack Dempsey speaking in 1950) http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QobfYDdYL...757_466853990126286_7251529518768816681_n.jpg
"Dressing room No. 26 in the rear of New York's Madison Square Garden is a windowless pit that holds heat like a thermos. Behind its heavy steel door, Room 26 contains nothing but the basic needs for a fighter in training - two low benches pressed against the grim, peeling walls, a small tiled shower, an archaic bronze-colored scale that has lost too many decisions to oxidation, a rubbing table only recently oiled and repadded to disguise its oblique past. Every day for six weeks prior to meeting Joe Giardello for the world middleweight championship, **** Tiger, the courtly 36-year-old Nigerian challenger, would come to this room and sit on a bench in the 90 degree heat. ...... Right from the first round, Tiger flicked jab after jab at Giardello. From a far corner there even came the sound of an apesi, a Nigerian drum. Played by a friend of Tiger's, it beat constantly, and its message was "keep punchin'." In turn, Giardello's fans from Philadelphia started chanting "Hey, hey, take it away," in the ninth round when Joey seemed to rally, but there was very little that Giardello could do to take anything away. As the fight moved toward the 15th round, his combinations had totally disappeared, his legs looked stiff and Tiger's jab was keeping him from ever getting a chance to throw the big right hand that would knock Tiger out. Giardello was courageous, as he always has been, and he was thoroughly beaten, as he hadn't often been. ...... In his dressing room after the fight Tiger looked like a woodcut print of a boxer, while Giardello, sitting on a table across the arena, lifted his mashed profile and announced, rather proudly, his retirement." (William Leggett) http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cYf9onuql...402_451793228299029_6592798903769272836_n.jpg
The former light-heavyweight champion who was paralytic drunk when he entered the ring with Jack Sharkey. 1928. Madison Square Garden, New York. "In his last big fight he was matched with future heavyweight champion Jack Sharkey. Once again, the possibility of a crack at the heavyweight crown, and a big gate with Tunney, was in the balance. This time Delaney entered the ring flabby, bloated and listless. When the bell rang for the opening round he was unable to move. Apparently intoxicated to the point of virtual paralysis, Delaney stood staring at his corner as Sharkey came across the ring. Sharkey paused momentarily in disbelief, and then knocked Delaney to the canvas. The fight ended with Delaney on his hands and knees, crawling around the ring like a man looking for a lost button, while the referee counted him out. The emotional Sharkey, his mouth piece hanging halfway out of his mouth, clung to the top ring rope crying in joy, as the furious spectators cried fix.". http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z3Nx5sjUn...772_444238292387856_9152864204110279720_n.jpg
"They drew a pistol on us and took the belt back" "Juan Zurita, he was past due for a defense so they named me as contender and gave me a shot at it. They threatened to take the title away from him. Since I was a little kid, I had envisioned being lightweight champion. I dreamed about the lightweight title and I finally won it. So I guess when I won it that night I probably leaped about five feet in the air. I knocked him out in the second round. It was a combination, I'll never forget it, it was a right hand to the body and a left on his chin. He went down for the full count. I was almost killed down there, too, for beating him. The Mexicans, we were almost killed. Then the Mexicans started throwing bricks and things. The cops, our bodyguards, two cops, looked around, they were gone. Connie McCarthy (my manager), he was knocked out with a brick to the head. His head was split open with that brick. That's when the Mexican came up, he said "Gimmie the belt!" I haven't seen the title belt since that night, since April 18th, 1945. I saw the belt for maybe five minutes. I haven't seen it since. Maybe it's down in Mexico City now. The fellow pulled a pistol out. He was going to kill all of us. So I said "Give the man the damn belt!" They took the belt back. They drew a pistol on us and took the belt back. We made it to the dressing room. They followed us to the airport the next morning." - Ike Williams.
"MUMBLING INCOHERENTLY, the shriveled little man shuffled into the charity ward of Chicago State Hospital. The doctors looked at him with a mixture of pity and awe. His eyes were blank and his once muscular 133-pound frame had wasted away to a mere 80 pounds. A brash young attendant said callously: "Huh! Another derelict. We're sure getting a lot of them these days." An elderly attendant shot him a cold look. "Do you know who that 'derelict' is?" he snapped angrily. "That 'derelict' is Battling Nelson, one of the greatest fighters who ever lived." Old Bat, who had licked immortals like Aurelio Herrera, Young Corbett, Jimmy Britt, Terry McGovern and the incomparable Joe Gans, was 71 years old when he was ruled insane and committed in January of 1954. The psychiatrists' diagnosis had been chillingly brief: "Incurable senile dementia." Nobody will ever know what went on in Nelson's tortured mind as he dribbled away his last days amid alien surroundings. Occasionally a flicker of interest would light up his lustreless eyes and he would try to talk. But the words trickled out in a jumble of meaningless phrases. Those familiar with the ex-champion's spectacular career could pick out place names here and there and link them with some of the famous battles that had earned him riches beyond his dreams. Names like Colma... Goldfield... Point Richmond... But what could they make of such mystifying phrases as electric lights... cracks in the floor... sheets of snow... my seven dollar suit...? It was hard to make any sense of this babbling because Nelson, in his wild hallucinations, was conjuring up the broken images of a past less concerned with his great triumphs than with the vivid fragments of memory that often overshadow the important events in a man's life..." A month later he was dead of lung cancer at age 71. With 68 wins, 19 draws and 19 losses, Bat once said that although he had "lost several fights," he had never been beaten. (From: Boxing International, Dec. 1974)
On his pro debut in 1910 future Australian sensation Les Darcy fought Guv'nor Balsa over a scheduled 10 rounds, the fight was scored a draw and it was decided by all parties to box one more round to decide a winner, which Darcy (aged 14) won on points. This was the only time, to my knowledge, that a professional fight was won on points over 11 rounds. (photo below shows Darcy at 15 when he worked as an apprentice blacksmith) http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zCrYdB55Y...919_443152875829731_8966520617906335709_n.jpg
When Mick Leahy won the British middleweight title against George Aldridge with a first round ko....Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) and Randy Turpin all jumped into the ring to hug Leahy.