Candy McFarland lands a left to the jaw of Welterweight Champion Don Jordan in the third round of their non-title fight tonight. McFarland won a ten-round decision in the featured bout of what was billed as a double-header program. Sugar Ray Robinson failed to show up for his bout with Pedro Gonzales and the other featured ten-rounder on the program was cancelled. Jordan is scheduled to defend his title against Benny 'Kid' Paret in Las Vegas on May 27th.
(The Baltimore Sun)
"He has just lost another run-of-the-mill fight out there in the great dining room, where the ring is set among drink-laden tables, where dinner-suited spectators watch him struggle. He can't understand it : "The other fella never laid a glove on me. That ref never done me any favours, I can tell you." His body aches for rest and he has a face that's full of bruises.
He was up at six o'clock that morning, did half a day's work, met his manager in the afternoon, climbed into the car and came from Liverpool to London, stopping for a bite of something lousy on the motorway. Didn't get to the hotel until half past seven, went in the ring at half past ten. Now it's past eleven. He's a loser in London and home is in Liverpool.
The pursemoney - £100 - won't stretch to the cost of a room in that hotel for the night. Besides, he's due back at work in the factory in the morning. So, get changed, stuff the gear in the holdall, throw it in the boot, curl up on the back seat of the manager's old banger and try and grab some sleep on the long grind up the motorway.
He is back in the house as dawn breaks. Wake up the wife with the embarrassing admission once again: "Yeah, I lost..but that ref doesn't know what day it is." Breakfast, clock-on for work and go through the same excuses.
Perhaps somewhere on that grim night journey north a cold voice inside him whispered "This is how it's always going to be. don't kid yourself. You're never going to be a champion. There's never going to be stardom, money, headlines. You're a loser."
Later that week, the manager's on the phone to him "I've got this offer for another fight down south in ten days time. Only a hundred quid, but I think you can take this guy. They tell me he's just a raw beginner. You can handle him. Fancy it ??"
Yes, he fancies it. This one will be different. He has to believe in miracles."
On May 31st 1938, at Madison Square Garden, New York, Henry Armstrong fought Barney Ross, a slick boxer, for the welterweight championship. Armstrong dominated the fight. The first three rounds were even but by the fourth, Armstrong style wore on the champion. The fight became a massacre, as Ross' face was a bloody mess. Ross’ corner wanted to stop the fight but Ross beseeched them to allow him to continue. The referee Arthur Donovan went to Ross’ corner but Ross pleaded with the third man in the ring. Ross, who had never been stopped, was determined to finish on his feet.
Armstrong, respecting his rival, carried Ross for the last three rounds of the fight. “How are you feeling?” Armstrong asked Ross in the 13th. Ross barely replied, “I’m dead.” Ross leaned on Armstrong and Armstrong told Ross, “Just shoot your left but if you shoot your right, you’re dead!” Armstrong allowed Ross to finish his last fight on his feet.
(colourised photo from CBS contributor Jtheron)
Danny Nardico (50-13-4, 35 KOs), was an ex-Marine who had been awarded multiple Purple Hearts in WWII. He holds the distinction of being the only man in boxing history to put Jake LaMotta on the deck (in a 1952 fight in Florida, LaMotta was knocked down in the 7th by a right hand and his corner stopped the bout between the 7th and 8th rounds). Nardico put together a string of wins and knockouts to move into middleweight contention during the 1950s. Not unlike Charlie Norkus, he fit into an exciting mold of a hard-hitting, aggressive puncher without much defense. He never did get a title shot, but he entertained as a rugged combatant and fought very tough opposition.
Charley Norkus out of Queens, New York, was also a top ranked heavyweight fighter. In a professional career that began in 1948, he amassed a record of 33-19 (22 KOs). He twice took second place in Golden Gloves boxing contests and remained undefeated as a boxer in the US Marines in 1946–1947. He became known as “the Bayonne Bomber.” He possessed a lethal left hook that also produced a string of KO victories.
Here it was, two tough ex-Marines, both possessing paralyzing power, meeting in the square ring in Miami Beach in 1954 and there was palpable in anticipation of a brawl. What the fans got was something that went beyond a brawl. Think Foreman-Lyle, Castillo-Corrales or Durelle-Moore.
Both fighters were ripped with monster biceps and broad backs. Norkus looked much bigger and actually outweighed his opponent by 16 pounds (197-181). He controlled the early action and put Nardico down in the second with a long and malefic right. Nardico was hurt again and decked in the third, and was also thrown to the canvas twice by the stronger Norkus who fought in an old-timer standup sort of way reminiscent of James J. Corbett. Nardico used good movement and a counter left to keep Norkus away and survive the round.
In the fourth, Nardico turned the tables on Norkus and hurt him badly with his trademark left hook. Both fighters forgot about body shots and exchanged simultaneous head shots that would have KOd most. These were haymakers and each was meant to end the fight. And one almost did as Norkus caught one of Nardico’s patented left hooks and went down like he had been sapped. He was on Queer Street but Nardico could not finish him off.
Both fighters continued to exchange sizzling shots in the fifth and sixth and both were wobbled. The brutal battle continued into the seventh when Charlie unloaded a number of crunching overhand rights on Nardico’s head, but right at the bell, Danny floored Norkus with a sharp and sneaky right to steal the round.
Then in the ninth, Nardico attacked at the bell with a sense of urgency and Norkus met the intended onslaught with a brutal straight right that sent Danny down and for all practical purposes out. Somehow, he got up and was sent down again by a flurry of Charlie’s clubbing shots. The referee inexplicably let the fight continue and Norkus attacked again with crunching shots that left Nardico helpless. This time the referee had no alternative but to stop the slaughter.
The fight was an incredible and savage pier six affair yielding eight knockdowns and several pushes to the deck that could have been ruled knockdowns. It was full-tilt boogie violence featuring both fighter‘s total disregard for defense. Officially, Nardico went down six times (3 in the ninth) and Norkus twice.
This was the essence of a 1950s fight; a thrilling rocker in which both fighters gave their all. The fight is still written and talked about today, though few have seen it. A rematch on national TV had no knock downs but was a toe-to-toe affair with Norkus the victor again.
(by Ted Sares)
Feb 23rd 1955. Greenwood Lake, New York.
Teddy 'Red Top' Davis keeps limber with a few high kicks at his training camp here. With 65 rounds of sparring behind him, Davis, Hartford, Conn., featherweight challenger, completed all strenuous training for his 15-round bid to lift Sandy Saddler's 126-pound title in New York on Feb 25th.
(United Press)
"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.
""Baby, It's Cold Outside" might be what champ Joe Frazier, covered with frost, is thinking as he returns from a recent jogging session at his training camp. He meets Muhammad Ali in a title bout at Madison Square Garden on March 8th." - (Chicago Tribune)
Jack Hurley, the tall, thin, caustic manager and promoter who has a genius for developing mediocre fighters into rich ones, began snooping around for another boxer. Into his office one day in 1949 walked a skinny middleweight named Harry Matthews, who had won 67 out of 70 fights on the West Coast, had been fighting for 12 years and had succeeded only in getting deep into debt. Hurley agreed to take him on for his usual 50%. Matthews screamed in anguish. "Listen, young man," said Hurley, "you've been boxing for 12 years and you've made exactly nothing. Now, 50% of nothing is nothing. You don't know how lucky you are. What is happening is that you are getting 50% of me."
Hurley watched his new gladiator work out and was appalled. "He got all his ideas from amateurs. It's a wonder he hadn't been seriously hurt. His idea of how to defend himself was to grab and run. That's all he knew. He didn't even know how to eat. He'd eat two meals a day. I said, "if you were a truck driver, would you eat like that?' He said, 'No, driving a truck is hard work. If I were a truck driver, I'd eat like one.' I said to him, 'Let me tell you something, young man. If you and I are to stay together, you'll work so hard you'll think truck driving is a soft racket. Don't ever lose sight of the fact that fighting is a hard and brutal business, and you gotta be in shape for it. From now on you eat like a truck driver.' He did, and he finally went up to 182 pounds.
"But oh, he was such a bad fighter at first. He couldn't punch, he couldn't take a punch. He was an agony fighter. Looking at a fighter that can't punch is like kissing your mother-in-law."
Hurley brought Matthews along slowly and one night put him into the ring with a carefully selected opponent who had had only 12 fights and was too light to cope with Matthews. "I figured Matthews would make his name overnight," says Hurley. "He figured to knock the kid out easy. But it went 10 rounds and nobody got hit, although Matthews wins the decision. The next day Matthews comes into the office, and he says, 'How did you like the fight?'
French sports writers hauled out all their adjectives today to praise Welterweight Champion Sugar Ray Robinson for his second-round technical knockout victory over France's Jean Stock in a non-title match Monday night.
Robinson dynamited the "Rock" Jean Stock without even mussing his hair. Robinson, the prodigious champion, made Stock "disappear in less than two rounds" the sporting paper L'Equipe headlined.
"It is a god of the ring we saw last night" Le Parisien's sports wroter said. "Robinson is a fighter unique of his kind, a sort of scared monster of the ring of fearful power, speed and punch."
Stock, himself, said the left to the head which Robinson landed in the first round was "the hardest punch I have ever felt." - "After that I couldn't breathe and didn't even know where I was" Stock added.
The Paris correspondent of The LondonDaily Telegraph appeared more interested in the fate of Robinson's future European opponents. He said a society for the prevention of cruelty should stop Robinson from fighting any current European talent "in the interests of humanity".
(The Pittsburgh Press - Nov 29, 1950)
"They sent him down to London expecting him to get bashed up by Jimmy Flint from Wapping - a murderous puncher – but Pat took 'Flinty' apart in eleven rounds. In fact, it should've been stopped a lot earlier and, because Pat wasn't an especially hurtful puncher, Jimmy took a long sustained beating that night." ('Big' Ron Gray - promoter / manager)
