He explained how D'Amato took him and Jay Bright, a longtime member of the inner circle, from their home in Catskill, N.Y., to Albany to watch on closed circuit as Holmes retained the title in a 1981 destruction of the faded Muhammad Ali. He even recalled the exact date: Oct. 2.
"I was offended by how bad he beat up Ali," he said. "When we drove home to Catskill [about an hour from Albany], nobody in the car said a word, we were all so upset. The next morning, Cus was on the phone with Muhammad Ali after taking this shellacking from Holmes. He said to Ali, 'I have this young black kid who is going to be heavyweight champion someday and I want you to talk to him.'"
The young black kid got on the phone and told Ali, "'When I grow up, I'll fight Holmes and I'll get him back for you.' He was 14 years old.
When he did meet Holmes seven years later, Ali was a guest at the fight and whispered to him beforehand, "Remember what you said -- get him for me."
From the CBS YouTube page.
Muhammad Ali v Tommy Hearns short sparring exhibition clip
The Bahamas, 1981, while Ali was in preparation for Trevor Berbick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-Ik77QyAAw
RETIRED boxer Johnny Melfah took on some of Britain’s most famous fighters during his long sporting career in sparring contests and title fights.
The Gloucester pugilist, now 53, is now facing his biggest battle yet as he fights back against debilitating disorder Lupus.
Johnny, from Robinswood, took on Herol ‘Bomber’ Graham, Nicky Piper, the Dark Destroyer Nigel Benn and his middleweight rival Chris Eubank at the Royal Albert Hall in 1989, losing in four rounds.
In a decade of fighting, Johnny rubbed shoulders with some of the best fighters in a golden generation of British boxing.
He finally retired in 1994 after two bruising encounters with Steve Collins in a super middleweight eliminator bout for a shot at the world title. Johnny then went on to coach boys in the art of boxing at the Viking Club in Coney Hill.
(The Gloucester Citizen)
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This week Johnny spoke with boxing journalist Steve Bunce (as part of his ESPN boxing podcast) about his career...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2ORHackhIk
When Stanley Ketchel dispatched Mike “Twin” Sullivan in a single round, a man previously stopped by only Joe Gans over 10 and 15 rounds, big brother Jack “Twin” Sullivan tried to restore the family reputation. The business became personal.
“From a fight fan’s point of view nothing better than this Sullivan-Ketchel match could possibly be offered in the pugilistic line. Ketchel, the most spectacular knocker-outer of the current crop, is to hook up with the larger of the famous Boston Twins…the winner of the scrap will be the bona fide champion…to add a bit of spice to this Sullivan will be seeking revenge…to wipe the Ketchel blot off the family escutcheon.” - The LA Herald.
Sullivan entered the ring first, taking up the northwest corner, the sun to his back. Ketchel, arriving moments later, stalked across to his opponent and confronted him. Sullivan moved to the other corner. Ketchel had enforced his right to chose which corner he would take his rest in, having won the pre-fight toss.
They began at a stiff pace. Ketchel set it, fighting directly, determinedly, but missing often. Sullivan broke into a smile and eventually a laugh as Ketchel repeatedly missed him. Ketchel took the first round on his aggressive pursuit of his elusive opponent and Sullivan finished the round as cheerily as he had begun it, seemingly fighting his own fight. Observers noticed a thin trail of blood coming from Sullivan’s nose as he returned to his stool, squinting at Ketchel through the blazing sun.
The second round was rougher, Ketchel rattling Sullivan’s kidneys in a prolonged clinch, Sullivan “lifting Stanley off his feet” with a huge right hand uppercut, blocking well against the punches that Ketchel brought back. By the third Ketchel was already hunting the body with both hands, Sullivan blocking well to the head, winking happily at his opponent when he managed to get one through. Sullivan seemed primed to take over in the fourth. “Ketchel was right on top of his man,” noted the LA Herald, “but was unable to land. Jack mystified Stanley with clever footwork as the later tried with both hands at the gong.” In the fifth Sullivan “laughed again as Ketchel missed yet another left to the body…feinted Ketchel out of position and they clinched.” In the 8th, Ketchel was cut again, this time over the left eye, which “made him vicious” and he drove Sullivan back to the ropes “missing wildly” with two lefts before slipping to the floor and being rattled at the bell by a returning left hook. Ketchel was winning rounds but at a terrible price. Meanwhile, boxing with great economy, Sullivan was tricking his way through the fight whilst Ketchel expended energy on wasted punches and rushes.
Round nine began quietly, Ketchel chasing Sullivan around the ring to little affect, some ineffective punching was exchanged. Half way through, Ketchel caught Sullivan a hard right-hand punch to the jaw and followed it with a left to the body. A genuinely two-handed fighter, he had landed his first flush combination. Sullivan’s response? To laugh once more. But this time he did not manage to escape, did not manage to counterpunch but instead got hit again, hard. And then again. Ketchel’s variety of attack cannot be overstated, he worked body and head with straight, hooked and uppercut punches and he seems in this round to have utterly destroyed the surety of Sullivan’s guard. Sullivan was still landing at the same rate – but Ketchel was no longer missing.
Sullivan finished the ninth staggering Ketchel with a shot to the chin. He ended the tenth with a “hurricane finish” forcing Ketchel back with headshots. He would not win another round. He would never be the same again. He would win only three of his next ten fights. He was being finished as a fighter. “One of the bloodiest contests seen in recent years” was all but settled. “For the next ten rounds Ketchel battered Sullivan about the ring severely punishing him about the head and body,” said The Herald. “He knew he was beaten many, many round before the end actually came but he saw no way he could get out of his predicament gracefully,” observed The San Francisco Call.
Indeed, Sullivan’s grace deserted him. He would be dropped five times in the coming rounds, four times by body blows, and each time he would attempt to claim a foul. Each time the referee dismissed the claims and Sullivan was forced to climb back into the furnace. When the end came in the 20th, it was pitiful. Forcing Sullivan to the ground with a straight left, Ketchel leapt upon the tortured great as soon as he rose and drove him down again with a left-right combination. Sullivan hauled himself up for once last try. Ketchel smashed through the guard with another left hook to the body and Sullivan fell once more. He shook his head. “No.”
When he came to his sense he tried to claim a foul once more. The referee dismissed him out of hand. Sullivan continued to make his case in a post-fight interview. His words were not carried far, likely because they held no truth, but possibly because Sullivan found it difficult to make himself understood -his lips were so grotesquely swollen he found it hard to talk.
(By, and courtesy of, Matt McGrain)
From the Classic Boxing Society YouTube page...
HENRY ARMSTRONG VS. FRITZIE ZIVIC II - JAN 17th 1941 - Original Radio Broadcast with updated audio preview...
"A great fighter went over the fistic horizon last night in Madison Square Garden. Henry Armstrong, the gallant, tornadic Hammering Hank of another day whose little fists pounded him to the distinction of being the ring's only exponent to hold three titles at the same time, was knocked out in 12 rounds of savage fighting....
"The end came after 52 seconds of the 12th round.... Referee Arthur Donovan mercifully ended the battle after twice having entreated the gallant Armstrong to retire, only to have his pleas rejected. Once, after the tenth round, Donovan solemnly notified Armstrong that he would give him on more round. Armstrong retorted to the warning with a flash of the fighting demon of old. It was as if he wanted to demonstrate that, though battered and bruised, cut and bleeding, his eyes puffed and cut, he still had plenty of fight left.
"Through the 11th round he pulled the crowd to its feet in as glorious a rally as this observer has seen in 25 years of attendances at these ring battles. The former champion hammered Zivic all over the ring. He pelted the title-holder with lefts and rights to the body, plied him with savage thrusts of the left and wicked right smashes to the face and head. Repeatedly Armstrong grazed the jaw with desperate rights, blows with which he hoped to turn the tide of crushing defeat that was engulfing him. For two minutes Armstrong went beserk. He was a fighting maniac in the one flash he gave of the Hammering Henry of old.
"It was glorious, spectacular while it lasted. Zivic was too busy trying to defend himself in this unlooked-for charge to launch a counterfire. But then Zivic stepped to the attack and through the last minute of the 11th round he hammered and punched Armstrong mercilessly with short, choppy but stinging lefts and rights that ripped open old wounds and started a flow of blood.
[Examined by the doctor between rounds Armstrong was allowed to continue and he] "started the 12th as if to press his dynamic recovery. But he had given all his strength in that 11th round stand. Hammering Henry shuffled into a barrage of straight lefts, a criss-cross fire of lefts and rights, punishing, cutting blows. He tried a roundhouse right for the jaw, missed and slipped. Up he came, facing his foe, charging recklessly, only to be pelted by Zivic's shower of blows. When Donovan realized what Armstrong must have known but would not admit, the referee stepped between the fighters and waved an end to the battle, and Armstrong's career."
(James P. Douglas, New York Times)
Fantasy fight report kindly passed to CBS courtesy of Jimmy Krug (Jersey-Jim), theboxingmagazine.com
Ben Foord, perhaps the most tragic figure in the history of South African Boxing, was born on January 21, 1913, in Vrede and grew up in Ladysmith. As a teenager, Foord was a gifted athlete, excelling in rugby, swimming, and track and field. He also had a pronounced daredevil streak and it was this, perhaps, that led him to dabble in boxing. After ditching a humdrum career in, of all pursuits, hair styling, Foord found adventure as a lifeguard in Durban. His next career choice–prizefighting–suggests just how much Foord enjoyed being on the dangerous edge of things. At nearly 6’ 3” and 208 pounds, Foord had the kind of physique even the Great Sandow might have admired, but South Africa offered little in terms of sparring and training for an aspiring boxer.
After an unexceptional amateur career, Foord turned pro in 1932 and soon moved to London in order to get bigger fights and bigger thrills. In addition to the hazards found between the ropes, Foord regularly accepted wagers on risky feats outside of the ring, like high diving from bridges. Once, Foord swam the Thames River from Windsor Bridge in under a minute. Two auto wrecks in three years–including one that left a passing cyclist dead–underscored his recklessness and his practical jokes (Foord, like Baer, was an incorrigible prankster) often included firearms as props.
For all his size and athleticism, Foord cared little for the austere rigors of training. He preferred golf to the speedbag and donning a smoking jacket to slipping on mitts. “As far as I am concerned,” his brother, Stephen Foord, told Chris Greyvenstein, “Ben regarded even boxing as just an easy way to make money and a good way to impress the fair sex.” Impress the fair sex he did; Foord was soon a-man-about-town and his gallivanting kept gossip columnists sleepless with overwork.
From 1932 to 1934 Foord was considered a raw but promising talent, one whose powerful right hand and sheer athleticism made some observers rhapsodize. “I regard Foord as the best prospective candidate for heavyweight honors this country has seen for years,” wrote former flyweight champion Jimmy Wilde. Foord was erratic, certainly, but his potential box office appeal could not be underestimated; powerful, dapper, and with matinee idol looks to boot, Foord resembled a marquee heavyweight. In fact, he resembled Max Baer, and crowds flocked to see the debonair South African.
Although Foord had earned a measure of fame on the society pages, his career was largely unremarkable. Still, he was undefeated during his campaign in the UK and after pounding out a decision over future British Heavyweight champion Jack London on November 6, 1933, he was signed to face dangerous Jack Petersen at Royal Albert Hall. On March 8, 1934, Foord fought courageously against the talented Welshman in a sadistic brawl before succumbing in the thirteenth round. Foord cut Petersen early in the fight and rocked him with several overhand rights. Petersen dropped Foord twice in the fourth round, but Foord, despite the beating he was taking, responded with spiteful blows of his own. Finally, after several more rounds of pitiless give and take, Foord was knocked out of the ring in the thirteenth round. Somehow he managed to beat the count, but the fight was stopped after Petersen began teeing off on his defenseless opponent. “No words of mine can tell of his enormous courage,” Petersen praised Foord after the match. “No man can ever put up a gamer fight. I felt sorry for Foord, and could scarcely force down the lump in my throat as I helped him back to his corner. If the day comes that I must take a beating so terrible, may I take it like he did.” Foord showed incredible resilience and courage during his breathtaking bout with Petersen. It was enough, in fact, to make him a star. His performance electrified the crowd and left Trevor Wignall, reporting for the Daily Express, sounding like a minor Edwardian poet: “Watching Foord I was thrilled as never before by a heavyweight bout and felt nothing could stop him but death.”
Over the next year his popularity grew even as the quality of his performances diminished. Foord captured the South African Heavyweight title in Cape Town in June 1934, but returned to London as casual as ever and lost dreary bouts to Gunnar Barlund, Maurice Strickland, and Roy Lazer. In 1936, however, Foord, spurred on by marriage to a beautiful socialite, momentarily discovered ambition and ran off a string of victories. Among the fighters he defeated were Larry Gaines, Roy Lazer in a rematch, and former light heavyweight champion Tommy Loughran. He capped off a dramatic year by annihilating Jack Petersen in only three rounds on August 17, 1936, to win the British Empire and British Heavyweight titles. This would prove to be the peak of his career, as Foord went on to lose decisions to Walter Neusel and Tommy Farr. By the time Foord signed to fight Max Baer he was hoping to reverse a losing streak.
A crowd of over 8,000 watched these two idiosyncratic boxers meet at Harrringray on May 27, 1937. Foord entered the ring with a record of 35-9-4, while Baer, coming off of his loss to Tommy Farr, was 61-11. The Sunday Times all but sniffed at the bout: “And because one has no confidence in the true fighting fitness of either, however much they may have “trained” in camp, it seems a waste of energy to attempt a reasoned estimate of their respective chances on this occasion and in the future.”
After the fight, however, the British press was a little more feverish. “If ever a man came near to meeting his death in the ring,” wrote Peter Wilson of The Daily Mirror, “Foord did at the hands of Max Baer, who seemed to turn, in a twinkling, from a strutting, grimacing playboy to a snarling wild beast.”
The opening bell rang and the fighters met at centre ring. Barely a minute into the first round, Foord landed his fearsome right hand on target, but Baer, with a chin as sturdy as a dolmen, shrugged it off and ploughed forward with short hooks in the clinches and looping punches from outside. In the second round, Baer dropped Foord twice with crushing rights and hammered Foord against the ropes. Somehow the woozy South African managed to survive until the bell.
For the next few rounds Foord utilized his jab while Baer alternated between punching and capering. The crowd chuckled as “Madcap Maxie” barked, hitched up his trunks, and tossed the kind of haymakers typically seen in slapstick comedies. In between routines, however, Baer went to work and whacked Foord around the ring like a shuttlecock. Nearly every blow he landed shook Foord to his boots, and, to the delight of the crowd, even referee Jack Hart took a clout from an inaccurate Baer.
By the eighth round, Foord, undertrained to perfection, was through. Disoriented, exhausted, and bloodied, he staggered to the wrong corner after the bell and plopped onto his stool. Baer, sensing blood, stormed out at the start of the ninth. Two quick rights and Foord was down. When he rose, another bombardment dropped him again like an anchor thrown from the side of a deck. He listened to the count flat on his back before using the ropes as a ladder and hauling himself, nearly knock-kneed, to his feet. Baer, determined to show the world that he was still a contender, moved in for the finish. A vicious combination sent a wobbly Foord sprawling for the last time with blood dripping from his ear. As soon as the fight was stopped, Baer rushed across the ring and knelt by his stricken opponent. He cradled Foord in his arms like a baby. “I have rarely seen a man more genuinely moved in the ring,” noted Peter Wilson at ringside. Perhaps Baer saw Frankie Campbell (a previous opponent who died from injuries fighting Baer) in the ring that night; or, perhaps, with the incredible similarities Baer shared with Foord, he saw himself.
Ben Foord continued his disappointing career with little success but lots of bruises following his loss to Baer, finally retiring in 1938 after being knocked clear out of the ring by George James in White City. Foord then shocked the British public by confessing that he had suffered from amnesia after his last few bouts. “Looking back,” Foord wrote in a syndicated article, “I know it was Max Baer who started the trouble. He was by far the hardest hitter I ever met. Dimly I remember him pillowing my head on his lap after he had knocked me down for the last time. He hit me on the chin with punches I felt for days, but I stuck it.”
Less than a year later, despite concerns about his health, Foord returned to the ring in South Africa before quitting to join the army. Home on furlough in 1942, Foord played a prank on his wife, Phyllis, that ended tragically. After sneaking up on her with a pistol and pretending to be a desperado, Foord twirled the gun Old West style and accidentally shot himself in the face. He was 29 years old when he died.
(by Carlos Acevedo)
Dempsey never had a “boxing match” with anyone in his life. It was always a fight. He began talking about one of the fights, one of the toughest. It was a ‘fight he lost to a roughneck puncher named Johnny Sudenberg in Goldfield, Nevada, in 1915. Dempsey was 20 years old then, not fully grown, weighing 165 pounds. He had been hopping freights, working in mines, traveling all over Utah, Colorado, Nevada, trying to get into the ring against anyone who would fight him.
Sudenberg was a heavyweight, one of the most rugged and skilful the mining country had ever produced. Dempsey went up against him as a substitute for a fighter who had backed out. The promoters were worried, because Jack looked too small and seemed too green as a fighter. But Dempsey talked them into it.
He trained in a dive called the Northern Bar. His first sparring partner was a rough Indian pug named Kid Harrison. Dempsey, never easy on spar‑mates, knocked Harrison stiff one day and lost him. He took on another boy named Roy Moore. This one managed to stay on his feet during the training. Before the bout, Moore, who had seen Sudenberg fight, advised Dempsey not to start slugging it out with his opponent.
That went against Dempsey’s grain. He knew how to do only one thing, go in there and slug. The fight was held in the town dancehall. For three rounds, the two men stood toe to toe and tried to kill. each other with punches. The place was a madhouse of screaming miners and farmers. They had never seen anything like it.
“Johnny could hit,” Dempsey said. “From the fifth round on, I had no idea what was happening Sometimes there was a face in front of me. Sometimes there was nothing. I just kept throwing my fists.”
The fight went ten rounds. Dempsey was on his feet when the bell rang, but for hours afterwards he didn’t know whether he had won or been knocked out. The fight went to Sudenberg on a decision. Dempsey dragged his battered body and welted, shapeless face to a shack outside of town where he slept. When he woke up the next morning, he discovered that his manager had skipped off with the $100 Dempsey was to get for the fight. He was flat broke.
The beaten‑up kid fighter hung around town for a few days, then a wire came from a promoter in Tonopah, Nevada, 30 miles away. Would Dempsey fight Johnny Sudenberg again? Dempsey’s answer was to start for Tonopah, walking. It was a walk over the mountains. He legged it 15 miles before he was picked up by a wagon. And ten days later, his face and body still swollen and bruised, Young Dempsey, as he was then known, climbed into the ring again against Sudenberg.
The second Dempsey‑Sudenberg fight was rougher than the first. In the first round, Dempsey floored Sudenberg seven times. Each time, Johnny bounced back and crashed into Dempsey. Round after round wore on. One of the fighters had to retreat. It was Sudenberg. He began to back up, but as he went back, he kept belting away and gaining strength. Dempsey, not used to fighting in high altitudes, began to weaken. In the seventh round, Sudenberg brought up a right from the floor and knocked Dempsey flat on his back. Jack got ‑up. Sudenberg knocked him down again. Dempsey took three knockdowns in that round, but kept on boring in for more.
The crowd watching that fight was as exhausted as the fighters. By the last round, with the two men still slugging at each other, they watched in silent, breathless awe. They had seen the greatest prizefight of their lives, probably one of the most brutal of all time. It was called a draw. Dempsey pulled himself across the ring at the final bell, put his arm around Johnny Sudenberg’s shoulders. They left the ring that way, supporting each other.
“He was a fighter,” Dempsey said. “I really liked that guy.”
Those were the fights, dozens of them, that made Dempsey the kind of fighter he was. Hard, back‑breaking work and cruel jungle‑camp brawls developed Dempsey into the merciless, stalking killer he became in the ring Those who criticize Dempsey’s lust for mauling his opponents don’t realize that these were the only tactics he knew. The fighters of that day asked no quarter and gave none. To win, you had to be the tougher. You fought to prove how strong and mean you were.
(By Jack Sher)
Spurred by the success of his All-Time Heavyweight Fantasy Boxing Tournament, staged via computer in 1967, Promoter Murry Woroner came back the following year with an All-Time Fantasy Middleweight elimination that promised to answer some intriguing questions.
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The middleweight tournament was run in the same fashion as the heavyweight tourney. Sports writers around the country selected the 16 champions whom they considered the all-time greats, and there's plenty of room for argument over the fighters entered. The tournament kicked off on Sept 30 1968 with Carmen Basilio meeting Marcel Cerdan, and other -first round bouts included Emlfe Griffith against Kid McCoy, Gene Fullmer against Stanley Ketchel, Tiger Flowers against Rocky Graziano, Nonpareil Jack Dempsey against Sugar Bay Robinson, Bob Fitzsimmons against Jake La Motta, Mickey Walker against Dick Tiger and Harry Greb against Tony Zale.
"We sent questionnaires to about 500 writers," said Woroner, "and got about 300 replies. Frankly, I thought some fighters who were omitted should have been included. The writers were required to rate each fighter on 129 variables, on such as speed of foot, ability to take a punch, and accuracy, on a 1-10 scale. The fighters were matched by promoter Chris Dundee, manager Angelo Dundee and Nat Fleischer, publisher of Ring Magazine, and the material then was fed into a computer. "The idea started one night after I'd spent a couple of hours listening to arguments about what fighters were the best, who would have done what to whom" said Woroner. "I asked a friend who works for a computer company whether a tournament couldn't be arranged if data was obtained on the fighters. He said it could be done and we were on our way:" Besides the questionnaires, Woroner also got information by interviewing each living fighter in the tourney and getting all the facts he could from the World Boxing Historians and Ring Magazine. Woroner also spent a lot of time recording sound effects at actual fights, including punches landing, feet . scraping on the canvas, the timekeeper counting the knockdown and the crowd. ' The tapes of each-match are delivered to the stations in sealed containers two hours before fight tune so the results cannot be divulged in advance.
(The Ogden Standard-Examiner)
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The following are the results of Woroner’s Semi-Finals and Finals Match-ups!
Round 1:
Marcel Cerdan KO 4 Carmen Basilio
Emile Griffith W points Kid McCoy
Stanley Ketchel TKO 7 Gene Fullmer
Rocky Graziano KO 11 Tiger Flowers
Sugar Ray Robinson TKO 11 Jack "Nonpareil" Dempsey
Bob Fitzsimmons W points Jack La Motta
Mickey Walker KO 9 Dick Tiger
Harry Greb KO 14 Tony Zale
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Round 2:
Cerdan TKO 10 Griffith
Ketchel KO 11 Graziano
Robinson TKO 3 Fitzsimmons
Walker W points Greb
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Semifinals
Cerdan v. Ketchel
Robinson v. Walker
Cerdan-Ketchel: In 12 bloody rounds, Marcel Cerdan was floored 5 times and Stan Ketchel twice before the Michigan Mauler finally put the Ferocious Frenchman down for the big sleep at 2:08 of the 12th round. Cerdan was decked in the 7th, twice in the 9th, and twice in the 12th.
Winner: Ketchel, KO 12.
Robinson-Walker: The arms of Sugar Ray Robinson were a bit too long for the Toy Bulldog. Robinson set himself up for the all-time finals by outpointing Walker 145-141 in a close one.
Winner: Robinson.
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Final -
Sugar Ray Robinson v. Stanley Ketchel
Background: It was a duel made in promoters' heaven. Ray Robinson, the angelic boxing master, v. Stan Ketchel, the demonic fury, who fought as if every round put his life on the line. Ketchel had become a ring legend in 8 years. Robinson fought everybody and beat the greatest during a 25-year career.
Sugar Ray had an assortment of punches that would rival a soda fountain. Ketchel was as tough as homemade iron. Robinson's flickering feet and hands kept him in control of a fight. It was said that Ketchel could stop any man on any given evening. What would the computer have to say about it?
The fight: The real Sugar Ray Robinson listened to his computer image on the radio and said: "I kept ducking and blocking, feinting and moving. . . . I felt every punch."
His transistorized alter ego felt one especially in the 1st round when Ketchel surprised him with a right to the head. Robinson, down for one of the few times in his life, knew that he was in a fight.
Ketchel moved in to work on the body and Robinson used his reach to punish the little battler to the head. Robinson drew blood in the 3rd and kept it flowing. In the final rounds, knowing he needed a knockout to win, Ketchel unleashed a brutal attack, but Robinson's long arms and clever combinations kept him at bay. The officials gave the mythical all-time championship to Sugar Ray 147 to 139. Even though Robinson tilted the electrons in his favor in every round except the 1st and 8th, he never had Ketchel off his feet.
Winner and All-Time Middleweight Champion: Sugar Ray Robinson.
"What have we got to lose?" asked Jimmy Jacobs, Benitez' astute manager, before the fight. "If Wilfred beats Hamsho, then we fight for the middleweight title. If we lose, we'll still be the mandatory challenger to Hearns for the junior middleweight championship."
Al Certo thought Hamsho had an even better deal. Since the sudden death of Paddy Flood on March 28, Certo has been Hamsho's sole manager and trainer. "They are giving us a quarter million for fighting a bum, a myth," he told Hamsho. "You can forget about those three titles, about him being a superstar. That's all media hype. He fought only two good fighters, Sugar Ray Leonard and Hearns, and he lost to both [and lost the welterweight and junior middleweight titles, respectively]. He beat Carlos Palomino, but I think Palomino took the day off. It's going to be a piece of cake."
Since his marriage last January to Elizabeth Alonso, Benitez has split with his father, Gregorio, who had trained him since his first day in the gym, 16½ years ago. When Wilfred and his bride moved from Puerto Rico to New York, Gregorio closed his gym in Puerto Rico, but remained there. The father told the son, "You are married and you are a big man now. You know how to walk in New York City."
Benitez has always been a brilliant defensive fighter, sometimes at the expense of his offense. D'Amato delicately suggested a few changes that would improve Benitez' attack while taking nothing away from his defense. Benitez would listen intently and nod but....
"See, I know this fellow, Hamsho. He's an aggressive guy," D'Amato said. "He keeps coming, almost on a straight line. Now he can absorb the punches because he sees them coming. Now Benitez can punch a lot harder than people think. But he doesn't punch; he just comes out to outbox opponents with his smarts. I talked to him about moving side to side and punching. With Hamsho coming on a straight line, Benitez can move to the side and hit with maximum power and not be afraid of being hit, because Hamsho won't be in a position to hit him."
During training, Benitez showed no inclination to adopt D'Amato's suggestion. Instead he tried to refine a defense that was already perfect. Meanwhile, Hamsho, a 29-year-old native of Latakia, Syria, practiced doing what he does best: hitting other people. He recounts with great pride his prowess as a street brawler in Syria. "I fight so much that every day I need a new shirt, and every day they throw me out of school," he says. "I live in a tough neighborhood and sometimes it was hell. You fought to survive. You fought because you are bored. You were young, and you had nothing else to do."
Hamsho was thrown out of school in the fifth grade and went to work for his father in a grocery store. As an amateur boxer he won 31 fights, lost one. In 1969 he was the Syrian junior middleweight amateur champion. Then he went to work as a seaman. In 1974 he jumped ship in Providence and headed for New York City, where he hooked up with Flood at the Gramercy Gym on 14th Street.
"I noticed him because he was always trying to help somebody," says Hamsho, who now lives in Bayonne, N.J. "In the beginning he gave me hope. He kept me alive; he carried me. He saw something in me. It was my anger. In the gym I'd fight anybody who'd stand in front of me. Even heavyweights. I always had guts. He always told me to be a boxer, that I didn't have to beat up everybody I fought."
In his early professional career, before he got his green card as a resident alien in 1978, Hamsho fought under the names of Rocky Estafire, Mike Estaire and Mike Estafire. He lost his first pro fight in 1975, and then fought 34 times without a defeat until meeting Hagler in 1981.
"I've got no excuses for the Hagler fight," Hamsho says. "I was too cocky. I didn't respect the guy. I wasn't worried about his punching. I didn't listen to anybody. I caught every punch he threw. Now I listen to people."
When Flood died, of a cerebral hemorrhage, Hamsho was devastated. On Father's Day, he went to Flood's grave. "He was like a father to me," Hamsho said. "I'm not fighting Benitez to get another fight at Hagler. I'm fighting for me and for Paddy. I'm fighting because I want to prove I'm Number One, not by politics but because of my ability." For the final week of training, Certo brought in Al Salvani, a 73-year-old cornerman from California, for his skill as a cut man and for his counsel. Salvani went right to work. First he told Hamsho to forget about Benitez' head. "His head will feint you crazy," said Salvani. "Ignore it. All I want you to hit is anywhere between his collarbones and his belt buckle. And I want your punches short and all from underneath. Dig. They're the most damaging punches. And he thinks you are going to come straight at him. Don't. Move side to side. Annoy him. You don't go straight at nobody. Never."
After a week, Salvani shook his head as he watched Hamsho work. "He's a marvel," Salvani said. "You tell him something once and he does it like he's been doing it all his life. Before, all he wanted to do was work, work. work. You couldn't stop him. Now he listens to me. He says, 'Whatever you tell me, I do.' I think he respects me."
Hamsho introduced himself to Benitez very quickly. In the opening seconds he rushed across the ring, drove Benitez into the ropes with a forearm chop to the throat and then slammed a straight left to the face. Benitez' eyes opened wide. No one had ever treated him so roughly. Then Hamsho, a southpaw, went to work on Benitez' body. By the second round Benitez was flinching as Hamsho slammed shot after shot at the Salvani target zone.
Hurt by a hard left to the head late in the second, Benitez barely made it back to his corner, where Machado revived him with an ammonia capsule. It's a very common practice, only Machado made the mistake of dropping the capsule in front of a Nevada State Athletic Commission inspector. He could be fined as much as $1,000.
"Everybody does it," Machado said. "I just got caught. I was stupid because I dropped the capsule. Wilfred took a heavy blow in the second round, and I used it. Otherwise in the third they would have been counting 10 over him. I'm never going to see anyone count 10 on Wilfred."
In the third, the revived Benitez tried to bring the fight into the center of the ring. It was a mistake. Five times Hamsho, between cuffing him handily, pushed him to the floor. Benitez averted a sixth trip only with a last-second desperate hug around Hamsho's knees. After that, until the end of the fight, Benitez chose never to venture farther than a few feet from his own corner. At each bell, he would take two steps out and then one back, and there he'd stay as Hamsho hammered away at will.
After the 10th round, as Hamsho waited in his corner, Certo looked at him and said, "Paddy is here. He knows what is happening."
"I know," Hamsho said huskily, tears forming in his eyes. "I can feel him."
(by Pat Putnam)
The scoring was lopsided: Judges Lou Tabat (118-109) and Chuck Minker (118-111) each gave Benitez two rounds; Dalby Shirley (117-111) gave him three.
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