Boxers who lost fights outside the ring

Calvin Grove in Coatesville, Pa.

No disrespect to Calvin intended. He was a featherweight.

 

Just a bigger man maybe 6ft 200lbs took a shot from him and picked him up and slammed him.

 

I read about this in a book about Joe Louis by his son, Joseph Louis Barrow, Jr. The fight scrubbed may have been the Louis-Conn rematch. I believe he either cut his hand badly or may also have broken it. Then the war came and the fight was put off until 1946. Louis met up with Conn while both were in the Army and Louis couldn't help ribbing Conn about getting bested by his father-in-law.

 

I heard that drunk Mickey Walker once picked a fight with a railroad worker who handily thrashed him.

 

SRR had to postpone a fight cause he got cold clocked by a light heavyweight sparring partner he hadn’t paid. Can happen to the best..

 

I think Conn's father inlaw had been a player and or manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was feared in the city. Billy and his bride couldn't even get married near the city because the priest etc feared disapproval of her father.
To Billy it was no big deal. At that time Pittsburgh was a great fight town and fighter town. In Pittsburgh people fought, it's just what they did. Hard heads.

 

Anyone who gets suckered by fellow pro is gonna be out.

 

that's often what people forget, there are LOADS of these Towns & Cities around the World, and that's what people just did, especially in Bygone more 'stoic' days. People were hard, tough and often unforgiving and of course some places more notorious & formidable than others.

a lost age and attitude really, replaced by arrogant tough guys who can't & don't do the same dance, simply because the whole psyche & approach is so much different.

someone recently told me about the strength & power of men's handshake, for example, has weakened ridiculously since those times of graft, necessity & labour.

it's probably accurate and a simple but poignant truth!

 

Remember just about 20 years before a hard man came out of Pittsburgh who wasn't reluctant to scrap. Harry something..?

 

We have to remember that there are weight divisions in boxing for a reason

 

Some people feel like Sugar Ray Robinson avoided a lot of good African American boxers of his day

 

Burley being the main one I believe. Archie Moore said Charley’s the best he ever fought and would’ve beat a prime Srr.