Not a lot of people know this but...

Mickey was lined up to fight Marvin Hagler in 1982, but he suffered a hand injury (or so he tells me). I have always suspected that he knew he couldn't make weight because he liked to party and he knew how to have a good time. Caveman Lee got the shot instead. He would have done better than Lee, I know that for a fact.

Goodwin had an extremely impressive KO streak in the amateurs, stopping something like 20 straight opponents in the first round. Just wasn't able to carry it over to the professional ranks. I thought he could have done better with a different trainer that didn't have him use a stand-up boxing style because he was short and stocky. He would have fought better out of a crouch position or bobbing and weaving. I see him every now and then at amateur cards with fighters he trains and at a local boxing event at the Palace of Auburn Hills every now and then.

 

I have some family in the Woodlands, a suburb of Houston, and they live not too far away from George Foreman, as he resides in the Woodlands as well.

 

Oscar De La Hoya was trained briefly by Carlos Ortiz.

Not many people know that

 

Me not included, because I did, indeed, know that.*










*When Robbi told me a few days before making this post.

 

Joe Louis met Conn during the postponement and said to him"Is your father in law still kicking your ass".

 

Tommy Burns 5 7 had a longer reach than Jack Johnson 6 1/4.

 

John L Sullivan was German.
Jimmy Mclarnin was born in Belfast Northern Ireland.




All right ,I made that up about Sullivan.

 

Steve Belloise once knocked a guy down 4 times and then out with one punch

 

Keep it up lads it's good fun.

 

Charley Burley was tapped to train Michael Moorer, but declined because he didn't like his attitude.

Ike Williams believed that Ray Robinson went into the tank against Joey Maxim.

 

Interesting possibilties, with Moorer and Burley. Moorer was a smart figher and pretty good with his hands, but I would have liked to have seen what he may have been as seen through Burley's eyes.

 

After Jake LaMotta hung'em up, he got work in films as a character heavy -- took it seriously, wanted to be as good an actor as he was a fighter. He enrolled in John Cassevettes' Theatre Workshop in New York -- did scenes to perfect his craft.

One day, I went to watch him. He was on stage doing some Tennessee Williams' monologue. It was surreal hearing that poetry coming out of Jake's mouth – half cement truck -- all Bronx.

While LaMotta stabbed at his lines like he was trying to solve Robinson, an intense young actor, who had no idea who Jake was, bounded on stage and confronted him.

"Your rehearsal time is over! It's my time now! Get off the stage!"

“I’ll just be a minute."

"No. Now! Get off!"

"But…”

And the actor SLAPPED Jake in the face, and demanded," NOW!"

I cringed.

Jake just looked at him…and looked at him, like a Great White Shark poised over chum. "Don't do that," he said softly, and walked off the stage.

The clueless actor and no inkling how close he’d come to a short career.
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On another occasion, I was in PJ Clarke's, a pub/hangout for the sports crowd on New York’s Eastside. LaMotta was a fixture at the bar, with long-time pal Pete Petrillo, co-writer of RAGING BULL.

LaMotta was holding court, back to the bar – trademark stogie in his mouth. He was hail-fellow-well-met now, all self-deprecating one-liners and backslaps, but anyone who didn’t get the tread-lightly message had little chance of surviving on the street.

A sweaty everyman in an ill-fitting suit spotted Jake through the crowd and headed for him.

He planted himself right in front of LaMotta, regaling him, and all in the bar, with how he saw Jake KO some guy in New Orleans, wind-milling punches millimeters from Jake’s face.

Jake didn’t move a muscle or change expression.

Sure enough, one lands flush on the cigar, plasters it against his face, like a cartoon.

After a long pause, LaMotta looked heavenward: "Why me?"

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Willie Pep was a gin mill comic 24-seven…and squeezed in time to box.

Laughs, ladies, and gambling floated his boat. It was all a party -- had us in stitches at Stillman’s gym -- made us feel he was just one of the boys. With his Graziano-slouch and pork pie hat, Willie was better able to carry that off goofin' on a street corner, never in the ring.

At the gym, it was non-stop gags, practical jokes, and a florid Lou Stillman. Pep could skate with those antics because he was a dream in the ring. It was a religious experience watching him.

But he took nothing serious. NOTHING -- never learned anything; it was all God given.

That 's the Pep I'd always seen at the height of his career.

After he quit, briefly, he tried being a trainer.

I was in the 5th St. Gym in Miami and Pep was in the corner of a big, beefy heavyweight.

He was screaming at him from the ring apron -- getting redder and redder in the face. This wasn't stand-up comic Willie; it was Vince Lombardi-Bobby Knight.

When the round ended, Pep went berserk, attacked his fighter -- screaming at him, punching him, whipping him with his pork pie hat, and kicking him in the shins. Three burly corner men had to drag him off.

Pep couldn't get it in his head that what he did, as natural as breathing, nobody else could.

 

John, that's great stuff, I'm still laughin' at Jakes reaction to getting slapped by that effete actor. "Don't do that," he says, beautiful. It's funny how Jake has the reputation of a dangerous character on the streets and in the barrooms. I knew a guy, a Madison Avenue executive type, who claimed Jake was pelting him with nuts one night from the other side of the bar, just to break the dirty monotony.

 

John Garfield, I have a Ray Robinson story for you...I'm not sure it's completely factual, but my with my experience with the people I've worked with from the WWII generation, I'd bet it is...
During my last clinical rotation for therapy I met a man who was a veteran from WWII, he was stationed with Ray Robinson for a time...The story goes when the men lined up in front of the DI, the DI said "What a sorry looking bunch of SOB's!" he continued to go on..."I'll bet there isn't a man here who can beat me, who's a better man than me?"
At that Ray Robinson stepped forward...
Listening to the man's story, I said "What happened then?" Like a ten year old would..."Nothing." he replied. "It was back to business as usual." After a brief laugh from everyone...
He said he had the chance to spar with Robinson, Ray never hit him at all, but he wanted the man to hit him as hard as he could, and he worked on defense.