I've heard Sugar Ray & Joe Louis were big mates and had a business together (bar or restaraunt or something) Joe Frazier & Ali before he got his licence back RJJ & G-man PBF & Judah before they fought Taylor, Sweet Pea & Holyfield due to their time together at the olympics Any others?
ESB probably isn't big enough list to all the examples of this within the close knit boxing fraternity. SRR was LaMotta's best man at at least one of Jake's weddings. Schmeling famously paid for the funeral of Louis. Dempsey and Tunney remained lifelong friends, as did Dempsey and Sharkey. Max Baer and Primo Carnera became good pals. Joe Frazier has been very close to both Larry Holmes and Ken Norton. Graziano and LaMotta were boyhood chums. What's probably more noteworthy are those examples of former opponents who held grudges they never let go of, like Joey Giardello and Gene Fullmer.
Jack Johnson was friends with Barbados Joe Walcott and they caused absolute havoc when they got together. Likewise Jack Johnson and Stanley Ketchel. I could go on for a long time. Give me a name and I will try to match some friends to it.
Patterson and Johanasson were good friends after their fights LaMotta and Graziano were childhood friends
you sure? really i thought they just knew of each other as they were to top american boxers. From what i understand more aquantinces thats like Carmen Basilio and all his old opponents they ran a marathon together. wasnt Pep and SRR and Graziano mates
Donald Curry and Milton McCrory were good friends before they fought.I have heard the same about Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns.I think Ray and Leon Spinks were friends in the early stages of their careers.Also, Jeff Chandler and Matthew Saad Muhammad are real tight.
:yep Floyd and Ingo also had a rowing heat against each other in an ABC Superstar's retired athlete's segment. (Ingo trashed Floyd, but Patterson was the only retiree competing with his shirt off, and his physique was that of a 20 year old man with the six pack he was sporting. Say what you will about his "modesty," but he knew he looked good compared to all the other paunchy contestants like Ingo.) It was obvious during the interview after the race that they enjoyed being together. This is where John Garfield could shed an awful lot of light on just how close some of these relationships were. Since Graziano was able to get something of a show business career going with Martha Raye's show after his retirement (remember the commercial they did several decades later for Polident?), it wouldn't surprise me if Robinson was attracted to Rocky's entertainment success like a moth to a light. Ray has been described by some (Basilio) as an arrogant SOB, but I'd imagine he had some respect for Pep's abilities. Of course Pep and Graziano were Italian, so I suspect there was at least a connection there. Again, when it comes to clarifying the nature of many of these interactions, JG might be able to offer a great deal of first hand observations. (Assuming he doesn't feel bound to an ethic of secrecy, of course. Basilio has already been taped as saying that when SRR died, "I didn't give a ****!") I don't always feel particularly comfortable commenting on people Mr. Garfield has personally known, when there are published examples from the first several decades of the last century which pre-date his first-hand recollections. (Tunney-Greb and Greb-Walker, for instance.)
I'd heard that Choynski and Johnson developed at least a sort of friendship when both were thrown in jail after their fight, with Choynski showing Johnson some tricks of the trade. I think I read somewhere that Saddler still had some bad blood with Pep, but I can't say for sure as it sounded more like rumor than anything. Maybe someone closer to them could shed a better light on it.
When they appeared together on Curt Gowdy's retrospective sports program, "The Way it Was," they were indeed arguing about the events taking place during the controversial fight between them that they were reviewing, a stark contrast to the genial and civil repartee between other former boxing opponents on Gowdy's show.
Oh, before I forget, Alexis Arguello and Aaron Pryor. (While thinking of El Flaco Explosivo, we ought to be keeping The Hawk in our thoughts as well at this moment.)
Hawk and Leon Spinks were buddies .. makes sense, right ? Duran and Mamby were tight ... Holmes and Cooney ... Foreman and Ali ... Johnson and McVey Jeffries and Sharkey Marciano and Louis ... Louis and Liston ...