[Trail]

Fast becoming one of my fave threads on here.

 

[Dynamito]

A bad case of Injustice Anthony "2 Guns" fletcher has been in prison for nearly three decades, here is one of a series of articles by Ivan Goldman of BoxingInsider the link to the website: .... https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiFvva41PrNAhWDLMAKHZvXAUEQFggjMAA&url=http://www.boxinginsider.com/columns/ex-philly-fighter-anthony-fletcher-railroaded-2-decades-ago-sits-forgotten-in-pa-cell/&usg=AFQjCNEP-bp6_eFsXpcz-FDbwM3n21x7nQ


Ex-Philly Fighter Anthony Fletcher, Railroaded 2 Decades Ago, Sits Forgotten in Pa. Cell

By Ivan G. Goldman

Anthony Fletcher, ex-lightweight from Philadelphia, ex-soldier, and a victim of deplorably sick justice, is a discarded member of the boxing fraternity who was railroaded and forgotten 20 years ago by an out-of-control District Attorney's Office.

Entombed in a tiny death row cell inside SCI Greene Prison in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, he's not allowed to mingle with other convicts. Fletcher sifts through old memories because he doesn't have sufficient sensory surroundings to create new ones. He files his own briefs once in a while but can't untangle himself from the web of legal incompetence that entrapped him long ago. Unlike former cause célèbre Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Fletcher wasn't proficient at organizing others to take up his cause and has suffered horrifically for it. Every once in a while he mails me a photocopy of some document relating to his case, maybe just to prove he exists.

Fletcher was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection on a charge of first-degree murder largely on the strength of eyewitness testimony from Natalie Renee Grant, who was facing charges of retail theft and prostitution. After the court convicted him of first-degree murder, she walked away on probation. A standard deal.

Fletcher is one of countless steamrolled defendants I cover in a book coming out from Potomac Press called Sick Justice: Locking up Millions in the Land of the Free, but it won't be out for a year or so. If Fletcher's going to get any help, now would be better than later.

What happened on the street that night in March 1992 has been dimmed by time and Fletcher's botched defense. He always admitted shooting small-time crook Vaughn Christopher but maintained he acted in self-defense. Christopher, Fletcher said, had earlier stuck up a crap game, taking $50 from him, and when he saw Christopher later, Fletcher threw a punch and Christopher pulled the pistol. They both wrestled for it, Fletcher said, and the gun fired, striking Christopher in the leg and right side. The wounds shouldn't have been fatal. No one informed jurors that Christopher bled to death in the hospital after his mother, a Jehovah's Witness, denied him a crucial transfusion on religious grounds.

One of the ironies of our system is that innocent defendants are particularly tempted to go to trial, which means they'll likely serve harsher sentences because juries usually convict criminal defendants, who then pay a price for not accepting a plea bargain. And Fletcher, then 34, insisted on a trial. He didn't believe an American court would convict him. But his attorney, who wouldn't let him testify, barely cross-examined Grant and didn't even challenge her hearsay testimony. The judge let it slide too.

Fletcher, who grew up in south Philadelphia, joined the Army straight out of high school. He learned to box in Germany and became a highly successful amateur. After his discharge he turned pro at age 24. Overcoming his late start, he fought his way into world-class ranks. But then bad choices and bad luck took over. He suffered a detached retina, was busted for cocaine possession, was partially paralyzed by Bell's Palsy, and was shot four times while sitting in a car watching a playground basketball game in southwest Philadelphia. A companion sitting behind the wheel was fatally wounded. The attack might or might not have been drug-related.

Through all this Fletcher competed as a fighter, but eventually age was too great an adversary. He retired in August 1990 at 24-4-1 (8) after being stopped in his last two outings by Donald Stokes and Oba Carr.

Fletcher's case wasn't terribly unique in 1992, a time when crack ruled south Philly streets. The prosecutor offered a typical bargain - to bring the charge down to third degree murder if he'd agree to a sentence of 10 to 20 years. The district attorney at the time was execution devotee Lynne Abraham. "Abraham's office seeks the death penalty virtually as often as the law will allow," said The New York Times Magazine in a July 16, 1995 article headlined "Deadliest D.A." She once posed on the cover of Philadelphia magazine cradling a submachine gun.

Later it turned out that key facts in Fletcher's case were hidden from the jury. Others were manufactured, plain and simple. For example, the prosecutor preposterously claimed Fletcher was called "Two Guns" because he carried two guns on the street, but any Philadelphia fight fan could have informed the court that it was a boxing alias referring to his ability to land telling shots with both hands. There was a dreadful communication gap between Fletcher and his court-appointed attorney Stephen Patrizio. Remarkably, Patrizio never even corrected the bogus tale about Fletcher's alias. Patrizio subsequently confessed to a host of other trial errors. Probably the most grievous was his failure to object to the judge's flawed instructions to jurors. The judge was supposed to inform them they could find Fletcher guilty of voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter instead of murder. An objection at the time might have led to a much lighter sentence or given Fletcher excellent grounds for appeal. A competent attorney always looks for such gifts, but the defense never tore off the wrapping. In a deposition taken from him later, Patrizio made it clear that his principal strategy was to take the deal and after that he ran out of ideas.

Other disturbing issues include the disappearance of vital physical evidence after it was sent to the medical examiner's office. Hard-nosed detectives who looked at it later all agreed that with or without Grant's dubious testimony, circumstances didn't merit a first-degree charge, which requires premeditation.

Because of his earlier cocaine conviction and the playground shooting that came later, police considered Fletcher just another drug dealer who needed to be taken off the street, and when Christopher was shot they found their lever. If they could get him sentenced to death, so much the better. But looking back after all these years it's difficult to argue that keeping him locked up any longer makes sense and even tougher to make a case for lethal injection. If you think about it, he's no longer being punished for his alleged crime but for refusing to take the deal. Had he done so, he'd have been free long ago.

Robert Cassidy, a former associate editor of Ring magazine, wrote about the holes in Fletcher's case in the August 2000 issue of The Ring. Ake Sintring, who lives in Sweden, read the article and eventually formed a group to work in Fletcher's behalf. Sintring brought the case to my attention.

Reversing a conviction is a steep uphill climb, particularly when the defense attorney fails to lay out grounds for appeal during the trial. Fletcher got caught in a perfect storm. Although Patrizio did an awful job defending his client, somehow his mistakes were deemed not quite grievous enough to win a new trial. So the case has withstood legal challenges even though the charges were never fairly tested.

It's impossible for a reasonable person to conclude that Fletcher, now 55, received justice back then or is getting it now. Ironically, had Fletcher punched a little harder and didn't have those four losses, he'd have been a well-known lucrative commodity, not another disposable black man, and this tale would have unfolded differently.

We have some very solid lawyers working in the boxing community. If any of them wish to look into this further, I can be reached at ivangoldman@yahoo.com

Boxing Insider:

 

[Dynamito]

Well written article by Steve Springer of the LOS ANGELES TIMES about the tragic death of Jimmy Garcia in a fight with Gabriel Ruelas,


Boxers' Fate: One Dead, One in Despair : Sports: Gabriel Ruelas was just doing his job. But it killed another fighter.
May 20, 1995|STEVE SPRINGER | TIMES STAFF WRITER

LAS VEGAS - Carmen Garcia couldn't take her eyes off Gabriel Ruelas' hands. As he spoke and gestured, she kept her eyes glued to his fists.

It was last Monday, the first formal meeting between the two. Ten days earlier, Ruelas had fought her son, Jimmy, the Colombian junior-lightweight champion. Ruelas had won the bout when it was stopped in the 11th round.

Jimmy Garcia had been fighting for his life ever since, finally losing that battle early Friday when he died of brain damage at University Medical Center.

Ruelas had been uncomfortable meeting the family, and Carmen Garcia's behavior Monday in a Top Rank boxing office wasn't helping the situation.

Finally, her eyes moist from crying, she spoke to Ruelas through an interpreter, pointing to his fists: "I want to see you, but it's been hard for me, because those hands killed my son."

To Ruelas, the words were like a blow to the stomach.

"I understand what you say," he told her, "because I myself feel guilty, but nobody can change what happened. As fighters, I believe all of us know the risks when we get into in the sport. I didn't go in there to kill somebody."

Garcia said she had warned her son about Ruelas.

"I always told Jimmy not to fight you," she said to Ruelas, "because in Colombia, they say that you have knives in your hands. . . .

"They say that you cut up fighters bad in the face."

Ruelas, 25, insisted it wasn't true.

Carmen said her son wouldn't listen. "He kept telling me, 'Mom, I'm going to win the title, no matter what. I'm going to buy you a house. I was born to be a fighter. I would rather die than leave boxing.' "

At that point, Ruelas recounted, Carmen Garcia looked him in the eye.

"Why didn't you let him win, Ruelas?" she said. "You already won the title."

They talked for about an hour, the guilt-ridden fighter and the anguished mother, and slowly her rage dissipated. Finally, the small, middle-aged women with gray hair and pain on her face leaned over and gave Ruelas a hug.

"Whenever I see you fight," she told him, "I will see my son in you. And I will pray for you too."

It was supposed to be a glorious night for the Ruelas family. Brothers Gabriel and Rafael had grown up in such poverty in Mexico that they had no shoes as youngsters. After coming to California, Gabriel, then 12, was selling candy door to door in North Hollywood when he knocked on the sliding glass door of Ten Goose Boxing, a mom-and-pop operation trying to get off the ground on a suburban cul-de-sac. Within two months, both Gabriel and Rafael, who is a year younger, were regulars at Ten Goose, dreaming of careers of their own in the ring.

The night of May 6 was to be the high point of that dream. Rafael was fighting Oscar De La Hoya for the lightweight championship in the biggest bout involving Los Angeles fighters in two decades. And Gabriel would be on the undercard, defending his World Boxing Council super-flyweight crown. The whole family was in attendance.

Gabriel Ruelas was especially nervous.

"You always have butterflies," he said. "But this time, I was really nervous and I think it was because Rafael was fighting afterward. I wanted to get this guy out of there so I could go out and watch Rafael fight."

It didn't happen. Garcia, 23, absorbed all the punishment Ruelas handed out. "I was making it harder on myself," he said. "I was surprised at how well he took the shots. Just in the first round, I hit him 20 or 30 hard punches. Hard. I hit him on the jaw so hard one time I could feel the bone through my glove.

"But I never saw an expression on his face that would tell me this guy is hurt. I've fought many times and I've hurt guys. I'll see big expressions on their faces where I know they're hurting. But this guy, I didn't see any of that."

Finally, referee Mitch Halpern stepped between the fighters in the 11th round and ended the one-sided match.

"Usually when they stop fights, it's when you're throwing a barrage of punches and you don't get any punches back," Ruelas said. "But I wasn't doing what I usually do. That's why I didn't really think he should have stopped it at that time. I thought he should have waited. I wanted to get a devastating knockout. . . . I was kind of disappointed that he stopped it. After I learned what happened, I was glad. That's what referees are supposed to do."

Garcia collapsed after the fight and his condition quickly worsened. He underwent brain surgery because of swelling in his brain that night.

Ruelas tried to visit Garcia in the hospital that night and again the next day, but only relatives were allowed into his room. When Garcia's father, Manuel, and his brother, Manuel Jr., arrived, Ruelas requested permission to see Garcia.

"I felt bad asking them, because I felt so guilty," Ruelas said. "I wouldn't have even blamed them if they would have started punching me. But the father was very nice. He said, 'Sure.' "

Ruelas went into Garcia's room alone.

He began speaking to the fighter, who was in a coma.

Read the rest of the article here...! http://articles.latimes.com/1995-05-20/news/mn-3987_1_gabriel-ruelas/2

 

[rossco]

Great thread.

 

[Dynamito]

Strength and conditioning coaches maybe dime a dozen today..But 30 years ago having a seperate strength and conditioning coach, was still a novel concept back then the Boxing Coach was responsible for the conditioning...!

Interestingly Phil Berger who passed away in 2001 at the age of 58 from colon cancer, as well as being an author of several books, also wrote the screen play for the Boxing movie the price of Glory.


PHIL BERGER ON BOXING; HOLYFIELD USING NOVEL TRAINING FOR STAMINA
By Phil Berger
Published: July 2, 1986

On July 12 in Atlanta, Evander Holyfield will fight for the World Boxing Association junior-heavyweight title (190-pound limit) against the champion, Dwight Muhammad Qawi, in only the 12th fight of his career.

Since that career started, in November 1984, Holyfield (11-0 with 8 knockouts) has been so skilled at dispatching his opponents early in a fight that he has never gone 10 rounds despite having fought several bouts scheduled for that distance. Holyfield's longest fight was an eight-rounder last July 20 over Tyrone Booze.

That leaves Holyfield, who is the first boxer from the 1984 United States Olympic team to go for a world title, with the psychological barrier of having to fight 15 rounds against Qawi.

To quell whatever doubts Holyfield might have about his ability to go 15 rounds, Shelly Finkel (who serves as a consultant) and Lou Duva (who is chief of training) put Holyfield on an intense physical conditioning program more than a month ago, conducted by Tim Hallmark, a fitness specialist from Houston.

''Traditionally, fighters jog behind a car for three to four miles to get in shape,'' said Hallmark. ''But that's not even close to the best way to condition a fighter.''

Hallmark's way is a nonstop 90-minute morning workout that employs stationary bikes, treadmills and equipment that simulates the act of climbing. ''We'd work at varying rhythms,'' said Hallmark. ''Fast, slow, fast, slow. Just like a fight is.''

Holyfield said Hallmark's sessions were so arduous that for the first two days he considered quitting. ''I told myself, 'I don't have to go through this to be a boxer,' '' he said. ''I felt like giving it up. Then I thought, 'If I can master this, then I can get in there and tear Qawi apart.' ''

Hallmark's gauge to Holyfield's progress was the fighter's heartbeat. ''When Evander fights, his heartbeat goes up to 190 beats a minute,'' Hallmark said. ''When he first started with me, his heartbeat dropped to 150-155 between rounds. Now, it's down to 140-145 between rounds. The lower the heartbeat drops, the more the body has recovered. The recovery rate is the true sign of fitness.''

For Holyfield, who had a second, more traditional, workout each afternoon in a gym, the true sign was the 15 rounds he sparred one day recently against four partners. ''It showed me,'' he said, ''that the exercising built my stamina.''

Followers of the manly art, even casual fans, know that as fight night nears, fighters tend to turn reclusive and their moods take on an edge. Like Greta Garbo, they want to be alone. Usually. In September 1981, Thomas Hearns was on the verge of the biggest fight of his career, a unification bout for the welterweight title against Sugar Ray Leonard at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nev.

On the afternoon before the fight, Bob Halloran, a vice president of Caesars, recently recalled, Halloran wandered into the health spa at the hotel-casino and heard raucous voices from an adjoining room, where a half-court game of basketball was in progress.

''And there in the midst of a heated game,'' Halloran said, ''twenty-four hours before he was to fight Ray Leonard, there was Thomas Hearns running and jumping about, risking an elbow to the eye, a damaged finger, who knows what?''

Although Caesars Palace had taken out insurance against contingencies that might cause a cancellation, the establishment's objective was to stage a big event rather than collect insurance dividends. Accordingly, Halloran phoned Emanuel Steward, the manager and trainer of Hearns.

Very quickly, Steward arrived at the health spa and immediately retired Hearns as a basketball player.

''Steward looked pretty grim when he saw what Thomas was up to,'' said Halloran.

Marvelous Marvin Hagler plans to announce today in Brockton, Mass., whether he will fight Sugar Ray Leonard. . . . The next bout for Donald Curry of Fort Worth is expected to be a defense of his welterweight title. Bob Arum, Curry's promoter, said that the fight was scheduled for Sept. 27 in Las Vegas and that Curry would pick an opponent from a list that includes Lloyd Honeyghan, Maurice Blocker and Simon Brown. . . . If the World Boxing Association permits another Fort Worth fighter, Stevie Cruz, its new featherweight champion, to bypass his mandatory defense against Antonio Esparrogoza, Cruz will give Barry McGuigan, the former champion, a rematch. Arum said that the bout would probably be held in November in the United States. . . . Tyrell Biggs, the heavyweight who suffered a cracked collarbone during his victory over Jeff Sims on March 23, was to have returned to the ring on July 24 in the Felt Forum against Dave Jaco. But the fight was canceled when Biggs's doctors said he needed more time to mend.

 

[Chinny]

Incredible thread. Looking forward to reading all these in due course.

 

[Dynamito]

Bon Hazelton a former George Foreman opponent had both legs amputated because of Steroid abuse.

Steroids turned former boxer into anatomical mess...

by Tom Cushman
May 9, 2004

Before Duane Bobick (1970s) and Gerry Cooney (1980s) came along to serve heavyweight boxing as prominent, and ultimately forlorn, examples of the Great White Hope syndrome, there was Bob Hazelton. At 6-foot-3 and a willowy 180 pounds, the blond, Hollywood-handsome Hazelton in the late 1960s was rushed though his first five professional bouts and into an undercard match on a show starring his South Philadelphia neighbor, Sonny Liston.

That entertainment took place on Dec. 6, 1969, at the Las Vegas Hilton. Before the aging Liston was rendered supine in the main event's eighth round by Philadelphia journeyman Leotis Martin, Hazelton had fielded a shot that caused the interior of his mouth to disintegrate. Blood everywhere. Bout stopped at 2:56 of Round 1. The winner: a menacing Liston disciple named George Foreman.

"My manager (Johnny Eddy) had told me Foreman weighed 190," Hazelton, now 55, recalled recently from his home in Dutch Lake, Minn. "George actually was 230. I had some decent skills, but I needed to get bigger."

Severing ties with Eddy, Hazelton went off to England, where - with extensive pharmaceutical assistance - he got much bigger. Told he was ingesting vitamins, Hazelton instead was swallowing dianobol tablets. Graduating to injections of deca durabolin, he eventually saw his weight soar to 235 on a body that was sculpted muscle.

While in Vegas for a fight in 1977, Hazelton was informed by a physician that what he'd really been taking were steroids. By then he'd noticed developing problems with his legs. "Looked like I had varicose veins," he said.

Hazelton would compile a 19-7 record, including a split of two fights with former light heavyweight champion Bob Foster, before circulation problems forced his retirement in 1980. Obtaining work as a bodyguard for rock groups, Hazelton continued using steroids until his weight nudged up to 305.

"Bob continued what he was doing until circulation loss was almost total," says Dr. Jason Reed, a Minneapolis internist who has been Hazelton's doctor for the past eight years. "But blood clots began to form. There was hardening of the arteries. He had at least two, if not three, mild heart attacks."

In 1986, Hazelton's left leg was amputated. Once a prosthesis was in place, he resumed his bodyguard role, and the steroid injections. His right leg was removed a year later. And, problems since are never-ending.

"Since I've known Bob, he's had over 50 surgical revisions," said Reed. "Steroids promote bone loss. Every time they operate there are slivers of bone to be removed.

"Steroids also can bring about changes to the immune system. People become more susceptible to infection. And there's pain. Bob battles that every day."

Hazelton doesn't suffer in isolation. During a conversation some years ago, Las Vegas-based Dr. Carl Meisenheimer told Hazelton that use of steroids by adolescents can stunt growth. "It definitely will put on muscle," the doctor said, "but if you haven't reached your full skeletal growth, which most of us don't until we are about 20, then the steroids will close up growth plates at the end of the bones. If, for example, you are 5-8 when you begin taking the drugs, you probably won't grow much taller - even if your genes are programmed by heredity to make you 6-3."

Since 1989, Bob Hazelton has been delivering that message and related ones to any youth group willing to listen - using himself, his wheelchair and artificial limbs as points of reference. Through experience, Hazelton knows there's a flourishing black market for steroids. "I can dial up dozens of places they can be obtained on the Internet," he said.

Given his story and appearance, Hazelton figures to command more attention than most with a teenage audience. "But, you have high school athletes seeing records shattered by steroid-boosted pros and there has to be temptation to go that route," he said.

"Much of my problem came from overuse - from seeing positive results and thinking, 'I can do even better if I increase the intake.' Some college and professional athletes who are users undoubtedly have knowledgeable people advising them as to how much is too much.

"High school kids won't know this. They're the ones most likely to go my route."

As an invited witness, Hazelton in March offered his message to a congressional committee chaired by Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., that's investigating the steroid problem and its ramifications, including the tainted shattering of hallowed records.

"Ninety percent of the time, I can identify a guy who's on the stuff by the cut of muscles, by how he looks around the face and neck," Hazelton says. "Do I have a problem with all these baseballs flying out of parks? All I can say is I feel sorry for the (Roger) Maris family. And, that I think we're at a point where we need two sets of records."

Now in the Congressional Record is Hazelton's version of a phone call placed in February to the office of Bud Selig, commissioner of baseball. Offering to appear at spring training camps so millionaire sluggers could see firsthand the potential long-term physical toll of steroid-complemented performance, Hazelton says: "I was told by someone on Selig's staff, 'It's none of your business. We'll handle it.' "

Contacted earlier this week, a spokesman for Major League Baseball said no one he'd quizzed could remember a conversation with Bob Hazelton. "That doesn't mean one didn't happen," he added. "Hundreds of people work here."

It would be a positive if even one of them acknowledged recognizing the powder keg on which their game is sitting.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/

Former U-T sports columnist Tom Cushman writes occasionally for the paper. He can be reached at tcushmant@gbronline.com

 

[Dynamito]

L.A. Then and Now / Cecilia Rasmussen
In Boxing, Gym Drew Them All
January 11, 1998 |Cecilia Rasmussen

For more than half a century, it was a musty pugilistic monument--preserved in liniment and sweat--where generations of Los Angeles prizefighters learned the lessons of "the sweet science."

The Main Street Gym, on the edge of skid row, was the rattiest workout venue in the city (some said the world), but it also was the most famous. "World Rated Boxers Train Here Daily" read a sign at the entrance. It was where young boys with little education and lots of heart came to train and listen hungrily to boxing tales from the old men who had spent more than half of their lives there.

The grimy little gym, where the bells bonged every three minutes and the dirty wooden floors creaked, drew some of the greats and not-so-greats who didn't know a left hook from a fishhook. It opened in 1933 at 321 S. Main St. as the successor to the Spring Street Newsboys' Gym. The building burned down in 1951 (while the night watchman slept), and the gym moved across the street to 318 1/2, atop the old Adolphus Theater.

There were other gyms in the city, but none had Main Street's reputation. At various times, fabled champions Rocky Marciano, Floyd Patterson, Jack Dempsey, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay), Joe Frazier, Jim Jeffries and Sugar Ray Robinson trained there.

But it was the gym's proprietor, former featherweight Howie Steindler, who ran the place with unquestioned authority--like a drill sergeant in boot camp--and kept it going with the help of two savvy sidekicks, Arthur "Duke" Holloway and Rip Rosenburrow.

Steindler was an amateur fighter in New York before drifting to Los Angeles in 1942, when he began working as a crane operator at the shipyards. Later, as a prop man for RKO Studios, he met George Hansford, a former featherweight professional, whom Steindler trained for a successful comeback.

Drawing on his years of experience, Steindler took over Main Street Gym about 1960. The feisty, crusty and often sarcastic manager/trainer kept a lock on his phone and the gym's office in his pocket. He cultivated a tough guy persona, but was known up and down skid row as a soft touch for a hard-luck story.

In the beginning, to make ends meet, he also worked as an auto mechanic, chauffeur and cabdriver.

It was risky navigating the street in front of the gym with the Union Rescue Mission nearby. But Steindler kept a billy club hanging on the wall in case of trouble. Occasionally, a bum would find his way up the stained marble stairs, where Steindler or one of his assistants would eject him with just a few harsh words--except on rainy days.

Holloway, a big man with a big cigar and derby, trained and nurtured some of the greatest, including Joe Louis, whom he trained back into shape after the champ was discharged from the service after World War II.

Routinely, young boys peered through a crack in the door, straining for a glimpse of their heroes, while others paid a dime or two for admission to watch sparring matches and champs readying for a fight at the Olympic Auditorium, Hollywood Legion Stadium or Wrigley Field.

Before Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, died in 1946, he hung out at the the gym, flashing his gold-toothed smile at the young tough youths. At different times, cocky heavyweights would coax the 60-year-old man into the ring. He would strip to the waist and put on his 16-ounce gloves. Johnson never threw a punch. He just stood there and picked off with his gloves every punch thrown at him.

In 1977, Steindler, 72, locked up the gym, walked down the dirty marble staircase and got into his new Cadillac for the last time. On the street near his Encino house, he was jumped by unidentified assailants. They beat him savagely, smothered him by pushing his face into the car's seat cushion, robbed him and threw him on the floor in the back seat. They then parked the car on the Ventura Freeway, near the Laurel Canyon Boulevard offramp in Studio City.

Theories of what triggered the slaying of the local character were numerous. Steindler had longed to manage a world champion, and he had finally managed to achieve his ambition with featherweight champ Danny "Little Red" Lopez. He also managed his brother, Ernie "Indian Red" Lopez, treating them both more like sons than meal tickets. But not everyone shared Steindler's happiness, and there was talk of a contract hit.

Adding fuel to such speculation was the fact that Steindler tried to contact state Sen. Alex P. Garcia (D-Los Angeles) the day before his death to discuss problems he was having with the State Athletic Commission.

The slaying remains unsolved.

Steindler was the model for the archetypal old trainer played by Burgess Meredith, whose character managed Sylvester Stallone's character, Rocky Balboa, in the "Rocky" movies. Scenes for all three films were shot in the Main Street Gym, as were those for "The Main Event" and other movies.

It was a place of bruises and dreams, spit and blood, and its ambience for the movie industry was perfect. Life-size cutouts of champions and a poster of boxers Joe Louis and Max Schmeling lined the peeling walls. A sign on the wall read: "Please do not bring children under 8 years old in the gym. We don't want anyone smarter than us in here."

Steindler's daughter, Carol, a lifetime boxing fan, assumed control of the gym after his death, managing it until 1984, when it was demolished for a parking lot.

She then managed another Main Street Gym, behind the Olympic Auditorium at 18th Street and Grand Avenue, until that too was torn down, closing a colorful chapter in boxing history.

http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jan/11/local/me-7336

 

[Dynamito]

Blind Trainer Builds Boxers
March 31, 1985|JUDITH HAMILTON | Times Staff Writer

The gym--tattered, cramped and smelling of sweat--is filled with young boxers. Some are jumping rope. Others are pounding on punching bags. Two others are in the ring, trading jabs.

Amid it all stands Canto Robledo, owner, manager and trainer of Crown City Stables, who is shouting out instructions to the fighters in the ring. Robledo is intense. This is his gym. These are his fighters. This is his life.

"My dream is to get a champion of the world," said Robledo, 72. "If I had a world champion, I would have quit already."

It has been the same dream for almost 50 years, ever since a series of boxing injuries blinded Robledo, a one-time bantamweight champion of the Pacific Coast. Ironically, Robledo said, the sport that cost him his sight is the very thing that keeps him motivated today.

"I got into boxing and I love it very much," Robledo said. "The gym's kept me going."

At last count, Robledo said, he had trained about 500 fighters, including 200 professional boxers--all in backyard gyms that Robledo has had built as he moved from home to home in Pasadena over the years.

Today, the gym sits behind the Robledo home near Fair Oaks Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard. About 20 young boxers are in training. They range in age from 12 to 25--youths off the street who aspire to either boxing fame or better self-defense. Three have had professional fights. Others have had amateur bouts. All mix easily with older men who visit the gym to keep themselves in shape.

"There's a bond," said Robledo's son Joe, who helps with the training. "My father may not see with his eyes but he has inner vision. He has insight. My dad can, and does, teach boxing.

"I think these guys (Robledo's professional boxers) have a shot. I want to get a world title for him. I would like to put the gold belt around his waist."

The elder Robledo said the closest he has come to a world champion was in the 1940s, when he trained his two brothers, Joe and Seferino. Joe fought for the bantamweight world championship in 1943, but lost. Seferino was the bantamweight champion of California in 1945, but never fought for the world title.

Robledo said he treats all his fighters like family. He clowns and jokes and scolds and tells them not to give up on their dreams. And if he thinks a boxer is good, he heaps encouragement.

"We're good friends," said Joey Olivera, a seven-year Robledo protege who is fighting professionally in the lightweight division. "He taught me everything. He got me out of the north side (Pasadena) gangs. He even calls me at night to make sure I'm not out on the streets."

Olivera, 21, is known professionally as "The Pasadena Kid." He has won 13 of his 17 bouts. Robledo said he trained Olivera the same way he teaches all his fighters--he starts with the art of self-defense, jabbing and balance.

While a fighter is shadowboxing, Robledo will grab the youth's shoulder, and judging from the fighter's movements, will correct his routine. Robledo said he teaches by intuition, from experience and by the balance of the fighter.

Scrappy in Childhood

A boxer with proper balance, Robledo said, will have more powerful and speedier punches. Robledo applies this same method when he has fighters throw punches at his padded hands in the ring.

Robledo said he loves working with kids from the street because it takes him back to his own youth. He said that growing up near Santa Fe, N. M., he was continually in one scrape or another. When his family moved to Pasadena in 1922, Robledo said, he just naturally found his way to a neighborhood gym and started to box.

At 16, he said, he was so good at boxing that he turned professional, even though it meant telling boxing officials he was 18 and legally old enough to fight. Robledo was nicknamed "TNT" in reference to the explosiveness of his punches. His style not only earned him a dynamite nickname, but also made him a dynamite attraction. Robledo fought 44 fights in six years, winning 33, losing 8 and battling to a draw 3 times.

"I went in throwing punches--boom, boom, boom. I didn't stop," Robledo said.

Founder and columnist of Ring Magazine, Nat Fleischer, writing in a 1931 edition, called Robledo "a two-fisted puncher who takes a punch to give one." Luis Magana, an official of the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, said that he remembers Robledo as a bruiser.

'A Real Crowd Pleaser'

"If the going got tough," Magana said in an interview, "Robledo forgot boxing and he would slug it out. He was a real crowd pleaser."

Robledo speaks of his fighting years--1929 to 1935--with panache, recounting his first eight-round fight against Foster Manila in the Pasadena Arena; his 1931 bout with Chalky Wright, who later became featherweight world champion, and his match against one-time flyweight world champion Midget Wolgast. Of those three fights, Robledo won the first two and lost the third.

Read the rest of the story here >> http://articles.latimes.com/1985-03-31/news/ga-18860_1_robledo/2

 

[Dynamito]

Boxing: How Kirkland Laing went from hero to zero in 30 years

Kirkland Laing shocked the world when he beat the great Roberto Duran. Three decades on, a lifetime of drink and drugs has taken its toll

• Steve Bunce
• @bigdaddybunce
• Monday 3 September 2012

It was not meant to end the way it did the night Roberto Duran, the great Roberto Duran, fought Kirkland Laing in Detroit on 4 September 1982. Duran and his people were between super-fights, the loss to Sugar Ray Leonard was 10 months earlier in a fight that made him $10m, and Laing, fresh from a win at a sporting club in Solihull, was selected as an ideal sacrifice.

Laing had won and lost the British welterweight title and was considered, even by 1982, a lost cause by people inside British boxing. He had been thrown out of gyms by irate trainers, rumours of his drug use were rife and for all his immense talent it looked like he would never be the fighter that many glimpsed. An attempt to deny smoking weed one day in the Royal Oak gym was comically exposed when it was pointed out to Laing that he had a giant spliff tucked behind his ear.

"I was mixed up and too young to be serious," said Laing. "My head was too easily turned by girls and things and people took kindness for weakness. Too many people did that."

When Laing got on the plane for the fight in Detroit against Duran he had been a pro for seven years, had lost just three of his 27 fights. He was 28 and given no chance of beating Duran; there were serious calls for the fight to be scrapped, fearing serious harm in the ring. Duran needed a warm-up for a planned November showdown with the unbeaten Tony Ayala Jnr, a fight worth millions. Ayala was famous for his antics in and out of the ring, including knocking out his stricken victims' fathers and cornermen.

Duran had a similarly colourful history, including a brutal knockout of a horse and kneeing Ken Buchanan in the privates during a world title fight in 1972. Duran had also been the first man to beat Leonard.

It was against a backdrop of neglect that Laing and his long-suffering trainer, Joe Ryan, arrived in the desolate city of Detroit for a fight that Mickey Duff, Laing's manager, was convinced his man could win. "I looked at Duran's fights and not his age," said Duff. "I knew that his boxing age was different and that in boxing terms right then, Duran was an old man." Duran was 31, an idol in Panama and a former world champion at two weights, including 12 defences at lightweight.

"Duran was the only man that Kirk ever feared and that fight was the only one where he gave up drugs and concentrated," said Ryan.

Duran, meanwhile, was having some problems away from the ring with a battle for his services taking place between Bob Arum and Don King. However, he looked suitably mean, moody and fit at the weigh-in, where he was in excess of six pounds heavier than Laing. He also bragged about knocking out Laing and then doing the same to Ayala, Marvin Hagler and then Leonard in a third fight.

In 2003, when Laing had been out of the ring for nine years, I went in search of him in Hackney to film a BBC documentary. It seemed like a simple mission at first; I had an address or two, a number or two and various east London boxing people had seen him. I was wrong, it took three days and two nights to track him down. "He looks like a black Santa Claus," one of many dossers told me. "He's in a bad way," another claimed.

Laing had been grabbed but not charged by the police during a raid on a local crack house a year or so earlier. The police were unable to give me an address. I eventually had a call at 3am from Laing and arranged a meet the next day. He was late and when he arrived he was in a sad state. I bought the beers.

"I beat Roberto and then I was meant to fight for the title," he said, standing and throwing the exact punches that had confused and hurt Duran that night in Detroit. "I was good, man, I was good that night."

He was brilliant, actually.

Laing put on a simply amazing performance to beat Duran in every area. It was not a smash-and-grab raid as many have chosen to believe. It was a proper fight and at the end of 10 rounds Duran dropped his head, knowing he had blown his multimillion-dollar fight with Ayala. In round 10, Laing went for the stoppage, which annoyed Duran but delighted the crowd who had booed Laing's arrival. Laing beat the living legend on points and celebrated wildly with Ryan and Duff.

It should have been the start of something special.

In 2003, Laing sat on a park bench with me and denied that he had gone missing after the Duran fight. "I was in the gym waiting for fights, but they never happened ... and then I heard that fights were offered. It was just a case of mistakes, I never vanished," Laing claimed.

However, the people around him remember it differently. Duff and Ryan insist that they tried hard to track Laing down. "I had fights lined up, good fights," claimed Duff.

It was reported that Laing was in New York, then Jamaica, and then he was sighted in Nottingham, where he was from, and Hackney, where he lived. "I was still close to the gym, waiting for a fight," Laing told me. Meanwhile, Duran got serious and had a couple of quick wins before an unexpected event affected him. Ayala Jnr had signed to fight for the world title against the unbeaten WBA light-middleweight champion Davey Moore, a fight that had been part of Duran's plans before the Laing defeat. However, Ayala Jnr was found guilty of rape and was sent to prison for 17 years. Duran replaced him, battered Moore, made a million dollars and was, by June of 1983, a world champion again. Laing was still missing.

"It was hard for me to see that, to know that Roberto had the world title and I had nothing," added Laing. In November 1983, Duran made $5m in a super-fight with Hagler; the defeat to Laing had apparently been forgotten.

Last year, I asked Duran about the Laing fight and I noticed an instant change in his eyes, which told me that he had not forgotten the night he got a beating from the British boxer.

"A good fighter, a good man. What he do now?" Duran asked. It is a good question.

Laing was finally back in the ring one year after beating Duran. He accepted a risky fight in America against the much bigger Fred Hutchings and was badly knocked out in round 10. The British Boxing Board of Control suspended his licence and he spent four days in hospital recovering. It was not the end of Laing's boxing career and he fought another 27 times, winning the British title and European titles before vanishing once again.

"I should be the champion, Roberto said that. I should be the champion," Laing told me. A few days after I finished filming I got another call in the middle of the night. This time it was not Laing, it was his then girlfriend. Kirk, she told me, was in intensive care, having fallen from a balcony at the flats. The "fall" was shrouded in mystery. Laing made a slow recovery and returned to Nottingham in 2004 to be near his family. He told his biographer that it was an accident: "I was partying." He remains in Nottingham, a recluse and one of British boxing's best fighters, and a man capable one memorable night in Detroit 30 years ago of beating a living legend.

The Independent https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...om-hero-to-zero-in-30-years-8102784.html&usg=AFQjCNHriHOU_80SmXp_FmPFPlmFtJLNJg

 

[Jdempsey85]

L.A. Then and Now / Cecilia Rasmussen
In Boxing, Gym Drew Them

Great article,anyone that enjoyed that should check out a doc called "Goodnight Miss Ann"

 

[HeavyT]

Tommy Morrison's latest big fight

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Aug 23, 2013

Elizabeth MerrillESPN Senior Writer

In a house on the edge of a dead-end road, an old woman waits for her son to die. The call will come any day now, she says, and when it does, she wants her youngest boy to be buried in Sulphur Springs, Ark., with the rest of the family. She dreads and hopes for this call, if that makes any sense. Only none of it makes sense.

Diana Morrison crushes a Pall Mall, lights another and dissects her son's fate. She's matter-of-fact about it, barely emotional, perhaps because Tommy Morrison, former World Boxing Organization champion, former HIV cautionary tale, has stared at death before. But this time it's different.

She says he has full-blown AIDS. She believes he's in his final days. His skin is jaundiced; his liver is failing. "He's too far gone," she says, flashing an incredulous look when asked whether he could recover. "He's in the end stages. That's it." She says Morrison has been bedridden for a year, can't speak and is being kept alive with the help of a feeding tube and a ventilator.
Tommy Morrison in April 2011 at an event in Parsippany, N.J. Bobby Bank/Getty Images

"I talk to him on the phone," she says. "I tell him that the family loves him, he's always in our prayers. What can you say to him? I don't tell him to keep fighting or nothing, because I want him to go."

She is interrupted by her ex-husband, who's living with her now because he's had a couple of strokes. Tim Morrison wraps his arms around Diana, and she tells him to go lie down, but he keeps pacing around the house with a blank look on his face.

It's the middle of the afternoon, but the house is dark. Diana lights another cigarette. She is slight but imposing, harsh but sentimental; she's a woman with tattoos on her arm and her great-granddaughter's pink bike parked outside the house.

Diana gets up off her chair and searches for proof of her son's status, pulling down a picture from the wall. It captures one of the last times she saw her son. She's not good with dates, and can't remember when it was taken, but Tommy is thin, gray-bearded -- barely recognizable as the strapping, confident man from six years ago who swore he was not HIV-positive and vowed a comeback. In the photo on the wall, he looks lost.

It's been about a year since she last saw him. It's complicated. She just had back surgery; he's been shuffled to various health care facilities in at least three states. She says she doesn't have the money to leave her house in Aurora, Mo., and drive hundreds of miles to see him. There's tension between her and Morrison's wife, Trisha, and at the moment, it seems thick. In her heart, Diana believes her daughter-in-law loves Tommy, but is keeping him alive through extraordinary means. She says Tommy wouldn't want it this way.

She says Trisha, like Tommy, doesn't believe he has HIV.

"Tommy blowed smoke up her butt about it," Diana Morrison says. "He's been in denial ever since he's had it. So he's blown smoke up her rear end and got her believing."

The women communicate daily by text. It's easier that way. Diana says he's in a hospital somewhere in Nebraska. Morrison's wife, reached by phone, declines to say where he is. She doesn't want the hospital to be inundated with reporters and visitors. "He is somewhere," she says, and adds that she is touching his arm as we speak. She says he was to have surgery Thursday to replace a gastrointestinal tube. She is steadfast that his illness is not HIV-related.

Since Feb. 10, 1996, when the Nevada Athletic Commission said Morrison tested positive for HIV before a fight, the 44-year-old has spent most of his days dodging the diagnosis. And now Trisha Morrison, who married Tommy two years ago, is carrying on that battle. She says both of them question whether the virus exists in him, and if it exists at all.

She says Morrison's health issues began more than a year and a half ago, when a doctor left a 12-foot piece of surgical gauze in his chest for eight days. She declines to name the hospital or doctor, only that it happened in Tennessee. Things got worse, she says, when he contracted Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an ailment in which the immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system. She says Morrison has the rare Miller Fisher variant, which manifests as a descending paralysis.

She has hope, but it's all up to Tommy now, she says. God and Tommy. She hangs up the phone, and texts a photo of a gift she says Tommy gave her before he got sick. It's a picture of a heart-shaped piece of wood, and on it is a handwritten note.

"Don't give up on me!!" it says.

________________________________________

I've been fascinated by Morrison since I met him in 2006. He was in Arizona that fall, training for a return to the ring, a comeback he said would be so great that if it were a movie, it'd be a combination of "Rocky," "Rudy" and "Slap Shot." He drove like a bat out of hell through the streets of Phoenix that day, getting lost on numerous occasions. He said HIV was a conspiracy by the government, that his positive test was possibly the evil work of a rival promoter.

The day was confusing, entertaining, uncomfortable and weird. At one point, at a Hooters, he pulled his shorts partway down to show off an Elvis tattoo on his hip. By the end of the interview, I had more questions than answers. That's the way it's always been with Morrison.

He starred in "Rocky V," spent part of his fortune on pet monkeys and at least one mountain lion and was once married to two women at the same time. Two years ago, in one of his last interviews, he told The Kansas City Star a story about how he teleported himself out of a bar to avoid a fight.

So it's no surprise that the journey to find Tommy Morrison -- and to find out what exactly is wrong with him -- is nowhere near cohesive. There are tales of chest implants and phantom graves and a dark abyss of drugs and unfulfilled dreams.

There is a general sense of impermanence to his life. He's lived in Tulsa. Wichita. Kansas City. He had an address in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., also known as the home of Dollywood.

Morrison made at least $10 million during his boxing career, according to his family and a former promoter, but now has next to nothing. In a financial affidavit filed in September 2011, months after he was charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia -- the charges later were dropped -- he wrote in scribbled cursive that he did not own a home or a car. On the line that asked about his employment, he checked self-employed.

"Athlete," he wrote.

________________________________________

His last known job was running a gym called TCB -- Taking Care of Business, which is also the motto Elvis used in the last years of his life. It was 2010. Morrison was featured in The Wichita Business Journal, hobnobbing with the mayor and a handful of old boxers who came for the gym's opening. He promised to work with inner-city kids and teach them his sport. He was still training -- still hoping -- for a comeback that year, even though he was 41.

The 3,000-square-foot space was donated by developer Rob Snyder, who told the local paper that he was skeptical but was rooting that Morrison would succeed because it would do great good for the kids in the community.
Tommy and his mother, Diana Morrison, far right, in a photo that hangs on the wall of Diana's home in Aurora, Mo. Courtesy the Morrison family

Morrison had left Wichita by late 2011 and was living in Tennessee when he was taken into custody and transported to Kansas to face the drug charges. When his mug shot was released, boxing fans were startled by his appearance. He was bald and gaunt and barely recognizable. Morrison's uncle Troy, an anesthesiologist in the state of Washington, was floored when he saw the photo. He says his nephew looked homeless and 60 years old in the picture.

"When I saw him two years ago, he was still of the mindset that he was going to launch a comeback," Troy Morrison says. "I didn't want to deflate that, but I didn't want to encourage it, either. I just tried to change the subject and play along with it. I think he was living in a fantasy world for a while. I think at some point reality slammed him in the face, and that's when he poured the depression and everything into drugs and alcohol, and that accelerated the disease process.

"You know, I think it's very lonely where he's at right now."

The number for TCB Boxing Gym was at some point disconnected, and now belongs to a man who says he's never heard of it. By 2012, Tommy Morrison had slipped off the grid, and his fans knew something was wrong. Gordon Berry, an ex-amateur boxer from Maine, was so concerned that he did a search of Tennessee's vital records out of fear that Morrison had died.

Berry used to love watching film of Morrison's fights in the 1990s, and one day figured, What the heck, why not send Tommy a message on Facebook? Morrison replied, and they talked about boxing and comebacks and even texted each other occasionally. When the communication stopped, Berry knew it wasn't a case of an athlete blowing off a fan. Morrison loved interacting with his fans. Maybe they brought him back to a better time. Maybe they made that time seem closer.

"I think if he let everyone know he's all right, it would be great," Berry wrote in an email, "or if he's not [and] needs help, I think he'd be surprised at the boxing [community's] concern for him, people would love to help him out."

________________________________________

His closest friends paint Morrison as a man with good intentions and questionable judgment. One of them declined to talk for this story unless Morrison approved the interview, then suggested that there was no way he'd approve the interview.

He'd hate for people to know he was sick. Or weak. Years ago, his mother said, he got pectoral implants to make himself look bigger and stronger. Those implants became infected -- hence the chest surgery in late 2011 -- and had to be removed.

Ask 10 people why Morrison has tried to run from his HIV diagnosis all these years, and you might get 20 different answers. Accepting it meant giving up boxing. Accepting it, back then at least, meant he was going to die.

Morrison grew up in Jay, a northeast Oklahoma town with a population of about 2,500. He always considered himself a country boy at heart. There was a time, at the height of his career, when he was on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. He went to a bar with Sylvester Stallone after the show, then Stallone asked Morrison and his promoter, Tony Holden, to come back to his house. Morrison eyed the scene, the celebrities and the swooning fans, and decided to go back to his hotel. When he got in the car, he told Holden, "You know, this is a lot of fun, Tony. But this isn't us. Let's go back to Oklahoma."

There was once a sign at the town's city limit proudly welcoming folks to the home of WBO heavyweight champ Tommy Morrison, but then just after after his HIV diagnosis, it reportedly was taken down. It made Morrison feel isolated.
Morrison celebrates after defeating George Foreman for the vacant WBO heavyweight title in 12 rounds boxing in Las Vegas on June 7, 1993. Bernstein Associates/Getty Images

To the people of Jay, HIV was something that happened thousands of miles away. It was a different time. In some places, it was still known as "the gay plague."

"Tommy had a hard time with it back then," Holden says. "People wouldn't shake his hand, wouldn't come close to him, wouldn't let babies next to him. And I saw that, and you took a kid from this height of stardom, being in movies, to the point where everyone wanted to be Morrison's friend to the point where, man, nobody wanted to be in the same room with him.

"I witnessed it. And it was heartbreaking."

Holden was the one who broke the news to Morrison that he'd tested positive for HIV in February 1996, hours before he was supposed to fight Arthur "Stormy" Weathers in a tuneup for an eagerly anticipated bout with Mike Tyson. Holden says the man with the Nevada Athletic Commission who informed him of Morrison's test results had tears in his eyes.

He was 27 years old and had just signed a contract that, according to previous Morrison interviews, guaranteed him three fights and $38 million. And with that test, the guarantees were gone. He called his mother. "Come home," she told him, then advised him to take another HIV test. That one also was positive.

His life before that was a decadent stream of parties, limos and sex that would've made Keith Richards blush. His life after that appeared lonely. He once lent/gave large sums of money to his entourage, a group that shared copious amounts of booze and women with him as he prowled the bars of Westport in Kansas City. That group of friends, Holden says, disappeared once the money was gone.

Morrison, who's 6 years younger than Holden, was like a little brother Holden wanted to hug and smack upside the head. He tried repeatedly to get Morrison to save his money, to be careful. Holden and trainer Tom Virgets used to take Morrison to all-male military academies to train so he'd lay off the women and the bars. After the diagnosis, Holden tried to get his friend to take care of himself. He took him to Dr. David Ho, who treated Magic Johnson for the disease.

"Tommy bought into it at first, and then did some research," Holden said. "And then he went into the direction that he didn't have it, that it doesn't exist."

And so after his tearful news conference, after he confirmed he was HIV-positive and blamed it on a reckless lifestyle, after he promised to get in touch with anyone he'd come in contact with -- sparring partners, and especially the young ladies -- Morrison did a complete about-face.

Holden said Morrison quickly had a change of heart after doing research on the Internet. He concluded that HIV was a conspiracy, and that the doctors were "quacks." He said the tests were false positives. He staged a comeback in 2007, tested negative for HIV, but questions swirled over whether the blood was actually his.

Holden is one of the few people who stuck around for his friend. He says Tommy was loyal to him back in the 1990s, when other bigger promoters tried to snatch him away. Now Holden won't leave him. There was a little spat a few years ago, when Morrison wanted to fight again, and Holden was strongly against it. But they're fine now. "Here's the thing," he says. "I believe in HIV; he doesn't. We both know where we stand."

Holden declines to say whether he communicates with Morrison right now, but he does check in with Trisha every other day.

"I know that sometimes there's a rift, sometimes not, with the family and Trisha," he says. "But I will say this: His wife has been by his side, 24/7, every day. She's always there for him. Every time I call, she's with him."
___________________________________
Read more:
http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/9588582/tommy-morrison-latest-big-fight

 

[HeavyT]

http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/9588582/tommy-morrison-latest-big-fight

A great story about Tommy Morrison in his final days. Love this thread, glad I found it again

 

[Dynamito]

THE INSPIRING STORY OF BILLY MISKE
Some years ago, the sportswriter Rick Reilly wrote:

You can take all your Tiny Tims and your Grinches and your Miracles on Whatever Street and stuff them in your stocking. The best Christmas story is about a boxer.

It starts the day in 1918 when a doctor tells a slender heavyweight named Billy Miske that his bum kidneys give him five years to live, if he's lucky. Turns out he's dying of Bright's disease. This comes as rotten news to Billy, who's only 24 years old and not half bad in the ring.

But that's the end of the story. Let's go back to the beginning.

In the early years of the 20th century, St. Paul, Minnesota was a boxing hotbed. The best remembered St. Paul boxers of the era are the Gibbons brothers, Tommy and Mike. (The Gibbons family is still around; the great-grandson of one of the brothers, I'm not sure which, is a friend of one of my daughters.) But Billy Miske was in the same league. For some years, he was a top contender in the light-heavyweight and heavyweight ranks. In his prime, he weighed in between 180 and 190. Miske could box, hit like a piledriver and take a punch. He was known as a gentleman and a sportsman, and was universally liked within the world of boxing. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2010.



Until recently, I was unaware of Billy Miske. My son is a boxing fan and is friends with some of the top fighters in this part of the world. For Christmas, he gave me a copy of the newly-published Billy Miske, the St. Paul Thunderbolt, by Clay Moyle, inscribed to me by the author. Moyle's book not only chronicles Miske's short life, but is a fascinating history of boxing from around 1914 to 1923.



Boxing in Minnesota was illegal, actually, when Miske started fighting. His career coincided with boxing's rise to become one of America's most popular sports. In those days, boxers must have been almost unimaginably tough. They would often fight with just a few days between bouts; in 1918, Miske fought 17 times. He rose steadily through the light-heavyweight and heavyweight ranks, and in 1920 he fought Jack Dempsey for the heavyweight championship of the world in Benton Harbor, Michigan.



By the time he fought for the title, Miske was already under a death sentence. Doctors had told him in 1918 that he had Bright's Disease, an incurable kidney ailment, and had no more than five years to live. Billy never told anyone other than his manager, not even his wife, how dire his situation was. But, knowing that his health was in decline, in 1919 he invested most of his ring earnings in an Elgin automobile dealership. Unfortunately, Billy must have been a poor businessman, because the dealership lost money and absorbed more and more of his winnings.

So Miske kept fighting. After losing to Dempsey in 1920, he went on a winning streak: in 1921 and 1922 he was 19-1-1, with his only loss to Tommy Gibbons. But by the end of 1922, his health had deteriorated badly. The five years his doctors had given him in 1918 were almost up. He fought one bout in January 1923-which he won on a first round TKO-and then was too sick to train. For most of the rest of 1923, he rested, hunted and fished. And watched what was left of his savings go up in smoke.

By the fall, Billy knew he would see only one more Christmas. He wanted to enjoy his last Christmas with his wife, Marie, and their three young children. He also wanted to leave Marie something other than debts. There was only one way out: Miske needed one last fight. Many years ago, a sportswriter friend of Miske's recorded Billy's conversation with his manager, Jack Reddy:

"Jack," said Billy, "get me a fight."

"You must be kidding, you're in no condition to fight," Jack replied.

"Get me a fight anyway!"

Jack shook his head. "I won't do it."

"Look, Jack," pleaded Billy, "I'm flat broke. I know I haven't long to go, and I want to give Marie and the kids one more happy Christmas before I check out. I won't be around for another. Please get me one more payday. I want to make Christmas this year something Marie and the children will always remember me for."

"Look," said Jack, "you know as well as I do that if you were to fight in your present condition you might be killed."

"Sure, but I'm a fighter and I'd rather die in the ring than while sitting home in a rocking chair."

Jack pulled out his wallet. "Let me help you. How much do you need?"

"No way," Bill put his hand up like a wall. "I've never taken a handout and I'm not gonna start now."

"Here's what I'll do," Jack said. "You go to the gym and start working out. If you get into any reasonable kind of shape, we'll talk about getting you a match."

"You know I can't do that," Billy replied. "It's impossible for me to train, but I've got to have one more fight for my family's sake. Please do it for me. Please."

Jack sighed. "I'll live to regret this." He stuffed his wallet back into his pocket. "Let me see what I can do."

Reddy made a bout in Omaha, Nebraska, with a brawling heavyweight contender named Bill Brennan, whom Miske had fought before. So, on November 7, 1923, a dying Billy Miske-in 55 days, he would be dead-climbed through the ropes one last time, in hopes of staying on his feet long enough to bring home a $2,400 purse.

He did. And, through sheer willpower, Billy lasted until Christmas, the most festive ever in the Miske household. Billy bought a piano for Marie, who was an accomplished singer, and piles of gifts for his three children. The next day, Billy called Jack Reddy and asked Jack to take him to the hospital. En route, Billy told Marie for the first time that his prognosis was hopeless. Billy Miske, 29 years old, died on New Year's Day, 1924.

But that isn't quite the end of the story. Let's give the floor back to Rick Reilly:

That's it, really. Except that if you ever pass through Omaha and run into an old-timer, ask him about the prizefight that day, the one that gave Billy Miske the finish he wanted, the one he won in four rounds, over Bill Brennan, by a knockout.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...ly-miske.php&usg=AFQjCNFeShSW0u1Cqw_Z3ru3kJVAPlEm5A&sig2=88bLv6NA7hughYqCSAxE9Q

 

[Chinny]

Superb. Love this thread @Dynamito

 

[Dynamito]

Superb. Love this thread @Dynamito

Apologies to all those who have supported this thread...Due to other obligations I am unable to update this thread as regularly as I should.
The Following is the Story of "The Real Mccoy"

L.A. Scene / The City Then and Now
The Violent Life of Boxer Kid McCoy
April 14, 1997|Cecilia Rasmussen

His outrageous cheating in the boxing ring--like spraying ammonia in one opponent's eyes and strewing thumbtacks under the bare feet of another--ironically made him a glamorous sports figure. But in the world outside the ring, his temper was notorious, and between his eighth and ninth wives, he killed his girlfriend.

His moniker is still in the American vocabulary: The Real McCoy.

At the turn of the century, Norman Selby boxed as "Kid McCoy," a world middleweight and welterweight champion whose opponents included Gentleman Jim Corbett--though McCoy was definitely no gentleman.

*

Famed for his "corkscrew punch," it was his underhanded tactics that made him popular. Against a deaf boxer, he pointed to the man's corner, indicating that the bell had ended the round. It hadn't. When the man turned away, McCoy knocked him cold.

McCoy said his name "The Real McCoy" came about thusly: "I'm in a saloon with a charming young lady, as usual. A drunk is making passes at her. I try to brush him off without too much fuss. Beat it, I says, I'm Kid McCoy. He laughs and says, 'Yeah? Well, I'm George Washington.' I have to clip him a short one and down he goes. He wakes up 10 minutes later, rubs his jaw, and says, 'Jeez, it was the real McCoy!' "

His retirement in 1897 lasted three years. In 1900, he fought against Corbett, who knocked him out. It was one of six losses in his 166-fight career.

More often, he lost his temper. Saloon slugfests increased as his fame waned. And then, in 1924, he came to Los Angeles.

His fortune gone after eight divorces, McCoy, a flabby 51, played bit parts in movies as the bad guy. He started dating Theresa Mors, whose husband, Albert, was a wealthy art and antiques dealer. Theresa moved in with McCoy, recalled 92-year-old Frances Pearlstein Grunnet, the Morses' former secretary and the only surviving witness to what would occur. She gave this account:

Theresa's friends Sam and Ann Schapp, who owned a dress shop next to the antiques store, told her that McCoy was a bum.

On Aug. 12, 1924, McCoy came home drunk. When Theresa told him what her friends thought of him, he knocked her teeth out, stabbed her and shot her in the head. McCoy drank all night and, by the next morning, wanted to kill Albert Mors too.

Mors wasn't at his shop when McCoy got there, so he kept 11 people hostage while he waited. He ordered three men to take off their pants to discourage escape. (One left anyway, and McCoy shot him in the leg.)

One of the hostages was 19-year-old Frances.

McCoy gathered up the hostages' money, giving $300 to the soon-to-be-married Frances as a wedding gift. (She later returned it to its owners.)

Her boss, Albert, "never showed up," she said in a recent interview. "He was off getting a haircut and then his new Cadillac wouldn't start, which saved his life."

Frustrated by the wait, McCoy went in search of the Schnapps. He shot and wounded them before racing through what is now MacArthur Park, where police caught him.

*

Theresa Mors had died wearing two long ropes of pearls, a diamond watch, and an emerald and diamond ring. But when her body was found, the jewelry was gone. When Albert Mors' friend, the county coroner, invited Mors to a seance, Mors took Frances along.

"When it was Albert's turn to speak, he asked his dead wife's spirit what happened to her jewelry. A woman's voice sounding like Theresa said it was in a safe deposit box at Citizens Bank on Spring Street under McCoy's sister's name." It was.

McCoy's attorney, Jerry Giesler, persuaded the jury to convict the former boxer on manslaughter, not murder, charges.

McCoy served eight years of a 24-year sentence. Working on a chain gang near San Simeon, he saved an injured pilot from the wreckage of a plane that crashed nearby. That led to a better job as a tour guide at San Quentin.

In 1932, the 59-year-old parolee and his new, ninth wife moved to Detroit, where McCoy became "athletic director" for Ford Motor Co. Three years later, he rescued several people whose boat had overturned on Lake Michigan. (California's governor pardoned him at the behest of celebrities that included Gen. Douglas MacArthur, actor Lionel Barrymore and U.S. Vice President Charles Curtis, according to reports in The Times.)

But in 1940, at 66, he took a bottle of sleeping pills and died. His farewell note read, "I can't endure this world's madness any longer."

McCoy had once warned a young inmate, "Remember that the bright lights go out the quickest. Kid McCoy knows."

Source...LATimes.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r..._1_kid-mccoy&usg=AFQjCNG3zV1yA4DHwBP_9HhgF7hEIvvDCA&sig2=eA3b_4Ycpmjq94A9ahu4fg

 

[Makingweight]

Fantastic thread and some great stories hats off to you @Dynamito

The story of John Duddy and the conflict of interest in boxing by Thomas Hauser

http://www.secondsout.com/columns/thomas-hauser/the-truth-about-john-duddy

 

[Dynamito]

Happy As Larry!

About a year ago just like the columnist in the following article a colleague at work asked how I was doing... I said; " I am as happy as Larry," so she asked who was Larry and why was he happy...So that got me intrigued did a quick search on google came across the following.


How an Aussie sportsman gave rise to a timeless saying

Columnist
By David Lord, 28 Jul 2011

Yesterday I said to a mate that "I was as happy as Larry". Bemused, my mate, 35 years my junior, said "What do you mean?" Fair call. Aussies born before World War 2 often used the phrase "happy as Larry" when they were very, very happy. It's not used much these days. So who was Larry?

Larry Foley was a pug who made a name for himself in the brutal bare-knuckle days in Sydney during the 1870s.

On debut, Foley eventually won the first unofficial championship of Australia after 140 rounds. You've read it right, 140 rounds: a knockdown constituted a round.

The report said he "flattened" Abe Hicken to win. It would probably have been more accurate had the report read Hicken had fallen over dead-set exhausted and couldn't get up one more time.

Foley said afterwards that he was very, very happy, and the report ended with the punters being described "as happy as Larry" with the result.

The phrase was born. And it stuck solid.

No wonder Larry was very, very happy: he pocketed 1,000 quid cash, a veritable fortune in a sport that was against the law.

While Foley and Hicken did battle, 20 frustrated cops were on the other side of the Murray keen to arrest the pair after getting a tip-off. They ended up empty-handed; Foley's hands were full of cold hard.

This was a fascinating period in Sydney's rich history, graphically written by Geoffrey Scott in his book Sydney's Highways of History, published in 1958.

Let Geoffrey tell the story:

By the 1880s, leather gloves and Marquis of Queensberry rules were transforming the bloody old prize-fighting game, and Larry was ready to quit.

In 1883, he had the toughest fight of his career, when he conceded two stone (13kgs) and three inches (a tick under eight centimetres) in reach to "Professor" Billy Williams at the Academy of Music in Castlereagh Street. A mob of Larry's supporters saved him from ignominious defeat by storming the ring.

After that, Larry retired "undefeated," settling down to preside over the White Horse hotel in George Street and to run his boxing academy in an annexe of glass and iron, affectionately known to the sporting world as the "Iron Pot".

A fearsome concoction of boxing talent was brewed in the Pot: the giant Cornishman Bob Fitzsimmons, who won the world heavyweight title in 1897 by beating Gentleman Jim Corbett, the simple and gentle-mannered West Indian Peter Jackson, "Starlight," the New Guinea boy from the pearling grounds of Thursday Island, Frank Slavin, Joe Goddard, and Young Griffo.

In later years, Larry Foley became a prosperous demolition contractor, as well, pulling down many of the old buildings at The Rocks.

(Still as happy as Larry; not so for many of his peers).

Frank Slavin died in Canada, after toting a gun and badge as the sheriff of tough Dawson City in the Klondike. Peter Jackson spent his last years as a penniless consumptive in Queensland.

Young Griffo (Albert Griffiths) died in New York in 1927, a forgotten drunkard living on charity, even though he was arguably the best fighter Australia has produced.

The White Horse hotel and Foley's boxing academy have long disappeared from George Street. But the site, near the present Strand Arcade, should be sacred soil to Australian sportsmen.

Indeed it should Geoffrey Scott, and many thanks for taking us down memory lane.

Now we are all as happy as Larry, including my mate.

http://www.theroar.com.au/author-levels-descriptions/

Just out of interest the phrase "Up to Scratch" also originates from Boxing.

up to scratch

What is the meaning and origin of not be up to scratch?

By Mr. Malan, Malaysia - 22nd Jan. 2007.

When you say that something is not up to scratch, it means that it is not up to the mark. It is not of an acceptable standard or quality.

Here are a few examples.

• I find that Alum's designs aren't up to scratch.

• It's no surprise that her last essay wasn't up to scratch.

• The tests showed that the new recruits were not up to scratch.

This is an idiom that comes from the world of boxing. In the old days when boxing was still a primitive sport, a line was drawn in the centre of the ring. The line was called ascratch. Nowadays whenever a boxer is knocked down during the bout, all he/she has to do is to stand up before the referee counts to ten. During the early days of boxing, the contestant who had been knocked down had to demonstrate that he was in control of his faculties by walking to the line (scratch) within 38 seconds. Why it was 38 seconds, I have no idea. If the boxer was unable to come up to the scratch within the allotted time, then he was considered unfit to continue the fight. The fight was awarded to his opponent.

So there you have it the phrases "The Real Mccoy" "Happy As Larry" and " Not Up to Scratch" all originate from the sport of Boxing.

 

[Makingweight]

@Dynamito @Trail and anyone else if you haven't read this before this is a long but interesting piece,well worth your time.

http://deadspin.com/why-i-fixed-fights-1535114232

 

[Trail]

@Dynamito @Trail and anyone else if you haven't read this before this is a long but interesting piece,well worth your time.

http://deadspin.com/why-i-fixed-fights-1535114232

I'll be reading this now. Thank you.