1939 article on Galento-Nova

The third round seemed particularly wild.

At 18:20 - Galento launches himself off the floor – both feet off – and connects with a left hook flush to Nova’s chin and Nova goes down, but Galento lands on top of him. Both were sprawled in the center of the ring for a few seconds. Then Galento jumps up and runs to the neutral corner, as Nova rises in the middle of the ring and staggers as he looks around trying to find Galento, then Galento charges the staggering Nova.

Good stuff. The announcers didn’t seem to think it was the dirtiest fight ever.

After the fight is stopped, the announcer says: “Well, a great fight! A brilliant stand-up fight made by both Nova and Galento … let’s give credit where credit is due. The experts, the people who should know about these fights, said that Galento could never win a long fight. That he’d have to win in the first few rounds if he was ever going to win at all.”

 

To be fair to Nova, regarding that same UPI article on the cut, the article stated "From the opening minute of the fight, Nova was blinded by blood that streamed unchecked from a forehead wound inflicted by the first blow of the fight."

Now you and I know blows don't cause forehead wounds, heads do. Also, regarding the knockdown, that same article stated, "Savold scored the only knockdown, catching Nova off balance with a left in the 2nd round. There was no count."

Nothing too impressive about that. Also, you really can't compare eras such as the '30s to today. The only thing apples to apples are the blows they take. But saying Ruiz accomplished more doesn't take into consideration how many straps are available today. Nova had one belt available back then and it was worn by a guy named Louis. Also, there are about 5 recognizable names on Ruiz' ledger as opposed to Nova fighting all the top dogs of his day, not to mention some of them being life and death struggles. Read what he went through with Farr, Galento, Barlund and the fact he stood and countered Baer through two fights. Maxie may have been towards the end of his career but those right hands he nailed Lou with were real. Suffice to say, I don't think he deserves the bad press he's been getting here. I think he was an awesome contender in a tough era.

 

Tony said he fought his best against tall fighters like "6'6, 67, 6'8" according to him, because they have more target to hit. If Galento was in more modern times.....watch out Bowe, Lewis, K2 brothers, Wilder, AJ

 

And others seriously believed that he was going to beat Joe Louis!

Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course!

 

In fairness to Savold, I think he knocked out Nova cold in the rematch and Nova was out for quite a while.

As for the first fight, it is confusing as the UPI article says the forehead cut came from the first blow. It is possible Savold was clever enough to cover a butt with a followup punch, thus confusing the issue for the referee. What I don't understand is if the forehead bleeding was so bad it blinded Nova how the fight was allowed to go eight full rounds.

In the article that was posted, Ray Arcel was mentioned:

"Trainer Ray Arcel said a small artery was cut and without Monsell's solution he was unable to stem the flow effectively."

Later Arcel was quoted:

"We had to stop the fight. Beating that guy, or even the champion for that matter, wasn't worth the risk of a bad eye and Lou had a nasty cut on the lid that might have given him lots of trouble."

Other fight reports mention cuts on the brows and on both eyes. I think Nova's defense was shaky and he had a tendency to cut. He had a fair chin, but other than surviving the aging Baer there is no indication it was really first rate. And in fact he lost twice to Savold.

As for the one champion argument, the problem is that Nova came no where near beating Louis. Quite a few fighters did better when they challenged Louis, including Galento, who also beat Nova badly. Other than Baer, who was several years past his championship years, there just isn't anyone that impressive in Nova's resume. He didn't beat the majority of the top fighters he met--Rosenbloom, Galento, Louis, Savold, Mauriello, Baksi, and Oma, as well as Pastor with a draw. After the Comiskey fight, his victories in his final years seem to be over journeymen. The contenders all beat him.

Like I said, I am not saying he was awful. He was a decent contender for a while, if probably hyped up as a man who might beat Louis, but I don't agree with putting him on the same level as Ruiz or Joshua.

 

I think that these sort of criticisms could be made of pretty much any of the top contenders in that era.

Nobody stayed at the top for very long, and most of them ended up as a name filler for other up and coming contenders, when they were past their best.

In Nova's case, I think that he burned out fairly early, for reasons that you have hinted at.

As for his defense. I get the idea that it worked until people figured out which punch he was a sucker for, a bit like Joshua really.

Boxers and MMA fighters are saying things like "so Joshua was a sucker for a left hook all that time."

You might not like the analogy, but perhaps Galento is our Ruiz figure here, and gave people the blueprint for beating Nova?

 

To be fair, he probably drew on his experience of hitting people, as much as his experience of getting hit!

 

I don't think that any challenger did particularly well against Louis, unless they had a good stylistic match up.

Nova was essentially a fighter trying to implement the same fight plan as Louis, who was not as good at it, so in hindsight he was never going to get very far.

 

Grantland Rice's assessment of Baer Nova before the fight, sorry about the quality:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?...5FRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3GkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1829,2425248