Not a lot of people know this but...

This was back at the old Gramercy Gym on 14th St in New York.

I’m sitting ringside watching sparring and talking fights with some of the regulars and another guy joins the conversation and introduces himself as Harold Green.

Harold Green was a helluva middleweight from the '40s. He beat Rocky Graziano twice.

As soon as one of the guys hears him say 'Harold Green,' he’s all over him with questions. He wants to know every detail of what it was like facing Graziano: Was he as hard a puncher as everyone said? Did Rocky ever hurt him?...and on and on.

The guy couldn't have been nicer -- showed us how he slipped Rocky’s right and made him pay, how he kept him off-balance with his jab -- spent about three hours answering every question before he had to leave.

The guy asking the questions was Harold Green.

 

:rofl

 

Man, publish a goddamn book, I'd buy it.

So there was a phoney acting like he was Harold Green? Why would anyone actually do that?

 

Sadly, MS, talk to any gym owner, it's commonplace. Usually some harmless wish-he'd-been-something.

 

Don't know who's moderating, but whoever he is he should make this thread "stick". Garfield's stories are to good for the thread to sink away amongst the others.

 

clyde gray had his life threatened before his fight with andel espada.he was worried about getting out of puerto rico alive

 

after the ali vs. chuvalo 1 fight,ali went to the hospital and passed blood for 2 weeks.chuvalo took his wife out to a club in toronto

 

A better wake-up than morning coffee, B.

 

There was a huge retirment ceremony for Sugar Ray Robinson in New York. Everyone came out to bid thier respects to the great Sugar Ray. Finally towards the end of the evening a promoter gave a special gift to Ray. He handed Ray a pair of boxing gloves & said these were the gloves Sugar Ray wore on his first profesional boxing match. Ray was deeply touched by this gesture & held on to the gloves tightly. It wasn't till Ray got back to the dressing room that he realized that they were both left handed gloves!

 

Earnie Shavers works the doors in Liverpool City Centre

 

I was at Madison Square Garden that night, lc. It was very touching (shmaltz, notwithstanding) seeing Sugar, in his knee-length white robe, (conjuring up all the times I'd seen him in the ring) saluting the crowd for the last time.

 

John G - I'm ploughing through your stories now man! This is pure gold!

I think you definately need to get this in print man and I'll tell you why...

Take out La Motta (due to Raging Bull) and for us younger fight fans, most boxers pre-Ali are made up of old footage and pound for pound lists. I've spent years reding up on Ali/Duran/Hagler/Leonard/Hearns etc etc etc but the legends that you talk about are (or were before I read your posts) just names on a page. Your stories bring them to life. I want to go out and read up on Jack Dempsey and Willie Pep outside the ring. I know what they acheived and I know how good they were, but your first and second hand stories bring these guys to life and its a shame that there's a whole generation of boxing fans that will have limited exposure to this kind of stuff.

I will pre-order mine on Amazon today! Get it done man!

 

This sure-as-hell lights a fire under me, BD!

 

i still have the letter earnie shavers wrote me years ago,wanting to know if i wanted to buy into his business venture

bigjake

 

What'd say exactly, bj?