Here's some ultra rare footage that I just uploaded to my Youtube channel. This is the first of three meetings between Zale and Hostak. [yt]32QWbKIptRc[/yt] At this time, Hostak was the NBA middleweight champ, having won his title by crushing the highly regarded HOFer Steele in a single round. He had lost his title to the "spoiler" Solly Kreiger, but then regained it by crushing Kreiger on an early KO as well. Hostak was rightfully considered not only one of the hardest hitting MWs of his day, but also of all time. Following the revenge win over Kreiger, there was a public clamor for a match between Hostak and NY/California champ Ceferino Garcia, which would finally unify the title. As that was being considered, Hostak fought a non-title match with an unheralded fringe contender named Tony Zale. That is the fight that is shown above. In the first round, Hostak looked to be on his way to a routine early KO (as expected) when he staggered and then floored Zale with a flurry of punches. Zale arose though and over the next several rounds he showed surprising speed and boxing skill as he ducked and danced away from Hostak's big right hand and scored well with his jab. Hostak appeared to become frustrated with his inability to finish the fight, and in the 5th round he went "balls to the wall" with a big effort to end it. He bounced Zale from rope strand to rope strand all over the ring for the whole round, but Zale again managed to survive. The effort left Hostak somewhat punched out, and the fight then swung decisively in Zale's favor. Zale now took the fight right to Hostak, bulling him around on the inside. He swept the last five rounds and took the decision. I know it's hard to tell the two apart in that footage, but Zale is the shorter, smaller-looking guy who tends to crouch and bounce on his toes; and of course he's the one who goes down in the first round. For the first half of the fight, Zale tends to be the one backtracking while Hostak comes forward, while over the second half of the fight the opposite is true. I believe Hostak also has a white stripe on his trunks, although that may be tough to see. I think the best way to tell them apart is that Hostak is the one with the very large and visible forehead. Post-script: The shocking result now thrust Zale into the spotlight and into the mix of serious title contenders. He followed up with a string of wins, including one over contender Ben Brown, which essentially forced Hostak to give him a title shot. They fought in Hostak's hometown of Seattle, and this time Zale was much more assertive in battering Hostak into a 13th round stoppage - the first time that the normally sturdy Hostak had ever been stopped. They eventually fought a third time, again for the title. This time Hostak dropped Zale for a quick flash KD in the first round, but Zale rose and in what was probably his greatest career performance, swarmed like a madman all over Hostak, dropped him around 7 or 8 times, and stopped him in just 2 rounds. Although Hostak hung around in and out of contention for several years afterward, he never again fought for a title, and he faded from the national spotlight. Zale went on to finally unify the title by beating top contender Georgie Abrams (after his co-champion, Billy Soose, had vacated his title claims). After that, it looked like the sky was the limit for Zale, but then he joined the war effort and that basically ended his prime years. We'll never know what he really could've accomplished if he had continued fighting while still in his prime.
The reason I most wanted to show this fight is that I don't think many people have seen Zale at his peak and they don't realize just how well-rounded he was then. A lot of people have an image of him as being flatfooted and limited, as he looked against Graziano and Cerdan. But as the footage above shows (and as contemporary reports concur), he was actually quite mobile and versatile back in his prime. The truth is that after coming back from the war, his legs were gone. He was like the old Zale from the waist up, but from the waist down he was just an old Zale. Even so, what he accomplished just with what he had at that stage of his career were still impressive.
Zale starts well so he must have been pissed to get tagged. It's hard to say for sure but he looks like he gets tagged pretty bad with a left to the ear about a minute before he gets dropped, bouncing into a clinch with his right hand low. Top line inexperience showing a bit. I guess this is where you get by on toughness and heart where a lot of novices would have froze up. Again it's hard to tell but it also looks like Hostak has a nice jab, hard to tell if he's putting any variety into it but the form looks perfect. Not sure if i'd look upon him as technically assured though, with that weird right hand scoop to the body he throws a couple of times, as you hint at, Zale looks perhaps the more correct of the two boxers. How Zale survives that fifth round i'll never know. Great action. Shame it's not in HD with multiple angles in colour!
Your videos are just brilliant. Thanks for sharing them with us. I really rate Zale as a fighter. There's just a dogged determination about him that I love, although he had many other excellent qualities. Great fighter.
Good stuff. I think Zale still looked great at the end of his career, in the 3rd match with Graziano. Maybe not as mobile but still devastatingly sharp with his punches, quick to capitalize on openings, good power and hand speed. Cerdan was too much for him though.
Zale was a crunching operator with a cool boxing head on his shoulders. What does always strike Ted Spoon as a bit of a double standard however is that the war also took away the best years of Cerdan, who came back to do some steamrolling, and who many believed to be a superior welterweight anyway. Zale lost some of his legs and speed, but he was still on fire against Rocky in the rubber match and hung in there 'till the grim end against Cerdan.
