Boxrec Homework Assignment

eleventh hour, you submitting it in the 11th hour?

 

I know, I did plan to but I got side tracked

 

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Jimmy Doyle.


James J. Delaney, (or Jimmy Doyle, a name he took from a one time welterweight star) was a welterweight fighting in the 40’s. Born in Los Angeles, A young, poor Irish American living in a city not known at the time for producing boxers, Doyle set about the amateurs. After impressing his two trainers at the time, he landed with Tony Palazola. Palazola was impressed with Jimmy’s ferocity and style, and was keen to point out his new prospect to boxers, new and old, that were passing through Los Angeles. Amazingly, a certain Jack Johnson was passing through the area in the early 40’s and took a interest in Doyle, as did his one time rival Jim Jeffries who both admired young Jimmy’s skills. This gave a young Doyle great confidence and he turned pro soon after in 1941.




Jimmy started his professional career in 1941, fighting some 12 times that year, picking up ten wins, one loss and one draw. Motivated by his determination to make money to support his mother, a young Jimmy acquired a ferocious non-stop style which pleased the audience and eventually, in late ‘44 got him a booking for a number of fights on the East Coast. Jimmy was an instant pleaser, picking up fans along the way who nicknamed him‘Irish Jimmy Doyle’. His first appearance at Madison Square Garden was on November the 30th, against Frankie Terry, a tough fighter who had lost, and drawn once with Rocky Graziano earlier that year. Although Terry outweighed Jimmy by eight pounds he was no match for the young man from Los Angeles, losing a wide decision and handing Jimmy his 7th straight win on his east coast tour. A month or so later in December he found himself up against former Lightweight Champion Lew Jenkins. Doyle gave Jenkins four rounds of hell, opening a cut above his eye that would see the doctor refuse to let him go out for the fifth round.


Now Jimmy Doyle had made a name for himself, claiming his spot as the tied number three contender in the Welterweight division along it was Tippy Larkin. It was now 1946 a year that was to be much different from the last. After beating Joe Reddick via a comfortable decision to start the year, Jimmy was now scheduled to fight with ex-marine Artie Levine. Levine, a huge puncher from Brooklyn who would later floor Sugar Ray Robinson in their 1947 bout (a fight in which Sugar Ray came back to knock him out in the tenth) who was more a Middleweight than a Welterweight coming in at 10 pounds heavier than Doyle. It was clear from the start that Jimmy (a man fighting without his trainer Palazola in his corner due to him being severely ill in hospital) had no intention of backing down, matching the much larger and stronger Levine punch for punch and was decisively ahead on all 3 judges scorecards before suddenly, in the 9th round Levine rallied back and hit Jimmy with a flurry of punches that sent his crashing to the canvas. Doyle was down and out, after being carried out of the ring on a stretcher and taken to the hospital, the doctors, seeing how bad his concussion was, advised him to retire from boxing for good to preserve the young mans future health.


Jimmy returned to his home in Los Angeles, and after nine months he had gotten tired of sitting around, he missed the thing he loved the most, he missed boxing. Although he couldn’t get a license from the Los Angeles Boxing Commission who were afraid to reinstate him after his Loss to Levine, he set out looking for opponents in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Brooklyn amassing five straight victories…Jimmy Doyle was back.

The stage was now set, back when he was ranked as the number 3 contender the previous year there was one man that was above everyone, a man who seemed unstoppable as he glided around the ring knocking out opponents as if almost for fun. Sugar Ray Robinson now lay in the way of Jimmy Doyle and on the 24th of June 1947, they would meet in Cleveland, Ohio. At last Doyle had his big shot, a chance to shake up the Welterweight division and as the bout started on a warm evening at the Cleveland Arena, he met Sugar Ray in the middle of the ring intending to do just that. It didn’t take long for Doyle and the crowd to realise that Robinson was in a class of his own, using his great speed and power to back Jimmy up. However, Jimmy was a warrior, he gave his all and some of the ringside reporters gave him the third round. This was not without consequence, he took some big shots from Robinson and by the 5th he was beginning to tire. All though he was tired and weak, Doyle continued to throw punches and shook Robinson in the 5th round making him clinch and hold on for a second. Jimmy continued battling throughout the next two rounds, standing toe to toe with Sugar Ray and trying his best to stick in there. Then in the eighth the inevitable happened, Sugar hit Jimmy with a punch right on the chin that sent him down, so quick that not many of the audience saw it. Jimmy lay on the canvas lifeless and people feared the worst….it was like his bout with Levine all over again. He was taken to hospital and doctors soon realised he had a blood clot on his brain, and although they worked all night to try and bring him back, there was nothing they could do.

Jimmy Doyle was pronounced dead early the next morning, finishing with a career record of 43 wins, 7 losses and 3 draws.

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There's mine on Jimmy Doyle, a fighter that I've really enjoyed reading about lately.

Doesn't fit the criteria of the thread fully I know, but its a little about a fighter I don't hear much about.

 

There's also a nice qoute by SRR about Doyle:

''Man, I threw everything at him but my brassie, and he wouldn't go down''

 

I'll play although I don't know how to bring over a photograph.

Turkey Thompson--In my opinion, the most dangerous punching heavyweight next to Joe Louis in the forties. Style. He was short 5' 8" and so obviously must have come in. He had a big left hook. Sort of a Tyson of the forties. Weakness was clearly stamina. Thompson got some late, but if you could survive the early rounds, your chances picked up significantly.

Thompson was born in December of 1919 and began his career as a middleweight, quickly growing to a lightheavy. In his lighter days around 1940 he defeated tough Teddy Yarosz and ko'd Big Boy Hogue, Johnny Romero, and Glen Lee, ranking #6 among lightheavies in 1940. By 1941 he was growing into a rather big heavy, reaching over 200 lbs. He would rank as a heavyweight from 1941 to 1943, rising to #3 with ko's of Buddy Knox, Pat Valentino, Gus Dorazio, Eddie Blunt, the giants Chuck Crowell and Big Ben Morosz (a man a foot or possibly a foot and a half taller), and his career highlight, a sensational one round ko of Elmer Ray. On the down side, he lost two decisions to Bob Pastor, but had Pastor down six times in the first round of their first fight, and also lost a decision to Pat Valentino. The bottom fell out for Turkey in 1944, splitting with Perk Daniels, losing a decision to Lee Q Murray and being stopped in one by Al Hart, his first career ko defeat. He apparently lost track of the ref's count in the Hart debacle.

Thompson laid off for three years, but came back in 1947, again gaining a spot at #8 in the rankings after a stoppage of Kid Rivera and a decision over Arturo Godoy. A second decision loss to Valentino in 1948 might have cost him an eventual shot at the title, He rallied with a series of ko's in 1949, including Lee Q Murray and Al Hart, and ended the year the #3 heavyweight.

Thompson's career more or less ended abruptly in 1950. He was only 30. He lost a close decision to Johnny Holman, a good young fighter, and a very close split decision to journeyman Frank Buford. He then lost to two top up and comers, Rex Layne and Clarence Henry, by UD. A comeback in 1952 saw him ko'd in 7 by Willie Bean.

Thompson was a stubby fighter in the mode of the earlier Galento or the later Tyson. He had a big left hook and a good chin. He obviously could be outboxed and his record implies stamina issues. His one round ko of Ray is certainly an historical victory. Had the Pastor fight occurred a decade later, or had the ref pulled the trigger as he well might have, Thompson would have had a second historical one round ko triumph. It is too bad we never saw Turkey in a championship match against Louis.

 

Awesome stuff here...Ill have a go when my internet gets up to full speed again tommorrow or the next day.

 

That was great great thank you

 

It'd be good if we could keep this going!

 

Yeh Meast I look to churn out a few more.

Really interesting about Doyle, never realised how good he was in his own right, I guess, like many, I have overlooked him as the man who was killed by Robinson. Really thanks for that.

 

Same.

 

Why not just ask you school/college for an extension? you know you want to.

 

Bump, some more people should add to this if they can be bothered!

 

I couldn't post anything due to my university finals, but here's the low-down on an often forgotten British boxer, who won the light-heavyweight title but who was never HoF material. I first found out about him through my dad's cigarette-card collection.

Name: Freddie Mills

Physical Stats: 5"10/72" reach

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Nickname: "Fearless Freddie"

Interesting fact: After retirement, Freddie Mills presented the BBC music show "Six-Five Special".

Style: Mills worked off the left jab. He kept his left arm just below his opponent's eye-level so as to hide it and invite his opponent's right hand for counter-punching opportunities. He would use both his right and his left to push-off his opponent's arms so as to stop his opponents punching and give him a chance to move back into punching range. He liked to get into brawls and was not a stylish boxer.

Strengths: He had good power that made a difference in many of his biggest fights. When he beat Lesnevich for the title, the key factors were the cuts he opened over Gus's eyes and the power he used to knock Lesnevich down. Many of the boxers he knocked out would today be cruiserweights and heavyweights, as he loved to step up to the then-heavyweigth class to take on bigger boxers. He tended to only deliver his power in high-profile bouts, so his 49 KOs in 76 wins doesn't do justice to the power that he proved at the highest level. Like almost all of the boxers of his era, he had exceptional stamina and had no problem with going the full 15 rounds. His hard-working approach meant he was able to win decisions over more skilled opponents by outworking them over the distance.

Weaknesses: He often bit off more than he could chew by going up to heavyweight, which accounts for many of his losses. He didn't have a bad chin, but it wasn't an iron-chin either. This was a problem, because his style meant he got hit a lot and at the top level this cost him fights against Lloyd Marshall, Joey Maxim and his first title challenge against Lesnevich. Basically, he needed either a better chin or a better defence to consistently win at the world-class level. It has been said that, with a better trainer and a more cautious promoter, he could have beaten most of his contemporaries.