R.I.P. Burt Bienstock

A gentleman's gentleman. Really knew his stuff. One of my all time favorites on here.

 

What I always felt bad for Burt about was he had a nagging memory of watching Ray Robinson and Bobby Dykes fighting in the Velodrome in Coney Island where he was present but that he could find no record of. We all jumped in to help by doing our own research but kept coming up with Ray fighting one Billy Brown on the date. He was convinced and nothing we could say was going to shake that memory he found so vivid. It was truly bothering him like an itch you couldn't scratch. I looked up that thread and it's hard to believe but that was 15 years ago we were trying to find some evidence to appease him but kept coming up goose eggs. Wherever Burt is now, I hope that dilemma has been solved. RIP, Burt.

 

RIP Burt, Sorry for aggravating you on that Dempsey thread

 

RIP. His death makes me wonder if some of us will still be posting on here while almost one hundred years old.

 

He wouldn't admit it, but I believe I did solve that mystery for him via a PM. There is footage of Billy Brown against Randy Turpin, and he does look a great deal like Dykes. I believe, by process of elimination, that the televised match between SRR and Dykes at the Coney Island Velodrome preserved on YouTube is indeed the match Burt attended and was thinking of.

I may also have been the recipient of the very final post he ever submitted anywhere, April 28, 2016. In that tribute thread, he humorously remarked that "Art Ritis" had by now made it very difficult for him to type, that he was getting along in years and had just gotten himself carbon dated. His final cheerful and classy sign off ended with a friendly, "Ciao."

Burt's father was also extremely long lived, and he remarked to be about having the fortune to have inherited great genetics. Our PM correspondence through multiple sites was epic. Upon being widowed, he was given a laptop, and never having typed in his life, he exploded onto this site to become ESB's ROTY for 2010. I aided him in advising him to quickly break up his stream of consciousness text walls, and he quickly developed his own distinct style.

Red Cobra was among his admirers, and I hope they might be enjoying each other's company in another realm somewhere. (RC predeceased him, but Burt never knew that. When some younger poster passed while Burt was still typing, he would respond with great feeling and regretful passion, as he did upon the death of Joe Rein. In a thread asking how we expected to meet our demises, RC announced he already had congestive heart disease. He was my absolute best bud on these sites, we had tremendous fun via post and PM exchanges, and I'll miss both him and Burt, exactly as I told them I would when the time came.)

Burt and I could always disagree without ever being disagreeable, and he was always the consumate gentleman.

Both of us were familiar with the deaf 1940's LHW contender, Hilton J. "Fitzie" Fitzpatrick, "The Irish Blockbuster," who Joe Rein had never heard of, so we both enjoyed educating "johngarfield" about him. (Appropriately enough, the epitaph on Fitzie's marker proclaims him, "West Virginia's Greatest Boxer.") I posted footage of Fitzie against rival Joe Kahut, and a long closed account of mine showed a photograph avatar of Fitzie decking a peak Ezzard Charles with a monstrous right. Burt was no aware a book about Fitzpatrick had been published, I brought it to his attention, and he greatly enjoyed reading it.

Independently of each other, Springs Toledo, Steve Compton and I came around to displacing SRR with Harry Greb as the P4P GOAT. Burt, with his father, had shaken hand with Robby when he was still an amateur, and while Burt said Robby was the greatest boxer he ever witnessed, his father said Greb was even greater. (His father was a huge Gene Tunney fan, then saw Greb-Tunney I, and never wavered that Greb was Numero Uno. His father lived into the 1980's)

Joe Rein and Burt witnessed many of the same bouts and corroborated each other's accounts of historic matches. Burt was there for Marciano-Vingo, and affirmed to me that the monster punching Carmine made no effort to use his height and reach on Rocky. He also stated that Marciano was kind and charitable to Vingo, but that it was not actually the Rock's hardest fight.

Burt shook hands with Jack Johnson, and as a boy, had his ribs playfully pummeled by Soldier Bartfield, who decked Greb on multiple occasions.

Steve Compton (a real hard arse) tried to call BS on Burt's claims, but both Joe Rein and Burt simply were able to corroborate too many details on matches both witnessed but not recorded on film.

On a thread asking if there were any living survivors of Murderer's Row, the name of Jimmy Bivins came up, and Burt posted that he was gone along with them. I alerted him to the fact Bivins was still alive, linked him to the website then being run on Jimmy's behalf, and Burt immediately sent a congratulatory email, having witnessed Bivins in action and stating, "This man is a living legend!"

Some young punks tried to get fresh with Burt, Springs immediately challenged them to step in the ring with him on camera (Springs being an insanely tough guy), and they quickly backed down and shut up.

Far from mourning Burt too much, I celebrate his long and quality life, especially the joy he and I shared interacting with one another. Red Cobra was the first to welcome me here in April 2007, and I greeted Burt with the same eagerness in 2010. He absolutely could have published a book and was frequently urged to do so, but was simply too far along in years by the time of his arrival online.

What many may not know is that Burt was also a tremendous Civil War buff, as was I. We were both extremely familiar with battlefields like Gettysburg, and enjoyed chatting about it. (Our fathers were Civil War buffs also, hence we inherited that interest.

Adios Burt, and treasure the fact we completely valued and made the most of the time we shared interacting online.

 

Anubis, awesome memories, my man.

 

A classy, respectable, truly knowledgeable, and an overall great poster that this forum will truly miss. Always enjoyed reading up on his personal experiences and historical takes on boxing. He knew the sport very well and was a source of information of boxing from the past during the Louis and Robinson era. Hope he lived his final days with comfort and loved ones around him.

RIP Burt.

 

I hope our Burt and John Garfield are in that great Stillman’s Gym in the sky watching all these fantasy matchups that we dream up play out in eternity.

RIP Mr Bienstock and bless you for bringing your knowledge and class to this board. (And you too, Mr Garfield.)

I’ll leave them to get back to Marciano vs Frazier or whatever is on the card of the afterlife today. My father taught me when I was young to try to leave a place or thing better than it was when you got there. They made this board better and, I suspect, made this planet better in their time.

 

I am saddened by this news.

He was rightly a respected poster, and a genuinely nice guy.

On the plus side he obviously had a very long, happy, an fulfilling life.

 

RIP, Burt......

- Chuck Johnston

 

I knew Burt for 6 years when we met in Harry Greb group on facebook, he was a real class act gentleman who witnessed guys like Joe Louis and even pre prime Sugar Ray Robinson.

We lost the best boxing historian here who not only knew stuff but he have seen all time greats from 1930s to this day.

He did not have easy life when he was a kid but he became a great man who not only loved boxing but was a great father, a great friend to us friends and great man in general.

I had that privilege to met him and to be his friend, not for very long but we were always in contact, wish I met him earlier so I could learn more from him.

R.I.P Burt, we all would miss you.

 

RIP Burt. I learned a lot from you; you will be missed.

 

Very knowledgeable poster and I enjoyed reading his contributions to this site. RIP Burt. Go easy.

 

Rest well, Burt.

I bet that one day we'll all be sparring together in the sky. Just give us a bit of time.

 

.

A good man, and a fine servant of boxing.