"Before Johnny left for his New York training camp we talked at length about the future and he told me he knew we had not spent enough time together, that it had been one training session after another, but he tried to explain to me that he was finally in the position he had been waiting so many years to reach. He felt that if he won the title he wouldn't have to worry about anything else. He explained that champions get the largest share of the gate receipts and that he wouldn't have to fight as often as he had previously done working to the top.

I flew to New York the day before the fight and registered at the Roosevelt Hotel. Johnny had come in from camp and stayed at the Edison Hotel. Johnny came to see me the afternoon of the fight just after he had left the weighin and, as always, there were three or four fellows with him. He had to go eat his dinner at Jack Dempsey's restaurant at 4 o'clock so we didn't have much time together. As I walked to the elevator with him I took his hand and he flinched. I asked him about it and he told me not to worry. But I couldn't help worrying because I knew Johnny was no complainer.

I could not stand to watch the fight and shortly after the first round I went out to the lobby and walked around. The scene soon resembled a motion picture. One by one all of the people who had been sitting in our section—Johnny had purchased all of the tickets together—came out to the lobby and even Johnny's brothers joined us. His oldest brother passed me as if he didn't recognize me, and when I ran up to him all he said was, "They should stop it. Johnny has been hurt." I thought the fight would never end, and finally, from what seemed like a great distance, I could hear the announcer say: " Kid Gavilan, the winner!"

At the dressing room I learned Johnny was to be taken to the hospital right away. His jaw had been broken a third time and he had a broken bone in his right hand. I will never be convinced that he didn't go into the ring with a broken hand. In spite of his handicaps Johnny finished the full 15 rounds and was never knocked down. Within the next few days he had the wisdom teeth on the right side of his jaw removed, as had been done to the left side just a year before, and went back to the camp where he had trained for the fight. He said he needed time to get himself together and he wanted to be alone where he could think things out clearly and decide what his next move would be.

Johnny stayed at camp for almost two months. I was coming to the point where I felt that our marriage would never work. The baby was a little more than a year old now and he didn't even know his father. We didn't have any place that we could call home. Johnny agreed with me in principle, but he kept repeating one idea—this was no time to become disheartened. He asked for more time to get himself together.

It seemed he was always able to reach that point in fighting where he had only one more fight to win and everything would be all right in his world. Then, at the crucial moment with everything at stake, he could never pull through this last fight.

After a brief visit to Detroit, Johnny went to Chicago and I didn't hear from him again for two months. I tried calling everywhere but to no avail. His mother said she hadn't seen him, and even though I left messages he never returned my calls. He hadn't called even to find out how the baby was.

I got a job in Detroit and was working for about three weeks when one evening the phone rang. "Hi, Jo, what are you doing?" Johnny said casually. I had planned for weeks what I would say to him. Now that the time was here I was at a loss for words. The reason he hadn't gotten in touch with me, he said, was because there was nothing he could tell me. When I told him I was working he became quite disturbed and said he would be in Detroit the next day. The next day when I came home from work his car was parked in front of the house. I tried to be stern and forceful in the things I said to him but deep down inside I could see the change that had come over him and I knew he hadn't been too happy either. Johnny had decided to give fighting another try.

We had become indebted to the IBC to the extent of some $18,000, and Mr. Wallman had sent Johnny money during these months he had been laid off. We also owed the government $36,000 in back income taxes. Johnny explained that he knew no other way to erase these tremendous financial obligations. Mr. Wallman had told Johnny he wanted us to come to New York where he would get an apartment for us and make all the necessary arrangements. He would advance Johnny any money necessary for current living expenses until he could fight again. I wanted to go to New York, or anywhere else where we could all be together.

I came to New York and took a cab to Flushing, Long Island, which was to be our address and home from that first day of October 1951. It was more than I had expected. Johnny came in from camp and finished training at home for his next bout against Wilbur Wilson. It was the first time I had ever been able to cook his meals, go to the gym with him, take care of his clothes and really feel that I was helping him in his career.

At 26, when most men are just reaching the height of their careers, Johnny was an old man in the ring. On November 13, 1953 he was to fight Kid Gavilan again for the welterweight title. This was his second attempt to become world champion, and still the only prayer that I could offer was for him not to get hurt. The day of the fight Johnny seemed weaker than I had seen him in a long time and his face was very thin and drawn. The tension was stronger than I had ever felt it before. Everywhere the fight was advertised and everywhere people were after Johnny for attention. Under the pressure, Johnny did a funny thing. He shadowboxed on the street, something he had never done before.

I left the hotel for the fight a full half hour after it had started and I went in the first church I saw on the way to the stadium. I think it was a Catholic church, though I'm not a Catholic. The fight was still going on when I reached the stadium. I waited near the dressing room. After an eternity I could hear the crowds of people rushing from their seats, and again the announcer's voice reached my ears: "And still welterweight champion of the world, Kid Gavilan."

A crowd gathered at the dressing room door, and photographers began asking me to pose for pictures and popping questions at me from all sides. I saw Kid Gavilan come through and finally caught a glimpse of Johnny being almost carried by his handlers. Johnny's mother came past me, and the officer on the door allowed us to go into the dressing room, which was already so overcrowded with people that it was hard to catch your breath.

Johnny was in a prone position on the table and his face was completely covered by towels. For the first time in my life I heard him cry. I left the dressing room to try to compose myself. When Johnny finally came out he had on dark glasses, but they did not cover the horrible sight of his completely disfigured face. At the hotel the outer room of the suite was filled to capacity with people. When I went into the bedroom I wanted to turn and run but most of all I wished that I would soon awaken from what I hoped was a nightmare.

Johnny's face was indistinguishable. His eyes were so swollen that he couldn't open them at all. I walked up to the bed and he said, "Jo, is that you?" He then reached out his swollen hand to touch me. He wasn't out of his head but he just kept repeating that he couldn't understand what had happened to him. He said that he lost all of his strength in the seventh round. It was difficult for him to talk because he had gotten hit in the Adam's apple and he complained that his throat was very sore.

It was two days before Johnny could open his eyes at all. I came into the room and he said, "Jo, I can see you"—just as a child might have said it. I read him all of the newspapers and telegrams that he had received, and before long his friends started coming by. His parents took me aside and begged me to get him to stop fighting. I tried to explain what had happened before and that I was resigned to the fact that Johnny would not quit until he made the decision himself."

(Joanne Jackson - former wife of Johnny Bratton)

"I was in in Panama a few years ago, with Kid Norfolk, the coloured heavyweight, and champion of the Isthumus. The kid had licked them all and was taking it easy, as is his custom.
Things were getting a little monotonous when suddenly word slipped about the little republic that Harry Wills of New Orleans was in the country. Norfolk packed his grip and left for the United States. He made no bones about why he was leaving. Simply stated he was not in the New Orleans mans class.

Wills took on several heavyweights imported there as a source of amusment for the sport-hungry Americans and Panamanians and then the crop failed.
Sam Langford was brought down for a try-out with Wills. They fought twice. Langford took the full count both times from punches delivered in the region of the stomach. Sam lay on the floor and writhed in aparent agony for 5 or 10 minutes and the crowd on each occasion yelled 'Fake!!".

Harry's wife was there for the first meeting. She is a nice-looking coloured woman and seemed to be entirely of the opinion that her husband would shelve 'The Tar Baby' and so expressed herself to the crowd in unmeasured terms. She went about with a wad of good sized bills betting on her husband. Sam had a lot of supporters and when the end came pork and beans were assured for the Wills family for an indefinite period.

When the two men stepped into the ring it looked like a fight between an aberdeen angus bull and a cougar. Wills looked entirely too ready for the Boston gentleman and he stepped right up and stabbed Langford inummerable times in the face. This seemed to only irrate Sam and he made a move to clinch but Wills side-stepped and slapped him again with great earnestness. None of these things pleased the Tar Baby and he referred to Wills unbecomingly and he tossed an uppercut towards Wills chin, the intention of which was in no way disguised. This seemed to bring Wills to a realisation that Sam was cross about something and he wrapped himself around his opponent in such a manner that the referee, who was a very able-bodied citizen, could hardly pry them apart.

As they were seperated Sam looked at the crowd and smiled. Wills did not think this was the right thing for Samuel to do and expressed his indignation by cutting his eye open. My, but did Sam act ugly for a while. But he cooled down later and stood like a block of Vermont granite and took the jabs offered by Wills with becoming dignity. This sort of thing kept up for six rounds, then Harry reached down in his shoe and pulled forth a blow that looked like a streak of sunlight. His hand disapeared in Langford's midriff and Sam doubled up and fell flat on his face on the floor. He did not put out his hands to protect himself. His hands were as useless as a pair of worn-out socks and about as limp. He made serveral ineffectual efforts to rise. He did succeed in getting to his corner some 10 minutes later, with the help of Wills, the referee and two physicians, which showed great will-power.
Sam said the blow was a foul.

The second fight, fought a month later, was about the same as the first, with the exception that Sam did not collect Wills knuckles until the 7th round, but the effect was the same. Sam gathered his end of the purse after this fight and placing it in his pocketbook left the Isthumus.

I saw both fights. They may have been faked. I am not capable of judging, but Wills attitude during the fights and after them struck me very favourably. He is quiet, reserved and very polite outside of the ring. I believe that if Wills and Dempsey were to ever meet Dempsey will have his championship crown knocked into the Great Lakes."

(by Sid Smith - The Gazette Times - Oct 8, 1922)

.........

Sam Langford often fought the same opponents over and over as was typical of coloured boxers at the time. Langford and Wills tangled at least seventeen times (up to twenty-two times by some sources) between 1914 and 1922. They knocked each other out twice and Wills generally had the better of the series, although it must be noted that the first meeting occurred when Langford was 31 years old.

The first Wills v Langford fight was a 10-round newspaper decision win for Langford. The rematch (pictured here) in November 1914 and second fight in their long series went like this -
"With a left swing to the jaw, Sam Langford of Boston knocked out Harry Wills from New Orleans, in the fourteenth round of a scheduled twenty-round fight this afternoon at Vernon. Both men were knocked down repeatedly, Langford himself taking the count four times in the first two rounds. Langford early in the fight hurt his left ankle as he fell to the mat in a vicious breakaway. Wills' effective straight-arm drives gave him an apparent even break in most of the rounds, but Langford fought with a superior knowledge of the game that gradually wore out Wills. As the soreness left Langford's injured ankle, his footwork improved and the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth rounds showed Langford winning. His speed, judgment and force then enabled him to play with Wills. The final swing was delivered after a torrent of blows had left Wills staggering." (Indianapolis Star)

Langford had more than ten fights each against Sam McVey, Joe Jeannette, Jim Barry, Jeff Clark, and Bill Tate.

After over three hundred recorded bouts, Sam Langford retired in 1926 at the age of 43. In his last years in the ring, he was troubled by eye problems which eventually resulted in blindness. In 1944, Al Laney of the New York Herald Tribune decided to write a story about Langford, but he had trouble finding him. Several people suggested that Langford was probably dead, but Laney persisted and finally found Langford living at a rooming house on 139th Street in New York City. Langford had 20 cents in his pocket. Shortly after Laney's story was published, a fund was set up for Langford. As a result, he lived relatively comfortably for the rest of his days. Langford passed away suffering from diabetes on January 12, 1956 at a private nursing home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Harry Wills retired from boxing in 1932, also at the age of 43, and ran a successful real estate business in Harlem, New York. He was known for his yearly fast, in which, once a year, he would live on only water for a month. Wills died, ironically also from diabetes, on December 21, 1958. He left an estate valued at over $100,000, including a 19-family apartment building in upper Harlem. His biggest regret in life was never getting the opportunity to fight Jack Dempsey for the World Title.

Sept 23, 1948 - Yankee Stadium

Despite being rated the number-two challenger for the title with just three losses in 50 contests, Jesse Flores (134¾) was unable to offer much of a threat to Ike Williams (134¾), being content to box on the back foot. Finally catching up with his rival Williams dropped him twice in the fifth and eighth rounds before Flores, trying to avoid the punches coming his way, took a count of ‘three’ after slipping over in the ninth. In the tenth it was all over at 2.04 of the session after the elusive Flores was felled by a right to the jaw and counted out after being set up with jabs and a tremendous left hook to the body.

Overshadowing this title bout, was an exciting fight on the under card between Sugar Ray Robinson and Cuban Kid Gavilan. Gavilan, a future world champion, hurt Robinson several times during the fight, but Robinson was able to control the final rounds with a series of jabs and left hooks giving him a controversial 10 round decision.

After retiring from boxing, Kid Berg became a movie stuntman, working mainly in Westerns, this gave him a wardrobe for life. He smoked cigars incessantly – Optimos that were sent to him from New York.

All his defeats apart from Canzoneri, Berg put down to the effects of womanising, which he believed weakened his legs, but which he said he couldn’t resist. He was particularly defiant about his defeat by Billy Petrolle, who had him down seven times - but only because, Berg insisted, “I was messing around with this particular broad.” Most of his big fights took place in the United States, and he had a penchant for the American vernacular. He finished boxing in 1946 at the age of 35, with an extraordinary record of 157 victories (with 61 knockouts), 26 losses, and nine draws. Known for his prodigious punch-rate, Berg’s moniker was “The Whitechapel Windmill” or, in America, “Whirlwind.”

He was managed by Frankie Jacobs and trained by the late Ray Arcel, that most distinguished and honourable of trainers, who saw off the Mob in the form of Frankie Carbo et al and regarded Berg as almost a son and his favourite fighter, even though Arcel trained many other champions, including Roberto Duran. Berg had arrived in his custody off a boat from England in 1928, when he was 18 and, according to Arcel, “Looked like a little girl.” Arcel was soon disabused of such notions. “Not only could he fight,” Arcel once recalled. “But he thought he was God’s gift to the ladies. You had to watch him like a hawk.”

Berg once said he was convinced one of his cornerman had been stabbed on the way to the ring to face Kid Chocolate.

In his last year or so Berg moved to the Essex coast. His wife Morya died before him. So did Ray Arcel. To the end he followed his usual routines. He remained friends with Kid Lewis’ son, Morgan, to the last, believing he had a protective duty towards him, and still went to Soho.

Despite his age Berg was still an active driver in his little red car, which he drove extremely aggressively, indeed specialising in curb side confrontations. He had been arrested for chinning another, much younger motorist, but turned up in court in a borrowed wheelchair and was let off.

Berg went to New York for the 90th birthday party of Ray Arcel. There, among a stellar cast that included Holmes, Graziano, Zale, LaMotta and Pep, as well as contemporary champions such as Breland and McGirt, Berg stole the show with an emotional speech about how much Arcel meant to him. On the way out, I was collared by an octogenarian former fighter who, pointing at Berg, announced, ‘Forget all the others. This is the guy. This guy is really the one.’
Coincidentally there was a musical named “Legs,” about the ‘30s gangster Legs Diamond, playing on Broadway at the time. Berg knew Diamond well, having once been threatened with death by him for attempting to chat up Diamond’s girlfriend at the Harding Hotel, where Berg lived one floor beneath Mae West. “We had to do a lot of fast talking to get out of it,” was Arcel’s recollection. Berg had also been au fait with Harlem nightlife, and was a regular at the Cotton Club, whose benefactor, Owney Madden (played in the movie by Bob Hoskins) had been a big Berg fan.

Once Berg took an interest in a Jewish fighter called Gary “Kid” Jacobs from Scotland, a useful welterweight apparently named in the tradition of Kid Lewis and Berg. Jacobs’s management did not know what they had let themselves in for by adopting this marketing strategy. Berg trailed him like a protective bloodhound, saying “Gary is the new me.” Jacobs, who was sensible enough to play along with it, asked Berg if he had any specific tips. “Lay off women before a fight,” Berg replied. “Just remember what happened with me and Billy Petrolle.”

He was someone who resolutely refused to countenance the banality of ordinary life, and was determined to live a mythic one, visiting again and again its landmarks. He himself had established them, after all.

(by Jonathan Rendall)

1955

"I cry so many times," said the 22-year-old Kid Akeem Anifowoshe (pronounced anna-fee-OH-shee). "Whenever I look in the mirror and see myself, I say, 'Oh, no.' "
But worse was what his eyes could not see and his mind refused to register: the injuries he suffered during his last fight, a bloody 12-round world title match against a junior-bantamweight champion named Robert Quiroga.
In the view of virtually everyone but Anifowoshe himself, the injuries have all but ended a promising future for a young Nigerian immigrant and former Olympic hopeful who saw a chance to make a life for himself as a boxer in Las Vegas. Only the fighter does not see his career as being over. In spite of damage he suffered a month ago, he insists, incredibly, that he will fight again.

What was one man's calamity and burden soon became fodder for the continuing debate over boxing. In the weeks that followed, Kid Akeem's injuries raised questions about the wisdom of the use by smaller men of six-ounce gloves in title matches, as he and Quiroga had done, rather than the more heavily padded eight-ounce gloves Anifowoshe wore in his 23 previous fights, all victories, 18 by knockout.

"Evidence in the case of Eligio Sardiñas vs Judah Bergman to be given Thursday night into the hands of a jury of some 25,000 fight fans and a referee at the Polo Grounds.

Eligio, better known as "Kid Chocolate", the dazzling Cuban, will attempt to prove he can give away ten pounds and still whip Bergman, otherwise known as Jeck 'Kid' Berg, a jewish boy from the Whitechapel area of London and one of the best and busiest of the lightweights.

If the jury has any preconceived opinion it is that Chocolate can't do it. The odds for their ten-round tilt stand at 6 to 5 on Berg.

Never beaten in 67 professional or amateur bouts, Chocolate has flashed sensationally in two years of American campaigning. He is considered the uncrowned featherweight champion, a natural 126 pounder, an ebony marvel of boxing ability and speed afoot, and a puncher besides. He has been held only once to a draw, and holds a decision over Al Singer, the present lightweight champion, as a result of an open-air duel here last summer. He is considered unbeatable at his own weight.