World Welterweight Champion Don Jordan travels to Buenos Aires, Argentina for a non-title fight against Luis Federico Thompson. It was the beginning of the end for Jordan. He would lose by 4th round KO.
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"Jordan was a slum boy who grew up with a misguided admiration for mobsters, and he became an an acquaintance with the Los Angeles gangster, Mickey Cohen.
When abandoned by a former manager, Jordan was stranded in Mexico when Don Nesseth, a young fight manager outside the mob, picked him up. Nesseth bought his contract and negotiated Jordan to the championship. Instantly, Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo, boxing's most influential gangsters, tried to muscle in. When Nesseth resisted the muscle and told his story to the authorities, Jordan not only quit him but berated him for violating the mobster code of silence.
But Nesseth came out of one fight with checks totaling $90,000, his price for releasing Jordan from his contract. Jordan came out with a mere $2,000, a sum he extorted from Nesseth in his dressing room 20 minutes before the fight by threatening to refuse to enter the ring. Jordan's estranged wife had process servers busy trying to divert the $2,000 pittance to the care of their four children.
Mickey Cohen was at ringside, flanked by his girlfriend and Jordan's fiance. It was suggested that Cohen should give Jordan a job as it looked like he needed one."
(Martin Kane)
