Mike McCallum vs Julian "The Hawk" Jackson. This fight took place in 1986, and this is probably Mike McCallum's most impressive win. At the time, Julian Jackson was undefeated and laying waste to everything in his path, Jackson is one of the hardest punchers in the history of the sport, his knockouts were horrific and when guys were hit by him, they often fell over like they were three sheets to the wind. Some people actually consider Jackson to be the hardest puncher in the history of boxing period. So when Mike McCallum signed up to fight Jackson, a lot of people thought Jackson might take him out, but we found out what McCallum was really made of as the opposite happened and he took out Julian Jackson in furious style. McCallum survived the kind of first round onslaught from the ferocious Julian Jackson that had sent lesser men to sleep. The thunderous Jackson, 29-0 (27) going in, started fast and visibly shook McCallum several times, in particular from a left hook. But McCallum remained calm under fire, countered expertly and refused to take a backward step. In the second round McCallum went to the head and body of Jackson with devastating effect. Jackson was forced to take a count and, upon rising, was subjected to a relentless two-fisted assault that persuaded the referee to rescue a woozy Jackson two minutes into the round.
Mike McCallum batters Julian Jackson against the ropes en route to a 2nd round stoppage.
The highlights of McCallum vs Jackson, one of my favorite fights. Jackson was on the warpath up to this point, he was literally annihilating everyone you put in front of him, the guy had bricks for hands. He came out very fast and tried to take Mike out, McCallum ate some bombs but God he had a great chin and once he realized Jackson couldn't hurt him he began to break Jackson down methodically with shots to the head and body, this is why McCallum is one of my all-time favorite fighters, just a beautiful display of the sweet science.
In 1987 Mike McCallum fought Donald Curry, aka "The Lone Star Cobra", Curry earned that nickname because he had lightning quick reflexes and hand speed to go along with good power. Donald Curry was one hell of a fighter, he's in the Hall of Fame for a reason, at his peak he was regarded as one of the best pound for pound fighters in boxing, in 1985 he shared The Rings Fighter of The Year honors with Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Quite simply put, Curry was great in his prime. This fight is still talked about to this day and would produce the knockout of the year in 1987, Donald Curry was having his way with Mike McCallum and outboxing him up until round Five, and then boom.
Donald Curry on the cover of Boxing News after being knocked out by Mike McCallum.
ON THIS DAY: MIKE MCCALLUM SCORES SENSATIONAL ONE-PUNCH KNOCKOUT OF DONALD CURRY
When “The Body Snatcher” defanged “The Lone Star Cobra.”
On July 18, 1987, Mike McCallum scored a devastating fifth-round knockout of Donald Curry to retain his WBA junior middleweight title at the Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion in Las Vegas. The official time was 1:14.
McCallum, who became Jamaica’s first ever world champion when he outpointed Sean Mannion (UD 15) for the vacant title in October 1984, was unbeaten in 31 fights with 28 knockouts. A terrific boxer-puncher, the 31-year-old McCallum had already defeated Luigi Minchillo (TKO 13), David Braxton (TKO 8) and Julian Jackson (TKO 2) in title defenses.
Since losing the undisputed welterweight championship, via stunning upset to Lloyd Honeyghan (TKO 6), Donald Curry had won two fights at 154 pounds. Strangely enough, both wins had come by way of disqualification, but the 25-year-old Texan was still considered among the finest pound for pound fighters in the world and he was installed as pre-fight favorite.
All was going to plan for Curry on fight night. He buckled McCallum’s legs with a devastating right near the end of Round 2 and boxed brilliantly over the first four. Despite sustaining some heavy swelling around the left eye, the challenger was ahead on points and looking comfortable.
Bang!
After releasing a jab-left hook combination at center ring, Curry moved back in a straight line with his right hand down. McCallum, who had held his feet and moved his head, seized the moment and followed a throwaway right uppercut with a perfect left hook that struck the challenger flush on the jaw.
“That was one of the best knockouts I ever had – it was a great knockout, a great fighter and a great fight,” McCallum told The Ring years later. “I went over it one or two times, same combination. I countered with a right uppercut and hook. That’s all it takes. That’s all I needed. I felt it in my hand.”
Curry, who dropped to 27-2 (19 KOs), didn’t come close to beating referee Richard Steele’s 10-rount.
A good account of the Mike McCallum vs Donald Curry fight.
Mike McCallum throws a right hand at Donald Curry.
On This Day: Mike McCallum flattens Donald Curry in five rounds
While he was still the unbeaten world welterweight champion, and regarded alongside Marvin Hagler as the best in boxing, Donald Curry agreed to step up in weight to challenge WBA light-middleweight boss, Mike McCallum. The bout was set for June 23, 1986 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, but before the contracts were signed, Curry had second thoughts about leaving his 147lb base. Within six months a weight-drained Curry was the victim of one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s, when he was trounced by Britain’s Lloyd Honeyghan in September 1986. After six rounds, an exhausted and bloodied Curry signalled he’d had enough. Curry moved up to light-middleweight for his next bout. By April of 1987, he had scored two comeback victories over useful duo Tony Montgomery and Carlos Santos. Both were disqualification wins that came in round five. The victory over Santos, a former IBF champion, was held in a temporary outdoor arena at Caesars Palace that had been erected for the Sugar Ray Leonard-Marvin Hagler bout that would take place two days later.
Curry already had some beef with Leonard and his attorney, Mike Trainer. Curry claimed he had previously asked the duo for advice on moving up in weight to challenge McCallum or Hagler, and they had told him to stay at welterweight. Weeks later, Leonard announced he was coming back to challenge Hagler. Curry filed a lawsuit stating: “Leonard and Trainer conspired to prevent Curry from entering the middleweight divisions to assure Leonard’s unobstructed opportunity to fight the middleweight champion.” On the same day that the suit was filed, Leonard scored a sensational victory over Hagler. “The Lone Star Cobra” decided to take on McCallum on July 18, 1987. The bout was again set for Caesars Palace, but this time, the fight took place. Curry – still regarded as one of the game’s premier fighters and the Honeyghan loss widely dismissed as a fluke – was installed as a 2-1 favourite. Despite being the underdog, McCallum’s purse of $475,000 was greater than Curry’s $425,000 bounty. The champion, not normally a fast starter, planned to jump on Curry early. “I have studied him,” said McCallum. “He has a great right hand and a good hook. Let’s see if he can handle the pressure and my body shots.” That “great right” almost floored McCallum in the second round. The champion dipped before steadying himself and would later say it was the closest he ever came to going down. Curry, boxing beautifully, was ahead on all cards going into the fifth but McCallum sensed the tide had turned in his favour. “The Bodysnatcher” had been firing menacing blasts into Curry’s midsection that he was increasingly desperate to defend. As the fifth began, McCallum had a plan…to start the round, McCallum launched a right to the body and, as Curry moved to cover, a gentle left hook to the head landed innocuously. McCallum noted the success. Later in the round, he feinted with a right to the body and Curry tried to cover, and leaned away. He did not see the hook flying towards his head. This time, McCallum had loaded the shot with everything he had. Curry took the full force of the blast and collapsed. The fight was over. It remains one of the best one-punch knockouts of all-time.
Now let's talk about the first loss of Mike McCallum's career, it came at the hands of Sumbu Kalambay in 1988, and this was the only defeat that Mike McCallum suffered in his prime, the other four losses on his record came at then end of his career when he was well past it. Sumbu Kalambay was a hell of a fighter, and he belongs in the Hall of Fame, it's a damned disgrace and a shame that he's not in. Sumbu Kalambay was a handful, he had great movement, great defense, he pumped his jab out there like a Piston engine, and it came at you hard and fast. He also a great counterpuncher and threw good combinations at you and they came out of nowhere quickly with some serious pop. When McCallum fought Kalambay in 1988, you have to hand it to Kalambay, he put on a masterclass against McCallum and handed Mike his first loss, Kalambay was just a handful to deal with. Here are the highlights from that fight.
In 1991, Mike McCallum set out to avenge that loss to Sumbu Kalambay, the first loss of his career and the only loss in his prime, and it was a close fight but McCallum did just that. This is a scientific analysis of how McCallum went about avenging that loss. I apologize for not being able to post the videos that go along with the article. This is why I love this sport more than any other, there's just nothing like it.
Mike McCallum (left) and Sumbu Kalambay in their second fight.
Mike McCallum vs Sumbu Kalambay II: Best of a Generation
The Loss
Within the annals of combat sports, records are viewed as a sacred measurement for evaluating fighter ability and success. Because combat sports revolve around individual competitions, it’s understandable why wins and losses matter so much. Even though there is an issue whereupon it’s forgotten whom the fighter fought and why the context of that fight matters, you cannot strictly diminish the significance of winning and losing, especially in how it affects the fighters themselves. The very point of competitive sports is to win - and the consequences of losing often serve as the equivalent of having to start from scratch and redo a step. And, even if they don’t have to take that step again, the disappointment is real. Ultimately, anyone who loses wants to get one back.
By 1991, WBA middleweight titleholder Mike McCallum had suffered only one defeat in a bout that was far from close. Over the course of twelve rounds, a superb outfighting performance played havoc on McCallum’s expectations. He was never close to being knocked out, but McCallum could not establish momentum beyond one punch at a time; he was thoroughly humiliated and schooled by one of his division’s hidden prodigies, Sumbu Kalambay. Now, nearly three years removed, McCallum found himself facing Kalambay in Monte Carlo’s Stade Louis II, looking for his revenge.
Between that time, things had changed. McCallum had gone on a tear, besting some exceptionally difficult pugilists and finding himself the titleholder of Kalambay’s belt. Kalambay bested Robbie Sims and gave an outmatched Doug DeWitt a beating, but then he found himself on the receiving end of the greatest win of Michael Nunn’s career. In what remains an anomaly, Kalambay was knocked by a left counter on the centerline - the only knockout loss of his whole career. Nunn was no special puncher, but he threw the finest punch of his life that night. Kalambay worked himself back up though, motivated to win a title back. A former, defeated foe stood in his wake.
With both men driven by hunger and loss, the stage was set for one of the greatest fights the boxing ring would ever see.
Before proceeding any further, I would recommend reading my breakdown of the first contest between these two here.
Vengeance is Best Served Cold
Mike McCallum learned his lesson: To beat Kalambay, persistence alone was not enough; he needed to ensure that he had the ring generalship to control Kalambay. It would require the most disciplined fight of McCallum’s career in ways all of his others beforehand simply didn’t. With arguably boxing’s greatest coach at his side, the legendary Eddie Futch, McCallum proved from the opening bell to the final exchange that he was not here to play.
McCallum is in the black trunks. Kalambay is in white with red stripes.
The greatest issue of McCallum’s game was that he lacked the footwork to keep up with Kalambay. While this is not particularly damning due to the former champion’s mastery of the outside game, McCallum needed to have the lateral movement to cut Kalambay off. This time, there was nothing overaggressive about McCallum’s new pressure here - it was practical, methodical, and consistent.
Effective ringcutting involves understanding that you don’t need to take enormous steps to meet your opponent; rather, by taking a small step or pivot, you meet their movement instead of following them or have to reset your feet consistently. One noticeable trait of good ringcutters is how they can operate at a longer range. These fighters do not need to threaten their opponent with proximity alone, they just need to make them overthink which places are safe to be in. The goal of a good ringcutter is control.
With McCallum, he recognized that he had a reach advantage over Kalambay - that, because he was coming forward, the latter had to either play the matador or take a risk and step in. Because McCallum was no longer following Kalambay into counters, he could assess Kalambay at distance, cut him off and then pin him. The onus was now on Kalambay, with his two options, to figure out how to navigate this new dynamic while McCallum kept his momentum going.
Of course, McCallum still had to contend with a rarity: That Kalambay was one of the few fighters with a comparable (and sometimes even better) lead hand than himself. However, Kalambay himself had already given McCallum the answer from their last meeting: In a duel of lead hands, the person who controls the positioning and punishes the other’s initiative will win. McCallum already was seizing control of the ring, now he could act and build behind his own jab - touching Kalambay at range while leaving him less space. Because Kalambay stood in a more compact stance with his hands closer to his body, his range was shorter than McCallum’s and he would need to step in for his jab to connect.
McCallum then endeavored to nullify Kalambay’s jab. Because Kalambay had less room to move, he was forced to stand his ground. When Kalambay jabbed, McCallum’s rear hand would catch the jab and use that moment as a trigger to counter jab.
Kalambay eventually had to step in to establish some momentum and was quickly reminded of why he looked to avoid any inside exchanges with McCallum in their first meeting.
But McCallum had more than just his trademark body attack. He had preset counters for Kalambay prepared. The Italian native preferred to create his entries behind his jab while dipping, but he had to step in on the taller champion to do so; therefore, McCallum chose to pull and blast Kalambay with an uppercut as the latter made his entry.
Eventually, the former champion found himself backed into the ropes, where he realized that was an even worse place to be.
In their first meeting, Kalambay would take advantage of McCallum’s close pursuit to escape being trapped, but he didn’t have that luxury here. Now, he had to shell up. Kalambay’s cross-arm defense behind shoulder rolls and upper body movement would make any pugilist struggle to find an opening, but McCallum had his man scouted.
Cross-arm guards typically cover the front side of the body whilst the rear hand is posted near the forehead in case the shoulder defenses fail. McCallum would touch with lesser shots, such as his jab to manipulate Kalambay’s guard and force him to cover up. Once he did so, Kalambay’s lead side was exposed for a short right to the body. If he attempted to shift around, he risked opening his rear side up to McCallum’s left hook.
Kalambay’s defense on the ropes still held up regardless, but being pinned there was an enormous dilemma.
Returning to the topic of threats, there are several important subtleties McCallum accomplishes with the above while remaining cognizant of what Kalambay can offer at any time. I already pointed out the distance McCallum operated at and why, but it’s equally important to note that McCallum never stops feinting. Whether it be the aforementioned series of counters or directional half-steps, McCallum showed that he understood that, when confronted by such a mobile, active feinter, you cannot fall into their rhythm - you enforce your own. Ostensibly, when overviewing McCallum’s gameplan, the number of actions made is quite low. However, why McCallum is successful is because each tactic was allocated to target and respond to Kalambay when they actually mattered. Let’s review this relationship of action-reaction:
Kalambay wants to move laterally - McCallum cuts him off at distance.
Kalambay wants to jab - McCallum jabs back or threatens with the cross counter.
Kalambay wants to step in - McCallum has preset counters ready.
Kalambay is passive - McCallum continues to feint, pressure, and so on.
Kalambay feints - McCallum maintains his distance, continues feinting himself, presses and cuts the ring.
The best fighters recognize what their opponent offers them and coordinate responses to ensure they are rendered ineffective. Once they do so, they can build upon their own successes and become more potent. In other words, depth isn’t necessarily dictated by how many things a fighter does; rather, it’s how much they can do with each of their weapons. The greatest ring generals epitomize this principle - and I struggle to think of any examples where Mike McCallum demonstrated his knowledge and depth better than he did here.
E.g. Even when Kalambay was attempting to break through McCallum’s defenses, the latter’s gameplan was flexible enough to adjust. In the first clip, Kalambay attempts to keep the jab battle going to set up the right. In the second clip, less than half a minute later, McCallum choses to pivot away from the jab battle to keep his lead hand in charge.
To paraphrase, Kalambay is now trapped: The corners and ropes are too dangerous and McCallum has command of the distance. Kalambay no longer has a choice; it’s a necessity to come forward as much as possible.
And yet, Kalambay still was far from done. He had taught McCallum a lesson that was being turned back on him. But one of boxing’s most underrated ring wizards still had a few tricks up his sleeve.
The Cornered Fox
With his only real choice being restricted to taking risks, Kalambay conceded that he had to get to work even if it meant being too close to the fire. It was here that Kalambay realized that McCallum’s gameplan, as well executed as it was, had one flaw: Much of what McCallum was doing was in response to what Kalambay was doing. In other words, McCallum was seizing the initiative consistently, but he was also deliberately giving Kalambay some allowances in order to punish him for them immediately.
It takes a second to see what the problem was, but: Kalambay had too much depth to his game to be completely pinned down and McCallum knew it, so the latter narrowed his focus to set responses to set actions. But that means that not every option Kalambay has is shut down. And inch by inch, someone with Kalambay’s craft could turn those marginal differences into enormous yields.
Kalambay’s lead hand had shown its handiwork in their previous fight, but I would argue that its true versatility was demonstrated here. McCallum had chosen set ranges to operate? Then Kalambay could still afford to jab, at the very least, to measure and feel his way with range. Once he could do that, he began to manipulate McCallum’s timings and triggers in numerous ways.
A jab may well be the best rhythm-manipulation tool in the entirety of striking-centric pugilism because the depth of its utility is virtually unmatched. Part of that is because most strikes have limitations upon where they can hit and how quickly they can be used. The jab, while punishable if used in too much excess, can be used on any singular target for different effect at almost any time.
To simplify, Kalambay here jabs at any and every part of McCallum that he can to experiment with rhythm. He changes levels between body and head; he jabs at McCallum’s chest to change his forearm placement; he jabs in open air to keep distance or while moving; he even jabs at McCallum’s rear hand on purpose to draw the counters out.
Subsequently, Kalambay attempted to keep McCallum circling like he had in their previous bout as much as possible. One way to deal with a ringcutter is to keep them following or turning. With McCallum’s commitment to outjabbing Kalambay, the latter could keep the former trapped in the same circular jabbing exchanges until he could break the pattern and find his moments.
But the tactics from said first fight were not going to be enough to fully disable McCallum’s new ring generalship. Kalambay had to tighten up his footwork in some way. With his jab already putting in the work keeping McCallum guessing, he paired it with misdirections to force McCallum to reset and follow instead of acting cutting him off.
Kalambay adamantly never stopped jabbing with McCallum even at the risk of a counter. Eventually, he could identify the danger zones for said counters and when they were coming.
With everything Kalambay has done here, he starts overloading McCallum with data. McCallum now is concerned with the expectations of what Kalambay can do, which dulls the timing on his counters and mitigates the effectiveness of his pressure. And that’s when Kalambay lets his offense flow.
In this compilation, watch how Kalambay’s aforementioned tactics keep McCallum reactive and then drawn into the dynamics Kalambay wants - then Kalambay executes a surprise offense.
However, Kalambay found that he could never escape being cut off completely. But, a level change in response to McCallum’s jab gave him the answer that he needed.
In a closed stance matchup, one way to step inside on your opponent is an outside slip off of their jab. Kalambay discovered he could time McCallum’s with a short right to the body.
The step-in short right wasn’t simply just meaningful offense, it let Kalambay have an answer to McCallum’s inside work. Because he stepped in with the right, Kalambay could posit his right shoulder adjacent to McCallum’s chest and place his head under McCallum’s to break his posture or to smother him in a clinch. Invaluably, this managed to shut down McCallum’s offense when Kalambay had his back to the ropes.
Kalambay also found offensive potency off of his smothering tactics: Namely, by using the overhand right instead of the short right, he could catch McCallum on entry just as much as he could smother him. Moreover, he could even follow up by breaking the tie-up with a followup hook.
And when Kalambay combined his smothering tactics with his upper-body movement, his defenses were sight to behold.
Sumbu Kalambay had been an incredible teacher; however, Mike McCallum was not just a student anymore. Teacher and student were now peers.
Stalemate
“This is no blood and thunder war, but in terms of technical skill and quality, this is a very, very fine fight indeed.”
— IAN DRAKE, END OF ROUND 9
The one thing Kalambay couldn’t do in both meetings was put his man on the backfoot. And McCallum, once he started meeting resistance, showed that he was not the same deer in the headlights as he was in the first bout. Instead of being overwhelmed, McCallum dug in his heels and chose to push back.
Kalambay’s bravery stepping in was a testament to his will to win, but McCallum put his namesake on display as he tore Kalambay’s ribs up as a vicious reminder where his home turf was.
Because Kalambay was stepping in frequently, McCallum chose to meet him with his own level change or intercepting shovel uppercuts to the body - the perfect way to punish an opponent with a lower base. He then built off of this level change with a ruthless, systemic dissection of Kalambay’s midsection. But that wasn’t all. McCallum would apply some new counters to keep his man on the retreat.
In particular, McCallum chose to use his left hook to not only prevent Kalambay from exchanging back on the inside, he would lever punch with it off of or into his body work. Kalambay had no choice but to reset and McCallum could resume his pursuit once more.
Weaponizing his reach advantage, McCallum would post with his left arm to keep his challenger moving backwards and set him up for his harder shot selections. On the ropes, it proved invaluable, especially behind frames. But its real purpose was to act as a workaround to Kalambay’s shoulder defense tactics. Although Kalambay could punch over McCallum’s arms when he framed, he would have to risk being closer and be exposed to more body shots.
To counteract Kalambay’s own pressure and proximity threats, McCallum would actively pull himself back and pivot behind his jab and a counter left hook to keep his momentum going if Kalamaby attempted to turn him or to command the directional battle.
What followed were rounds where every second mattered and, with peerless urgency, the champion and challenger fought like it. The adjustments, the countermeasures, the risks - the bout was being waged to the point that these aspects were seamless and nonstop. Neither fighter could stamp their authority without the other crafting a comeback moments later. The margins were too thin and both boxers were too good.
The fight reached its zenith at the end of the tenth where every single dynamic came into play in a blistering sequence of fighting:
1) McCallum’s measured pressure behind the jab and stiffarm posting is on display to pressure Kalambay.
2) Kalambay attempting to use his smothers and counter hooks to break the tie-ups and close the door on McCallum’s pressure while exhibiting incredible upper body defenses.
3) McCallum’s step-in body work and guard manipulation keeping Kalambay pinned consistently.
By the championship rounds, both men had exhausted their options, so old ideas were recycled or even taken from one another on the spot. Both would attempt to create a longer exchange with the jabs; they would step in behind level change counters; traps reestablished behind the jabs - in this sort of contest, everything was fair game.
Retrospective
Thirty-six minutes painted a picture for anyone watching: This one was too close to call. And, even upon rewatches, this is the exact sort of fight whereupon actually picking a winner seemed counterintuitive. Still, it took every ounce of his wits and the full extent of his skillset, but Mike McCallum had avenged his only ring defeat.
To those who’ve given their all to the fisticuffs, redemption isn’t a regularity. Whether it be that fighters are held within the predatory chain of matchmaking or their better simply has their number, losing can beget cruelty. That is, losing is looked down upon in combat sports - it is often a statistical value of condemnation. But I think the relationship between a loss and redemption has more to it.
Losing is a chance to reinforce perseverance. It’s a chance to reflect and rebuild - to try again. Attempting to redeem oneself from a loss though? Win or lose, you get the chance to prove how much your perseverance mattered.
Mike McCallum vs Sumbu Kalambay II did have a winner and loser, if only by a razor’s edge, yet no one who has seen this bout I feel would truly hold the results against the careers of both men. In the aftermath of his most haunting defeat, McCallum was given the chance to prove how special a fighter he really was by storming out of the gate and showing what one could argue was the most disciplined performance of his entire career. And, in his own defeat, Kalambay left his mark as one of his generation’s finest underachievers. As far as this writer is concerned, no one truly had Kalambay outskilled at his peak, but McCallum gave it as good an effort as anyone could. It was a technical masterpiece that could only have been waged between two of the finest the ring had ever seen.
Months later, Mike McCallum would meet the prestigious James Toney for a twelve-round draw that is marked as one of boxing’s prized showcases. The bout in question was magnificent and elevated both men’s standing. Perhaps controversially, however, I would argue that McCallum’s battle with Kalambay was every bit as good - and perhaps even better because it truly showed what two fighters at the peak of their powers could do.
As far as combat sports history goes, anyone would struggle to find many duels waged on this level.
Mike McCallum and Sumbu Kalambay are both all-time great ring technicians, and I'll say it again, it's a crying shame that Kalambay isn't in the IBHOF. Some of the exchanges in that second fight were breathtaking, a hardcore chess match between two chess masters. This would not be Mike McCallum's last chess match, a few months later, McCallum would fight James "Lights Out" Toney in another classic battle between two all-time great ring technicians.
One quick thing here that I forgot to mention about Mike McCallum, he was very good at slipping punches, as you can see in this gif, he slips a counterpunch from Michael Watson, and immediately capitalizes by digging to the body, just a damn good ring technician.
Up next is a classic for any true boxing fan, in 1991, Mike McCallum met James "Lights Out" Toney for the first fight of their trilogy, McCallum was past his prime but still a formidable for. If you're not familiar with James Toney, he is an all-time great in this sport, he was nicknamed "Lights Out" because that's what he did, he turned his opponents lights out, he could seriously crack. On top of that, much like McCallum, James Toney had a cast iron chin, and much like McCallum, Toney was never stopped in his entire career, which consisted of 92 fights. At that time, Mike McCallum was already a legend in the sport and James Toney was unbeaten and making quite a name for himself, he had just iced Michael Nunn in a thrilling come from behind win and he was on a rampage. One thing about James Toney, he had a mean streak, he didn't play around when it came to boxing, he was there to take you out and made no bones about it, I'll get into him more later in the thread. If you haven't seen McCallum vs Toney 1, you should if you're a real fan of scientific technical boxing, it won fight of the year honors for a reason, it was a classic chess match between two all-time great ring masters.
Mike McCallum digs to the body of James Toney during their first fight.
Reliving the legend: James Toney vs Mike McCallum I
A significant subplot that can provide additional intrigue to a fight is when a young lion battles an established, highly accomplished veteran. This was the case when James "Lights Out" Toney and Mike "The Bodysnatcher" McCallum faced each other on December 13, 1991 at Convention Hall in Atlantic City New Jersey.
YOUTH VERSUS EXPERIENCE
Toney (28-0-1, 20 KO) came into this contest as the reigning IBF middleweight champion. The pride of Ann Arbor, Michigan won the belt with a shocking Eleventh-round upset of the previous long-reigning IBF champion, Michael Nunn, in May of 1991. Outside the ring, Toney was fiery and combative. But once the bell rang, the then 23 year old was composed and had a style that reminded observers of a foregone era. However, pundits still questioned how good of a fighter he was.
He faced a McCallum (42-1, 34 KOs) in search of a high-profile showcase fight. The pride of Jamaica came into prominence in the mid-1980s in the era of what was known as the big Four: Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, and Roberto Duran.
McCallum craved fights with any of those Four men, but he was burdened with the label that no boxer wants to have and that was a fighter who is high-risk/low-reward. As a result, the big Four conveniently avoided him.
Despite that disappointment, McCallum went on to win world titles at 154 and 160. Pundits at the time viewed the 34-year old as one of the best fighters of the decade. When presented with the opportunity to fight Toney, McCallum jumped on it without hesitation.
As an aside, this fight was to be a middleweight unification contest. McCallum was the WBA middleweight champion. But days before the bout, the WBA stripped McCallum of the title when he refused to pay additional sanctioning fees.
BRINGING OUT THE BEST IN ONE ANOTHER
What made this fight special was the quality of the action from beginning to end. McCallum was excellent at establishing the jab, landing with right hands up top, and making Toney miss in the first couple of rounds.
Starting in the third, Toney found his range. Cool as a cucumber, the IBF champ tagged the Bodysnatcher with counter right hands and left hooks.
The middle rounds saw McCallum gain some momentum. His experience came into play as he used more side-to-side movement, boxed, and did some countering of his own. Toney landed his pound of flesh, especially the right hand. Entering the championship rounds, this one was up for grabs.
It was at this moment that Toney poured it on. He appeared to be the fresher man and picked up the pace in the final two rounds. The champ threw with more force, landing the cleaner and harder shots. Midway through the final round, a Toney left-hook wobbled McCallum.
Sensing a warrior that was wounded, Lights Out went for the finish. But McCallum's toughness and experience helped him make it to the final bell. In the end, the bout was scored a Split-Decision draw (116-112 Toney, 115-113 McCallum, 114-114).
Toney and McCallum fought each other Two more times. In August 1992, Toney defeated McCallum by a majority decision. Their trilogy bout ended up with Toney winning by a unanimous decision in February 1997. However, their first match was the best of the three, by far.
Due to Toney's stoppage win over Nunn and performance against McCallum, pundits named him the fighter of the year for 1991. Toney went on to win world titles at super middleweight and cruiserweight. McCallum went on to win a world title at 175. Both men were eventually inducted into the boxing hall of fame, and James Toney - Mike McCallum I was one of the great fights of the 1990s.
One more Mike McCallum fight I forgot to mention was his fight with Michael"The Force" Watson in 1990. If you're not familiar with Watson, he was nicknamed "The Force" because he was strong as a bull, Watson had just beaten Nigel "The Dark Destroyer" Benn, a violent fighter with devastating power, in one of the wildest, most apocalyptic fights you'll ever see, I'll talk about that later in the thread as well as the sad ending to Watson's career. But in 1990, McCallum and Watson met and it was a pretty good back and forth fight, McCallum got in some good body shots that wore Watson down as the fight progressed. Watson had his moments and landed some big shots but McCallum outboxed Watson, controlled most of the fight, and stopped Watson in the 11th round, the stoppage came more from exhaustion than any heavy punches being landed.
Mike McCallum talks about his career and the best opponents he faced.
MIKE MCCALLUM’S GREATEST HITS: THE BODY SNATCHER
BY ANSON WAINWRIGHT |
Editor’s Note: This feature originally appeared in the February 2020 issue of The Ring Magazine.
Mike McCallum fought his way out of obscurity in Jamaica to the top of the boxing world. However, for much of his career, the highly skilled boxer-puncher was deemed too much risk versus not enough reward and was one of the most avoided fighters of his era.
McCallum was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on December 7, 1956. He was an only child and enjoyed life on the island before finding boxing at 15 years old.
“I went to church every Sunday with my mom and dad,” McCallum told The Ring about his early years. “I went to school and I came home, played around with the other kids.
“I got into a few fights, and one time I went to a boxing club in the neighborhood that was well-known in Jamaica. I started throwing punches. I didn’t know anything about boxing. One guy said, ‘Mike, do you see that? You’re natural.’”
McCallum went on to become a decorated amateur. He represented his country at the 1974 World Championships and 1976 Olympics and won gold at the Commonwealth Games in 1978. He hoped to go the 1980 Olympics, but those aspirations were cut short due to appendicitis. He posted an impressive 240-10 amateur record before turning professional in early 1981.
The legendary duo of George Benton and Eddie Futch helped fine-tune McCallum from there. “They were both geniuses,” he said.
McCallum marched to 21 straight wins before meeting Sean Mannion for the vacant WBA junior middleweight title on the undercard of Marvin Hagler-Mustafa Hamsho in the fall of 1984. McCallum boxed superbly and won a unanimous decision. He would defend the title six times against the likes of David Braxton (TKO 8), Julian Jackson (TKO 2) and Donald Curry (KO 5).
“The Bodysnatcher” hoped he could lure one of the Fab Four (Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran) into facing him, but to no avail.
“I don’t think; I know,” he said when asked if he felt he was avoided. “I made a big mistake. I went to train with Emanuel Steward, Thomas Hearns, Milton McCrory and all them guys. I fought Braxton, McCrory and sparred Thomas Hearns. They knew how good I was and didn’t want to fight me or spar me (afterward).”
McCallum vs. Curry
McCallum abdicated his throne and stepped up to middleweight, heading straight to Italy to face Sumbu Kalambay for the WBA crown in March 1988. Although McCallum was the pre-fight betting favorite, he was unable to get a handle on Kalambay, a stick-and-move specialist, and lost for the first time.
Undeterred, McCallum got back to winning while waiting for his next opportunity. It came when Kalambay was stripped for facing Michael Nunn over mandatory challenger Herol Graham, who instead faced McCallum for the vacant title. McCallum won a hard-fought split decision to become a two-weight titleholder. He then bested Steve Collins (UD 12) and knocked out Michael Watson before exacting revenge on Kalambay via split decision.
Attempting to gain the IBF middleweight title, McCallum fought rising star James Toney twice in the early 1990s, and although both fights were close, the 35-year-old veteran drew and lost a majority decision. McCallum became a three-weight titleholder when he edged Jeff Harding for the WBC light heavyweight belt in the summer of 1994 and made one successful defense before losing his title to Fabrice Tiozzo.
In his two final bouts, McCallum lost a unanimous decision to a prime Roy Jones Jr. as well as the rubber match against Toney before retiring at the age of 40. He walked away with a record of 49-5-1 (36 KOs). He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2003.
McCallum, now 62, lives in Las Vegas, where he is a key figure in the training camp of rising lightweight star Devin Haney. Here’s what he had to say about six of his most memorable nights in the ring:
SEAN MANNION
October 19, 1984, Madison Square Garden, New York • Titles: WBA junior middleweight
“I keep asking myself why (Leonard, Hagler, Hearns and Duran) didn’t fight me. I have no answer. If they had fought me, it would have been the Fab Five. It was very frustrating. I was mad at everybody. I didn’t want to see nobody. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. Why didn’t they want to fight me? I couldn’t answer the question. Thomas Hearns didn’t want to fight me. Leonard was the one I really wanted to fight, but he was a lighter weight class than me. With Duran, I was the number one contender – he should definitely have fought me, but he gave away the belt (to fight Thomas Hearns for the WBC title). I don’t know why Hagler didn’t want to fight me. I know those fights would be great fights.
“I was upset I didn’t fight Duran, but now I’ve got to take care of business with Mannion. He didn’t look like much, but he was game. When I hit him with some good shots, he came right back; he tried his best to win, but I had too much stuff going on. I did everything in my power to win the title. Mannion was a good fighter. I tried to knock him out and I couldn’t. I controlled most of the fight and won most of the rounds. I would have been happy if I’d knocked him out, but I just wanted to win the title.
“You can’t imagine (what it was like to be) the first Jamaican world champion. That means everything to me. That was the best feeling to know that you are the first world champion boxer in Jamaica. We had some great fighters from Jamaica back in the day – Bunny Grant, Percy Hayles, Roy Goss – a lot of good fighters. I celebrated. I went all over Jamaica in a car – everybody was coming out, everybody wanted to see me. It was something else.”
Result: McCallum UD 15
JULIAN JACKSON
August 23, 1986, Convention Center, Miami Beach, Florida • Titles: WBA junior middleweight
“I didn’t know what to think. I knew he was a big puncher, but you don’t feel a punch like that. I wasn’t worried about his power; I was concerned about it – I didn’t want to get hit by it at all. I felt his power. ‘Oh yeah,’ I thought, ‘I have to get him before he gets me.’ So I hit him first. He hit me with a shot, and I felt it: ‘This boy can hit.’ When I hit him with a shot, he went down. I said, ‘You hit me so hard and you can’t take a shot? I’m going to get you now.’ He could give it, but he couldn’t take it. It was all over.”
Result: McCallum TKO 2
DONALD CURRY
July 18, 1987, Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion, Las Vegas • Titles: WBA junior middleweight
“I think (my best weight class was) junior middleweight. It was a great fight. Donald Curry was the kind of guy … you sit and watch and you have your own vision; you talk to yourself: How could I beat him? What would I have to do to beat him? George Benton was a great trainer; he put it all together and told me what to do to win. Curry was a very sharp fighter. He punches sharp and crisp. He’s a very dangerous guy. He thinks a lot. He sets things up nicely. And I said, ‘I’ve got to beat him at his own game.’ He tries to set me up and I’m gonna set him up too. That was one of the best knockouts I ever had – it was a great knockout, a great fighter and a great fight. The last week of the workout, George Benton came to me and said, ‘He’s going to try to set you up with the right hand and jab; you’ve got to look out for them. He’s very quick and very accurate. You’ve got to do it this way and come back on top.’ I went over it one or two times, same combination. He said, ‘Remember, Mike, you’ve got to be alert because he’s very quick and accurate and he’s dangerous.’ So I slipped the jab and slipped his right hand, and I countered with a right uppercut and hook. That’s all it takes. That’s all I needed. I felt it in my hand.”
Result: McCallum KO 5
HEROL GRAHAM
May 10, 1989, Royal Albert Hall, London • Titles: WBA middleweight
“England is a rough place to fight, especially when you’re fighting their man. They’re singing songs; they expect their man to win. I knew he was a very awkward fighter, a southpaw and gives all kinds of movement, so I hit him to the body to slow him down. (Graham was) not easy to fight at all. He was very good; he dodged punches good, very slick. Herol Graham was something else. He was hard to hit because he moves very well. He was unorthodox. It was a tough fight for me. I had to catch up with him, but I did catch up with him and I beat him.”
Result: McCallum SD 12
JAMES TONEY
December 13, 1991, Convention Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey • Titles: IBF middleweight
“The WBA wanted $30,000 plus a $35,000 exemption fee for fighting Toney. My lawyer, Milton Chwasky, was going to go along with that, but then they came back and demanded we give (Steve) Collins another $50,000 to step aside, and we said no. They wanted too much money. I didn’t know exactly what was going on. (Note: McCallum was stripped of the title.) I think I did enough to win the fight. It was a good fight, an old-school fight, very tough. I got off to a good start and he came back, and we went back and forth. The first fight was a close fight. He was young and strong and got better the second fight. He was a good fighter – three good fights. I think I won at least one or two fights. He was a throwback.”
Result: Draw
JEFF HARDING
July 23, 1994, Civic Center, Bismarck, North Dakota • Titles: WBC light heavyweight
“That fight was a great fight. I knew Jeff was a very hard fight to win – he keeps coming and he keeps punching. He’s got good stamina, very strong, so I knew it was gonna be a hell of a fight. I’ve got to box him. I can’t fight with him inside, ’cause he throws a lot of punches; he doesn’t stop punching. I can’t outwork him because he doesn’t stop punching. I asked myself, ‘How am I going to win this fight?’ I’ve got to do both: I’ve got to box him sometimes, I’ve got to work inside sometimes. I’ve got to turn him and counterpunch him. So that’s what I did. It meant everything to me – three-weight world champion. I was very happy about that. I worked hard. I trained hard for fights and I tried hard to win fights. I don’t like to lose. I work hard all the time for fights, especially the championship fights. Those ones mean everything to me.”
Result: McCallum UD 12
Mike McCallum was asked about the best he faced during his career and here's what he had to say.
Best overall: James Toney -- He wasn't a complete fighter the first time we fought, and I still believe I won that fight. But he learned in that fight and he got better. He grew with each fight. By our third fight, he was a different fighter, a complete fighter. He was someone who could do it all, fight inside or outside, work offense and defense at the same time, just like me when I was younger. I like to think that I helped James mature as a fighter.
Best boxer: Herol Graham -- He was a pure boxer, a southpaw and very elusive. It wasn't easy to hit him. He was very smart, very skilled.
Best puncher: Julian Jackson -- He hit me so hard! Julian wasn't just powerful, he was also real quick. I got caught by a right hand in the first round of our fight and I remember thinking, What's wrong with my legs? I tried my best to hide it from him. I knew I had to take him out as soon as I could.
Best defense: Sumbu Kalambay -- I fought many good defensive fighters. Toney had a good defense. Graham was slippery. Jones was fast and slick, but Kalambay is No. 1. I can't forget about him. He's the first fighter to beat me and it's because of his good movement. He was always sliding side to side, very shifty. He was a dangerous boy.
Fastest hands: Jackson -- He was quick, man. That's why he got so many knockouts. Everyone focused on his power and then he'd get you with a punch you didn't see. They landed on you -- boom! -- from out of nowhere. Kalambay and Toney were also fast. So was Jones, obviously, but I fought him when I was older and had slowed down a bit.
Fastest feet: Roy Jones -- He had very quick feet. He was elusive just because of his footwork.
Best chin: Steve Collins -- I almost said Toney, but Collins had the best chin. I hit him right on his chin all night and he wouldn't budge. I couldn't hit Toney that much and when I did, he backed off. Collins walked through punches.
Best jab: Donald Curry -- I fought many fighters with good jabs. Kalambay could win fights with just his jab. McCrory had a good, hard jab. But Curry's was the best. I see why they called him the Cobra because he didn't miss with it. He was a bad man with that jab.
Strongest: Michael Watson -- Oh my God, he was so strong. That's why that fight was so hard. It was a gruesome fight, 11 rounds of back-and-forth hell.
Smartest: Roy Jones Jr. -- I fought quite a few smart boys in my time. Graham was a cunning S.O.B. I remember him sticking his tongue out at me whenever I'd miss a punch. Kalambay was smart and so was Toney, although he didn't have the experience to back it up when we first fought. But I think Roy may have been the smartest. He was very clever, which didn't surprise me. I knew he was sharp. It was like he was always one step ahead of me.
One last word about Mike McCallum, he was an all-time great fighter, underappreciated for sure. He was a high risk/low reward fighter because he was tough as nails, you weren't going to stop him, and he had a phenomenal overall skill set, technically skilled, very good and varied attack. Good jab, used his long arms to his advantage in clinches, high workrate. Very good body attack, it wasn't the bruising body attack of guys like Chavez or Duran, but more of a methodical body/head tandem (straight rights and hooks to the body, jabs, etc), I think he was avoided to a degree because of it, nobody looked forward to stepping in the ring with him but I don't think the Fab Four were scared to face him or anything like that, they had each other and McCallum was a low profile type fighter. A lot of people consider McCallum to be the sort of fifth member of the Fab Four, a Fab Five, if you will, and that's very appropriate considering how great he was during that era, he was one of the best of the 80s period, in fact he's an all-time great. He had problems with guys that were fast and could move, he wasn't unbeatable, nobody is, but he was damn near it in his prime.
I've been looking for the type 1 original photo of this image for quite a while now with no luck, it's McCallum hitting Donald Curry with an uppercut, this is probably my favorite image of McCallum.
McCallum had long arms and a beautiful jab, having long arms can be a good thing because you have the reach advantage and can connect from further away, it can also make it very difficult for your opponent to get inside if you control the distance with the jab. But it can also be a bad thing if your opponent does get inside and you get into a trench battle, the guy with the shorter arms is going to be able to land easier.
Mike McCallum vs Herol Graham, you can see the agony on both of their faces, that fight was tactical warfare. A hard fight to score and not the most pleasing to watch. Graham's movement, erratic output, and countering gave McCallum fits, I don't think he ever really solved Graham's puzzle, and Graham really dominated the first four or five rounds, but McCallum made good adjustments over the second half of the fight, had the more consistent output, landed better shots and deserved the decision.
Mike McCallum, one of the finest ring technicians you'll ever see. Watching this video, god, it's just amazing the way he went to the head and body of his opponents. He really knew how to break you down.
Asa "Ace" Hudkins, aka "The Nebraska Wildcat", one of the most vicious men to ever enter a ring. His nickname should tell you all you need to know about him, he fought like a wildcat, his style was all about trying to tear you apart. William Muldoon, the New York State boxing commissioner in the 1920s, was once quoted as saying, "Ace Hudkins is an animal from the Neanderthal days who should not be allowed to fight."
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Ace Hudkins: Remembering The Nebraska Wild Cat
Ace Hudkins was one of the most colorful and feared fighters of the 1920s, an aggressive, all-action, snarling, two-fisted, beast of a fighter, who asked for, nor gave any mercy in the ring. He wasn’t given the nick name “The Nebraska Wild Cat” for being dull. If he was a wild cat inside the ring, Hudkins was no less formidable out side the roped square. Hudkins was a full-blown hell raiser who seemed to create a storm wherever he went. He was a throwback to the days of the Wild West when lawless gunslingers challenged each other on the streets to decide who was the quickest on the draw. Perhaps it will come as no surprise that Ace often got into trouble with the authorities for roaming the streets armed with a gun.
Ace Hudkins was born Asa Hudkins on August 30, 1905, in Valparaiso, Nebraska. He soon showed he was good with his hands almost from the moment he learned how to make fists with them. By the age of 12, he was working as a ‘newsboy’ and proved to be very adept at defending his patch.
It is likely that by the time he hit his teens, Hudkins was fighting for pay in the unofficial ’bootleg’ fights that used to take place in various back rooms of small bars and clubs in those days.
“The Nebraska Wild Cat” started his official boxing career in 1922, at the age of 17, and from the start he fought just as he had when defending his pitch on the street. He would bore into his opponents with both arms swinging and he didn’t care much where his punches landed. Ace was rough and tough with seemingly unlimited endurance and impervious to pain, in fact if anything, getting hit seemed only to strengthen the Wild Cat. He would fight with a snarl on his face and a maniacal glint in his eyes, which would become ever more fierce as his fights wore on. With his two brothers Art and Clyde working his corner, Ace set about making himself the terror of the lightweight division and by 1925, he was rated by The Ring magazine amongst the top lightweights in the world.
But, Ace hadn’t really arrived yet, with most of his fights having taken place in his own backyard of Nebraska, or in California. He was still relatively unknown in New York, and this is perhaps the reason why he was picked as an opponent for the unbeaten 19-year old prodigy Ruby Goldstein. 20 years before he would gain fame, as boxing’s premier referee; “The Rube” was an unbeaten lightweight who was being hailed as the new Benny Leonard. Goldstein was 23-0 and on verge of a world title shot when Ace was brought in as a final ‘warm up’ before Goldstein’s expected world title challenge. Goldstein’s management had been warned to keep Ruby away from Hudkins, by a former Hudkins’ opponent Sid Terris. Although Terris had out-pointed Hudkins, he knew only too well what an opponent had to go through against The Wild Cat. Hudkins never bothered to learn the ‘sweet science’ of boxing, and could be out-boxed, but it took a special kind of person to stand up to Hudkins’ savage fury, and outbox him. Also, at this point of his career Hudkins, at the age of 21-years old, was still improving, growing stronger, and gaining more experience. Goldstein was the heavy favourite in New York, he had boxing skill and a dynamite punch, and his Jewish fans believed that he was set for greatness. All those dreams were shattered on the night of June 26 1926, when Ruby entered the ring against The Nebraska Wildcat. Goldstein dropped Hudkins in the first minute of the 1st round with one of his best punches, but the Wild Cat rose from the canvas with a snarl before the count of ten, and from then on “The Jewel of The Ghetto” was fighting for his life. Goldstein had never experienced anything like Hudkins before and was forced to go toe-to-toe with him in a desperate effort of survival. It all ended in the 4th round, when a savage left hook laid Goldstein out upon the bottom rope, unconscious to the world, but with his eyes wide open. Ace Hudkins had arrived and his decimation of Goldstein made him a sensation. Meanwhile, Goldstein never recovered from the savage beating The Wild Cat had given him, and although he fought for another decade, he was just going through the motions.
Following his victory over Goldstein, Ace clamoured for a shot at the World lightweight championship, but to no avail. He then added some pounds to his muscular frame and went after the welterweight title, only to find he was avoided once more by the division’s titleholder. By 1928, Hudkins had moved up to the middleweight division, and it was here that he finally received a world title shot, on June 21, 1928, challenging “The Toy Bull Dog” Mickey Walker for Walker’s World middleweight title. Walker and Hudkins were in many ways mirror images of each other, both in the ring and out of it; two men who were known to raise as much hell outside of the ring as they did inside of it. Their fight was brutal and bloody, with Walker retaining his world title on a split decision after ten blood splattered rounds. The referee had voted for Hudkins, while both judges went for The Toy Bulldog.
16 months later on October 29, 1929, Hudkins was granted a rematch against Walker for the World middleweight title, but came up short again, losing on points once more, after another barnstormer. The two world title fights with Walker would represent a peak; it was all down hill from then on for Ace Hudkins. He would fight 8 more times over the next 3 years, with his weight rising to light-heavyweight proportions, he began fighting light heavyweights and heavyweights, but not with the success of old. The wild ways and wild life, both in and outside the ring, had finally taken a toll, and Ace’s thirst for fighting was now being overwhelmed by his thirst for liquor.
Hudkins was 4-4 in his last eight fights. His last good win was a 10-round point’s victory over heavyweight contender King Levinsky in 1931. The Wild Cat hung up his gloves in 1932 after losing on points to Lee Ramage and then Wesley Ketchell, with displays that showed he was becoming little more than a punching bag.
Retiring with a record of 64(25koes)-16-12, for a while it seemed that Hudkins was determined to die with his boots on. On an alcohol fuelled rampage, life for him became one bar room brawl after another. Ace’s rap sheet grew, and he was lucky not to end up being killed or killing someone else, although he certainly came close to getting killed.
In August 1933, Hudkins had two bullets fired into him, and only survived due to two blood transfusions, and his own stubborn spirit. From this point on, Hudkins changed, he married, brought some land, and started to train and breed horses with great success. Many of Ace’s horses were used in Hollywood westerns. Roy Rogers brought his famous horse “Trigger” from Ace, while the Lone Ranger and Annie Oakley both rode horses provided by Ace. In addition, Hudkins became a Hollywood stuntman, a career that would last until the late 1960s.
Hudkins was finally counted out on April 17, (some sources claim April 9 or April 18) 1973. It was the only time in his life that he had heard the ten count.
Hudkins might not have been a world champion during his career, but its not hard to imagine him winning a world title in most other era. Were he fighting today, Hudkins would no doubt be a sensation, a lightweight who would finish his career as a heavyweight, it’s hard to imagine Ace Hudkins ever ducking anyone.
Ace Hudkins most famous fight came in 1924, when he fought a young murderous punching lightweight by the name of Ruby Goldstein, Goldstein would later go on to become one of the most famous referees in boxing history, but at the time Goldstein was a young fighter with a record of 23-0 and knocking out just about everyone they put in front of him, Goldstein was so dominant that he was tapped to be the next Benny Leonard, but then he ran into Ace Hudkins, and Goldstein would never be the same fighter again.
Asa "Ace" Hudkins in the 1920s.
NIGHTMARE IN DREAMLAND: WHEN ACE HUDKINS CRASHED CONEY ISLAND
“All he wanted to do was fight, fight, fight.” Paul Gallico
He tore out of the Great American Desert to make a mockery of the carefree Jazz Age, trailing behind him the dark shadow of the lawless frontier, snarling, heeling, butting, permanent stubble underpinning his perpetual scowl. From the High Plains he scratched his way to riches in Los Angeles before winding up, incongruously, under the whirling lights of Surf Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, where he ignored the carousels on his way to doing what he loved doing best: raising cain. To hell with kewpie dolls, red hots, and armadillo baskets; the roughneck who once said, “It gives me a thrill to see a man bleeding and his flesh sliced like the top of a baked ham,” was here to kick up a ruckus. It was a warm night, June, 1926, and the careening Thunderbolt roller coaster on nearby Bowery Street was a fitting backdrop to what would soon occur. In less than fifteen minutes he left his exact opposite — a quiet teenager named Ruby who had soulful eyes and doted on his mother — draped helplessly over the bottom strand of the ring ropes.
His name was Ace Hudkins. They called him “The Nebraska Wildcat,” and this is the story of how he introduced himself to New York City in 1926. He did it the only way he knew how: with a snarl and a sock on the jaw. Hudkins, so cool he was actually christened “Ace,” was the scourge of lightweights, welterweights, and middleweights for most of the 1920s. Born in Valparaiso, Nebraska, in 1905, Hudkins probably began fighting as a newspaper boy in 1917 or 1918. His first recorded professional bout took place in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1922, when he was only sixteen. Over the next two and a half years, Hudkins razed his way through murky clubs and auditoriums across Nebraska, scrapping under thunderheads of cigarette smoke in townships and hamlets like Tecumseh, Wahoo, and Harlan.
In late 1924 Hudkins left the hardpan behind and drifted into Los Angeles, where his no-holds-barred ferocity made him an overnight star in Hollywood. Not the kind with two yachts and a Mission Revival house, of course, but the kind that could draw thousands of screaming spectators to watch him maul his opponents in cold blood. Damon Runyon once described the Ace Hudkins experience succinctly. “When I watch him fight,” he wrote, “I visualize a vicious jungle cat clawing the guts out of a helpless antelope.”
Hudkins thrashed it out with West Coast headliners like Mushy Callahan, Spug Myers, and Joe Benjamin, sometimes losing, sometimes winning, sometimes settling for stalemates, but always ready to knock the Tinsel out of Tinseltown with a sneer. Nothing less could be expected from a man Paul Gallico described as, “tough, hard, mean, cantankerous, combative, foul, nasty, courageous, and filled at all times with bitter and flaming lust for battle.”
To say Hudkins was ornery was like saying Doc Holliday had a quick trigger-finger. “Ace lived up to my concept of what a prizefighter ought to be,” wrote Stan Windhorn. “He was dirty in the ring, a back-alley brawler out of the ring, and, to the best of my knowledge, Ace was never kind to anyone—not even his mother.” Hudkins was a walking, no, swaggering, firestorm who left charred ruins wherever he went. Indeed, during his heyday, Hudkins — who was the guest of honor at a minimum of three riots in his career — was suspended at one time or another in California, New York, Kansas, Illinois, Milwaukee, and even in his home state of Nebraska for, incredibly, conduct “detrimental to the best interests of boxing.”
Years later, after he had retired, Hudkins stalked the City of Angels with a sawed-off shotgun looking for trouble. He got it, too, for the same reason a Marsh Hawk always gets its prey — it was just something he was born to do. In 1933 Hudkins was shot twice in a cafe brawl that left him so close to death that obituaries had already been written up by the press corps, ready for printing. But he survived out of sheer contrariness.
In 1926 Hudkins, on the prowl, brought his special brand of cussedness East and was immediately matched with an 18-year old wunderkind named Ruby Goldstein.
Reuven "Ruby" Goldstein was born on October 7, 1907, in the Lower East Side of New York City. Desperate poverty — the Jacob Riis kind — blighted his childhood. His father died a few months before he was born; his mother sewed and took in laundry; his grandfather worked inhuman hours at a sweat shop for a pittance. Not even the $3 a month public relief chipped in to help the Goldstein family could make ends meet. Goldstein dropped out of school when he was fourteen years old and, after ditching a job as an office boy, turned to amateur boxing full-time to help his family pay the bills.
Goldstein, sad eyed and scrawny, showed remarkable ability and power at an early age. He was undefeated as an amateur and by the time he turned pro in 1924, underage at 17, Goldstein was already being compared to Benny Leonard. With smooth boxing skills and a right cross that doubled as a Howitzer, Goldstein won his first 23 bouts and became a hero to Jewish fans from Cherry Street to Pelham Parkway. “That was the Ruby Goldstein of 1925,” wrote Ted Carroll of The Ring, “a young fighter whose ability was almost unbelievable! Small wonder that Goldstein, during his brief heyday, was the greatest idol New York City ever had!” Just how popular was he? Dubbed “The Jewel of the Ghetto,” Goldstein was mobbed wherever he went, and his fights were nearly always sold out. Today it is nearly impossible to imagine, but Ruby Goldstein once drew over 40,000 fans to watch him slug it out with neighborhood rival Sid Terris at the Polo Grounds in 1927. It was a six-round bout.
Goldstein was on his way to a title shot when his manager, Hymie Cantor, decided one last tune-up bout was necessary. Incredibly, he chose Ace Hudkins for the role of patsy. Choosing Ace Hudkins to be a fall guy is like putting Leopold and Loeb in charge of the entertainment at a party. It was the biggest mistake Hymie Cantor ever made.
On June 25, 1926, Ruby Goldstein and Ace Hudkins faced off at Coney Island Stadium. Since neither participant was 21, the bout, by New York law, was limited to six rounds. Still, it was one of hottest tickets in town. By 1920 the Seabeach Line had been extended to Surf Avenue and the New West End Terminal had been built, allowing the New York City Subway system to deliver masses of underclass revelers to Luna Park and Coney Island Beach for five cents. It was the Nickel Empire, and Ace Hudkins was ready to conquer it. Around 15,000 fans paid to see their hero, Ruby Goldstein, go up against a red-headed sourpuss the likes of which New York sports had never seen before.
Hudkins, a 6-1 underdog, entered the ring wearing a short jersey sweat-shirt with, believe it or not, a popped collar. He was seconded by his brothers Clyde and Art, and the crowd booed the trio unmercifully. Goldstein, described by nearly every contemporary account as “cherubic,” followed to a deafening roar of cheers, accompanied by Cantor and two future corner superstars: Ray Arcel and Whitey Bimstein. Referee Patsy Haley gave the final instructions, and the two men returned to their corners. The bright lights of the Wonder Wheel could be seen beyond the stadium walls.
Within seconds of the opening bell, Goldstein dropped Hudkins with a straight right that landed with an explosive thud. “I knocked Hudkins down with my first punch,” recalled Goldstein. “A feint… a stab as he moved into me… then a right hand on the chin. He was hit so hard he rolled over.” But Hudkins, however, was mean and tough. He rose with a snarl, charged into Goldstein with both hands whipping, and rode out the first three minutes of a sensational slugfest. In the 2nd and 3rd rounds, the two fighters traded shots without pause, Goldstein sharper and more accurate with his fluid moves, Hudkins clubbing and chasing furiously. Although Hudkins took many more blows than he landed, he was relentless. “No matter how well I hit him, “ Goldstein wrote in his autobiography, “he seemed to be getting stronger. Then, near the end of the round, he nailed me on the chin with a looping right hand. I was hurt. I began to fall. The bell rang. I lurched toward my corner as Hymie and Ray and Whitey swarmed through the ropes to catch me.”
Goldstein came out for the 4th like a man who had been stuck on the Human Roulette Wheel overnight. Hudkins, smelling blood, moved in for the kill. An overhand right dropped a wobbly Goldstein to his knees. He beat the count, but was floored moments later by a hard uppercut. Once more Goldstein rose, and Hudkins, flaming hair and lips bared in a sneer, charged, crashing home a left hook that sent Goldstein reeling into the ropes, where he lay suspended horizontally for a moment, like something out of the Funhouse, before ricocheting back into the ring and onto his hands and knees. When Patsy Haley tolled “10” over Goldstein, he counted out both “The Jewel of the Ghetto” and his future as the most promising lightweight to emerge since Benny Leonard.
Goldstein was hit so hard that he had little recall of what happened to him after the knockout blow was landed. “I do not remember leaving the ring, although I was told that it was some minutes after I had been counted out and that I sat in my corner crying…” he wrote. “Even the picture of the dressing room when I returned to it is not clear, except that I was still crying. I was not hurting from the punches, but the grief and disappointment were too much for me.”
Goldstein was not the only one suffering from grief. Jack Conway in The Evening Journal reported: “The tears that Ruby Goldstein shed after he had recovered consciousness and realized he had been knocked out by Ace Hudkins were only the beginning of a weeping Niagara that has flooded Broadway. Ruby wept because his pride was hurt; the others because their bankroll was flattened.” It was said that the notorious gangster Waxey Gordon, who had a piece of Goldstein, took the biggest hit of all: a loss of $45,000, roughly half a million simoleons today.
Goldstein, not yet 19, was finished as a fighter after being mangled by Hudkins. He was so psychologically damaged that he skipped town the day of his comeback fight and somehow wound up in San Francisco, on the run from shame and humiliation. He returned to New York and continued fighting. “I didn’t have the zest for boxing,“ he wrote, “but it was a living—a better living than I could have made any other way.” A few big purses still followed: a 1st round KO loss to Sid Terris that netted him a payday of $22,500, a fortune in the 1920s, and a brutal KO defeat against lethal Jimmy McLarnin, who floored him three times. Goldstein went through the motions until 1937, finishing with a record of 54-6. All of his losses were by knockout. After World War II, Goldstein went on to become one of the most famous referees in history, but here, too, he found himself devastated: Goldstein was the third man the night Benny “Kid’ Paret died at the hands of Emile Griffith in 1962. Goldstein came back after two years of guilt, refereed one more fight, and never stepped into the ring again.
Hudkins became a villainous smash in New York City, drawing huge gates in fights with Phil McGraw and Stanislaus Loayza before heading back West to wreak havoc in a friendlier climate. Ace Hudkins, you see, was despised in all five boroughs of The Big Apple. “There was no love or even warmth in Hudkins,” wrote Stanley Weston. “He disgusted the press and the fans came out hoping to see him slaughtered.” Hudkins fought on until 1932, twice challenging Mickey Walker unsuccessfully for the middleweight championship and even going so far as fighting at heavyweight. Despite beating King Levinsky and winning the California State heavyweight title, Hudkins lost his edge with each pound he gained and hung up his gloves at 27. He finished his career with a record of 67-17-12.
Hudkins was in and out of trouble with the law for years after he retired, until a near-death experience, provided via bullet, settled him down. He bought a stable and then made a living supplying horses for movie Westerns. Then, Ace Hudkins being Ace Hudkins, he became a Hollywood stuntman.
Although he failed to win a world title, Hudkins would never be forgotten by New Yorkers who saw this pitiless red-headed discontent come out of the dying frontier, like the Bad Man from Bodie, step into the urban dreamland of Coney Island, and knock the living daylights out of a nice Jewish boy named Ruby Goldstein.
Ace Hudkins was about as savage as it gets in this sport, to put it plainly, he was a loose cannon. He's not a guy you wanted to mess with, he enjoyed fighting, whether it was in the ring or on the street. This appeared in a newspaper, just look at the guy, he was crazy.
This is a great book about Ace Hudkins, one of the most vicious and ruthless fighters in the history of the sport, he made Mike Tyson look like a choir boy.
Up next is one of my top favorite fighters of all-time, and a bonafide bad a.., the great middleweight Dick Tiger. A friendly man outside the ring, famous for his big smile, but when he stepped through those ropes, it was a different story. He was built solid as a rock and powerful, probably the strongest middleweight in the history of boxing, fighting him was like trying to go toe-to-toe with a school bus. About the only way you were going to beat Tiger was to stick and move, and try to stay the hell away from him as much as possible, if you chose to go inside and slug with him, you were going to get battered or taken out, shootouts with him never ended well. He liked to put methodical pressure on his opponents and counter them with big punches, he was immensely strong, possessed exceptional durability, endurance and determination, and had some of the quickest hands of any middleweight - particularly for a power puncher.
On Tiger's power, it was excessive, but not according to his knockout percentage, his lack of finishing ability and slow feet attributed to this, because otherwise he was a demon if you were in range. Though he could pounce on wounded prey, perhaps he lacked the accuracy or ingenuity to find the right shots to end the night. But he'd still bust you up. Simply put, Tiger was a true elite in one field - brawling. There's not one middleweight in history that I'd choose to out slug him. Adding to Tiger's dominant physical prowess was a tight defense - he wasn't necessarily skilled at slipping and countering in a Roberto Duran sense, however, his method of attacking made him slippery or at worst a very tough shell to break. Typically, Tiger would attack with technically sound and powerful hooks from both sides, ducking in between, then resuming a solid guard and balanced feet as returned shots bounced right off him. A deceptive jab often opened up opponents. unless you were crafty or fleet footed enough to avoid his shots and land your own, Tiger would beat you. Any kind of 160lbs brawler would likely be decimated - if not the victim of a knockout, then the victim of a very hurtful experience. Even so, his work rate and determination overcame some very savvy boxers, so I wouldn't be confident choosing anyone over him, much less even the greatest come-forward punchers. Tiger brutalized a very rugged era of middleweights, Dick Tiger was one of the hardest men this sport has ever known. Simultaneously, while winning titles at multiple weights, he fought in the Biafran Revolution in his homeland of Nigeria. A warrior in the truest sense, like Contra fighter Alexis Arguello.
This is testimony from a man that knew Dick Tiger personally and sparred against him.
Dick Tiger poses for Sports Illustrated.
I knew Tiger personally.
I was his paid sparring partner, often going from Rubin Carter’s training camp to his for more work. I drove alone with Tiger in my car to the Armory in Paterson, New Jersey, to watch Carter fight Johnny Torres one month before Carter’s bout with the former (and future) middleweight champion. Tiger wanted to scout Carter. It was all friendly, but the focus Tiger had in and out of the ring was chilling when he fixated on an opponent. His deadpan stare was reminiscent of Joe Louis and in stark contrast to his infectious smile and usual pleasant demeanor. I boxed many rounds with him in the gym, and his determination to hurt you – which was devoid of anger – was disconcerting. Tiger was 100 percent focused on your destruction once the bell rang.
Tiger fought the toughest middleweights and light heavyweights of his era, honing his skills while learning from any mistakes he made vs. fierce competition: middleweight champ Gene Fullmer (who he fought three consecutive times), light heavyweight champ Jose “Chegui” Torres (who he fought twice), former middleweight champs Nino Benvenuti and Terry Downes and contenders Roger Rouse, Frankie DePaula, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Florentino Fernandez, Jose Gonzalez, Henry Hank, Rory Calhoun, Wilf Greaves, Elsworth “Spider” Webb, and Randy Sandy.
Tiger faced them all and scored victories against each. He beat the hell out of most.
Those who chose to fight with Tiger at close quarters were broken down and made to quit or suffered so much damage that the referee would have to stop the fight.
The best chance to avoid getting hit with Tiger’s heavy left hook and vicious right hand was to jab, run and stay far away.
To me, Dick Tiger's most impressive win came against "Hurricane" Rubin Carter, a devastating punching middleweight in the 1960s that was convicted of triple murder and sent to Rahway State Prison only to later have his conviction overturned and be released. Rubin Carter was a vicious thug, he once bragged that while robbing a man on the street, he had stabbed the man everywhere except the bottom of his feet, and for what it's worth I believe he did in fact participate in, if not outright orchestrated, what took place at the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson New Jersey in 1966, when two armed gunmen entered the establishment and brutally murdered three innocent people. Rubin Carter loved violence and thought he was a real badass in the ring and outside of it, and in the ring he was, until he ran into a Dick Tiger.
My god Dick Tiger was granite in human form, here he is shown brutalizing Rubin Carter during their fight in Madison Square Garden.
Hit ‘Em Hard, Hit ‘Em Fast: When Roaring Tiger Blew Down Hurricane Carter At The Garden
Part of the fun of being youthful is that we know so little. Cold logic and cynicism has yet to be poured on our innocent picture book of life as we wander through each newly discovered wonderland and believe everything we see and hear. Like so many other young boys getting interested in boxing for the first time, my simple and thrilling yardsticks of new and exciting fighter were the vivid pictures and purple prose that came with them. Plenty of both came with Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter. To most people at that time, Sonny Liston was the most frightening fist fighter on earth. Liston seemed huge in that more gentle era, a giant among pygmies whose great bulk and brooding features spilled across the pages of every popular boxing magazine. No man could beat Sonny. Everyone said he was invincible.. Then I saw that picture of Rubin Carter. I was six years old and there he was, shaven-skulled and mandarin moustached, fists cocked and snarling as he towered over the stricken Florentino Fernandez at Madison Square Garden. Fernandez, one of the most vicious middleweight punchers of the day, had been shot down by a new gunslinger and was draped helplessly over the ropes as Carter hovered menacingly. Rubin had arrived on the big stage. Two knockdowns in one minute and nine seconds of action, and Florentino Fernandez was all done for the night. I kept looking at that wonderful picture, one pulsating moment captured forever. Carter was the most frightening man I had seen and the purple prose gushed in torrents as excitable scribes raved about the big hitter from Paterson, New Jersey. One veteran ringsider that night was quoted as saying, “This guy Carter would give Liston one hell of a fight.” Now, of course, ‘veteran ringsiders’ are never identified and are always extraordinarily present and plentiful at such times. One or two even claim to be the long lost, illegitimate sons of Jack Dempsey. But a young impressionable boy sucks up such tasty treats like a chocolate milkshake. Man, I thought, this guy Hurricane Carter is going to cut through the middleweights like a knife through butter. And for a while, that is exactly what mean old Rubin did. He was tailor made for TV, a wrecking ball of a puncher with an intimidating appearance that was almost unique in the sixties. With the likes of Bennie Briscoe and Marvin Hagler yet to come down the trail, Hurricane Carter had a virtual monopoly on the chrome-domed look. Like so many men with fearsome reputations, Carter seemed physically bigger than he was, much in the way of Liston. In fact Rubin stood just five-feet-eight and never had trouble making the middleweight limit, scaling between 155 and 158lbs on average at the peak of his powers. But he was a powerful man who could hit, the latest golden boy in boxing’s historically golden division. That snarl of Rubin’s was the snarl of a lion. But he would later meet a tiger that would feast on him at the Mecca of boxing and send him down a wholly different path. Fighting Much later on, when Rubin Carter stopped fighting in the ring and began the fight for his right to be a free man in his trial for the infamous Lafayette Grill murders, his past would come back to haunt him. As a teenager, he was convicted of assault and a stint in the Army failed to curb his wild ways. A 1957 conviction on robbery and assault charges resulted in a prison sentence, where his fellow inmates learned quickly that Rubin could do one thing very well: fight. Carter had impressed his coach on the Army boxing team, compiling an impressive record and a string of knockouts. Rubin made the decision to dedicate himself to the professional game and soon began to make significant strides. Making his debut in September 1961, he won his first three fights and then split a couple of decisions with Herschel Jacobs at the Gladiators Arena in Totowa. Rubin had moved his record to 10-1 by the time of his Madison Square Garden debut, which Ernie Burford spoiled by taking a decision from the Hurricane in June 1962. Carter gave us a hint of things to come just two months later when he avenged the Burford defeat with a second round TKO and followed up with a fifth round stoppage of Mel Collins. Rubin had just fourteen fights on his slate when he exploded in earnest by ripping apart Fernandez, but the best of the Hurricane’s fleeting fury was still to come, though not before a lull in the storm. Cooling his heels, Rubin failed to add to his knockout tally in his next six fights. He registered a couple of quality points wins over Holly Mims and Gomeo Brennan, but suffered an untimely backward step against tough cookie Jose Gonzalez, who opened a big cut over Carter’s right eye and stopped him in the sixth round. Rubin had to work hard in his next outing to take a split decision from the artful George Benton and had to go the full route again to bag a points win against Farid Salim. Then Carter ran into one of the great spoilers of the age. New York stylist Joey Archer was a thorn in everyone’s side in the mid to late sixties, a clever sharpshooter who could ghost his way around the big hitters and drive them to exasperation. Carter chased Joey all night long and certainly ran him close, only to come out on the thin end of a split decision. Rubin got the vote of judge Al Berl by five rounds to four, but referee Arthur Mercante and judge Tony Castellano sided with Archer. Carter’s career seemed to be spluttering after the Fernandez breakthrough, and Rubin was doing little more than treading water as 1963 drew to a close. From his frustration, he fashioned a bomb that stunned the boxing world. On December 20, at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, the Hurricane did a big loop and unleashed its full force. In just two minutes and thirteen seconds, Carter floored welterweight champion Emile Griffith three times for an automatic TKO. It was an awesome performance. Never before had the tough and wily Griffith been so obliterated. Emile’s hopes of moving up and challenging for the middleweight crown had been brutally swept away in less time than it takes to boil an egg. Carter was on a roll and now apparently unstoppable. Title shot Buoyed by the huge Griffith victory, Carter had moved up a gear and pushed himself into the top elite of the world rankings. In his next fight, he floored and outpointed future WBA heavyweight champion Jimmy Ellis, before heading west to destroy Clarence James in one round at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. Rubin had earned his spurs and secured his now famous fight with champion Joey Giardello. Those of you who saw the movie Hurricane will no doubt recall Hollywood’s fanciful version of Carter’s challenge. We see Giardello being royally pounded as Rubin (Denzel Washington) steams ahead to what seems a sure victory: only to be robbed by the officials. True? Not on your life. This was all grist to the Carter publicity mill at a time when Rubin was the hip cause for those who feel the compulsion to jump on every bandwagon that rolls into town. Rubin might well have been tragically wronged for the great many years that he languished in prison. But distorting the truth of other events never wins you any friends, whether your name is Rubin, Denzel or Fred. Not surprisingly, Joey Giardello was more than a little miffed by this impudent re-interpretation of one of his greatest wins. The facts are these: All three officials voted emphatically for Joey on that December night at the Convention Hall in Philadelphia, with scores of 72-66, 69-64 and 70-67. Giardello was also the overwhelming choice of the ringside reporters. It wasn’t a runaway victory, but I vividly recall the reports of the time and nobody was screaming that Carter had been unfairly treated. Rubin gave Joey a rough night, but it was the challenger who came up short. The second big myth perpetrated by the Hurricane movie is that Carter was in the prime of his fighting life when he and he and his alleged accomplice, John Artis, were arrested on suspicion of committing the murders at the Lafayette Grill. This is patent rubbish. By the time of the murders on June 17 1966, Rubin’s career as a fighter was seriously on the slide. It had reached its apex with the Giardello fight and Rubin never hit those heights again. Two fights in particular took the eye out of the Hurricane, two fights a month apart that he should have won comfortably against English journeyman Harry Scott. Scott was a tough man from the tough town of Liverpool, one of those quietly dangerous plodders who would lose two or three in a row and then pop up to spoil somebody’s party. Harry didn’t have much regard for other people’s reputations and he never took the ten count. He bulled into Carter in the same way that he bulled into everyone, and Rubin soon discovered that he was batting away at an immovable object. Scott was the George Chuvalo of the middleweights, possessed of feet that seemed to anchor him to the canvas. Trying to dislodge Harry was as fruitless a pursuit as attempting to uproot a fire hydrant with an uppercut. Carter was very lacklustre in the first fight and trailed on points before stopping Scott on a cut in the ninth round. In the return match, Rubin started fast and did indeed uproot the fire hydrant, if only temporarily. Decking Scott in the first round, Carter seemed set to put the record straight and get his faltering major league career back on track. But he didn’t. Rubin never did figure out the peculiar conundrum that was Harry Scott and lost the decision. Nothing dodgy about that verdict either! Now the word was going round that Rubin Carter was something of a bully- boy who wasn’t so fearsome in the face of adversity. Carter was now drifting, albeit still in the biggest ocean, and he badly needed to blow hot again and beat a big name. He got his chance against the one warrior nobody else wanted to fight. Dangerous Dick Tiger was a brooding and dangerous man by the time he got to Rubin Carter. A slow starter who had been plying his trade since 1952, Tiger had worked long and hard to climb the greasy pole and haul himself to the top. Starting out in his native Nigeria, Dick had fared well in his early fights but soon found the going a lot tougher when he moved his base of operations to England. For the life of him, he couldn’t string together a consistent run, losing four straight at one low point and appearing destined to be filed away as nothing more than a tough and reliable journeyman. But Tiger was a man of immense fortitude and perseverance. He kept plugging away and his fortunes took a dramatic change for the better when he made America his hunting ground. Dick fought the toughest available opposition, notching first class victories over Gene ‘Ace Armstrong, Hank Casey, Henry Hank and that quality contender of the era, Ellsworth ‘Spider’ Webb. Tiger hit the jackpot in November 1962, when he out-hustled the brawling Gene Fullmer to win the WBA middleweight crown at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Gene confused Dick and just about everyone else in their Las Vegas rematch by going against type and cheekily boxing his way to a draw. But Tiger saw off Gene in their rubber match to win the plaudits of the boxing press as a very formidable world champion. Then a couple of guys called Joey spoiled everything. Joey Giardello, who had earlier split a couple of decisions with Dick, went 2-1 over his old opponent by taking Tiger’s crown in December 1963. Giardello, a teak-tough and wonderful old pro, called on all his vast experience to finally land the big one after fifteen up-and-down years of campaigning. Tiger redoubled his efforts, confident of a quick return match with Joey. Dick beat Jose Gonzalez and took another swipe at the Fullmer family by outscoring Gene’s younger brother, Don. Then along came Joey Archer with all his infuriating smarts. Tiger never did excel against the clever men who could move and feint and dance. A year after taking a split verdict over Rubin Carter, Joey scalped Dick in the same fashion. Suddenly Dick’s long awaited return with Giardello seemed over the horizon and out of sight. Tiger was not at all happy with the Archer verdict. Not normally a greatly demonstrative man, Dick leaned through the ropes that night and made some very forceful comments about trying to win a fight in New York against a New Yorker. He rebounded quickly to savage the tough Rocky Rivero, but it was Rubin Carter who would sample Tiger’s most ferocious bite on the night of May 20 1965 at Madison Square Garden. Thrashing The thrashing that Dick Tiger administered to Rubin Carter couldn’t have been more single-minded or comprehensive. The breathtaking performance was arguably the masterpiece of Dick’s career, and he wasted little time in establishing his authority. He was the superior man in every department of the game and presented his first chilling evidence in the second round. He was pounding Rubin from a distance and pounding him just as emphatically at close quarters. A left hook suddenly dropped Carter for the mandatory eight count, and Rubin’s famous snarl was now blending with a wide-eyed look of disbelief. He had lost his share of fights in a tough life but nobody had batted him around like this. Carter wasn’t on his feet for long before another whiplash left hook put him over again just before the bell. Referee Zach Clayton counted to eight before realising the round had ended, and Rubin headed for the wrong corner before correcting his mistake in that certain unconvincing way that shaken fighters do. Carter was cautious in the third, employing his jab more and steering clear of Tiger’s left hook. Dick just kept stalking and punching, as if powered by a sure knowledge that he could not be beaten. If Rubin thought he had found sanctuary, his hopes were shattered in the fourth round. He was jabbing and moving nicely when Tiger found the mark with a left and a right to the head. Another right-left combination spilled Carter onto his back and now it seemed to everyone in the house that Rubin was on the way back to his dressing room. But the Hurricane wasn’t quite blown out. Bravely, Rubin met Tiger head-on in an exciting fifth round and began to outpunch his opponent for the first time. Carter fired off some tremendous blows to the head and body and Dick seemed hurt and a little confused by the sudden turnaround. But the Nigerian warrior was a tremendously tough and durable man. He had never been knocked off his feet and only the freakish Bob Foster would put him down for the count in his 81-fight career. Carter was done. Even before the fifth round was out, Tiger had resumed command, punching and whittling away with his ceaseless aggression. Rubin gave it one last try in the seventh, mastering Dick briefly in a two-fisted exchange, but Tiger launched a punishing body attack that had his foe wilting and on the verge of going down again. By the tenth and final round, Dick Tiger had people saying that he was the best middleweight on the planet, whatever the claims of Joey Giardello. Tiger closed the show in style against Carter, controlling the last of the exchanges to ease his way over the finishing line. It had been a thrilling and intriguing fight, despite its one-sidedness. Tiger hadn’t pitched a shutout but had done the next best thing on the scorecards of the officials. Referee Zach Clayton saw it 6-2-2 for Dick, while judges Jimmy Riccio and Johnny Dean tabbed the fight 9-1 and 8-1-1 respectively. After the fight, the two combatants would head off down very different roads. Dick Tiger would get his shot at Joey Giardello and regain the middleweight championship by way of an overpowering, unanimous decision just five months later. Rubin Carter would commence the longest fight of his career to prove his innocence in the ongoing investigations and trials of the Lafayette Grill murders. The original indictment charges against him and John Artis were finally dropped in February 1988, but neither man, to my knowledge, has ever been officially pardoned. Did they do it?
Dick Tiger was born Richard Ihetu in Nigeria and turned pro in 1952. Tiger campaigned in Nigeria and England and won the British Commonwealth middleweight title before debuting in the United States in 1959. Tiger was an aggressive counterpuncher. He would move forward and try to draw his opponent into an exchange. Tiger would then try to counter his opponents punches with bombs of his own. His knockout ratio doesn't show it, but he was an extremely hard puncher, relying on a devastating left hook to render foes unconscious. In 1962, Tiger exploded onto the American boxing scene by knocking out Florentino Fernandez, a bout in which he broke Fernandez's nose, and then decisioning Henry Hank. Those wins earned him a title fight against WBA middleweight champion Gene Fullmer, whom he would meet in three consecutive grueling fights. Tiger decisioned Fullmer in October 1962 to win the WBA middleweight title, drew with him in February of 1963 and earned recognition as undisputed champion with a TKO of Fullmer in August of 1963. That fight, staged in Nigeria, was Fullmer's last. Tiger dropped a decision to Joey Giardello in his first defense. But in a 1965 rematch with Giardello, he regained the crown with a points win. However, two fights later he lost the crown to welterweight champ Emile Griffith.
After the Griffith loss, Tiger moved up to light heavyweight ranks and won the 175-pound title by outpointing champion Jose Torres in 1966. Tiger, who was now 37, posted successful title defenses against Torres and Roger Rouse before losing the crown to Bob Foster on a fourth-round knockout in 1968, it was the only time Tiger was stopped in his career and it took the hardest punching light heavyweight in boxing history to do it. Tiger won three straight bouts, beating Frankie DePaula, Nino Benvenuti, and Andy Kendall before losing a rematch with Griffith in 1970. It was his last fight.
Dick Tiger had a chilling gaze when he stepped into the ring, he was totally focused on your demise.
I think it appropriate for a little music break, notice at the 0:19 mark in the video they show a brief image of Carmen Basilio throwing a punch, love it.
In 1962, Dick Tiger and Gene Fullmer met at Candlestick Park in San Francisco for the first fight of their trilogy. Gene Fullmer had been through some real wars and had seen his best days, his career was coming to an end, but he was still Gene freaking Fullmer, one of the toughest and most savage men to ever enter the ring, he wasn't going down without a fight. Fullmer fought the last 4 1/2 rounds in a familiar Fullmer pattern, he was cut and bleeding from gashes over both eyes, he was still flailing away with both fists at the final bell. But in the end, Tiger was just too much for him and the middleweight reign of Gene Fullmer came to an end.
THE TATTOOED TIGER FROM NIGERIA
THE TRIBAL SCARS ON DICK TIGER'S TORSO DIDN'T FAZE GENE FULLMER, BUT THE AFRICAN'S FIERCE ATTACK DID. NOW THERE IS A NEW AND CONVINCING CLAIMANT TO THE DISPUTED MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
The new middleweight champion of the world is an agreeable, stumpy man, tough as a thorn, who calls himself Dick Tiger. Across his dark chest and around his back is a sequence of dashes, like the dotted line you are asked to tear along. These are tribal tattoos, inflicted when he was a child. "I'm not old enough to know what they mean,"' says Tiger, mysteriously. "You have to be 40 or 50. We just stop that now, though. The young men don't like it. It's cruel to children."
Tiger's proper name is Richard Ihetu, he is 33 years old, and he comes from Nigeria (where there are no tigers). The first tiger he ever saw was mooning around a Liverpool zoo. The new champion was given his name by an imaginative Englishman who, upon watching him box, decided he pounced very much like a tiger. "I jump," Tiger explains. "A short jump. I thought it a good name and it is easy to pronounce. Everybody from Africa is mixed up with animals. I saw tigers in the movies, you know."
It was in the movies, too, that he saw the vast, heroic shadows of prizefighters and was inspired to quit his job as a delivery boy for a jewelry store in the city of Aba. "I became interested in boxing," he says, "and it has turned out very good. I've met a lot of good people. I grew up on a farm and we were very poor. If we were rich I don't think I become a fighter. But if I get plenty money I want my son to become a politician. I like the way they talk on television. I'm not clever enough to be a politician myself. I'm a prizefighter; otherwise, I know nothing."
Tiger's first opponents were more fancifully named than he—Lion Ring, Mighty Joe, Easy Dynamite, Black Power and Super Human Power—but not as worthy; he short-circuited Super Human and soon left for England. "There was a bookmaker in Liverpool of West African descent," says Jersey Jones, who, in time, became Tiger's manager. "He was bringing them in. They were novelties at first. They had no real promise. They started on what they had naturally: toughness, strength, guts." Fighting that first lonely, baffling winter of his life in the bleak cities—Liverpool, Blackpool, West Hartlepool—Tiger showed little ability.
"He kept running into a left jab," says Jones, sourly, "but he profited by it. Things don't come quickly to him but when he grasps them they're here to stay. I wasn't too damned enthused about taking him on. Little by little this thing is dying out. But I figured I could afford to gamble a little time."
It was a risk well taken. Last week, after 10 years of campaigning in which he won 47 of 61, Tiger roundly beat Gene Fullmer and rode about the ring in San Francisco's Candlestick Park on the shoulders of politicians: The Honorable J. M. Johnson, Minister of Labor, Social Services and Sport, and Mr. R.B.K.. Okafor, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. These strapping fellows wore native dress: embroidered caps and elaborately draped robes of pale hue over trousers rather like pajama bottoms. On admittedly scanty evidence it appears that if you're big in Nigeria you go in for politics; if you're small, like Hogan Bassey, the former featherweight champion, and Rafiu King, a new and highly rated featherweight, both of whom attended the fight, you go out for boxing. After Tiger was returned to earth, Bassey, King and the pols danced intently about the ring; a tricky shuffle and much brandishing of fists. The scene had a flair reminiscent of episodes in theirregular histories of Azania and Ishmaelia, emergent African nations that were irreverently founded some years ago by Evelyn Waugh.
Tiger, of course, is world champion only in those parts of the world accepting the dominion of the World Boxing Association, an organization that might as well have been created by Waugh, too. The WBA was, until recently, the National Boxing Association; it changed its name, as has been noted, by a stirring act of mimeograph. Paul Pender, who was to have defended his title against Jose Torres in Boston on November 2 (the fight has now been postponed), is the world champion of New York, Massachusetts and Europe. New York contrarily refuses to recognize the Pender-Torres fight as being for the championship. Torres isn't a fit opponent. If he wins they will have a meeting. New York commissioners get paid $79.55 a day when they have meetings. Great Britain dazedly recognizes Tiger as Empire champion and Pender as the world champion. California is not a WBA state but recognizes Tiger; it doesn't recognize Liston, however, so a big San Franciscan named Roger Rischer claims, byact of mouth, that he is the heavyweight champion. The WBA prohibits return-boutcontracts, but there is a contract calling for a return between Tiger and Fullmer. If it occurs, it will most likely take place in a WBA state. We may now be ready for another question: Why should it occur? From Promoter Norman Rothschild's standpoint, there isn't much reason—only 11,000 fans came to Candlestick Park. Even Lester Malitz, who had the theater-TV rights and did an excellent job of presenting the fight, lost a good deal of money.
All this is regrettable because the bout, although one-sided, was for the most part compelling and hard fought; it did get somewhat dreary, even painful, toward the close when it became evident that Fullmer, badly bruised and bleeding, couldn't win, but boxing isn't art and these are life's shortcomings as well. Gene was up against a man who was evidently stronger than he was, certainly as well-conditioned and who punched harder. Tiger is a counterpuncher of a curious sort—he leads. That is, he advanced on Fullmer but allowed Gene to set the pace. If Fullmer chose, as he did in the latter rounds, to throw punches infrequently, Tiger refrained from punching, too. But whether he was brawling, as he did early on, or circling and boxing, as he did later, Fullmer was overmatched.
As Jones said afterward: "Fullmer knows only two ways of fighting. One is to pile, crowd, push and pin an opponent to the ropes and maul away. The other is to back off and wait for an opponent to come to you. But when Gene tried to box he couldn't keep away from Tiger's jabbing, chopping left. And about every time he tried to close with Tiger he was beaten back with attacks to the head. Fullmer has to take a bad beating anytime he fights Tiger. Dick is a shorter, faster, straighter puncher."
Fullmer got his worst beatings in the fourth, ninth and 14th rounds, when Tiger, his eyes lightly suffused with blood, a condition that gave them an eerie, reddish, almost baleful look, battered him about the ring with alternating blows. Fullmer suffered deep cuts about both eyes, and a cut on the right side of his head. He bled copiously from the nose and mouth. After the ninth round, Referee Frankie Carter, having requested permission from Fullmer's corner, called a doctor in to examine Gene's wounds. It would have been sensible to stop the fight at that point; Fullmer didn't have a chance but, obedient to the old, unreasonable code of honor, he chose to carry on. Although Carter scored the fight most fittingly—he gave Fullmer only one round while both judges managed to come up with five—he should not be permitted to act as referee. He is too slow, too weak, too bemused. One California commission official said Carter was given the Tiger-Fullmer assignment for whatamounted to sentimental reasons. "Carter has never refereed a big title fight in California," he said, at the same time agreeing he was an ineffectual referee, "so we kind of thought we ought to give it to him." Boxing isn't in bad enough shape.
Tiger was unmarked after the fight. Promoter Norman Rothschild came despondently to his dressing room to congratulate him for knocking off his meal ticket. "Thank you, sir," said Tiger, graciously. "I hoped you enjoyed the fight, sir." Fat chance. "Yes," Tiger admitted, "Fullmer hurt me sometime. He's a strong man, hard to knock down. But I never expect him to run back. People want to enjoy a fight. It's no good if he run back. I never dreamed I'd be champion. No, I'm glad."
Fullmer looked a mess but he was wryly cheerful, too. "I sure can't fight him the same way next time and beat him," he said. "We'll have to change something. Why did I lose? He hit me more, I guess. One thing, though. I don't have any false beard with me."
In February 1963, in Vegas, Dick Tiger and Gene Fullmer met again in the second fight of their trilogy, Dick Tiger was a true warrior and believed that a champion caliber fighter deserved a rematch if he had lost. In the second bout Tiger was really challenged as Fullmer piled up an early lead and really took the fight to Tiger, but Tiger later came on strong, rushing in with wild swings that caught the tiring Fullmer. The fight was declared a draw and Tiger kept his title. Fullmer partially avenged his defeat because he wasn't beaten, and he definitely did well, coming as close as possible to beating Tiger and pushing him to a draw, Tiger really had to dig deep in that second fight.
This brings us to the third and final fight of the Tiger vs Fullmer trilogy, it was the end of the line for the great Gene Fullmer, "The Utah Cyclone", this would be the last fight of his legendary career, the showdown took place in Dick Tiger's home, Nigeria, Africa.
Dick Tiger and Gene Fullmer in Africa
Aug. 10, 1963: Tiger vs Fullmer III
It is often the case with dynamic brawlers who rely on physical strength, constant aggression, and a seemingly inhuman ability to absorb punishment that, like an engine habitually pushed beyond the red line, the physical toll accrues and the ability to perform abruptly and precipitously declines. A durable battler who just short years previous possessed the vigour and clout to defeat great champions like Sugar Ray Robinson and Carmen Basilio, suddenly slows, weakens, and becomes vulnerable. So it was for Gene Fullmer, who, at only 31 years of age, unexpectedly lost his middleweight championship to challenger Dick Tiger in San Francisco and in the process appeared a greatly diminished fighter.
That’s not to say a warrior as rugged and powerful as Tiger couldn’t have competed with a prime Fullmer. Tiger, whose real name was Richard Ihetu, is a two-time middleweight champion who defeated a long list of Hall of Famers including Joey Giardello, Rubin Carter, Joey Archer, Jose Torres and Nino Benvenuti, and no doubt had the goods to hold his own with virtually any middleweight in history. But it was obvious the Fullmer who lost to the Nigerian after fifteen one-sided rounds was not the same Fullmer who had scored big wins over Robinson, Basilio and Benny Paret.
Gene looked a bit better in the rematch four months later in Las Vegas, or at least good enough to salvage a draw, though yet another grueling, fifteen round battle did little good for the worn down springs in his legs and the fading sharpness of his reflexes. But the draw nicely set up a third Tiger vs Fullmer bout, one which became an historic event, the first ever world title match held on the African continent outside of apartheid South Africa. This was more than a decade before the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. Nigeria, a nation reeling from various political upheavals and internal strife, came together as one to cheer on their champion, with warring factions, temporarily at least, burying the hatchet.
The only real surprise of the night for American audiences was the enthusiastic reception given the former champion. “Fool-mah! Fool-mah!” chanted the massive throng as the “The Utah Cyclone” made his way to the ring. Evidently, his gallant stands against their countryman had made him the second most popular boxer in Nigeria.
The bout itself lacked drama, though not bruising action, albeit one-way, as Tiger’s advantages in strength and quickness were immediately apparent and soon blood was once again pouring down the side of Fullmer’s face. By the end of a brutal fourth round which saw Fullmer’s tenderized mug take a sustained beating, the former champ had cuts above and below both eyes, the gash above the right particularly nasty.
Tiger pursued his advantage, stalking his man, while Fullmer tried unsuccessfully to box from a distance, forced to adopt a style clearly unnatural to him. By the sixth the match had become a rout. Fullmer had no options; on the outside, when he jabbed and tried to protect the cuts around his eyes, he kept getting nailed by powerful right hands thanks to Tiger’s longer arms. On the inside, the champion pummeled Gene with heavy left hooks.
Spurred on by his countrymen, Tiger dished out a beating in round seven, hammering Fullmer from corner to corner. The challenger never stopped trying, never stopped fighting back, but all could see the contest had been decided. At the bell Gene walked haltingly back to his corner, as if uncertain of the floor beneath him, his expression one of weary resignation. Seconds later his manager signaled surrender. As the referee raised Tiger’s hand, joyous pandemonium erupted in Liberty Stadium and fans flooded through the ropes. It took half an hour for police to clear the ring.
“If you have to lose, it’s a pleasure to lose to a great fighter, sportsman and gentleman like Dick Tiger,” declared the gracious Fullmer, who was astonished by the tributes and adulation the Nigerian fans bestowed upon him. “There were at least a thousand fans waiting outside to cheer goodbye,” he marveled after his return to the United States. The poignant farewell could have been on behalf of the entire sport, for Fullmer, clearly one of the best middleweights of his time, never fought again.
Gene Fullmer was past his best years, and Dick Tiger was a mountain too high to climb, but that was Dick Tiger, he was a mountain, I don't think he had a mark on his face the entire trilogy. Tiger was only the second man in history to stop Fullmer, after the fight Fullmer was quoted as saying: "Tiger was a rough guy....I went to Nigeria to fight him, and, of course, I don't know what happened over there....He beat me. He beat me bad. My mother and father could have been judge and referee, and I couldn't have won a round."
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Mike McCallum vs Julian "The Hawk" Jackson. This fight took place in 1986, and this is probably Mike McCallum's most impressive win. At the time, Julian Jackson was undefeated and laying waste to everything in his path, Jackson is one of the hardest punchers in the history of the sport, his knockouts were horrific and when guys were hit by him, they often fell over like they were three sheets to the wind. Some people actually consider Jackson to be the hardest puncher in the history of boxing period. So when Mike McCallum signed up to fight Jackson, a lot of people thought Jackson might take him out, but we found out what McCallum was really made of as the opposite happened and he took out Julian Jackson in furious style. McCallum survived the kind of first round onslaught from the ferocious Julian Jackson that had sent lesser men to sleep. The thunderous Jackson, 29-0 (27) going in, started fast and visibly shook McCallum several times, in particular from a left hook. But McCallum remained calm under fire, countered expertly and refused to take a backward step. In the second round McCallum went to the head and body of Jackson with devastating effect. Jackson was forced to take a count and, upon rising, was subjected to a relentless two-fisted assault that persuaded the referee to rescue a woozy Jackson two minutes into the round.
Mike McCallum batters Julian Jackson against the ropes en route to a 2nd round stoppage.
The highlights of McCallum vs Jackson, one of my favorite fights. Jackson was on the warpath up to this point, he was literally annihilating everyone you put in front of him, the guy had bricks for hands. He came out very fast and tried to take Mike out, McCallum ate some bombs but God he had a great chin and once he realized Jackson couldn't hurt him he began to break Jackson down methodically with shots to the head and body, this is why McCallum is one of my all-time favorite fighters, just a beautiful display of the sweet science.
In 1987 Mike McCallum fought Donald Curry, aka "The Lone Star Cobra", Curry earned that nickname because he had lightning quick reflexes and hand speed to go along with good power. Donald Curry was one hell of a fighter, he's in the Hall of Fame for a reason, at his peak he was regarded as one of the best pound for pound fighters in boxing, in 1985 he shared The Rings Fighter of The Year honors with Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Quite simply put, Curry was great in his prime. This fight is still talked about to this day and would produce the knockout of the year in 1987, Donald Curry was having his way with Mike McCallum and outboxing him up until round Five, and then boom.
Donald Curry on the cover of Boxing News after being knocked out by Mike McCallum.
ON THIS DAY: MIKE MCCALLUM SCORES SENSATIONAL ONE-PUNCH KNOCKOUT OF DONALD CURRY
When “The Body Snatcher” defanged “The Lone Star Cobra.”
On July 18, 1987, Mike McCallum scored a devastating fifth-round knockout of Donald Curry to retain his WBA junior middleweight title at the Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion in Las Vegas. The official time was 1:14.
McCallum, who became Jamaica’s first ever world champion when he outpointed Sean Mannion (UD 15) for the vacant title in October 1984, was unbeaten in 31 fights with 28 knockouts. A terrific boxer-puncher, the 31-year-old McCallum had already defeated Luigi Minchillo (TKO 13), David Braxton (TKO 8) and Julian Jackson (TKO 2) in title defenses.
Since losing the undisputed welterweight championship, via stunning upset to Lloyd Honeyghan (TKO 6), Donald Curry had won two fights at 154 pounds. Strangely enough, both wins had come by way of disqualification, but the 25-year-old Texan was still considered among the finest pound for pound fighters in the world and he was installed as pre-fight favorite.
All was going to plan for Curry on fight night. He buckled McCallum’s legs with a devastating right near the end of Round 2 and boxed brilliantly over the first four. Despite sustaining some heavy swelling around the left eye, the challenger was ahead on points and looking comfortable.
Bang!
After releasing a jab-left hook combination at center ring, Curry moved back in a straight line with his right hand down. McCallum, who had held his feet and moved his head, seized the moment and followed a throwaway right uppercut with a perfect left hook that struck the challenger flush on the jaw.
“That was one of the best knockouts I ever had – it was a great knockout, a great fighter and a great fight,” McCallum told The Ring years later. “I went over it one or two times, same combination. I countered with a right uppercut and hook. That’s all it takes. That’s all I needed. I felt it in my hand.”
Curry, who dropped to 27-2 (19 KOs), didn’t come close to beating referee Richard Steele’s 10-rount.
A good account of the Mike McCallum vs Donald Curry fight.
Mike McCallum throws a right hand at Donald Curry.
On This Day: Mike McCallum flattens Donald Curry in five rounds
While he was still the unbeaten world welterweight champion, and regarded alongside Marvin Hagler as the best in boxing, Donald Curry agreed to step up in weight to challenge WBA light-middleweight boss, Mike McCallum. The bout was set for June 23, 1986 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, but before the contracts were signed, Curry had second thoughts about leaving his 147lb base. Within six months a weight-drained Curry was the victim of one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s, when he was trounced by Britain’s Lloyd Honeyghan in September 1986. After six rounds, an exhausted and bloodied Curry signalled he’d had enough. Curry moved up to light-middleweight for his next bout. By April of 1987, he had scored two comeback victories over useful duo Tony Montgomery and Carlos Santos. Both were disqualification wins that came in round five. The victory over Santos, a former IBF champion, was held in a temporary outdoor arena at Caesars Palace that had been erected for the Sugar Ray Leonard-Marvin Hagler bout that would take place two days later.
Curry already had some beef with Leonard and his attorney, Mike Trainer. Curry claimed he had previously asked the duo for advice on moving up in weight to challenge McCallum or Hagler, and they had told him to stay at welterweight. Weeks later, Leonard announced he was coming back to challenge Hagler. Curry filed a lawsuit stating: “Leonard and Trainer conspired to prevent Curry from entering the middleweight divisions to assure Leonard’s unobstructed opportunity to fight the middleweight champion.” On the same day that the suit was filed, Leonard scored a sensational victory over Hagler. “The Lone Star Cobra” decided to take on McCallum on July 18, 1987. The bout was again set for Caesars Palace, but this time, the fight took place. Curry – still regarded as one of the game’s premier fighters and the Honeyghan loss widely dismissed as a fluke – was installed as a 2-1 favourite. Despite being the underdog, McCallum’s purse of $475,000 was greater than Curry’s $425,000 bounty. The champion, not normally a fast starter, planned to jump on Curry early. “I have studied him,” said McCallum. “He has a great right hand and a good hook. Let’s see if he can handle the pressure and my body shots.” That “great right” almost floored McCallum in the second round. The champion dipped before steadying himself and would later say it was the closest he ever came to going down. Curry, boxing beautifully, was ahead on all cards going into the fifth but McCallum sensed the tide had turned in his favour. “The Bodysnatcher” had been firing menacing blasts into Curry’s midsection that he was increasingly desperate to defend. As the fifth began, McCallum had a plan…to start the round, McCallum launched a right to the body and, as Curry moved to cover, a gentle left hook to the head landed innocuously. McCallum noted the success. Later in the round, he feinted with a right to the body and Curry tried to cover, and leaned away. He did not see the hook flying towards his head. This time, McCallum had loaded the shot with everything he had. Curry took the full force of the blast and collapsed. The fight was over. It remains one of the best one-punch knockouts of all-time.
McCallum vs Curry highlights, the knockout of the year in 1987.
Now let's talk about the first loss of Mike McCallum's career, it came at the hands of Sumbu Kalambay in 1988, and this was the only defeat that Mike McCallum suffered in his prime, the other four losses on his record came at then end of his career when he was well past it. Sumbu Kalambay was a hell of a fighter, and he belongs in the Hall of Fame, it's a damned disgrace and a shame that he's not in. Sumbu Kalambay was a handful, he had great movement, great defense, he pumped his jab out there like a Piston engine, and it came at you hard and fast. He also a great counterpuncher and threw good combinations at you and they came out of nowhere quickly with some serious pop. When McCallum fought Kalambay in 1988, you have to hand it to Kalambay, he put on a masterclass against McCallum and handed Mike his first loss, Kalambay was just a handful to deal with. Here are the highlights from that fight.
In 1991, Mike McCallum set out to avenge that loss to Sumbu Kalambay, the first loss of his career and the only loss in his prime, and it was a close fight but McCallum did just that. This is a scientific analysis of how McCallum went about avenging that loss. I apologize for not being able to post the videos that go along with the article. This is why I love this sport more than any other, there's just nothing like it.
Mike McCallum (left) and Sumbu Kalambay in their second fight.
Mike McCallum vs Sumbu Kalambay II: Best of a Generation
The Loss
Within the annals of combat sports, records are viewed as a sacred measurement for evaluating fighter ability and success. Because combat sports revolve around individual competitions, it’s understandable why wins and losses matter so much. Even though there is an issue whereupon it’s forgotten whom the fighter fought and why the context of that fight matters, you cannot strictly diminish the significance of winning and losing, especially in how it affects the fighters themselves. The very point of competitive sports is to win - and the consequences of losing often serve as the equivalent of having to start from scratch and redo a step. And, even if they don’t have to take that step again, the disappointment is real. Ultimately, anyone who loses wants to get one back.
By 1991, WBA middleweight titleholder Mike McCallum had suffered only one defeat in a bout that was far from close. Over the course of twelve rounds, a superb outfighting performance played havoc on McCallum’s expectations. He was never close to being knocked out, but McCallum could not establish momentum beyond one punch at a time; he was thoroughly humiliated and schooled by one of his division’s hidden prodigies, Sumbu Kalambay. Now, nearly three years removed, McCallum found himself facing Kalambay in Monte Carlo’s Stade Louis II, looking for his revenge.
Between that time, things had changed. McCallum had gone on a tear, besting some exceptionally difficult pugilists and finding himself the titleholder of Kalambay’s belt. Kalambay bested Robbie Sims and gave an outmatched Doug DeWitt a beating, but then he found himself on the receiving end of the greatest win of Michael Nunn’s career. In what remains an anomaly, Kalambay was knocked by a left counter on the centerline - the only knockout loss of his whole career. Nunn was no special puncher, but he threw the finest punch of his life that night. Kalambay worked himself back up though, motivated to win a title back. A former, defeated foe stood in his wake.
With both men driven by hunger and loss, the stage was set for one of the greatest fights the boxing ring would ever see.
Before proceeding any further, I would recommend reading my breakdown of the first contest between these two here.
Vengeance is Best Served Cold
Mike McCallum learned his lesson: To beat Kalambay, persistence alone was not enough; he needed to ensure that he had the ring generalship to control Kalambay. It would require the most disciplined fight of McCallum’s career in ways all of his others beforehand simply didn’t. With arguably boxing’s greatest coach at his side, the legendary Eddie Futch, McCallum proved from the opening bell to the final exchange that he was not here to play.
McCallum is in the black trunks. Kalambay is in white with red stripes.
The greatest issue of McCallum’s game was that he lacked the footwork to keep up with Kalambay. While this is not particularly damning due to the former champion’s mastery of the outside game, McCallum needed to have the lateral movement to cut Kalambay off. This time, there was nothing overaggressive about McCallum’s new pressure here - it was practical, methodical, and consistent.
Effective ringcutting involves understanding that you don’t need to take enormous steps to meet your opponent; rather, by taking a small step or pivot, you meet their movement instead of following them or have to reset your feet consistently. One noticeable trait of good ringcutters is how they can operate at a longer range. These fighters do not need to threaten their opponent with proximity alone, they just need to make them overthink which places are safe to be in. The goal of a good ringcutter is control.
With McCallum, he recognized that he had a reach advantage over Kalambay - that, because he was coming forward, the latter had to either play the matador or take a risk and step in. Because McCallum was no longer following Kalambay into counters, he could assess Kalambay at distance, cut him off and then pin him. The onus was now on Kalambay, with his two options, to figure out how to navigate this new dynamic while McCallum kept his momentum going.
Of course, McCallum still had to contend with a rarity: That Kalambay was one of the few fighters with a comparable (and sometimes even better) lead hand than himself. However, Kalambay himself had already given McCallum the answer from their last meeting: In a duel of lead hands, the person who controls the positioning and punishes the other’s initiative will win. McCallum already was seizing control of the ring, now he could act and build behind his own jab - touching Kalambay at range while leaving him less space. Because Kalambay stood in a more compact stance with his hands closer to his body, his range was shorter than McCallum’s and he would need to step in for his jab to connect.
McCallum then endeavored to nullify Kalambay’s jab. Because Kalambay had less room to move, he was forced to stand his ground. When Kalambay jabbed, McCallum’s rear hand would catch the jab and use that moment as a trigger to counter jab.
Kalambay eventually had to step in to establish some momentum and was quickly reminded of why he looked to avoid any inside exchanges with McCallum in their first meeting.
But McCallum had more than just his trademark body attack. He had preset counters for Kalambay prepared. The Italian native preferred to create his entries behind his jab while dipping, but he had to step in on the taller champion to do so; therefore, McCallum chose to pull and blast Kalambay with an uppercut as the latter made his entry.
Eventually, the former champion found himself backed into the ropes, where he realized that was an even worse place to be.
In their first meeting, Kalambay would take advantage of McCallum’s close pursuit to escape being trapped, but he didn’t have that luxury here. Now, he had to shell up. Kalambay’s cross-arm defense behind shoulder rolls and upper body movement would make any pugilist struggle to find an opening, but McCallum had his man scouted.
Cross-arm guards typically cover the front side of the body whilst the rear hand is posted near the forehead in case the shoulder defenses fail. McCallum would touch with lesser shots, such as his jab to manipulate Kalambay’s guard and force him to cover up. Once he did so, Kalambay’s lead side was exposed for a short right to the body. If he attempted to shift around, he risked opening his rear side up to McCallum’s left hook.
Kalambay’s defense on the ropes still held up regardless, but being pinned there was an enormous dilemma.
Returning to the topic of threats, there are several important subtleties McCallum accomplishes with the above while remaining cognizant of what Kalambay can offer at any time. I already pointed out the distance McCallum operated at and why, but it’s equally important to note that McCallum never stops feinting. Whether it be the aforementioned series of counters or directional half-steps, McCallum showed that he understood that, when confronted by such a mobile, active feinter, you cannot fall into their rhythm - you enforce your own. Ostensibly, when overviewing McCallum’s gameplan, the number of actions made is quite low. However, why McCallum is successful is because each tactic was allocated to target and respond to Kalambay when they actually mattered. Let’s review this relationship of action-reaction:
Kalambay wants to move laterally - McCallum cuts him off at distance.
Kalambay wants to jab - McCallum jabs back or threatens with the cross counter.
Kalambay wants to step in - McCallum has preset counters ready.
Kalambay is passive - McCallum continues to feint, pressure, and so on.
Kalambay feints - McCallum maintains his distance, continues feinting himself, presses and cuts the ring.
The best fighters recognize what their opponent offers them and coordinate responses to ensure they are rendered ineffective. Once they do so, they can build upon their own successes and become more potent. In other words, depth isn’t necessarily dictated by how many things a fighter does; rather, it’s how much they can do with each of their weapons. The greatest ring generals epitomize this principle - and I struggle to think of any examples where Mike McCallum demonstrated his knowledge and depth better than he did here.
E.g. Even when Kalambay was attempting to break through McCallum’s defenses, the latter’s gameplan was flexible enough to adjust. In the first clip, Kalambay attempts to keep the jab battle going to set up the right. In the second clip, less than half a minute later, McCallum choses to pivot away from the jab battle to keep his lead hand in charge.
To paraphrase, Kalambay is now trapped: The corners and ropes are too dangerous and McCallum has command of the distance. Kalambay no longer has a choice; it’s a necessity to come forward as much as possible.
And yet, Kalambay still was far from done. He had taught McCallum a lesson that was being turned back on him. But one of boxing’s most underrated ring wizards still had a few tricks up his sleeve.
The Cornered Fox
With his only real choice being restricted to taking risks, Kalambay conceded that he had to get to work even if it meant being too close to the fire. It was here that Kalambay realized that McCallum’s gameplan, as well executed as it was, had one flaw: Much of what McCallum was doing was in response to what Kalambay was doing. In other words, McCallum was seizing the initiative consistently, but he was also deliberately giving Kalambay some allowances in order to punish him for them immediately.
It takes a second to see what the problem was, but: Kalambay had too much depth to his game to be completely pinned down and McCallum knew it, so the latter narrowed his focus to set responses to set actions. But that means that not every option Kalambay has is shut down. And inch by inch, someone with Kalambay’s craft could turn those marginal differences into enormous yields.
Kalambay’s lead hand had shown its handiwork in their previous fight, but I would argue that its true versatility was demonstrated here. McCallum had chosen set ranges to operate? Then Kalambay could still afford to jab, at the very least, to measure and feel his way with range. Once he could do that, he began to manipulate McCallum’s timings and triggers in numerous ways.
A jab may well be the best rhythm-manipulation tool in the entirety of striking-centric pugilism because the depth of its utility is virtually unmatched. Part of that is because most strikes have limitations upon where they can hit and how quickly they can be used. The jab, while punishable if used in too much excess, can be used on any singular target for different effect at almost any time.
To simplify, Kalambay here jabs at any and every part of McCallum that he can to experiment with rhythm. He changes levels between body and head; he jabs at McCallum’s chest to change his forearm placement; he jabs in open air to keep distance or while moving; he even jabs at McCallum’s rear hand on purpose to draw the counters out.
Subsequently, Kalambay attempted to keep McCallum circling like he had in their previous bout as much as possible. One way to deal with a ringcutter is to keep them following or turning. With McCallum’s commitment to outjabbing Kalambay, the latter could keep the former trapped in the same circular jabbing exchanges until he could break the pattern and find his moments.
But the tactics from said first fight were not going to be enough to fully disable McCallum’s new ring generalship. Kalambay had to tighten up his footwork in some way. With his jab already putting in the work keeping McCallum guessing, he paired it with misdirections to force McCallum to reset and follow instead of acting cutting him off.
Kalambay adamantly never stopped jabbing with McCallum even at the risk of a counter. Eventually, he could identify the danger zones for said counters and when they were coming.
With everything Kalambay has done here, he starts overloading McCallum with data. McCallum now is concerned with the expectations of what Kalambay can do, which dulls the timing on his counters and mitigates the effectiveness of his pressure. And that’s when Kalambay lets his offense flow.
In this compilation, watch how Kalambay’s aforementioned tactics keep McCallum reactive and then drawn into the dynamics Kalambay wants - then Kalambay executes a surprise offense.
However, Kalambay found that he could never escape being cut off completely. But, a level change in response to McCallum’s jab gave him the answer that he needed.
In a closed stance matchup, one way to step inside on your opponent is an outside slip off of their jab. Kalambay discovered he could time McCallum’s with a short right to the body.
The step-in short right wasn’t simply just meaningful offense, it let Kalambay have an answer to McCallum’s inside work. Because he stepped in with the right, Kalambay could posit his right shoulder adjacent to McCallum’s chest and place his head under McCallum’s to break his posture or to smother him in a clinch. Invaluably, this managed to shut down McCallum’s offense when Kalambay had his back to the ropes.
Kalambay also found offensive potency off of his smothering tactics: Namely, by using the overhand right instead of the short right, he could catch McCallum on entry just as much as he could smother him. Moreover, he could even follow up by breaking the tie-up with a followup hook.
And when Kalambay combined his smothering tactics with his upper-body movement, his defenses were sight to behold.
Sumbu Kalambay had been an incredible teacher; however, Mike McCallum was not just a student anymore. Teacher and student were now peers.
Stalemate
“This is no blood and thunder war, but in terms of technical skill and quality, this is a very, very fine fight indeed.”
— IAN DRAKE, END OF ROUND 9
The one thing Kalambay couldn’t do in both meetings was put his man on the backfoot. And McCallum, once he started meeting resistance, showed that he was not the same deer in the headlights as he was in the first bout. Instead of being overwhelmed, McCallum dug in his heels and chose to push back.
Kalambay’s bravery stepping in was a testament to his will to win, but McCallum put his namesake on display as he tore Kalambay’s ribs up as a vicious reminder where his home turf was.
Because Kalambay was stepping in frequently, McCallum chose to meet him with his own level change or intercepting shovel uppercuts to the body - the perfect way to punish an opponent with a lower base. He then built off of this level change with a ruthless, systemic dissection of Kalambay’s midsection. But that wasn’t all. McCallum would apply some new counters to keep his man on the retreat.
In particular, McCallum chose to use his left hook to not only prevent Kalambay from exchanging back on the inside, he would lever punch with it off of or into his body work. Kalambay had no choice but to reset and McCallum could resume his pursuit once more.
Weaponizing his reach advantage, McCallum would post with his left arm to keep his challenger moving backwards and set him up for his harder shot selections. On the ropes, it proved invaluable, especially behind frames. But its real purpose was to act as a workaround to Kalambay’s shoulder defense tactics. Although Kalambay could punch over McCallum’s arms when he framed, he would have to risk being closer and be exposed to more body shots.
To counteract Kalambay’s own pressure and proximity threats, McCallum would actively pull himself back and pivot behind his jab and a counter left hook to keep his momentum going if Kalamaby attempted to turn him or to command the directional battle.
What followed were rounds where every second mattered and, with peerless urgency, the champion and challenger fought like it. The adjustments, the countermeasures, the risks - the bout was being waged to the point that these aspects were seamless and nonstop. Neither fighter could stamp their authority without the other crafting a comeback moments later. The margins were too thin and both boxers were too good.
The fight reached its zenith at the end of the tenth where every single dynamic came into play in a blistering sequence of fighting:
1) McCallum’s measured pressure behind the jab and stiffarm posting is on display to pressure Kalambay.
2) Kalambay attempting to use his smothers and counter hooks to break the tie-ups and close the door on McCallum’s pressure while exhibiting incredible upper body defenses.
3) McCallum’s step-in body work and guard manipulation keeping Kalambay pinned consistently.
By the championship rounds, both men had exhausted their options, so old ideas were recycled or even taken from one another on the spot. Both would attempt to create a longer exchange with the jabs; they would step in behind level change counters; traps reestablished behind the jabs - in this sort of contest, everything was fair game.
Retrospective
Thirty-six minutes painted a picture for anyone watching: This one was too close to call. And, even upon rewatches, this is the exact sort of fight whereupon actually picking a winner seemed counterintuitive. Still, it took every ounce of his wits and the full extent of his skillset, but Mike McCallum had avenged his only ring defeat.
To those who’ve given their all to the fisticuffs, redemption isn’t a regularity. Whether it be that fighters are held within the predatory chain of matchmaking or their better simply has their number, losing can beget cruelty. That is, losing is looked down upon in combat sports - it is often a statistical value of condemnation. But I think the relationship between a loss and redemption has more to it.
Losing is a chance to reinforce perseverance. It’s a chance to reflect and rebuild - to try again. Attempting to redeem oneself from a loss though? Win or lose, you get the chance to prove how much your perseverance mattered.
Mike McCallum vs Sumbu Kalambay II did have a winner and loser, if only by a razor’s edge, yet no one who has seen this bout I feel would truly hold the results against the careers of both men. In the aftermath of his most haunting defeat, McCallum was given the chance to prove how special a fighter he really was by storming out of the gate and showing what one could argue was the most disciplined performance of his entire career. And, in his own defeat, Kalambay left his mark as one of his generation’s finest underachievers. As far as this writer is concerned, no one truly had Kalambay outskilled at his peak, but McCallum gave it as good an effort as anyone could. It was a technical masterpiece that could only have been waged between two of the finest the ring had ever seen.
Months later, Mike McCallum would meet the prestigious James Toney for a twelve-round draw that is marked as one of boxing’s prized showcases. The bout in question was magnificent and elevated both men’s standing. Perhaps controversially, however, I would argue that McCallum’s battle with Kalambay was every bit as good - and perhaps even better because it truly showed what two fighters at the peak of their powers could do.
As far as combat sports history goes, anyone would struggle to find many duels waged on this level.
Mike McCallum and Sumbu Kalambay are both all-time great ring technicians, and I'll say it again, it's a crying shame that Kalambay isn't in the IBHOF. Some of the exchanges in that second fight were breathtaking, a hardcore chess match between two chess masters. This would not be Mike McCallum's last chess match, a few months later, McCallum would fight James "Lights Out" Toney in another classic battle between two all-time great ring technicians.
One quick thing here that I forgot to mention about Mike McCallum, he was very good at slipping punches, as you can see in this gif, he slips a counterpunch from Michael Watson, and immediately capitalizes by digging to the body, just a damn good ring technician.
Up next is a classic for any true boxing fan, in 1991, Mike McCallum met James "Lights Out" Toney for the first fight of their trilogy, McCallum was past his prime but still a formidable for. If you're not familiar with James Toney, he is an all-time great in this sport, he was nicknamed "Lights Out" because that's what he did, he turned his opponents lights out, he could seriously crack. On top of that, much like McCallum, James Toney had a cast iron chin, and much like McCallum, Toney was never stopped in his entire career, which consisted of 92 fights. At that time, Mike McCallum was already a legend in the sport and James Toney was unbeaten and making quite a name for himself, he had just iced Michael Nunn in a thrilling come from behind win and he was on a rampage. One thing about James Toney, he had a mean streak, he didn't play around when it came to boxing, he was there to take you out and made no bones about it, I'll get into him more later in the thread. If you haven't seen McCallum vs Toney 1, you should if you're a real fan of scientific technical boxing, it won fight of the year honors for a reason, it was a classic chess match between two all-time great ring masters.
Mike McCallum digs to the body of James Toney during their first fight.
Reliving the legend: James Toney vs Mike McCallum I
A significant subplot that can provide additional intrigue to a fight is when a young lion battles an established, highly accomplished veteran. This was the case when James "Lights Out" Toney and Mike "The Bodysnatcher" McCallum faced each other on December 13, 1991 at Convention Hall in Atlantic City New Jersey.
YOUTH VERSUS EXPERIENCE
Toney (28-0-1, 20 KO) came into this contest as the reigning IBF middleweight champion. The pride of Ann Arbor, Michigan won the belt with a shocking Eleventh-round upset of the previous long-reigning IBF champion, Michael Nunn, in May of 1991. Outside the ring, Toney was fiery and combative. But once the bell rang, the then 23 year old was composed and had a style that reminded observers of a foregone era. However, pundits still questioned how good of a fighter he was.
He faced a McCallum (42-1, 34 KOs) in search of a high-profile showcase fight. The pride of Jamaica came into prominence in the mid-1980s in the era of what was known as the big Four: Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, and Roberto Duran.
McCallum craved fights with any of those Four men, but he was burdened with the label that no boxer wants to have and that was a fighter who is high-risk/low-reward. As a result, the big Four conveniently avoided him.
Despite that disappointment, McCallum went on to win world titles at 154 and 160. Pundits at the time viewed the 34-year old as one of the best fighters of the decade. When presented with the opportunity to fight Toney, McCallum jumped on it without hesitation.
As an aside, this fight was to be a middleweight unification contest. McCallum was the WBA middleweight champion. But days before the bout, the WBA stripped McCallum of the title when he refused to pay additional sanctioning fees.
BRINGING OUT THE BEST IN ONE ANOTHER
What made this fight special was the quality of the action from beginning to end. McCallum was excellent at establishing the jab, landing with right hands up top, and making Toney miss in the first couple of rounds.
Starting in the third, Toney found his range. Cool as a cucumber, the IBF champ tagged the Bodysnatcher with counter right hands and left hooks.
The middle rounds saw McCallum gain some momentum. His experience came into play as he used more side-to-side movement, boxed, and did some countering of his own. Toney landed his pound of flesh, especially the right hand. Entering the championship rounds, this one was up for grabs.
It was at this moment that Toney poured it on. He appeared to be the fresher man and picked up the pace in the final two rounds. The champ threw with more force, landing the cleaner and harder shots. Midway through the final round, a Toney left-hook wobbled McCallum.
Sensing a warrior that was wounded, Lights Out went for the finish. But McCallum's toughness and experience helped him make it to the final bell. In the end, the bout was scored a Split-Decision draw (116-112 Toney, 115-113 McCallum, 114-114).
Toney and McCallum fought each other Two more times. In August 1992, Toney defeated McCallum by a majority decision. Their trilogy bout ended up with Toney winning by a unanimous decision in February 1997. However, their first match was the best of the three, by far.
Due to Toney's stoppage win over Nunn and performance against McCallum, pundits named him the fighter of the year for 1991. Toney went on to win world titles at super middleweight and cruiserweight. McCallum went on to win a world title at 175. Both men were eventually inducted into the boxing hall of fame, and James Toney - Mike McCallum I was one of the great fights of the 1990s.
One more Mike McCallum fight I forgot to mention was his fight with Michael"The Force" Watson in 1990. If you're not familiar with Watson, he was nicknamed "The Force" because he was strong as a bull, Watson had just beaten Nigel "The Dark Destroyer" Benn, a violent fighter with devastating power, in one of the wildest, most apocalyptic fights you'll ever see, I'll talk about that later in the thread as well as the sad ending to Watson's career. But in 1990, McCallum and Watson met and it was a pretty good back and forth fight, McCallum got in some good body shots that wore Watson down as the fight progressed. Watson had his moments and landed some big shots but McCallum outboxed Watson, controlled most of the fight, and stopped Watson in the 11th round, the stoppage came more from exhaustion than any heavy punches being landed.
Mike McCallum stops Michael Watson in round 11 .
Mike McCallum talks about his career and the best opponents he faced.
MIKE MCCALLUM’S GREATEST HITS: THE BODY SNATCHER
BY ANSON WAINWRIGHT |
Editor’s Note: This feature originally appeared in the February 2020 issue of The Ring Magazine.
Mike McCallum fought his way out of obscurity in Jamaica to the top of the boxing world. However, for much of his career, the highly skilled boxer-puncher was deemed too much risk versus not enough reward and was one of the most avoided fighters of his era.
McCallum was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on December 7, 1956. He was an only child and enjoyed life on the island before finding boxing at 15 years old.
“I went to church every Sunday with my mom and dad,” McCallum told The Ring about his early years. “I went to school and I came home, played around with the other kids.
“I got into a few fights, and one time I went to a boxing club in the neighborhood that was well-known in Jamaica. I started throwing punches. I didn’t know anything about boxing. One guy said, ‘Mike, do you see that? You’re natural.’”
McCallum went on to become a decorated amateur. He represented his country at the 1974 World Championships and 1976 Olympics and won gold at the Commonwealth Games in 1978. He hoped to go the 1980 Olympics, but those aspirations were cut short due to appendicitis. He posted an impressive 240-10 amateur record before turning professional in early 1981.
The legendary duo of George Benton and Eddie Futch helped fine-tune McCallum from there. “They were both geniuses,” he said.
McCallum marched to 21 straight wins before meeting Sean Mannion for the vacant WBA junior middleweight title on the undercard of Marvin Hagler-Mustafa Hamsho in the fall of 1984. McCallum boxed superbly and won a unanimous decision. He would defend the title six times against the likes of David Braxton (TKO 8), Julian Jackson (TKO 2) and Donald Curry (KO 5).
“The Bodysnatcher” hoped he could lure one of the Fab Four (Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran) into facing him, but to no avail.
“I don’t think; I know,” he said when asked if he felt he was avoided. “I made a big mistake. I went to train with Emanuel Steward, Thomas Hearns, Milton McCrory and all them guys. I fought Braxton, McCrory and sparred Thomas Hearns. They knew how good I was and didn’t want to fight me or spar me (afterward).”
McCallum vs. Curry
McCallum abdicated his throne and stepped up to middleweight, heading straight to Italy to face Sumbu Kalambay for the WBA crown in March 1988. Although McCallum was the pre-fight betting favorite, he was unable to get a handle on Kalambay, a stick-and-move specialist, and lost for the first time.
Undeterred, McCallum got back to winning while waiting for his next opportunity. It came when Kalambay was stripped for facing Michael Nunn over mandatory challenger Herol Graham, who instead faced McCallum for the vacant title. McCallum won a hard-fought split decision to become a two-weight titleholder. He then bested Steve Collins (UD 12) and knocked out Michael Watson before exacting revenge on Kalambay via split decision.
Attempting to gain the IBF middleweight title, McCallum fought rising star James Toney twice in the early 1990s, and although both fights were close, the 35-year-old veteran drew and lost a majority decision. McCallum became a three-weight titleholder when he edged Jeff Harding for the WBC light heavyweight belt in the summer of 1994 and made one successful defense before losing his title to Fabrice Tiozzo.
In his two final bouts, McCallum lost a unanimous decision to a prime Roy Jones Jr. as well as the rubber match against Toney before retiring at the age of 40. He walked away with a record of 49-5-1 (36 KOs). He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2003.
McCallum, now 62, lives in Las Vegas, where he is a key figure in the training camp of rising lightweight star Devin Haney. Here’s what he had to say about six of his most memorable nights in the ring:
SEAN MANNION
October 19, 1984, Madison Square Garden, New York • Titles: WBA junior middleweight
“I keep asking myself why (Leonard, Hagler, Hearns and Duran) didn’t fight me. I have no answer. If they had fought me, it would have been the Fab Five. It was very frustrating. I was mad at everybody. I didn’t want to see nobody. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. Why didn’t they want to fight me? I couldn’t answer the question. Thomas Hearns didn’t want to fight me. Leonard was the one I really wanted to fight, but he was a lighter weight class than me. With Duran, I was the number one contender – he should definitely have fought me, but he gave away the belt (to fight Thomas Hearns for the WBC title). I don’t know why Hagler didn’t want to fight me. I know those fights would be great fights.
“I was upset I didn’t fight Duran, but now I’ve got to take care of business with Mannion. He didn’t look like much, but he was game. When I hit him with some good shots, he came right back; he tried his best to win, but I had too much stuff going on. I did everything in my power to win the title. Mannion was a good fighter. I tried to knock him out and I couldn’t. I controlled most of the fight and won most of the rounds. I would have been happy if I’d knocked him out, but I just wanted to win the title.
“You can’t imagine (what it was like to be) the first Jamaican world champion. That means everything to me. That was the best feeling to know that you are the first world champion boxer in Jamaica. We had some great fighters from Jamaica back in the day – Bunny Grant, Percy Hayles, Roy Goss – a lot of good fighters. I celebrated. I went all over Jamaica in a car – everybody was coming out, everybody wanted to see me. It was something else.”
Result: McCallum UD 15
JULIAN JACKSON
August 23, 1986, Convention Center, Miami Beach, Florida • Titles: WBA junior middleweight
“I didn’t know what to think. I knew he was a big puncher, but you don’t feel a punch like that. I wasn’t worried about his power; I was concerned about it – I didn’t want to get hit by it at all. I felt his power. ‘Oh yeah,’ I thought, ‘I have to get him before he gets me.’ So I hit him first. He hit me with a shot, and I felt it: ‘This boy can hit.’ When I hit him with a shot, he went down. I said, ‘You hit me so hard and you can’t take a shot? I’m going to get you now.’ He could give it, but he couldn’t take it. It was all over.”
Result: McCallum TKO 2
DONALD CURRY
July 18, 1987, Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion, Las Vegas • Titles: WBA junior middleweight
“I think (my best weight class was) junior middleweight. It was a great fight. Donald Curry was the kind of guy … you sit and watch and you have your own vision; you talk to yourself: How could I beat him? What would I have to do to beat him? George Benton was a great trainer; he put it all together and told me what to do to win. Curry was a very sharp fighter. He punches sharp and crisp. He’s a very dangerous guy. He thinks a lot. He sets things up nicely. And I said, ‘I’ve got to beat him at his own game.’ He tries to set me up and I’m gonna set him up too. That was one of the best knockouts I ever had – it was a great knockout, a great fighter and a great fight. The last week of the workout, George Benton came to me and said, ‘He’s going to try to set you up with the right hand and jab; you’ve got to look out for them. He’s very quick and very accurate. You’ve got to do it this way and come back on top.’ I went over it one or two times, same combination. He said, ‘Remember, Mike, you’ve got to be alert because he’s very quick and accurate and he’s dangerous.’ So I slipped the jab and slipped his right hand, and I countered with a right uppercut and hook. That’s all it takes. That’s all I needed. I felt it in my hand.”
Result: McCallum KO 5
HEROL GRAHAM
May 10, 1989, Royal Albert Hall, London • Titles: WBA middleweight
“England is a rough place to fight, especially when you’re fighting their man. They’re singing songs; they expect their man to win. I knew he was a very awkward fighter, a southpaw and gives all kinds of movement, so I hit him to the body to slow him down. (Graham was) not easy to fight at all. He was very good; he dodged punches good, very slick. Herol Graham was something else. He was hard to hit because he moves very well. He was unorthodox. It was a tough fight for me. I had to catch up with him, but I did catch up with him and I beat him.”
Result: McCallum SD 12
JAMES TONEY
December 13, 1991, Convention Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey • Titles: IBF middleweight
“The WBA wanted $30,000 plus a $35,000 exemption fee for fighting Toney. My lawyer, Milton Chwasky, was going to go along with that, but then they came back and demanded we give (Steve) Collins another $50,000 to step aside, and we said no. They wanted too much money. I didn’t know exactly what was going on. (Note: McCallum was stripped of the title.) I think I did enough to win the fight. It was a good fight, an old-school fight, very tough. I got off to a good start and he came back, and we went back and forth. The first fight was a close fight. He was young and strong and got better the second fight. He was a good fighter – three good fights. I think I won at least one or two fights. He was a throwback.”
Result: Draw
JEFF HARDING
July 23, 1994, Civic Center, Bismarck, North Dakota • Titles: WBC light heavyweight
“That fight was a great fight. I knew Jeff was a very hard fight to win – he keeps coming and he keeps punching. He’s got good stamina, very strong, so I knew it was gonna be a hell of a fight. I’ve got to box him. I can’t fight with him inside, ’cause he throws a lot of punches; he doesn’t stop punching. I can’t outwork him because he doesn’t stop punching. I asked myself, ‘How am I going to win this fight?’ I’ve got to do both: I’ve got to box him sometimes, I’ve got to work inside sometimes. I’ve got to turn him and counterpunch him. So that’s what I did. It meant everything to me – three-weight world champion. I was very happy about that. I worked hard. I trained hard for fights and I tried hard to win fights. I don’t like to lose. I work hard all the time for fights, especially the championship fights. Those ones mean everything to me.”
Result: McCallum UD 12
Mike McCallum was asked about the best he faced during his career and here's what he had to say.
Best overall: James Toney -- He wasn't a complete fighter the first time we fought, and I still believe I won that fight. But he learned in that fight and he got better. He grew with each fight. By our third fight, he was a different fighter, a complete fighter. He was someone who could do it all, fight inside or outside, work offense and defense at the same time, just like me when I was younger. I like to think that I helped James mature as a fighter.
Best boxer: Herol Graham -- He was a pure boxer, a southpaw and very elusive. It wasn't easy to hit him. He was very smart, very skilled.
Best puncher: Julian Jackson -- He hit me so hard! Julian wasn't just powerful, he was also real quick. I got caught by a right hand in the first round of our fight and I remember thinking, What's wrong with my legs? I tried my best to hide it from him. I knew I had to take him out as soon as I could.
Best defense: Sumbu Kalambay -- I fought many good defensive fighters. Toney had a good defense. Graham was slippery. Jones was fast and slick, but Kalambay is No. 1. I can't forget about him. He's the first fighter to beat me and it's because of his good movement. He was always sliding side to side, very shifty. He was a dangerous boy.
Fastest hands: Jackson -- He was quick, man. That's why he got so many knockouts. Everyone focused on his power and then he'd get you with a punch you didn't see. They landed on you -- boom! -- from out of nowhere. Kalambay and Toney were also fast. So was Jones, obviously, but I fought him when I was older and had slowed down a bit.
Fastest feet: Roy Jones -- He had very quick feet. He was elusive just because of his footwork.
Best chin: Steve Collins -- I almost said Toney, but Collins had the best chin. I hit him right on his chin all night and he wouldn't budge. I couldn't hit Toney that much and when I did, he backed off. Collins walked through punches.
Best jab: Donald Curry -- I fought many fighters with good jabs. Kalambay could win fights with just his jab. McCrory had a good, hard jab. But Curry's was the best. I see why they called him the Cobra because he didn't miss with it. He was a bad man with that jab.
Strongest: Michael Watson -- Oh my God, he was so strong. That's why that fight was so hard. It was a gruesome fight, 11 rounds of back-and-forth hell.
Smartest: Roy Jones Jr. -- I fought quite a few smart boys in my time. Graham was a cunning S.O.B. I remember him sticking his tongue out at me whenever I'd miss a punch. Kalambay was smart and so was Toney, although he didn't have the experience to back it up when we first fought. But I think Roy may have been the smartest. He was very clever, which didn't surprise me. I knew he was sharp. It was like he was always one step ahead of me.
One last word about Mike McCallum, he was an all-time great fighter, underappreciated for sure. He was a high risk/low reward fighter because he was tough as nails, you weren't going to stop him, and he had a phenomenal overall skill set, technically skilled, very good and varied attack. Good jab, used his long arms to his advantage in clinches, high workrate. Very good body attack, it wasn't the bruising body attack of guys like Chavez or Duran, but more of a methodical body/head tandem (straight rights and hooks to the body, jabs, etc), I think he was avoided to a degree because of it, nobody looked forward to stepping in the ring with him but I don't think the Fab Four were scared to face him or anything like that, they had each other and McCallum was a low profile type fighter. A lot of people consider McCallum to be the sort of fifth member of the Fab Four, a Fab Five, if you will, and that's very appropriate considering how great he was during that era, he was one of the best of the 80s period, in fact he's an all-time great. He had problems with guys that were fast and could move, he wasn't unbeatable, nobody is, but he was damn near it in his prime.
A few photos of the Bodysnatcher.
I've been looking for the type 1 original photo of this image for quite a while now with no luck, it's McCallum hitting Donald Curry with an uppercut, this is probably my favorite image of McCallum.
McCallum had long arms and a beautiful jab, having long arms can be a good thing because you have the reach advantage and can connect from further away, it can also make it very difficult for your opponent to get inside if you control the distance with the jab. But it can also be a bad thing if your opponent does get inside and you get into a trench battle, the guy with the shorter arms is going to be able to land easier.
Mike McCallum vs Herol Graham, you can see the agony on both of their faces, that fight was tactical warfare. A hard fight to score and not the most pleasing to watch. Graham's movement, erratic output, and countering gave McCallum fits, I don't think he ever really solved Graham's puzzle, and Graham really dominated the first four or five rounds, but McCallum made good adjustments over the second half of the fight, had the more consistent output, landed better shots and deserved the decision.
Mike McCallum throwing a straight right at Michael Watson.
Boxing News magazine, they really loved McCallum.
They called him "The Bodysnatcher" for a reason, Mike McCallum, routes to the body.
one weekend i'm going to have to sit down with a cold one and go through this amazing compilation
incredible work dd
Mike McCallum, one of the finest ring technicians you'll ever see. Watching this video, god, it's just amazing the way he went to the head and body of his opponents. He really knew how to break you down.
Asa "Ace" Hudkins, aka "The Nebraska Wildcat", one of the most vicious men to ever enter a ring. His nickname should tell you all you need to know about him, he fought like a wildcat, his style was all about trying to tear you apart. William Muldoon, the New York State boxing commissioner in the 1920s, was once quoted as saying, "Ace Hudkins is an animal from the Neanderthal days who should not be allowed to fight."
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Ace Hudkins: Remembering The Nebraska Wild Cat
Ace Hudkins was one of the most colorful and feared fighters of the 1920s, an aggressive, all-action, snarling, two-fisted, beast of a fighter, who asked for, nor gave any mercy in the ring. He wasn’t given the nick name “The Nebraska Wild Cat” for being dull. If he was a wild cat inside the ring, Hudkins was no less formidable out side the roped square. Hudkins was a full-blown hell raiser who seemed to create a storm wherever he went. He was a throwback to the days of the Wild West when lawless gunslingers challenged each other on the streets to decide who was the quickest on the draw. Perhaps it will come as no surprise that Ace often got into trouble with the authorities for roaming the streets armed with a gun.
Ace Hudkins was born Asa Hudkins on August 30, 1905, in Valparaiso, Nebraska. He soon showed he was good with his hands almost from the moment he learned how to make fists with them. By the age of 12, he was working as a ‘newsboy’ and proved to be very adept at defending his patch.
It is likely that by the time he hit his teens, Hudkins was fighting for pay in the unofficial ’bootleg’ fights that used to take place in various back rooms of small bars and clubs in those days.
“The Nebraska Wild Cat” started his official boxing career in 1922, at the age of 17, and from the start he fought just as he had when defending his pitch on the street. He would bore into his opponents with both arms swinging and he didn’t care much where his punches landed. Ace was rough and tough with seemingly unlimited endurance and impervious to pain, in fact if anything, getting hit seemed only to strengthen the Wild Cat. He would fight with a snarl on his face and a maniacal glint in his eyes, which would become ever more fierce as his fights wore on. With his two brothers Art and Clyde working his corner, Ace set about making himself the terror of the lightweight division and by 1925, he was rated by The Ring magazine amongst the top lightweights in the world.
But, Ace hadn’t really arrived yet, with most of his fights having taken place in his own backyard of Nebraska, or in California. He was still relatively unknown in New York, and this is perhaps the reason why he was picked as an opponent for the unbeaten 19-year old prodigy Ruby Goldstein. 20 years before he would gain fame, as boxing’s premier referee; “The Rube” was an unbeaten lightweight who was being hailed as the new Benny Leonard. Goldstein was 23-0 and on verge of a world title shot when Ace was brought in as a final ‘warm up’ before Goldstein’s expected world title challenge. Goldstein’s management had been warned to keep Ruby away from Hudkins, by a former Hudkins’ opponent Sid Terris. Although Terris had out-pointed Hudkins, he knew only too well what an opponent had to go through against The Wild Cat. Hudkins never bothered to learn the ‘sweet science’ of boxing, and could be out-boxed, but it took a special kind of person to stand up to Hudkins’ savage fury, and outbox him. Also, at this point of his career Hudkins, at the age of 21-years old, was still improving, growing stronger, and gaining more experience. Goldstein was the heavy favourite in New York, he had boxing skill and a dynamite punch, and his Jewish fans believed that he was set for greatness. All those dreams were shattered on the night of June 26 1926, when Ruby entered the ring against The Nebraska Wildcat. Goldstein dropped Hudkins in the first minute of the 1st round with one of his best punches, but the Wild Cat rose from the canvas with a snarl before the count of ten, and from then on “The Jewel of The Ghetto” was fighting for his life. Goldstein had never experienced anything like Hudkins before and was forced to go toe-to-toe with him in a desperate effort of survival. It all ended in the 4th round, when a savage left hook laid Goldstein out upon the bottom rope, unconscious to the world, but with his eyes wide open. Ace Hudkins had arrived and his decimation of Goldstein made him a sensation. Meanwhile, Goldstein never recovered from the savage beating The Wild Cat had given him, and although he fought for another decade, he was just going through the motions.
Following his victory over Goldstein, Ace clamoured for a shot at the World lightweight championship, but to no avail. He then added some pounds to his muscular frame and went after the welterweight title, only to find he was avoided once more by the division’s titleholder. By 1928, Hudkins had moved up to the middleweight division, and it was here that he finally received a world title shot, on June 21, 1928, challenging “The Toy Bull Dog” Mickey Walker for Walker’s World middleweight title. Walker and Hudkins were in many ways mirror images of each other, both in the ring and out of it; two men who were known to raise as much hell outside of the ring as they did inside of it. Their fight was brutal and bloody, with Walker retaining his world title on a split decision after ten blood splattered rounds. The referee had voted for Hudkins, while both judges went for The Toy Bulldog.
16 months later on October 29, 1929, Hudkins was granted a rematch against Walker for the World middleweight title, but came up short again, losing on points once more, after another barnstormer. The two world title fights with Walker would represent a peak; it was all down hill from then on for Ace Hudkins. He would fight 8 more times over the next 3 years, with his weight rising to light-heavyweight proportions, he began fighting light heavyweights and heavyweights, but not with the success of old. The wild ways and wild life, both in and outside the ring, had finally taken a toll, and Ace’s thirst for fighting was now being overwhelmed by his thirst for liquor.
Hudkins was 4-4 in his last eight fights. His last good win was a 10-round point’s victory over heavyweight contender King Levinsky in 1931. The Wild Cat hung up his gloves in 1932 after losing on points to Lee Ramage and then Wesley Ketchell, with displays that showed he was becoming little more than a punching bag.
Retiring with a record of 64(25koes)-16-12, for a while it seemed that Hudkins was determined to die with his boots on. On an alcohol fuelled rampage, life for him became one bar room brawl after another. Ace’s rap sheet grew, and he was lucky not to end up being killed or killing someone else, although he certainly came close to getting killed.
In August 1933, Hudkins had two bullets fired into him, and only survived due to two blood transfusions, and his own stubborn spirit. From this point on, Hudkins changed, he married, brought some land, and started to train and breed horses with great success. Many of Ace’s horses were used in Hollywood westerns. Roy Rogers brought his famous horse “Trigger” from Ace, while the Lone Ranger and Annie Oakley both rode horses provided by Ace. In addition, Hudkins became a Hollywood stuntman, a career that would last until the late 1960s.
Hudkins was finally counted out on April 17, (some sources claim April 9 or April 18) 1973. It was the only time in his life that he had heard the ten count.
Hudkins might not have been a world champion during his career, but its not hard to imagine him winning a world title in most other era. Were he fighting today, Hudkins would no doubt be a sensation, a lightweight who would finish his career as a heavyweight, it’s hard to imagine Ace Hudkins ever ducking anyone.
Ace Hudkins most famous fight came in 1924, when he fought a young murderous punching lightweight by the name of Ruby Goldstein, Goldstein would later go on to become one of the most famous referees in boxing history, but at the time Goldstein was a young fighter with a record of 23-0 and knocking out just about everyone they put in front of him, Goldstein was so dominant that he was tapped to be the next Benny Leonard, but then he ran into Ace Hudkins, and Goldstein would never be the same fighter again.
Asa "Ace" Hudkins in the 1920s.
NIGHTMARE IN DREAMLAND: WHEN ACE HUDKINS CRASHED CONEY ISLAND
“All he wanted to do was fight, fight, fight.” Paul Gallico
He tore out of the Great American Desert to make a mockery of the carefree Jazz Age, trailing behind him the dark shadow of the lawless frontier, snarling, heeling, butting, permanent stubble underpinning his perpetual scowl. From the High Plains he scratched his way to riches in Los Angeles before winding up, incongruously, under the whirling lights of Surf Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, where he ignored the carousels on his way to doing what he loved doing best: raising cain. To hell with kewpie dolls, red hots, and armadillo baskets; the roughneck who once said, “It gives me a thrill to see a man bleeding and his flesh sliced like the top of a baked ham,” was here to kick up a ruckus. It was a warm night, June, 1926, and the careening Thunderbolt roller coaster on nearby Bowery Street was a fitting backdrop to what would soon occur. In less than fifteen minutes he left his exact opposite — a quiet teenager named Ruby who had soulful eyes and doted on his mother — draped helplessly over the bottom strand of the ring ropes.
His name was Ace Hudkins. They called him “The Nebraska Wildcat,” and this is the story of how he introduced himself to New York City in 1926. He did it the only way he knew how: with a snarl and a sock on the jaw. Hudkins, so cool he was actually christened “Ace,” was the scourge of lightweights, welterweights, and middleweights for most of the 1920s. Born in Valparaiso, Nebraska, in 1905, Hudkins probably began fighting as a newspaper boy in 1917 or 1918. His first recorded professional bout took place in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1922, when he was only sixteen. Over the next two and a half years, Hudkins razed his way through murky clubs and auditoriums across Nebraska, scrapping under thunderheads of cigarette smoke in townships and hamlets like Tecumseh, Wahoo, and Harlan.
In late 1924 Hudkins left the hardpan behind and drifted into Los Angeles, where his no-holds-barred ferocity made him an overnight star in Hollywood. Not the kind with two yachts and a Mission Revival house, of course, but the kind that could draw thousands of screaming spectators to watch him maul his opponents in cold blood. Damon Runyon once described the Ace Hudkins experience succinctly. “When I watch him fight,” he wrote, “I visualize a vicious jungle cat clawing the guts out of a helpless antelope.”
Hudkins thrashed it out with West Coast headliners like Mushy Callahan, Spug Myers, and Joe Benjamin, sometimes losing, sometimes winning, sometimes settling for stalemates, but always ready to knock the Tinsel out of Tinseltown with a sneer. Nothing less could be expected from a man Paul Gallico described as, “tough, hard, mean, cantankerous, combative, foul, nasty, courageous, and filled at all times with bitter and flaming lust for battle.”
To say Hudkins was ornery was like saying Doc Holliday had a quick trigger-finger. “Ace lived up to my concept of what a prizefighter ought to be,” wrote Stan Windhorn. “He was dirty in the ring, a back-alley brawler out of the ring, and, to the best of my knowledge, Ace was never kind to anyone—not even his mother.” Hudkins was a walking, no, swaggering, firestorm who left charred ruins wherever he went. Indeed, during his heyday, Hudkins — who was the guest of honor at a minimum of three riots in his career — was suspended at one time or another in California, New York, Kansas, Illinois, Milwaukee, and even in his home state of Nebraska for, incredibly, conduct “detrimental to the best interests of boxing.”
Years later, after he had retired, Hudkins stalked the City of Angels with a sawed-off shotgun looking for trouble. He got it, too, for the same reason a Marsh Hawk always gets its prey — it was just something he was born to do. In 1933 Hudkins was shot twice in a cafe brawl that left him so close to death that obituaries had already been written up by the press corps, ready for printing. But he survived out of sheer contrariness.
In 1926 Hudkins, on the prowl, brought his special brand of cussedness East and was immediately matched with an 18-year old wunderkind named Ruby Goldstein.
Reuven "Ruby" Goldstein was born on October 7, 1907, in the Lower East Side of New York City. Desperate poverty — the Jacob Riis kind — blighted his childhood. His father died a few months before he was born; his mother sewed and took in laundry; his grandfather worked inhuman hours at a sweat shop for a pittance. Not even the $3 a month public relief chipped in to help the Goldstein family could make ends meet. Goldstein dropped out of school when he was fourteen years old and, after ditching a job as an office boy, turned to amateur boxing full-time to help his family pay the bills.
Goldstein, sad eyed and scrawny, showed remarkable ability and power at an early age. He was undefeated as an amateur and by the time he turned pro in 1924, underage at 17, Goldstein was already being compared to Benny Leonard. With smooth boxing skills and a right cross that doubled as a Howitzer, Goldstein won his first 23 bouts and became a hero to Jewish fans from Cherry Street to Pelham Parkway. “That was the Ruby Goldstein of 1925,” wrote Ted Carroll of The Ring, “a young fighter whose ability was almost unbelievable! Small wonder that Goldstein, during his brief heyday, was the greatest idol New York City ever had!” Just how popular was he? Dubbed “The Jewel of the Ghetto,” Goldstein was mobbed wherever he went, and his fights were nearly always sold out. Today it is nearly impossible to imagine, but Ruby Goldstein once drew over 40,000 fans to watch him slug it out with neighborhood rival Sid Terris at the Polo Grounds in 1927. It was a six-round bout.
Goldstein was on his way to a title shot when his manager, Hymie Cantor, decided one last tune-up bout was necessary. Incredibly, he chose Ace Hudkins for the role of patsy. Choosing Ace Hudkins to be a fall guy is like putting Leopold and Loeb in charge of the entertainment at a party. It was the biggest mistake Hymie Cantor ever made.
On June 25, 1926, Ruby Goldstein and Ace Hudkins faced off at Coney Island Stadium. Since neither participant was 21, the bout, by New York law, was limited to six rounds. Still, it was one of hottest tickets in town. By 1920 the Seabeach Line had been extended to Surf Avenue and the New West End Terminal had been built, allowing the New York City Subway system to deliver masses of underclass revelers to Luna Park and Coney Island Beach for five cents. It was the Nickel Empire, and Ace Hudkins was ready to conquer it. Around 15,000 fans paid to see their hero, Ruby Goldstein, go up against a red-headed sourpuss the likes of which New York sports had never seen before.
Hudkins, a 6-1 underdog, entered the ring wearing a short jersey sweat-shirt with, believe it or not, a popped collar. He was seconded by his brothers Clyde and Art, and the crowd booed the trio unmercifully. Goldstein, described by nearly every contemporary account as “cherubic,” followed to a deafening roar of cheers, accompanied by Cantor and two future corner superstars: Ray Arcel and Whitey Bimstein. Referee Patsy Haley gave the final instructions, and the two men returned to their corners. The bright lights of the Wonder Wheel could be seen beyond the stadium walls.
Within seconds of the opening bell, Goldstein dropped Hudkins with a straight right that landed with an explosive thud. “I knocked Hudkins down with my first punch,” recalled Goldstein. “A feint… a stab as he moved into me… then a right hand on the chin. He was hit so hard he rolled over.” But Hudkins, however, was mean and tough. He rose with a snarl, charged into Goldstein with both hands whipping, and rode out the first three minutes of a sensational slugfest. In the 2nd and 3rd rounds, the two fighters traded shots without pause, Goldstein sharper and more accurate with his fluid moves, Hudkins clubbing and chasing furiously. Although Hudkins took many more blows than he landed, he was relentless. “No matter how well I hit him, “ Goldstein wrote in his autobiography, “he seemed to be getting stronger. Then, near the end of the round, he nailed me on the chin with a looping right hand. I was hurt. I began to fall. The bell rang. I lurched toward my corner as Hymie and Ray and Whitey swarmed through the ropes to catch me.”
Goldstein came out for the 4th like a man who had been stuck on the Human Roulette Wheel overnight. Hudkins, smelling blood, moved in for the kill. An overhand right dropped a wobbly Goldstein to his knees. He beat the count, but was floored moments later by a hard uppercut. Once more Goldstein rose, and Hudkins, flaming hair and lips bared in a sneer, charged, crashing home a left hook that sent Goldstein reeling into the ropes, where he lay suspended horizontally for a moment, like something out of the Funhouse, before ricocheting back into the ring and onto his hands and knees. When Patsy Haley tolled “10” over Goldstein, he counted out both “The Jewel of the Ghetto” and his future as the most promising lightweight to emerge since Benny Leonard.
Goldstein was hit so hard that he had little recall of what happened to him after the knockout blow was landed. “I do not remember leaving the ring, although I was told that it was some minutes after I had been counted out and that I sat in my corner crying…” he wrote. “Even the picture of the dressing room when I returned to it is not clear, except that I was still crying. I was not hurting from the punches, but the grief and disappointment were too much for me.”
Goldstein was not the only one suffering from grief. Jack Conway in The Evening Journal reported: “The tears that Ruby Goldstein shed after he had recovered consciousness and realized he had been knocked out by Ace Hudkins were only the beginning of a weeping Niagara that has flooded Broadway. Ruby wept because his pride was hurt; the others because their bankroll was flattened.” It was said that the notorious gangster Waxey Gordon, who had a piece of Goldstein, took the biggest hit of all: a loss of $45,000, roughly half a million simoleons today.
Goldstein, not yet 19, was finished as a fighter after being mangled by Hudkins. He was so psychologically damaged that he skipped town the day of his comeback fight and somehow wound up in San Francisco, on the run from shame and humiliation. He returned to New York and continued fighting. “I didn’t have the zest for boxing,“ he wrote, “but it was a living—a better living than I could have made any other way.” A few big purses still followed: a 1st round KO loss to Sid Terris that netted him a payday of $22,500, a fortune in the 1920s, and a brutal KO defeat against lethal Jimmy McLarnin, who floored him three times. Goldstein went through the motions until 1937, finishing with a record of 54-6. All of his losses were by knockout. After World War II, Goldstein went on to become one of the most famous referees in history, but here, too, he found himself devastated: Goldstein was the third man the night Benny “Kid’ Paret died at the hands of Emile Griffith in 1962. Goldstein came back after two years of guilt, refereed one more fight, and never stepped into the ring again.
Hudkins became a villainous smash in New York City, drawing huge gates in fights with Phil McGraw and Stanislaus Loayza before heading back West to wreak havoc in a friendlier climate. Ace Hudkins, you see, was despised in all five boroughs of The Big Apple. “There was no love or even warmth in Hudkins,” wrote Stanley Weston. “He disgusted the press and the fans came out hoping to see him slaughtered.” Hudkins fought on until 1932, twice challenging Mickey Walker unsuccessfully for the middleweight championship and even going so far as fighting at heavyweight. Despite beating King Levinsky and winning the California State heavyweight title, Hudkins lost his edge with each pound he gained and hung up his gloves at 27. He finished his career with a record of 67-17-12.
Hudkins was in and out of trouble with the law for years after he retired, until a near-death experience, provided via bullet, settled him down. He bought a stable and then made a living supplying horses for movie Westerns. Then, Ace Hudkins being Ace Hudkins, he became a Hollywood stuntman.
Although he failed to win a world title, Hudkins would never be forgotten by New Yorkers who saw this pitiless red-headed discontent come out of the dying frontier, like the Bad Man from Bodie, step into the urban dreamland of Coney Island, and knock the living daylights out of a nice Jewish boy named Ruby Goldstein.
Ace Hudkins was about as savage as it gets in this sport, to put it plainly, he was a loose cannon. He's not a guy you wanted to mess with, he enjoyed fighting, whether it was in the ring or on the street. This appeared in a newspaper, just look at the guy, he was crazy.
Ace Hudkins with his pet, Hudkins was one creepy looking bastard.
Ace Hudkins training.
Hudkins in his prime.
This is a great book about Ace Hudkins, one of the most vicious and ruthless fighters in the history of the sport, he made Mike Tyson look like a choir boy.
Up next is one of my top favorite fighters of all-time, and a bonafide bad a.., the great middleweight Dick Tiger. A friendly man outside the ring, famous for his big smile, but when he stepped through those ropes, it was a different story. He was built solid as a rock and powerful, probably the strongest middleweight in the history of boxing, fighting him was like trying to go toe-to-toe with a school bus. About the only way you were going to beat Tiger was to stick and move, and try to stay the hell away from him as much as possible, if you chose to go inside and slug with him, you were going to get battered or taken out, shootouts with him never ended well. He liked to put methodical pressure on his opponents and counter them with big punches, he was immensely strong, possessed exceptional durability, endurance and determination, and had some of the quickest hands of any middleweight - particularly for a power puncher.
On Tiger's power, it was excessive, but not according to his knockout percentage, his lack of finishing ability and slow feet attributed to this, because otherwise he was a demon if you were in range. Though he could pounce on wounded prey, perhaps he lacked the accuracy or ingenuity to find the right shots to end the night. But he'd still bust you up. Simply put, Tiger was a true elite in one field - brawling. There's not one middleweight in history that I'd choose to out slug him. Adding to Tiger's dominant physical prowess was a tight defense - he wasn't necessarily skilled at slipping and countering in a Roberto Duran sense, however, his method of attacking made him slippery or at worst a very tough shell to break. Typically, Tiger would attack with technically sound and powerful hooks from both sides, ducking in between, then resuming a solid guard and balanced feet as returned shots bounced right off him. A deceptive jab often opened up opponents. unless you were crafty or fleet footed enough to avoid his shots and land your own, Tiger would beat you. Any kind of 160lbs brawler would likely be decimated - if not the victim of a knockout, then the victim of a very hurtful experience. Even so, his work rate and determination overcame some very savvy boxers, so I wouldn't be confident choosing anyone over him, much less even the greatest come-forward punchers. Tiger brutalized a very rugged era of middleweights, Dick Tiger was one of the hardest men this sport has ever known. Simultaneously, while winning titles at multiple weights, he fought in the Biafran Revolution in his homeland of Nigeria. A warrior in the truest sense, like Contra fighter Alexis Arguello.
This is testimony from a man that knew Dick Tiger personally and sparred against him.
Dick Tiger poses for Sports Illustrated.
I knew Tiger personally.
I was his paid sparring partner, often going from Rubin Carter’s training camp to his for more work. I drove alone with Tiger in my car to the Armory in Paterson, New Jersey, to watch Carter fight Johnny Torres one month before Carter’s bout with the former (and future) middleweight champion. Tiger wanted to scout Carter. It was all friendly, but the focus Tiger had in and out of the ring was chilling when he fixated on an opponent. His deadpan stare was reminiscent of Joe Louis and in stark contrast to his infectious smile and usual pleasant demeanor. I boxed many rounds with him in the gym, and his determination to hurt you – which was devoid of anger – was disconcerting. Tiger was 100 percent focused on your destruction once the bell rang.
Tiger fought the toughest middleweights and light heavyweights of his era, honing his skills while learning from any mistakes he made vs. fierce competition: middleweight champ Gene Fullmer (who he fought three consecutive times), light heavyweight champ Jose “Chegui” Torres (who he fought twice), former middleweight champs Nino Benvenuti and Terry Downes and contenders Roger Rouse, Frankie DePaula, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Florentino Fernandez, Jose Gonzalez, Henry Hank, Rory Calhoun, Wilf Greaves, Elsworth “Spider” Webb, and Randy Sandy.
Tiger faced them all and scored victories against each. He beat the hell out of most.
Those who chose to fight with Tiger at close quarters were broken down and made to quit or suffered so much damage that the referee would have to stop the fight.
The best chance to avoid getting hit with Tiger’s heavy left hook and vicious right hand was to jab, run and stay far away.
To me, Dick Tiger's most impressive win came against "Hurricane" Rubin Carter, a devastating punching middleweight in the 1960s that was convicted of triple murder and sent to Rahway State Prison only to later have his conviction overturned and be released. Rubin Carter was a vicious thug, he once bragged that while robbing a man on the street, he had stabbed the man everywhere except the bottom of his feet, and for what it's worth I believe he did in fact participate in, if not outright orchestrated, what took place at the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson New Jersey in 1966, when two armed gunmen entered the establishment and brutally murdered three innocent people. Rubin Carter loved violence and thought he was a real badass in the ring and outside of it, and in the ring he was, until he ran into a Dick Tiger.
My god Dick Tiger was granite in human form, here he is shown brutalizing Rubin Carter during their fight in Madison Square Garden.
Hit ‘Em Hard, Hit ‘Em Fast: When Roaring Tiger Blew Down Hurricane Carter At The Garden
Part of the fun of being youthful is that we know so little. Cold logic and cynicism has yet to be poured on our innocent picture book of life as we wander through each newly discovered wonderland and believe everything we see and hear. Like so many other young boys getting interested in boxing for the first time, my simple and thrilling yardsticks of new and exciting fighter were the vivid pictures and purple prose that came with them. Plenty of both came with Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter. To most people at that time, Sonny Liston was the most frightening fist fighter on earth. Liston seemed huge in that more gentle era, a giant among pygmies whose great bulk and brooding features spilled across the pages of every popular boxing magazine. No man could beat Sonny. Everyone said he was invincible.. Then I saw that picture of Rubin Carter. I was six years old and there he was, shaven-skulled and mandarin moustached, fists cocked and snarling as he towered over the stricken Florentino Fernandez at Madison Square Garden. Fernandez, one of the most vicious middleweight punchers of the day, had been shot down by a new gunslinger and was draped helplessly over the ropes as Carter hovered menacingly. Rubin had arrived on the big stage. Two knockdowns in one minute and nine seconds of action, and Florentino Fernandez was all done for the night. I kept looking at that wonderful picture, one pulsating moment captured forever. Carter was the most frightening man I had seen and the purple prose gushed in torrents as excitable scribes raved about the big hitter from Paterson, New Jersey. One veteran ringsider that night was quoted as saying, “This guy Carter would give Liston one hell of a fight.” Now, of course, ‘veteran ringsiders’ are never identified and are always extraordinarily present and plentiful at such times. One or two even claim to be the long lost, illegitimate sons of Jack Dempsey. But a young impressionable boy sucks up such tasty treats like a chocolate milkshake. Man, I thought, this guy Hurricane Carter is going to cut through the middleweights like a knife through butter. And for a while, that is exactly what mean old Rubin did. He was tailor made for TV, a wrecking ball of a puncher with an intimidating appearance that was almost unique in the sixties. With the likes of Bennie Briscoe and Marvin Hagler yet to come down the trail, Hurricane Carter had a virtual monopoly on the chrome-domed look. Like so many men with fearsome reputations, Carter seemed physically bigger than he was, much in the way of Liston. In fact Rubin stood just five-feet-eight and never had trouble making the middleweight limit, scaling between 155 and 158lbs on average at the peak of his powers. But he was a powerful man who could hit, the latest golden boy in boxing’s historically golden division. That snarl of Rubin’s was the snarl of a lion. But he would later meet a tiger that would feast on him at the Mecca of boxing and send him down a wholly different path. Fighting Much later on, when Rubin Carter stopped fighting in the ring and began the fight for his right to be a free man in his trial for the infamous Lafayette Grill murders, his past would come back to haunt him. As a teenager, he was convicted of assault and a stint in the Army failed to curb his wild ways. A 1957 conviction on robbery and assault charges resulted in a prison sentence, where his fellow inmates learned quickly that Rubin could do one thing very well: fight. Carter had impressed his coach on the Army boxing team, compiling an impressive record and a string of knockouts. Rubin made the decision to dedicate himself to the professional game and soon began to make significant strides. Making his debut in September 1961, he won his first three fights and then split a couple of decisions with Herschel Jacobs at the Gladiators Arena in Totowa. Rubin had moved his record to 10-1 by the time of his Madison Square Garden debut, which Ernie Burford spoiled by taking a decision from the Hurricane in June 1962. Carter gave us a hint of things to come just two months later when he avenged the Burford defeat with a second round TKO and followed up with a fifth round stoppage of Mel Collins. Rubin had just fourteen fights on his slate when he exploded in earnest by ripping apart Fernandez, but the best of the Hurricane’s fleeting fury was still to come, though not before a lull in the storm. Cooling his heels, Rubin failed to add to his knockout tally in his next six fights. He registered a couple of quality points wins over Holly Mims and Gomeo Brennan, but suffered an untimely backward step against tough cookie Jose Gonzalez, who opened a big cut over Carter’s right eye and stopped him in the sixth round. Rubin had to work hard in his next outing to take a split decision from the artful George Benton and had to go the full route again to bag a points win against Farid Salim. Then Carter ran into one of the great spoilers of the age. New York stylist Joey Archer was a thorn in everyone’s side in the mid to late sixties, a clever sharpshooter who could ghost his way around the big hitters and drive them to exasperation. Carter chased Joey all night long and certainly ran him close, only to come out on the thin end of a split decision. Rubin got the vote of judge Al Berl by five rounds to four, but referee Arthur Mercante and judge Tony Castellano sided with Archer. Carter’s career seemed to be spluttering after the Fernandez breakthrough, and Rubin was doing little more than treading water as 1963 drew to a close. From his frustration, he fashioned a bomb that stunned the boxing world. On December 20, at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, the Hurricane did a big loop and unleashed its full force. In just two minutes and thirteen seconds, Carter floored welterweight champion Emile Griffith three times for an automatic TKO. It was an awesome performance. Never before had the tough and wily Griffith been so obliterated. Emile’s hopes of moving up and challenging for the middleweight crown had been brutally swept away in less time than it takes to boil an egg. Carter was on a roll and now apparently unstoppable. Title shot Buoyed by the huge Griffith victory, Carter had moved up a gear and pushed himself into the top elite of the world rankings. In his next fight, he floored and outpointed future WBA heavyweight champion Jimmy Ellis, before heading west to destroy Clarence James in one round at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. Rubin had earned his spurs and secured his now famous fight with champion Joey Giardello. Those of you who saw the movie Hurricane will no doubt recall Hollywood’s fanciful version of Carter’s challenge. We see Giardello being royally pounded as Rubin (Denzel Washington) steams ahead to what seems a sure victory: only to be robbed by the officials. True? Not on your life. This was all grist to the Carter publicity mill at a time when Rubin was the hip cause for those who feel the compulsion to jump on every bandwagon that rolls into town. Rubin might well have been tragically wronged for the great many years that he languished in prison. But distorting the truth of other events never wins you any friends, whether your name is Rubin, Denzel or Fred. Not surprisingly, Joey Giardello was more than a little miffed by this impudent re-interpretation of one of his greatest wins. The facts are these: All three officials voted emphatically for Joey on that December night at the Convention Hall in Philadelphia, with scores of 72-66, 69-64 and 70-67. Giardello was also the overwhelming choice of the ringside reporters. It wasn’t a runaway victory, but I vividly recall the reports of the time and nobody was screaming that Carter had been unfairly treated. Rubin gave Joey a rough night, but it was the challenger who came up short. The second big myth perpetrated by the Hurricane movie is that Carter was in the prime of his fighting life when he and he and his alleged accomplice, John Artis, were arrested on suspicion of committing the murders at the Lafayette Grill. This is patent rubbish. By the time of the murders on June 17 1966, Rubin’s career as a fighter was seriously on the slide. It had reached its apex with the Giardello fight and Rubin never hit those heights again. Two fights in particular took the eye out of the Hurricane, two fights a month apart that he should have won comfortably against English journeyman Harry Scott. Scott was a tough man from the tough town of Liverpool, one of those quietly dangerous plodders who would lose two or three in a row and then pop up to spoil somebody’s party. Harry didn’t have much regard for other people’s reputations and he never took the ten count. He bulled into Carter in the same way that he bulled into everyone, and Rubin soon discovered that he was batting away at an immovable object. Scott was the George Chuvalo of the middleweights, possessed of feet that seemed to anchor him to the canvas. Trying to dislodge Harry was as fruitless a pursuit as attempting to uproot a fire hydrant with an uppercut. Carter was very lacklustre in the first fight and trailed on points before stopping Scott on a cut in the ninth round. In the return match, Rubin started fast and did indeed uproot the fire hydrant, if only temporarily. Decking Scott in the first round, Carter seemed set to put the record straight and get his faltering major league career back on track. But he didn’t. Rubin never did figure out the peculiar conundrum that was Harry Scott and lost the decision. Nothing dodgy about that verdict either! Now the word was going round that Rubin Carter was something of a bully- boy who wasn’t so fearsome in the face of adversity. Carter was now drifting, albeit still in the biggest ocean, and he badly needed to blow hot again and beat a big name. He got his chance against the one warrior nobody else wanted to fight. Dangerous Dick Tiger was a brooding and dangerous man by the time he got to Rubin Carter. A slow starter who had been plying his trade since 1952, Tiger had worked long and hard to climb the greasy pole and haul himself to the top. Starting out in his native Nigeria, Dick had fared well in his early fights but soon found the going a lot tougher when he moved his base of operations to England. For the life of him, he couldn’t string together a consistent run, losing four straight at one low point and appearing destined to be filed away as nothing more than a tough and reliable journeyman. But Tiger was a man of immense fortitude and perseverance. He kept plugging away and his fortunes took a dramatic change for the better when he made America his hunting ground. Dick fought the toughest available opposition, notching first class victories over Gene ‘Ace Armstrong, Hank Casey, Henry Hank and that quality contender of the era, Ellsworth ‘Spider’ Webb. Tiger hit the jackpot in November 1962, when he out-hustled the brawling Gene Fullmer to win the WBA middleweight crown at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Gene confused Dick and just about everyone else in their Las Vegas rematch by going against type and cheekily boxing his way to a draw. But Tiger saw off Gene in their rubber match to win the plaudits of the boxing press as a very formidable world champion. Then a couple of guys called Joey spoiled everything. Joey Giardello, who had earlier split a couple of decisions with Dick, went 2-1 over his old opponent by taking Tiger’s crown in December 1963. Giardello, a teak-tough and wonderful old pro, called on all his vast experience to finally land the big one after fifteen up-and-down years of campaigning. Tiger redoubled his efforts, confident of a quick return match with Joey. Dick beat Jose Gonzalez and took another swipe at the Fullmer family by outscoring Gene’s younger brother, Don. Then along came Joey Archer with all his infuriating smarts. Tiger never did excel against the clever men who could move and feint and dance. A year after taking a split verdict over Rubin Carter, Joey scalped Dick in the same fashion. Suddenly Dick’s long awaited return with Giardello seemed over the horizon and out of sight. Tiger was not at all happy with the Archer verdict. Not normally a greatly demonstrative man, Dick leaned through the ropes that night and made some very forceful comments about trying to win a fight in New York against a New Yorker. He rebounded quickly to savage the tough Rocky Rivero, but it was Rubin Carter who would sample Tiger’s most ferocious bite on the night of May 20 1965 at Madison Square Garden. Thrashing The thrashing that Dick Tiger administered to Rubin Carter couldn’t have been more single-minded or comprehensive. The breathtaking performance was arguably the masterpiece of Dick’s career, and he wasted little time in establishing his authority. He was the superior man in every department of the game and presented his first chilling evidence in the second round. He was pounding Rubin from a distance and pounding him just as emphatically at close quarters. A left hook suddenly dropped Carter for the mandatory eight count, and Rubin’s famous snarl was now blending with a wide-eyed look of disbelief. He had lost his share of fights in a tough life but nobody had batted him around like this. Carter wasn’t on his feet for long before another whiplash left hook put him over again just before the bell. Referee Zach Clayton counted to eight before realising the round had ended, and Rubin headed for the wrong corner before correcting his mistake in that certain unconvincing way that shaken fighters do. Carter was cautious in the third, employing his jab more and steering clear of Tiger’s left hook. Dick just kept stalking and punching, as if powered by a sure knowledge that he could not be beaten. If Rubin thought he had found sanctuary, his hopes were shattered in the fourth round. He was jabbing and moving nicely when Tiger found the mark with a left and a right to the head. Another right-left combination spilled Carter onto his back and now it seemed to everyone in the house that Rubin was on the way back to his dressing room. But the Hurricane wasn’t quite blown out. Bravely, Rubin met Tiger head-on in an exciting fifth round and began to outpunch his opponent for the first time. Carter fired off some tremendous blows to the head and body and Dick seemed hurt and a little confused by the sudden turnaround. But the Nigerian warrior was a tremendously tough and durable man. He had never been knocked off his feet and only the freakish Bob Foster would put him down for the count in his 81-fight career. Carter was done. Even before the fifth round was out, Tiger had resumed command, punching and whittling away with his ceaseless aggression. Rubin gave it one last try in the seventh, mastering Dick briefly in a two-fisted exchange, but Tiger launched a punishing body attack that had his foe wilting and on the verge of going down again. By the tenth and final round, Dick Tiger had people saying that he was the best middleweight on the planet, whatever the claims of Joey Giardello. Tiger closed the show in style against Carter, controlling the last of the exchanges to ease his way over the finishing line. It had been a thrilling and intriguing fight, despite its one-sidedness. Tiger hadn’t pitched a shutout but had done the next best thing on the scorecards of the officials. Referee Zach Clayton saw it 6-2-2 for Dick, while judges Jimmy Riccio and Johnny Dean tabbed the fight 9-1 and 8-1-1 respectively. After the fight, the two combatants would head off down very different roads. Dick Tiger would get his shot at Joey Giardello and regain the middleweight championship by way of an overpowering, unanimous decision just five months later. Rubin Carter would commence the longest fight of his career to prove his innocence in the ongoing investigations and trials of the Lafayette Grill murders. The original indictment charges against him and John Artis were finally dropped in February 1988, but neither man, to my knowledge, has ever been officially pardoned. Did they do it?
Dick Tiger vs Rubin Carter, Tiger is shown here going on the attack.
Tiger really roughed Carter up and bulldozed him around the ring.
Dick Tiger was born Richard Ihetu in Nigeria and turned pro in 1952. Tiger campaigned in Nigeria and England and won the British Commonwealth middleweight title before debuting in the United States in 1959. Tiger was an aggressive counterpuncher. He would move forward and try to draw his opponent into an exchange. Tiger would then try to counter his opponents punches with bombs of his own. His knockout ratio doesn't show it, but he was an extremely hard puncher, relying on a devastating left hook to render foes unconscious. In 1962, Tiger exploded onto the American boxing scene by knocking out Florentino Fernandez, a bout in which he broke Fernandez's nose, and then decisioning Henry Hank. Those wins earned him a title fight against WBA middleweight champion Gene Fullmer, whom he would meet in three consecutive grueling fights. Tiger decisioned Fullmer in October 1962 to win the WBA middleweight title, drew with him in February of 1963 and earned recognition as undisputed champion with a TKO of Fullmer in August of 1963. That fight, staged in Nigeria, was Fullmer's last. Tiger dropped a decision to Joey Giardello in his first defense. But in a 1965 rematch with Giardello, he regained the crown with a points win. However, two fights later he lost the crown to welterweight champ Emile Griffith.
After the Griffith loss, Tiger moved up to light heavyweight ranks and won the 175-pound title by outpointing champion Jose Torres in 1966. Tiger, who was now 37, posted successful title defenses against Torres and Roger Rouse before losing the crown to Bob Foster on a fourth-round knockout in 1968, it was the only time Tiger was stopped in his career and it took the hardest punching light heavyweight in boxing history to do it. Tiger won three straight bouts, beating Frankie DePaula, Nino Benvenuti, and Andy Kendall before losing a rematch with Griffith in 1970. It was his last fight.
Dick Tiger had a chilling gaze when he stepped into the ring, he was totally focused on your demise.
I think it appropriate for a little music break, notice at the 0:19 mark in the video they show a brief image of Carmen Basilio throwing a punch, love it.
In 1962, Dick Tiger and Gene Fullmer met at Candlestick Park in San Francisco for the first fight of their trilogy. Gene Fullmer had been through some real wars and had seen his best days, his career was coming to an end, but he was still Gene freaking Fullmer, one of the toughest and most savage men to ever enter the ring, he wasn't going down without a fight. Fullmer fought the last 4 1/2 rounds in a familiar Fullmer pattern, he was cut and bleeding from gashes over both eyes, he was still flailing away with both fists at the final bell. But in the end, Tiger was just too much for him and the middleweight reign of Gene Fullmer came to an end.
THE TATTOOED TIGER FROM NIGERIA
THE TRIBAL SCARS ON DICK TIGER'S TORSO DIDN'T FAZE GENE FULLMER, BUT THE AFRICAN'S FIERCE ATTACK DID. NOW THERE IS A NEW AND CONVINCING CLAIMANT TO THE DISPUTED MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
The new middleweight champion of the world is an agreeable, stumpy man, tough as a thorn, who calls himself Dick Tiger. Across his dark chest and around his back is a sequence of dashes, like the dotted line you are asked to tear along. These are tribal tattoos, inflicted when he was a child. "I'm not old enough to know what they mean,"' says Tiger, mysteriously. "You have to be 40 or 50. We just stop that now, though. The young men don't like it. It's cruel to children."
Tiger's proper name is Richard Ihetu, he is 33 years old, and he comes from Nigeria (where there are no tigers). The first tiger he ever saw was mooning around a Liverpool zoo. The new champion was given his name by an imaginative Englishman who, upon watching him box, decided he pounced very much like a tiger. "I jump," Tiger explains. "A short jump. I thought it a good name and it is easy to pronounce. Everybody from Africa is mixed up with animals. I saw tigers in the movies, you know."
It was in the movies, too, that he saw the vast, heroic shadows of prizefighters and was inspired to quit his job as a delivery boy for a jewelry store in the city of Aba. "I became interested in boxing," he says, "and it has turned out very good. I've met a lot of good people. I grew up on a farm and we were very poor. If we were rich I don't think I become a fighter. But if I get plenty money I want my son to become a politician. I like the way they talk on television. I'm not clever enough to be a politician myself. I'm a prizefighter; otherwise, I know nothing."
Tiger's first opponents were more fancifully named than he—Lion Ring, Mighty Joe, Easy Dynamite, Black Power and Super Human Power—but not as worthy; he short-circuited Super Human and soon left for England. "There was a bookmaker in Liverpool of West African descent," says Jersey Jones, who, in time, became Tiger's manager. "He was bringing them in. They were novelties at first. They had no real promise. They started on what they had naturally: toughness, strength, guts." Fighting that first lonely, baffling winter of his life in the bleak cities—Liverpool, Blackpool, West Hartlepool—Tiger showed little ability.
"He kept running into a left jab," says Jones, sourly, "but he profited by it. Things don't come quickly to him but when he grasps them they're here to stay. I wasn't too damned enthused about taking him on. Little by little this thing is dying out. But I figured I could afford to gamble a little time."
It was a risk well taken. Last week, after 10 years of campaigning in which he won 47 of 61, Tiger roundly beat Gene Fullmer and rode about the ring in San Francisco's Candlestick Park on the shoulders of politicians: The Honorable J. M. Johnson, Minister of Labor, Social Services and Sport, and Mr. R.B.K.. Okafor, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. These strapping fellows wore native dress: embroidered caps and elaborately draped robes of pale hue over trousers rather like pajama bottoms. On admittedly scanty evidence it appears that if you're big in Nigeria you go in for politics; if you're small, like Hogan Bassey, the former featherweight champion, and Rafiu King, a new and highly rated featherweight, both of whom attended the fight, you go out for boxing. After Tiger was returned to earth, Bassey, King and the pols danced intently about the ring; a tricky shuffle and much brandishing of fists. The scene had a flair reminiscent of episodes in theirregular histories of Azania and Ishmaelia, emergent African nations that were irreverently founded some years ago by Evelyn Waugh.
Tiger, of course, is world champion only in those parts of the world accepting the dominion of the World Boxing Association, an organization that might as well have been created by Waugh, too. The WBA was, until recently, the National Boxing Association; it changed its name, as has been noted, by a stirring act of mimeograph. Paul Pender, who was to have defended his title against Jose Torres in Boston on November 2 (the fight has now been postponed), is the world champion of New York, Massachusetts and Europe. New York contrarily refuses to recognize the Pender-Torres fight as being for the championship. Torres isn't a fit opponent. If he wins they will have a meeting. New York commissioners get paid $79.55 a day when they have meetings. Great Britain dazedly recognizes Tiger as Empire champion and Pender as the world champion. California is not a WBA state but recognizes Tiger; it doesn't recognize Liston, however, so a big San Franciscan named Roger Rischer claims, byact of mouth, that he is the heavyweight champion. The WBA prohibits return-boutcontracts, but there is a contract calling for a return between Tiger and Fullmer. If it occurs, it will most likely take place in a WBA state. We may now be ready for another question: Why should it occur? From Promoter Norman Rothschild's standpoint, there isn't much reason—only 11,000 fans came to Candlestick Park. Even Lester Malitz, who had the theater-TV rights and did an excellent job of presenting the fight, lost a good deal of money.
All this is regrettable because the bout, although one-sided, was for the most part compelling and hard fought; it did get somewhat dreary, even painful, toward the close when it became evident that Fullmer, badly bruised and bleeding, couldn't win, but boxing isn't art and these are life's shortcomings as well. Gene was up against a man who was evidently stronger than he was, certainly as well-conditioned and who punched harder. Tiger is a counterpuncher of a curious sort—he leads. That is, he advanced on Fullmer but allowed Gene to set the pace. If Fullmer chose, as he did in the latter rounds, to throw punches infrequently, Tiger refrained from punching, too. But whether he was brawling, as he did early on, or circling and boxing, as he did later, Fullmer was overmatched.
As Jones said afterward: "Fullmer knows only two ways of fighting. One is to pile, crowd, push and pin an opponent to the ropes and maul away. The other is to back off and wait for an opponent to come to you. But when Gene tried to box he couldn't keep away from Tiger's jabbing, chopping left. And about every time he tried to close with Tiger he was beaten back with attacks to the head. Fullmer has to take a bad beating anytime he fights Tiger. Dick is a shorter, faster, straighter puncher."
Fullmer got his worst beatings in the fourth, ninth and 14th rounds, when Tiger, his eyes lightly suffused with blood, a condition that gave them an eerie, reddish, almost baleful look, battered him about the ring with alternating blows. Fullmer suffered deep cuts about both eyes, and a cut on the right side of his head. He bled copiously from the nose and mouth. After the ninth round, Referee Frankie Carter, having requested permission from Fullmer's corner, called a doctor in to examine Gene's wounds. It would have been sensible to stop the fight at that point; Fullmer didn't have a chance but, obedient to the old, unreasonable code of honor, he chose to carry on. Although Carter scored the fight most fittingly—he gave Fullmer only one round while both judges managed to come up with five—he should not be permitted to act as referee. He is too slow, too weak, too bemused. One California commission official said Carter was given the Tiger-Fullmer assignment for whatamounted to sentimental reasons. "Carter has never refereed a big title fight in California," he said, at the same time agreeing he was an ineffectual referee, "so we kind of thought we ought to give it to him." Boxing isn't in bad enough shape.
Tiger was unmarked after the fight. Promoter Norman Rothschild came despondently to his dressing room to congratulate him for knocking off his meal ticket. "Thank you, sir," said Tiger, graciously. "I hoped you enjoyed the fight, sir." Fat chance. "Yes," Tiger admitted, "Fullmer hurt me sometime. He's a strong man, hard to knock down. But I never expect him to run back. People want to enjoy a fight. It's no good if he run back. I never dreamed I'd be champion. No, I'm glad."
Fullmer looked a mess but he was wryly cheerful, too. "I sure can't fight him the same way next time and beat him," he said. "We'll have to change something. Why did I lose? He hit me more, I guess. One thing, though. I don't have any false beard with me."
Dick Tiger vs Gene Fullmer I.
In February 1963, in Vegas, Dick Tiger and Gene Fullmer met again in the second fight of their trilogy, Dick Tiger was a true warrior and believed that a champion caliber fighter deserved a rematch if he had lost. In the second bout Tiger was really challenged as Fullmer piled up an early lead and really took the fight to Tiger, but Tiger later came on strong, rushing in with wild swings that caught the tiring Fullmer. The fight was declared a draw and Tiger kept his title. Fullmer partially avenged his defeat because he wasn't beaten, and he definitely did well, coming as close as possible to beating Tiger and pushing him to a draw, Tiger really had to dig deep in that second fight.
Dick Tiger vs Gene Fullmer II. Their trilogy was brutal, they really threw some Earth shaking leather at each other.
Two of the best to ever lace em' up, you would expect nothing less.
This brings us to the third and final fight of the Tiger vs Fullmer trilogy, it was the end of the line for the great Gene Fullmer, "The Utah Cyclone", this would be the last fight of his legendary career, the showdown took place in Dick Tiger's home, Nigeria, Africa.
Dick Tiger and Gene Fullmer in Africa
Aug. 10, 1963: Tiger vs Fullmer III
It is often the case with dynamic brawlers who rely on physical strength, constant aggression, and a seemingly inhuman ability to absorb punishment that, like an engine habitually pushed beyond the red line, the physical toll accrues and the ability to perform abruptly and precipitously declines. A durable battler who just short years previous possessed the vigour and clout to defeat great champions like Sugar Ray Robinson and Carmen Basilio, suddenly slows, weakens, and becomes vulnerable. So it was for Gene Fullmer, who, at only 31 years of age, unexpectedly lost his middleweight championship to challenger Dick Tiger in San Francisco and in the process appeared a greatly diminished fighter.
That’s not to say a warrior as rugged and powerful as Tiger couldn’t have competed with a prime Fullmer. Tiger, whose real name was Richard Ihetu, is a two-time middleweight champion who defeated a long list of Hall of Famers including Joey Giardello, Rubin Carter, Joey Archer, Jose Torres and Nino Benvenuti, and no doubt had the goods to hold his own with virtually any middleweight in history. But it was obvious the Fullmer who lost to the Nigerian after fifteen one-sided rounds was not the same Fullmer who had scored big wins over Robinson, Basilio and Benny Paret.
Gene looked a bit better in the rematch four months later in Las Vegas, or at least good enough to salvage a draw, though yet another grueling, fifteen round battle did little good for the worn down springs in his legs and the fading sharpness of his reflexes. But the draw nicely set up a third Tiger vs Fullmer bout, one which became an historic event, the first ever world title match held on the African continent outside of apartheid South Africa. This was more than a decade before the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. Nigeria, a nation reeling from various political upheavals and internal strife, came together as one to cheer on their champion, with warring factions, temporarily at least, burying the hatchet.
The only real surprise of the night for American audiences was the enthusiastic reception given the former champion. “Fool-mah! Fool-mah!” chanted the massive throng as the “The Utah Cyclone” made his way to the ring. Evidently, his gallant stands against their countryman had made him the second most popular boxer in Nigeria.
The bout itself lacked drama, though not bruising action, albeit one-way, as Tiger’s advantages in strength and quickness were immediately apparent and soon blood was once again pouring down the side of Fullmer’s face. By the end of a brutal fourth round which saw Fullmer’s tenderized mug take a sustained beating, the former champ had cuts above and below both eyes, the gash above the right particularly nasty.
Tiger pursued his advantage, stalking his man, while Fullmer tried unsuccessfully to box from a distance, forced to adopt a style clearly unnatural to him. By the sixth the match had become a rout. Fullmer had no options; on the outside, when he jabbed and tried to protect the cuts around his eyes, he kept getting nailed by powerful right hands thanks to Tiger’s longer arms. On the inside, the champion pummeled Gene with heavy left hooks.
Spurred on by his countrymen, Tiger dished out a beating in round seven, hammering Fullmer from corner to corner. The challenger never stopped trying, never stopped fighting back, but all could see the contest had been decided. At the bell Gene walked haltingly back to his corner, as if uncertain of the floor beneath him, his expression one of weary resignation. Seconds later his manager signaled surrender. As the referee raised Tiger’s hand, joyous pandemonium erupted in Liberty Stadium and fans flooded through the ropes. It took half an hour for police to clear the ring.
“If you have to lose, it’s a pleasure to lose to a great fighter, sportsman and gentleman like Dick Tiger,” declared the gracious Fullmer, who was astonished by the tributes and adulation the Nigerian fans bestowed upon him. “There were at least a thousand fans waiting outside to cheer goodbye,” he marveled after his return to the United States. The poignant farewell could have been on behalf of the entire sport, for Fullmer, clearly one of the best middleweights of his time, never fought again.
Tiger vs Fullmer III
Fullmer goes to the body of Tiger.
Tiger launches a right hand at Fullmer.
Gene Fullmer bleeding. One thing about Gene Fullmer, it wouldn't be a Gene Fullmer fight without blood being spilled.
Gene Fullmer was past his best years, and Dick Tiger was a mountain too high to climb, but that was Dick Tiger, he was a mountain, I don't think he had a mark on his face the entire trilogy. Tiger was only the second man in history to stop Fullmer, after the fight Fullmer was quoted as saying: "Tiger was a rough guy....I went to Nigeria to fight him, and, of course, I don't know what happened over there....He beat me. He beat me bad. My mother and father could have been judge and referee, and I couldn't have won a round."