In 1944 he was 30, at which age you often were washed up back then. The fact that he came back to win the title certainly is the George Foreman story of his time. Those years do overlap with part of the second world war, but i have never read about him serving during WWII. His retirement also came after losing to Abe Simon, did that cause him to call it quits for the moment?
Not sure, honestly. Maybe he retired to work consistently at another job, as he wasn't making it in any huge way as a fighter at the time.
What honestly is amazing is that in ten years of hard fighting between 1930 and 1940, he never managed to breach the rankings, but remained a gate keeper / fringe contender.... some might even call him a journeyman back then. After that, when he fights from 1944 again, he reaches the top10 as early as 1945, and three years later he's challenging for Joe Louis' title, and holds his own.
The war was on. There was full-time employment during war-time, the real end of the Depression. A guy like Walcott, kids and wife, scraping a living boxing prelims and short-notice fights, making no money, queueing up for an odd days work here and there (as they did if they were lucky back then). Wasn't really worth his while boxing from an economic standpoint. And everyone was obliged to contribute to the war effort. If I remember rightly he worked as a labourer in the naval docks.
Felix Bocchicio paid him a visit, urged him to comeback and promised him he'd make him money enough to keep the coal bin full and the kids fed. I guess you'd have to know what Mr.Bocchicio was doing in the 30s to say why he never approached Walcott before. I dont know. Maybe Walcott was tied to other promoters, or maybe Mr.Bocchicio was in no position to make him an offer then. Or maybe there was suddenly such a shortage of decent heavyweights in the immediate post-war period that a guy like Walcott was needed and appreciated like never before.
I guess so - sometimes a bit of luck is hard needed, even if you're good. Braddock was lucky to get those fights to win the title as well, but he also had the ability to beat the champ, as he proved.
Due to the war there was a shortage of contenders so suddenly promotors became less concearned about the colour of their skin.
Basically, to my understanding, his boxing career wasn't really going anywhere by the looks of things, he wasn't making a terribly great amount of money at it, and at that point full-time manual-labor employment was available and more profitable for him than part-time labor with boxing on the side, which was what he had been doing. As Janitor states above, by '44, with many of the top fighters on hiatus for the war, there was generally more openness among promoters to taking on most any solid charge you could get ahold of. Boccichio, who had seen Walcott fight before and recognized his potential, convinced him that he could take him places and that it was worth taking one more crack at boxing.
Walcott was a journey man at the time his excellent skills had been stifled by lack of mangement ,he had a large family so didnt get called up for the Armed Forces.Felix Bochichio,came along like a fairy godfather and rescued him from obscurity,Felix was "connected", but he did right by Mr Cream.Walcott was touted as a prospect years previously and Jack Blackburn was offered the job of schooling him ,he turned thumbs down on the proposition ,as black fighters ,especially at Heavyweight were not a sound financial bet ,of course he later accepted the same type of role with Joe Louis ,the difference being that Louis had Mike Jacobs pulling for him.As Janitor says ,with many young men enlisted the promoters could not afford to cherry pick and more black guys got chances that had previously been denied them.
