Not a lot of people know this but...

Speaking of the Viruets...when Adolfo lost to Duran, Edwin was consoling him in the dressing room when Duran swaggers in, shoots them a venomous look and snarls "Next time, your father!"

PS-Loved your stories John. The fact that they're first-hand accounts makes them even better.

 

Justin Fortune, an ornery 5’9” former OZ heavyweight, and now a manager, described one of his early bouts in Australia and when an opponent wanted to take it to the street.

"I fought in the Enmore Theater in Sydney. The promoter was a junkie. Instead of putting on a feed at the weigh-in, the way everyone else does, they had a strip show. The ring girls just peeled off all their clothes. Girls were fighting with their boyfriends for staring at the girls -- unbelievable!

“It brought boxing back 100 years!

“At the end of the fight, my check bounced and I got the promoter by the throat. It's comical.

“The promoter used to take the deposits, payments, sponsor's money and go home... give his wife a slapp'n around. She'd call the cops. He'd get locked up...He'd have an excuse not to return any money. He was priceless!

“Takin’ it to the street doesn’t happen a lot. I was on Kostya Tszyu's undercard. I fought a big, friggin' Kiwi monster. We beat the crap out of each other for ten rounds. Both our heads looked like pumpkins.

“When we're changing, he says, 'Hey, bro, let's go get a beer down the pub, heh?' I says, 'You look in the friggin’ mirror? Cause, I'm not going anywhere. I look worse than you and I won. I looked like the Elephant Man -- screw that! Go out in public? Kids 'd be cry'n and scream'n. No! Pass!

“He was friggin’ mad. Sure enough, he wound up in jail for wack'n somebody. So, for sure, he would have jugged me in the pub. I have no doubt in my mind, whatsoever. Because he was in a bad mood -- a few drinks under his belt, a look in the mirror across the bar –‘MUTHA----!”

 

Your mention of a "tough guy," Ck, brings this incident to mind:

One evening in the early 1970s, I’m walking along Third Ave. in New York, past PJ Clarke's, the sports bar. A booming voice hails me, "Joe! Joe! Over here!'

I look in the direction of the rumble; it’s a building in a black turtleneck filling Clarke’s doorway.

He’s easily 400 pounds. A barrel chest and tree-trunk arms strain the seams of his jacket. He’s as big around as he is wide. A neck that would support a bridge –- frightening, like a collector from "The Godfather."

He strides over. "Joe, it's me, Mark...Mark Tendler."

The name’s faintly familiar, as I crane my neck straining for anything recognizable in the tank turret that passes for his head. It finally strikes me: I trained with this guy at Stillman's Gym in the early ‘50s. But then he was a tall, lean cruiserweight.

He explains, after he stopped fighting, he became a power lifter, and for years a professional wrestler. Now he’s the bouncer at Clarke's.

So, he ushers me back (passers-by giving him a wide berth) just inside the entrance to Clarke's and we reminisce about the good old days.

Over at the bar -- about 15 feet away – is a loud, Ivy League-looking jock and his girl. He’s at the bulletproof stage of whiskey muscles and says to her in a voice intended for Mark: "See the bouncer at the door? He thinks because he's so big, he scares people. He doesn't scare me!"

The people at the bar start inching away, sensing the shoot-out, but Mark doesn't even look at Ivy League; he continues talking to me, as if the mutt doesn’t exist.

The jock gets louder – more bellicose: "HE THINKS HE CAN PRETEND I'M NOT HERE. I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT A PHONY HE IS. HOLD MY COAT!" he says to his girl.

Now, everybody in the bar clears away, but Mark keeps talking to me – not a care in the world. I'm getting more nervous by the moment.

The jock swaggers towards us. Mark still doesn't acknowledge him. When he gets an arms-length away, Mark turns to him and says gently, "If you hit me and I find out about it, you're gonna be in a lotta trouble."

The jock turns ashen... and slinks away.

 

Great, Thanks, I always liked his style. Any Info On Kronk Welter. King Milton McCrory? He was one of my favorites, He was just in Hearns' shadow, with his simular build & style. But he was great. I still remember those wars with Colin Jones!

 

It's a funny thing about tough guys JG, real tough guys, which fighters if they ever get anywhere in the game at all have to be. I think what most people don't get is, if you're really a tough guy you have nothin' to prove. The fighters I got to know personally as a kid, were the sweetest guys in the world, they were mostly gentlemen who never went looking for trouble. Some may say it's because they get to work out all their anger in the ring, and that may be part of it. But I think the bigger part of it is that they get to see the ugliness up close, the pain, the blood and the broken bones, the broken spirits and the comatose states, if you have to look at that everyday of your life you can start to see things from a different perspective, unless you were never meant to be a tough guy in the first place; those guys do tend to get meaner.

 

I've had the same experience with fighters, Ck, but Roberto Duran was the exception to the rule: a bomb with a short fuse 24/7. Forget PC!

Here's an example:

When Duran was training to fight Carlos Palomino at Madison Square Garden, he worked-out at Howard Albert's gym, an old factory loft in the Garment Center, a few blocks from the new Garden.

It was summer, and sweltering. Every Latino worker in the area-- and their families -- watched their hero train at lunchtime.

The gym was a steam room -- jammed cheek-to-jowl with the adoring. They pressed so close Duran barely had room for floor exercises. When he was done, he jumped in the ring to shadow box.

Spanning what looked like a crowded subway car, you could see chests swell – faces beaming with pride. Plump mothers holding babies in their arms stood at the ring apron, while their little ones looked up saucer-eyed at this God.

In the midst of this outpouring of love, somebody in the back -- unbelievably! -- kept shouting at Duran in Spanish: "PIPINO CUEVAS WILL KILL YOU!

Duran paid him no mind and continued to shadow box. But the heckler was relentless: "PIPINO CUEVAS WILL KILL YOU! "PIPINO CUEVAS WILL KILL YOU!”

Finally, Duran fixed him with a glare, stretched as far over the ropes as he could -- just above the glowing faces of mothers and tykes -- and yanked down his trunks, grabbed his nuts and roared in Spanish: "PIPINO CUEVAS CAN SUCK MY ****!”

 

Yeah, there are exceptions to every rule, that's for sure JG. I once new a fighter, a little guy who had a belt for a short time, and who used to find the gay part of whatever town he was in at the time, find a corner that had alot of these types hanging outside looking for prey, and then with his best, most believable swish would lead as many of them down the block as would follow, turn down the first alley after glancing seductively back their way, and then leave the lot of them in a pile of blood and unrequited passion, just for a laugh.

 

After Oscar Bonavena lost that close decision to Joe Frazier where he nearly ended matters with those two knockdowns in round 2, he threw a tantrum back in his dressing room, and tore the door off it's hinges with a right hand punch. A writer at the time noted that if he had hit Frazier with that shot, then the outcome of the fight would have been very different.

 

If you watched “The Contender,” the bald-headed Damon Runyon trainer that all the boxers swore by was Tommy Gallagher. He’s not a bit player from central casting; he’s the closest thing you'll ever meet to Popeye Doyle from the “FRENCH CONNECTION.”

Gallagher’s a larger-than-life, profane, mean as a junk-yard dog, opinionated, impatient, very loud, crude, brutally honest, very loyal, former undercover cop, and laugh riot 24-hours-a-day. Being with his family is like an episode of the Osbourne’s.

Author William Saroyan put it best, describing his dad: "My father lived his life at the top of his lungs"...That's Tommy Gallagher.

We had an amateur boxing team in the 1970’s and ‘80s in South Queens that produced New York Golden Gloves champs and some pros.

Tommy was Donnie Lalonde’s trainer when he defended his light heavy title at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas against Sugar Ray Leonard. Gallagher asked my wife and I to join him.

Because Lalonde was the headliner, everybody in his entourage was given special treatment by the management of the hotel.

One evening I was in the lobby with Tommy, his family and some neighborhood friends. A very official looking guy in a three-piece suit came over: "Good evening, Mr. Gallagher.

"Speaking for the management of the hotel, I'd like to extend a warm welcome to you and all of your friends. Now, If you'll follow me, I'll take you to be seated at the Pointer Sisters’ show."

Gallagher looked at me. His voice echoing through the marble lobby: "WHO IS THIS HALF-A-***?”

When we went to the Pointer Sisters’ show, the room was a semi-circle of tiered wooden benches – pews. No one had his own table. Everybody was bunched together.

We were a party of about 15, but all around us were families looking like they just stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Gallagher was in top form, cracking everybody up with rapid-fire stories. Somebody asked him: "Tommy, did you ever fight out of the country as an amateur?"

As if trying to be heard over gym noise, Gallagher shouted, "I was a young, Irish Catholic kid and I never was no place. They asked me to fight for the U.S. team in Spain. So, when I got to Spain, I walked around…and there was, like, this little circus."

"There was a sign on one of the cages, and somebody told me it said: Anybody that could last a round with the bear would get $50. I never seen that much money...or a bear."

"So, I looked in the cage, and there's this big mop of fur on the floor. I figure: No problem; I'll knock this thing out."

"So, when I turned around to tell the guy I wanted to do it, the bear REACHED THROUGH THE BARS AND TRIED TO **** ME…IT’S A GOOD THING I WAS WEAR'N SHORTS!"

I fell on the floor, hysterical, tears in my eyes. Families fled in horror.

 

Another great story JG, they should be in a book ... a boxers as characters format. Seems like you had access to alotta big names and bigger than life characters around the game. Was it as a fighter or as a writer? 'Cause your writing is so good, and the way you depict them has clarity and depth and humor. Jake LaMotta as the Bull in civilized society, Willie Pep as the same slick, fluid guy outside the ring as he was in, I have a feeling you have a ton of them, and I think the book would sell. True American characters of a time all but gone by, we could all use that reminder, of a time when men held truer to themselves, and poitical correctness just meant voting straight democrat in every election.

 

Many thanks, Ck. My wife 'n' daughter keep kickin' me the ass to do just such a book. Since I'm fast approaching 1200, I better get on the stick.

Got to know Pep and rest when I trained at Stillman's.

 

You got a way with it. You should just do it.

 

Here's a first-hand account I thought you'd get a kick outta, fof:

As a kid, I had a buddy named Sal who was a tough street fighter and gave it a shot as a pro heavyweight. No amateur experience--just balls and a big punch.

Sal worshiped at the shrine of Joe DiMaggio; everything out of his mouth was: Joe DiMaggio this and Joe DiMaggio that, and he was the best Italian athlete ever...and blah, blah, blah. It never stopped.

Every day Sal got pounded sparring, and it was worse in the few prelims that he got.

When he packed-it-in, Sal opened an Italian restaurant in Queens, named after his idol: "Jolt'n Joe's." Every inch was covered with pictures and paintings of DiMaggio, newspaper clippings about him, and the wallpaper was Yankee pinstripes.

For years, the guys would go in Jolt'n Joe's for dinner every week, but you could hardly eat with all Sal's DiMaggio stories.

I had a friend who did some business with people connected to DiMaggio, and I told him all about Sal and what a thrill it would be for him if DiMaggio would come to his restaurant.

Not too long after, the guy calls me back. Joe will do it Friday at 8 P.M.

So, I round up all our friends and we make it our business to be in the restaurant early. We couldn't wait to see Sal's reaction when DiMaggio came in the door.

We made small talk...but it was killing us. Finally, the door opens and there's DiMaggio--"Joe D," in person-- as dapper as you could imagine in a double-breasted sharkskin suit.

I thought Sal was gonna have a coronary. His mouth dropped open; his eyes went wide. He practically leaped over to where DiMaggio was: "Joe...Joe! This is the greatest dream of my life! I never thought I would ever meet you. Look... your pictures are every place! You've been my hero since I was kid!"

I got a lump in my throat.

"Sit! sit! Joe. I make you something personally." Sal almost kissed us as he headed into the kitchen.

Joe was seated and waited. We felt wonderful seeing Sal's dream come true.

When Sal came out and placed the food on the table, he said to Joe, with his eyes glistening: "My son feels the same way about you that I do, Joe. Could you autograph this menu... to Paulie?"

DiMaggio looked up, "I get $5 for that."

All the air was sucked out of the room.

Sal looked at him... not believing what he heard, then hurled himself on top of DiMaggio, trying to strangle him, yelling, "YOU MISERABLE MUTHA-------!

It took all of us to pull him off DiMaggio. Sal kept trying to dive back at him. We were barely able to get DiMaggio out of there and back in his car.