I'm intrigued by sparring and background stories.

Yeah I like hearing those kind of stories as well. I'm pretty sure John Garfield is the man you want in regards to this. Hopefully he sees this thread and posts. The guy knew Sugar Ray Robinson and Willie Pep!

 

Love boxing stories like that myself.

The Liston/Rubin Carter sparring session where badass Carter had blood in his headgear because Liston hit him so hard and Carter got terrified and freakin' left town...

Good stuff.

 

Hearns/McClellan isn't just a rumor? Holy ****, that's great...

 

Well, you mentioned sparring/background stories, so I have one to tell, though it's pretty sad.

Matthew Saad Muhammad, Mr. Excitement for years in the light heavyweight division, was of course originally known as Matthew Franklin. How he got this name is quite a heart-rending tale.......

When he was three or so, he went out for a walk in his native Philadelphia with his older brother. His brother was instructed by his mother (for whatever reason, finances, possibly) to "lose" young Matthew along the way. They got quite a ways out, when the older brother broke into a sprint. Matthew, of course, was far too small to keep up, and was left crying on a street corner all alone. The police came to get him, but he was too young to be able to tell them where he lived or what his last name was apparently. He was put in an orphanage and assigned the last name "Franklin" because that's the street on which the police picked him up.

 

great story!

 

You surprised me, PL. Perhaps this about Marciano will be of interest:

He looked even clumsier sparring than you could imagine -- a ham‘n’egger against most half-decent boxers in the gym...and it didn’t help that he resembled the Pillsbury Doughboy in layers of sweat clothes, wearing 16-ounce gloves that looked like pillows on his stubby arms.

Seeing him before the bell gave no hint of his being any kind of a fighter -- let alone world class -- more like a catcher to hone some one else's tools.

A first-time observer would’ve advised him to pick up a hard hat.

The only lesson he could teach was: what NOT to do.

But every guy who looked like he boxed rings around him -- pinned his ears back -- never missed him with jabs -- came out of the ring looking like he dropped from a 10-story building and landed flat-footed.

Rocky's cuffing, pawing, mauling, grazing shots, flicks to the sides when he was tied-up on the inside, impacted them like bumps from a rhino. From ringside, the only evidence was a grimace, an "OOPH!" and a quiver.

Every sparring partner who looked sensational against him, said the same thing exiting the ring: “I hurt all over.”

 

LOL! Well, heck, Carter was barely a middleweight - closer to a light middleweight, my weight as an amateur. I sparred some heavyweights and even when they took it easy on me I thought they were gonna kill me! The Texas State Golden Gloves champ went a couple of rounds with me, just tapping me in the chest, and I could feel my sternum compress against my damned spine! :yikes After that, sparring with light-heavies felt like cupcakes.

Y'know those expressions: "Blondes have more fun;" "The rich really are different - they have more money." Well, there's a heavyweight and then there's everything else.

 

Does anyone have a definitive story on Tyson - Lewis. Ive heard contrasting stories from Lewis having Tysons number to Tyson ****ing him about the ring. Any quotes from anyone who would know about how they got on or anything surfaced?

 

Sal, that story is just heart breaking.

 

Didn't he eventually find out his real name? I definitely have an article somewhere about it.

 

All's I do in these situations is wait to see what I Am Legend says...then I know the opposite is true.

 

Sad story, do you have any idea if he ever met up with his old family? Thats a really scummy thing that happened to him.

 

"We put the gloves on," Lennox remembers. "The bell rang. And Mike ran across the ring trying to hurt me. He wasn't sparring. It wasn't about the two of us learning and working out together. He was trying to knock me out. I threw a jab. He ducked under it and came back with a hook that sent me back against the ropes. Later in the round, he knocked me down and bloodied my nose. And I realized then, 'Okay, this is how it goes. It's not a sport. This is life and death.' You need certain dramas to wake you up to certain realities in life. That round introduced me to the reality of boxing."

Arnie Boehm later recalled that, on the first day, Lennox "dodged and ran to get away from Mike because he wasn't accustomed to meeting a guy that ferocious."

Lennox says simply, "The whole first day in the ring, I was adjusting. And each day after that, I got better. I guess you could say that I was doing my Muhammad Ali impersonation and Mike was doing his Joe Frazier impersonation. By the third day, I was holding my own. And I gave him a busted lip, which made me feel good because I felt that then we were even."

"Outside the ring," Lennox remembers, "even though Mike and I were staying in the same house, there was very little interaction between us. One evening, we looked at footage of old fight films together. One of the films was of Jersey Joe Walcott. I could see how Walcott would step back to lure his opponent in and then -BAM- come back with a quick right hand. And one afternoon, I went with Mike to some girl's house to pick up a package she had for him. But overall he was cold to me."

"Right before I left Catskill," Lennox recalls, "Cus D'Amato told me, 'You're good and you'll get better. Someday, you and Mike will meet in the pros.'"

A pensive look crosses Lennox's face. "I wish Cus were still alive," he says. "I wish he could see what Mike and I reached and what we achieved in boxing."