One of mine is when Harry Greb was a recruiting officer he was staging a boxing show for a war charity and when a heavyweight fight was due there was no one to face the heavyweight and Greb sitting in the audience heard this and started to take of his coat, they said that the heavyweight was too heavy/big for him and that he was in condition and Greb was not, they said they'll announce it as an exhibition and Harry replied ''Nothing like it''. ''We either put on a real fight or it's all off'' The fight was stopped in one of the early rounds to save the heavyweight Anderson
this is a good story WHEN they buried Lionel Rose this week it prompted a memory in my cousin, Steven Carter, who was working on the television show This Is Your Life back in 1977 when Rose was featured. After filming in Epping was completed, there was a party held for the guest of honour at the Texas Tavern, Kings Cross. So it was that just after midnight, the three famous boxers, Lionel Rose, Fighting Harada and Johnny Famechon get out of a cab to walk to the bar when a drunken lout, who was not alone, flicks his lit cigarette butt into the chest of Lionel Rose and starts to unleash vicious racial epithets. Fighting Harada speaks very little English but knows ugliness when he sees it, and instantly moves to cut off the drunk, even as the bum now tries to shirt-front Lionel. The great Aboriginal boxer, who could have dropped the punk without blinking, restrains himself and moves the other way, still pursued by the drunk. This time Johnny Famechon, bless him, uses his trademark speed, grabs the drunken lout by the collar and pulls back his left hook, locked and loaded on a hair trigger, waiting … just waiting … for the drunk's next racial slur. (Altogether after me: Please ..? Just one ..?) The crowd closes as Fighting Harada moves to stand by Famechon, shoulder to shoulder, as Lionel keeps walking. A dignified man, Lionel has been in this bad movie before too many times, wants no part of it, and knows that his own mates have his back. Luckily at this point one of the drunken lout's slightly less drunken mates steps forward and drags him away into the night, with his babbles of "I could have taken all three of them" soon fading into Kings Cross night. Situation sorted, Lionel is on the steps of The Texas Tavern waiting for them as they catch up. "Thanks," he says, and they all go inside. A champion man. And I am reliably informed that next year will be the first time in more than four decades that Fighting Harada won't send Lionel a birthday card. Another champion. As is Johnny Famechon. Peter FitzSimons.
Chuck Wepner is challenging Muhammad Ali for the heavyweight championship of the world ... "The day before the fight, I took my wife out shopping and bought her a powder-blue negligée, because I told her, 'You need to look right when you sleep with the heavyweight champion of the world,'" he said. "The night I lost, my wife is sitting on the edge of the bed in the negligée and she asks, 'So, am I going to Ali's room or what?'" :rofl
When Brian McCaffrey, Liverpool's British welterweight contender came back to his corner after a particularly hard round his manager Bobby Neill said "Brian, are you ok, how many fingers am I holding up". Brian looked at him and said "Aah... **** off Bob"!
I remember reading that Herol Graham was promised an attractive purse for defending his Commonwealth Lt Middleweight title, it must of been the Hunter Clay fight in Nigeria, and indeed thats what he was apparently left with, somebody absconded with the prize money...and Herol was left with a Leather purse from the local market for his trouble.. Also When Ali fought Blue Lewis in croak park Dublin...a lot of the Locals applauded Ali when making his way to the ring...thinking that he didnt look so big in the flesh...it transpired that they were watching undercard undercard Fighter John Conteh on the way to take on Johnny Mac
I forget the Boxers name shamefully. He was scheduled to be fed to Joe Frazier. He didn't see it that way. Pacing a trench in his locker room before the fight, eyes focused, sharp like a Tiger that has spotted it's prey. An air of intensity that immediately stopped anyone in the vicinity from talking. This was his chance, it was his life. The guy got knocked down multiple times and eventually spark out and carried back to his dressing room, where he was laid on a table and left. About an hour later, his trainer returned to check on him. He was pacing the room, same eyes, same intensity. " What are you doing?!" His manager asked. " Gotta go fight Frazier haven't I." The manager caught on immediately, "erm yeah, about that mate..."
Well to quote Ron Stander's wife after his fight with Smokin' Joe: "You do not enter a VW into the Indy 500!"
I find this story fascinating. It was reported in 1903 after the fact & was a bout between future Welterweight Champion Matty Matthews & Jack Bennett in 1897 or 1898. At the end of the 6th round Matty came back to his corner with both his eyes shut. Matty stated he could knock out Bennett if he could see & asked his cornerman to to cut his eye(s) to reduce the swelling. The cornerman took a knife & nervously tried to make a slit but Matty was impatient, grabbed the knife and rammed it into his eye reducing the swelling. He then went out and knocked out Bennett. Apparently when asked if he was scared of being blinded Matty stated he knew the bone would stop it entering his eye. Whether a truth or a publicity stunt it makes for an interesting story.
