Percy Price '1960 Olympic Heavyweight'

Yes, But they were never considered actual bouts, they were called training sessions. If you read the article it does say that Ali (Clay) got the better of Price in the first 2 rounds, then Price did a lot better in the 3rd (that is if he is telling the truth). There were no official results, no judges, so I wouldn't count it, if we did a lot of records would change as there a lot of training sessions like that.

 

They held training sessions for nearly a month, but you are leaving out the part that they took part in no-decision bouts on Aug. 3 and Aug. 4 in New Jersey. They held them in front of a crowd of 4,000 people. United Press International covering the fights referred to them as Olympic trial bouts. There were 21 guys there. One didn't participate in the fighting. And they used those fights to cut the squad to 10.

And I read the article, it also says Price came on at the end and the Olympic head coach said he thought Price would've walked thru Clay if it had gone one more round.

Clearly, Clay didn't look so great in the first two rounds that it totally compensated for what happened in round 3. They weren't scoring by rounds. They weren't scoring at all. They watched the fight, and at the end Price was taking it to him. And the opinion after seeing what they saw was Clay needed to move back down to 178. And he didn't have much time to do it.

There are articles I found that when he was in Rome Clay was quoted as saying he still was overweight and still had weight to lose before his first bout.

If you want to understand why people say Price beat Clay in the Olympic Trials, the answer seems to be what I just laid out. People were referring to the Fort Dix bouts.

A few years later, those would've been called the Olympic Boxoffs. And there wouldn't be any confusion. But they hadn't come up with that term yet.

But that's essentially what they held.

Anyway, that's my take.

I actually think they made the proper choice in not having Clay fight at heavyweight.

Price was impressive in winning the Trials in San Francisco but lost afterward at an international tournament against a celebrated heavyweight who would win Olympic gold via one-round KO and have a fairly successful pro career, too. And in their bout, the footage clearly show Price fell out of the ring but was fine. On the other hand, Allen Hudson wasn't a big deal in the amateurs or pros. And Clay had to get off the floor to beat him at light heavy.

Maybe moving up and down in weight was finally getting to Clay.

IF you put yourself back then, the fact they even toyed with the idea of replacing Price on the team with Clay at heavyweight seems nuts. He likely would've lost in the Olympics at heavyweight and there would be another gold they'd have missed out on.

 

Although Perry Price was impressive as an amateur, bottom line, Muhammad Ali won the Olympic Gold medal as a light heavyweight in the 1960 Olympic games. He grew naturally into a heavyweight, no today's special diet and nutrition (Steroids), and the rest is history.

 

I don't know anything about whether Percy Price fought Ali as an amateur or not, but a trainer I had fought Price. The trainer who was born in 1943 was about 16 years old and Price who was born in 1936 was 23 at the time. The USMC team came to town to fight the PAL team. Price and the rest of his team went to some of the local high schools before the fights including the trainer's school. The trainer who was 16 at the time said Price seemed huge and mature and a lot of people thought he was crazy for fighting him.

The PAL coach told the referee before the fight to stop it quick if Price hurt the then 16 year old trainer because he was so much younger. I talked to the PAL coach before he died and he told me that it was his fault the 16 year old lost to Price. He said the 16 year old caught Price with a right hand and hurt him. Price came back later and stunned the 16 year old, and the referee stopped it because the PAL coach had asked him to step in quick. All of this is second hand, but everyone involved mentioned that Percy Price was big and looked the part. The PAL coach and the trainer who had been 16 at the time were not impressed by Price's boxing ability.

 

Very interesting good post.

 

Lots of good stuff in this thread. Thanks, guys.

 

These are the kind of threads that I really like, interesting.

 

Percy Price would've come off as a complete and total jerk if he - an adult, a Marine and an accomplished amateur fighter - walked into a high school of all places during a boxing tour and tried to destroy a 16-year-old high school sophomore.

Not to mention, it would've been dangerous for him if it had been a white high school in 1959, as he had to be careful in 1959 even what drinking fountains at what high schools he could use depending on where he was.

I don't like it when experienced fighters and trainers try to do something nice and give a kid some experience and take it easy on him, then the kid goes all out, lands a hard shot ... and then people badmouth the experienced guy afterward saying he wasn't all that they thought he would be.

If he went all out on a 16-year-old, then what would they have said about him?

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

No offense, but that was pretty much a bull**** attitude by the 16-year-old and his coach all the way around.

Could've just thanked them for coming and thanked them for the opportunity to learn, and dropped the "yeah, he wasn't what we thought he'd be." Did they think he was coming to crush the skull of some sophomore? Would that have been preferred? Was he sending sophomores to the hospital at all the other high schools he visited?

 

The USMC team came to town to fight the local PAL team, they visited the high schools to increase interest in the event. The USMC team and the PAL team would compete yearly. Price was not taking it easy on the PAL fighter. The fights did not happen at a high school. At the time the 16 year old's high school was an all black school. The 16 year old who fought Price was a good fighter, he was young, but had been boxing for years.

His brother was a good pro heavyweight who fought out of NYC and the 16 year old spent his summers training with his brother at Gleason's Gym in the Bronx. He had been in the ring with good fighters at Gleason's, so Price was not the first "name" fighter he had fought. He was not a 16 year old who had just taken up the sport. He went into the fight planning to win, he was the PAL team's heavyweight.

 

And everyone else according to you (his own coach, the officials) were in agreement it should be stopped the first time he got hurt. (And it was.)

I'll repeat what I said, Percy Price would've come off as a complete and total jerk if he - an adult, a Marine and an accomplished amateur fighter - tried to destroy a 16-year-old high school sophomore when everyone else (including the 16-year-old's own coach) was in agreement that it should be stopped the moment the kid was remotely hurt from a punch.

Clearly, everyone was looking out for the teen and didn't want him hurt at all ... while the teen was trying to tee off.

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If everyone wants you to take it easy on a very young kid, but you look to take his head off, you're a huge jerk. On the other hand, if you lay back while he tries to take your head off, until you get tired of it and fire back (and it's over because they don't want him to get hurt) ... then they talk crap about how you aren't so good. It drives me nuts any time I hear stories like that.

 

None of those sessions were sanctioned bouts. It states that Ali (Clay) won the first 2 rounds and Price won the 3rd big (if you can believe that!). It does say if there was another round Price would have walked through Clay BUT there were ONLY 3 rounds in Amateur bouts, not 4.

Here's an article leading up to the Olympic Games:
Heavyweight Marine Corps champ Percy Price, a towering 210-pounder, will breeze into the final, where he'll meet the only other horizontal heavyweight Dan Bekker, of South Africa, a ....fair country puncher. Winner Price. (I guess they got that one wrong)

Clay, Crook Picked Light heavyweight Cassius Clay, the most talked-about amateur since Patterson, and winner of 43 straight, will go down to the wire with three-time European champ Zbigniew Pietrzykowski, of Poland, an awkward southpaw who has lost only 13 of 233 fights. Winner Clay.

You would think if Price beat him they would have wrote that somewhere to give Price some press!

My take is that they sparred several times as most teammates do But none of those were sanction bouts.

 

Of course they sparred. They were there for weeks. Before the Box-Offs, the winners of the US Olympic Trials and the fighters who were selected (because they either performed well in the Trials and deserved another chance or they were fighters who were successful amateurs and the coaches just wanted another look at them) were invited to wherever the US Olympic boxing training facility was that year ... and they'd all live there, train and spar for a stretch of time with the other boxers and the Olympic coaches.

And then they'd hold the Box-Offs, which were held on two different days, when necessary.

There are a lot of famous stories from boxers who spent time there before the BoxOffs. That's where Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson got into an argument over a game of billiards, when Tyson wouldn't give up the table. Holyfield and Tyson were both invited there even though they lost the Trials. Holyfield ended up making the Olympic team after be beat Ricky Womack. Tyson couldn't get past Henry Tillman and did not.

In fact, NBC Sports had a great series before the 2004 or 2008 Olympics, I believe, where they followed a bunch of fighters living at the training center leading up to the Box-Offs. Some made the team, some didn't. I recorded it on DVD years ago. Haven't watched it in many years. But it might be on YouTube somewhere.

Anway, this Box Off set up sounds like EXACTLY what happened at Fort Dix, right down to the two days of public bouts at the end of their stay to decide who made the team, except they didn't call it the Box Offs. They didn't give it that term yet. They wouldn't call it that until years later. The press was still calling the fights that were held over those two days in front of paying customers as "boxing trials."

Putting it in that context, it makes sense when you read that Clay lost to Price in the Olympic Trials but he won in the Olympic Trials at Light Heavyweight. Because he won in official Trials in California (so did Price) but he didn't overtake Price when they met in New Jersey.

That's all I'm saying. If you wanted to find out where they fought and what happened, clearly it happened in Ft. Dix, New Jersey, on Aug 3 and/or Aug. 4, 1960.

That narrows the search. I'll leave it at that.

 

*no testing for steroids

 

Yes I agree! The ONLY non-winner of the Olympic Trials to go to the Olympics was Eddie Crook who lost to Wilbert McClure at 156 in the trials but then KO'ed the 165 pound winner Ray Phillips several months later.

I still wouldn't count the bout with Ali (Clay) and Price as official. If Price really beat him it would have made not only national news But international news as well!

Here's an article from August 16, 1960:
Cassius holds the National A.A.U. heavyweight boxing championship. He qualified as a lightheavy on the Olympic team. They switched him to heavy because he had defeated Percy Price, the heavyweight qualifier. Then, just as everything was set, Allen Hudson, who had been moved into the lightheavy spot, broke a hand. . . . Cassius was moved back to lightheavy and Percy reinstated. "It suits me fine," grinned Cassius, "Except I been eating more since weight wasn't a problem. I'm five pounds too heavy now for light-heavy. Gotta watch out from now on."

This doesn't say anything about Price beating Ali (Clay).

 

I posted that excerpt the other day. That was from the writer from the Louisville paper who kept getting his facts wrong. What you left out was the same writer wrote:

Louisville's Cassius Clay is being moved up to the heavyweight division on the United States Olympic boxing team. He is to replace Percy Price Jr. of Philadelphia in the No. 1 spot on the American outfit. Clay competed for the light heavyweight assignment and won it in the Olympic Trials at San Francisco in June. The switch is being made because Clay defeated Price quite easily in winning the National Golden Gloves heavyweight championship.

He clearly stated Ali beat Price in the National Golden Gloves. They didn't fight in the National Golden Gloves. Price wasn't even a participant in that tournament.

And he wrote that in July, before the finals in Fort Dix. Then the same writer came back two weeks later and said Clay had to go back to light heavy because Hudson broke his hand. The Louisville newspaper wasn't a juggernaut in the newspaper biz and the city wasn't exactly a boxing hub. Cassius Clay was the local celebrity and this reporter clearly wasn't up on even who was fighting in other tournaments. He was all over the place with his stories.

Nobody else reported anything like this. It was all Price won the Trials at heavyweight. Clay won the trials at light heavyweight. Price beat Clay "before the Olympics" or Price beat Clay at "the trials" which were also what the bouts held Aug. 3 and Aug. 4 in Fort Dix were called by United Press International.

Anyway, I just posted to try to help you figure out where they fought. You kept asking. You didn't think they ever fought. So I tried to provide some answers.

I've kind of lost interest now. (LOL)