A little tribute to this very good and almost forgotten MW- fighter. This content is protected William "Gorilla" Jones BORN May 12 1906; Memphis, Tennessee (Some sources report May 4 1910); DIED This content is protected January 4 1982; Los Angeles, California; HEIGHT 5-9 (Some sources report 5-6; WEIGHT 147-160 lbs; MANAGER Stephen "Suey" WelshJones was a talented boxer who was clever and quick and used a good jab accompanied by stiff punches; Freddie Steele once said that Jones was the "cleverest fighter I ever fought"; He was never knocked out and during his career, he won the This content is protected The "Gorilla" defeated such men as Tommy Freeman, Hamilton "Ham" Jenkins, George Nichols, Bucky Lawless, Wesley "K.O." Ketchell, Frank Rowsey, Pal Silvers, Arturo Schaekels, Jack McVey, Izzy Grove, Oddone Piazza, Tiger Thomas, Meyer Grace, Al Mello, Clyde Chastain, Henry Firpo, Paul Pirrone, Young Terry, Sammy Slaguther, Young Stuhley, Frankie Hughes, Tait Littman, Eddie Murdock, Johnny "Bandit" Romero, Pete Meyers, "Young" Johnny Burns, Fred "Dummy" Mahan, Jack Sparr, Nick Testo and Billy Angelo
Jones was all but indestructible from what I've read. Only down once in his career against a ATG puncher in Freddie Steele.
I read that Ring magazine article about him a few years back, still got it somewhere in my old pile, cut the picture out of him and it eventually went into a collage someone put together for me. Anyone remember that series Ring did, it was a section where there was a drawing type pic of the featured fighter each month, I remember there was a Rosenbloom one, a Ross, McLarnin, a Loughran and a the Jones one, if Ring were of the thinking there was any correlation between the guys they did these sections on, then they held Gorilla Jones in very high regard indeed. The part that has always stuck out in my head is this, im not sure who the opponent was, but he got knocked down against an opponent, and his words were something to the effect of 'i have no excuses, there's no excuse for getting hit with a right hand', the man must have had some standards if he thought getting hit with a right hand was such an inexcusable error!!
