Facts,Incredible feats.Good Gym fighters.Mismatches.This is a thread devoted to the place fighters are made.Anybody can start
Got a Pittsburgh Lyceum story for you Quick. In 1948 there was a middleweight rivalry brewing in the Burg, a showdown between our town's top two middles. It had been delayed once already due to Charley Zivic's breaking his hand in a New York win. But so the time was riper than ever, and Pittsburgh's fight fans hungrier than ever for it, when it finally came down at Forbes Field; only to end prematurely in a one-sided way when Lee Sala took the old man out within the first two. Some events leading up to the fight, trainers exchanged, last minute style reconsiderations at least on one side implemented, a new rule requiring the use of eight ounce gloves instead of six or four would have to be laced up, some blatant fouling that was documented in the papers the next day and clear competitors though they were, what had always at least been an uneasy friendship would be relegated to useless sentiment, as the unspoken grudges set in. They'd go their own ways, Sala's spotless record in tact, his 42-0 with a helluva lot of ko's may have lasted up until he met up with Bobo Olson in the Pacific, if I'm not mistaken. They'd run into each other at the Lyceum in between goes, on their way in or out of town, eyeing each other warily, the old man licking his chops for a rematch that his guys never could land with Sala's more than able man, Bunny Buntag. But in the gym of course anything can go down, when records and paydays aren't on the line, and that's where the old man would get his chance when he knocked old Lammin' Lee out ... with, "the big gloves!" was what he liked to emphasize.
