So much not known about this guy. Epic partier, twin of "Big Boy" Hogue, defeated Archie Moore three times, along with Lloyd Marshall and Eddie Booker. Fought from ages 17 to 22. The wheels fell off after losing to Charley Burley. Lost final match, against Moore, after substituting for his brother at the last minute and drinking all day before the fight. Died senseless in a sanitarium at age 50. His early record is certainly incomplete. The Wiki article on him talks of a cousin named Kole, who beat Shorty and had a record of 89-1. So much mystery but seemed like the real deal as far as potential. I'm going to do some more research. Anyone have more info?
Managed by Tom JoneS, of Jess Willard fame, He was part Cherokee. I don't think that many of his fight' would be unrecorded.
"I remember when I was a middleweight, it was 1940, there was a fella something like Marciano, only not so powerful. Fella named Shorty Hogue, not to hard to hit, powerful for a middleweight. About the sixth round I thought I had him and i let go with everything, trying for a knockout. I was hitting him up here around his head until his head got all lumped up but he kept his hands up in front of his chin and I couldn't put him away. Then I was finished. Seventh round about even and he went the last three. I still don't know how they could do it, him winning three rounds, but they gave him the fights." Archie Moore.
Shorty was 5-10 1/2! He signed up with Chris Dundee around 1945 but I don't think he ever made the comeback. Read somewhere that a perforated eardrum got him excused from the Services.
According to remembrances of old timers in the 1990's, he and his brother preferred cards, booze and broads to training. And his domestic life was no respite from the chaos. He sued for divorce from his wife at 20 on grounds of physical cruelty. Another detail I have gleaned is that he mastered the bolo punch right near his peak. A busy, active crowder with a punch and an iron chin when at his peak, it seems. He had Marshall in retreat the whole night they fought.
He died of a heart attack at the Sleepy Valley Rest Home in Saugus, apparently nearly penniless. The Hogues were earning $500 a night in their early career as a double act.
