One of the best boxing books I ever read was Peter Heller's This content is protected . There is this interview with Don Jordan, a welterweight World Champion who lost the title to Benny "The Kid" Paret, in which Jordan says that as a child he was used as an assassin by some kind of mob people and that he killed lots of people. Basically as a child. I read this book many years ago so I do not remember the details but from what I remember it sounded as if he killed a lot of people. I mean, I understand that he was a kid and when you look at Kassim Ouma's life story you understand that a child doesn't have that choice really that grown up people have. So I know he was used and abused and I would never hold it against him. I just felt it was a crazy story and I had never heard of it before I read Heller's book. Anybody knew that story?
Many years ago, I remember reading that assassin story (as well as hearing Jordon talk about it in interviews.
Jordan was nuts. It was all B.S. A researcher went back and tracked Jordans history and movements and he wasnt even in the Dominican Republic when he said all of this went down (if he was ever there at all). I spoke with Peter Heller once and we talked about this. He said he knew it was b.s. and that his story didnt check out but that it was Jordan's words and colorful so he left it in. To Heller's credit he has a notation at the bottom of the interview which states that none of what Jordan says about growing up in the Carribbean and being an assassin is true.
I read the same book as a kid and that story always stuck in my mind along with the one by Gunboat Smith ripping Jess Willards ear clean off. Matter of factly he said as an aside "of course the gloves were loaded"
When I remembered this story today, I googled and I saw some people say it might be proven that it is not true. But on the other hand, why would he make up such a story? Heller didn't say that Jordan was unhealthy or something like that. Even if he didn't do it in the dominican republic, maybe he did it somewhere else. This story is too crazy to just want to arrest attention with it. I just found this article which shows the exact words Don Jordan used when he told the story: http://www.boxing.com/don_jordan_assassin_for_hire.html
If my memory is correct Jordan was born in East LA. He had some severe problems with drugs throughout his life. Hence his delusions. He got sober, at least for awhile, and died after being mugged. I remember reading about that in the LA Times and the story mentioned that his knuckles were busted up when he was found, and I thought that that was fair. He went out fighting.
