Sugar Ray Robinson knocked out Jose Basora in less than a minute to successfully defend his middleweight championship at Scranton Stadium, Pennsylvania in 1950.
The fight was over in 52 seconds, one of the fastest knockouts in championship history.
The seconds had barely gotten down the steps before Basora hit the canvas courtesy from a Robinson left hook. He was down four times in the fast and furious fight.
Sugar Ray attends to his beaten opponent in this photo.
Virgin Islands murderous puncher Julian "The Hawk" Jackson was unbeaten in 29 fights with 27 knockouts in 1986 when he ran into the great WBA light-middleweight champion Mike "The Bodysnatcher" McCallum at the Convention Center in Miami Beach, Jackson was halted by the McCallum in two rounds.
Jackson was destroying everything in his path at the time, but he ran into an all-time great in Mike McCallum.
McCallum had to endure some brutal shots from the hard punching Jackson at the beginning of the fight, Jackson came through the door like gangbusters and tried to take McCallum out early, but McCallum's legendary iron chin held up. In the second round, McCallum adjusted and would live up to his nickname and start raining body shots down on Jackson, wearing him down, and going to the head of Jackson as well.
Jackson was down once in the second round before being rescued by referee Eddie Eckert on the ropes under heavy fire from McCallum.
Bob Foster, "The Deputy Sheriff", light heavyweight in the late 60s and 70s, one of the hardest punchers in boxing history, his left hook was absolute murder, If he caught you with that left hook, you were done. He was nicknamed "The Deputy Sheriff" because he was an actual sheriff's deputy in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is one of the coolest photos, Bob Foster in his deputy uniform.
Bob Foster was a frightening, intimidating guy, he had this deep baritone voice and he was tall and lanky, with a long reach, sort of like a deformed version of Tommy Hearns. He could give you a look that would send chills up your spine, he had an aura of menace to him. He ruled the light heavyweight division in the late 60s and 70s with an iron fist, literally, Bob Foster left a trail of destruction in the ring. He reigned as the undisputed light heavyweight boxing champion for six years, from 1968 to 1974, making 14 defenses of his crown. The power Bob Foster carried was just brutal, he took Mike Quarry out with a short left hook in 1972 and it was one of the scariest knockouts you'll ever see. Foster was responsible for quite a few scary knockouts. This is about as intense as it gets as far as boxing photos go, Bob Foster celebrating after knocking out Mike Quarry.
Like I said, Bob Foster left a trail of destruction wherever he went and he was already a lethal puncher, but you didn't want to piss him off.
Bob Foster took out his frustration with a confusing title picture when he defended the light heavyweight championship with a 4th round KO of Hal Carroll at the Catholic Youth Center in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1971.
Following Foster's leap to heavyweight to unsuccessfully challenge champion Joe Frazier, he returned to light heavyweight to find that the WBA had stripped him of his title. Foster wasn't afraid to voice his anger about the situation, and poor Hal Carroll stood in his way.
One ringside report read:
"Bob Foster stopped Hal 'TNT' Carroll in the 4th round of their scheduled 15 round light heavyweight title bout Tuesday night. Foster disposed of Carroll at 2:32 of the 4th round, setting up the 30 year old challenger from Syracuse, N.Y., with a left hook and then spreading him on the canvas with a blistering right.
Carroll picked up 30 stitches over his left eye for his trouble. It was the first time he had ever been knocked down. He claimed the nasty cut was caused by a butt. Foster said "it came from a left hook."
In 1972, Bob Foster took out his anger while defending the light heavyweight championship and reacquiring the WBA light heavyweight title with a vicious 2nd round TKO of Vicente Rondón at the Convention Center in Miami Beach, Florida.
Foster came into the fight understandably bitter as the WBA stripped him of their title before directing it toward Rondón. Foster trashed the WBA and Rondón before the fight and promised to knock the Venezuelan out.
Additionally, Foster and his team were initially advised that Rondón never made the light heavyweight limit before officials changed their minds and claimed he did make weight.
In round one, Rondón backpedaled away from Foster's punching power and not much happened. But in round two, Foster connected with a combination that dropped Rondón and left him with wobbly legs upon rising. It looked like Rondón might make it through the round, but he made the mistake of backing to the ropes, where Foster froze him with a big punch and followed up with two concussive left hands that knocked Rondón clean out.
A distraught Rondón rambled in his dressing room and interpreters wouldn't tell reporters what the fighter was saying. He later moved to heavyweight, but won no more meaningful fights.
"It's the first time a light heavyweight ever defended his title against a heavyweight," Foster growled. "I just wanted to get warmed up in the first round. When he tried to press me and throw his left early in the second round, I floored him with a right and two lefts.
All of a sudden, I didn't want to knock him out. I wanted him to go 15 rounds so I could punish him the entire 15. I don't know who I'm going to fight next. I'm waiting for the WBA to tell me who I have to fight. If I don't do what they say, they may take my title away again."
God, Foster was a dangerous guy. His most famous knockouts happened in 1968, when he took out the iron-chinned Dick Tiger with a brutal left hook. It was the only time in Dick Tiger's legendary career that he was knocked out, and it's really no surprise that it came at the hands of one of the most frightening punchers in boxing history.
Dick Tiger made the mistake of trying to stand toe-to-toe with Foster and exchange. No light heavyweight ever made it out alive in a shootout with Foster, he was just too brutal of a puncher. You couldn't stand in front of Foster like that for very long if you wanted to survive, he would eventually find you.
Mike Quarry made the same mistake as Dick Tiger, he got too close to Foster and tried to exchange. Gosh, getting close to Bob Foster was dangerous as f..., such a murderous puncher, it was like standing in front of a rattlesnake and poking it with a stick, eventually you were going to get bit. Foster was such a nightmare opponent, tall, lanky, with a long reach, it was near impossible to escape.
“Mickey Duff told me once that it takes three years to make a fighter and ten seconds to ruin one.” - Matchmaker Johnny Bos on his special relationship with the British promoter Mickey Duff
Billy Conn, "The Pittsburgh Kid", one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters in boxing history. Conn is most remembered for coming oh so close to beating the legendary Joe Louis, which is a shame, because Conn is a bonafide all-time great.
Styles make fights. And Billy Conn's style? It was the kind that haunted legends.
Long before he stood toe-to-toe with the most feared man on the planet, before he broke hearts in the thirteenth round of one of boxing’s most painful “what ifs,” Billy Conn was just a kid from Pittsburgh with fast hands, faster feet, and the kind of swagger only the truly gifted can carry without getting crushed under the weight of it. They called him “The Pittsburgh Kid,” but there was nothing small about the way he fought. What he lacked in brute strength, he made up for with something harder to define — timing, rhythm, and an instinctive understanding of space and motion that could not be taught. He turned pro at sixteen, a wiry teenager still learning how to slip punches and win the respect of men who had already tasted blood. His early losses—six of them coming while he fought undersized as a welterweight—weren’t failures, they were bruised chapters in a story still being written. He was figuring it out in real time, and if you watched closely, you could see the pieces falling into place. When he found his home in the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions, Conn transformed. He dropped just a single fight in 25 bouts as a middleweight, losing only on points to the great Young Corbett III. From there, he barely lost again — save for two razor-thin, hotly debated decisions and two soul-testing encounters with Joe Louis. By 1939, Conn was the undisputed Light Heavyweight Champion. But Billy didn’t care about being king of the little guys. He wanted Joe. He wanted to chase down the myth. And in 1941, he got his chance. Everyone expected a slaughter. Joe Louis — the “Brown Bomber,” 200 pounds of cold steel and mechanical brilliance — wasn’t just winning; he was erasing names. By fight night, Conn officially weighed 174 pounds, though in truth he came in at 169. Thirty-one pounds lighter than Louis. A true middleweight in a heavyweight’s world. But that night, Conn didn’t just survive — he dazzled. For twelve rounds, he boxed like he was possessed. He slipped. He danced. He jabbed and moved. Joe Louis, the destroyer of men, looked confused. Conn wasn’t supposed to land first. He wasn’t supposed to disappear between the ropes like a ghost. But he did. Billy was ahead on two of the three scorecards going into the 13th. He needed just one more round — one — to become the lightest heavyweight champion in history. But greatness is a strange beast. It doesn’t whisper; it roars. And Billy Conn, full of fight and fire, chose to finish what he started. He abandoned the plan. He wanted the knockout. He stood in front of the most dangerous man alive and tried to trade bombs. It cost him everything. Joe Louis, sensing his shot, unleashed a perfectly timed counter — the kind of punch that doesn’t just end a fight, it rewrites history. Conn crumbled. And the moment slipped away. Afterward, Louis admitted what so many suspected. Conn had him. Jack Blackburn, Louis’s legendary trainer, even said it plain: “Good thing Billy wasn't satisfied to win on points, and came in so we could hit him.” But why did Conn give Louis such fits? The answer is as complex as it is simple. Joe Louis had no equal in timing and precision. He had the “sweetest left hook” Floyd Patterson ever saw, the kind of jab that didn’t miss, and a right hand that closed careers. But he wasn’t perfect. His footwork, while economical, lacked speed. And against a fighter like Conn — all angles, bursts, and brains — that was dangerous. Conn wasn’t just fast. He was strategic. He didn’t waste movement. His jab — sharp and purposeful — broke rhythm. His feints forced mistakes. He knew when to pivot, when to dart in and out. It was like watching jazz — chaotic to the untrained eye, but precise if you listened to the rhythm. Ezzard Charles once said, “Conn was faster than fast, and he could really box. The only thing God didn’t give him was power.” And yet, for all he lacked in brute strength, Conn had everything else — reflexes, balance, confidence, and grit. He was knocked out only twice in 76 fights. Both times by Louis. The only other time he didn’t finish a fight, he was sick to his stomach, literally vomiting between rounds. That was Conn — not invincible, just unbreakable. Historians and purists still marvel at him. Bobby Franklin called watching Conn “a master class in the Art of Boxing.” He wasn’t flashy for the sake of it. He was art. Technical brilliance wrapped in Irish tenacity. Yet in losing, he gave us one of the most unforgettable nights in boxing history. A night where a 169-pound man nearly dethroned a heavyweight god. Billy Conn didn’t just fight Joe Louis. He made him human.
One of the coolest boxing photos ever taken, Billy Conn hitting the speed bag wearing sunglasses. I actually own the original type 1 photo of this image, I've got it somewhere around my home.
Billy Conn had Joe Louis beat, but he outboxed him and was up on the scorecards, but he made the fatal mistake of trying to exchange with the greatest puncher the sport has ever known.
I've actually heard people crap on Joe Louis because of the Billy Conn fight, because Conn came close to beating him. No, that's not a stain on Louis's legacy, Billy Conn was just that damn good.
Billy Conn cools his head in a water bucket between rounds of match against Melio Bettina at Madison Square Garden. Conn won in 15 rounds to become the light-heavyweight champ.
Jimmy Slattery, "Slats", all-time great, two-time light heavyweight champion in the 1920s, slick, master ring technician, boxed with his hands down to his sides, he was difficult to hit because of his great ability to move around the ring. Watching him on film is like watching a 1920s version of Muhammad Ali, he floated around the ring and stung like a bee, he was poetry in motion. Holds wins over Jack Delaney, Maxie Rosenbloom, Johnny Risko, and Lou Scozza.
This is a fascinating story, Spock vs Captain Kirk, two best friends forced to battle to the death, or in this case for Olympic Gold. The great welterweight Jackie Fields, he was a two-time world welterweight champion, great ring technician with an iron chin, fought in the 1920s and 30s. He won the Olympic Gold medal at the 1924 Paris games in the featherweight division, and to this day is still the youngest person to win Olympic Gold accomplishing the feat at the age of 16. But the story of that Gold medal is interesting, because he had to fight his best friend Joe Salas for it in the final.
Boxiana
“We Would Have Done Anything Not To Fight Each Other”
July 19, 2024 David Harazduk
Two best friends sunk into each other’s arms, weeping in the locker room moments before the biggest fight of their lives. Though the teenagers had each beaten four grown men in five days to reach the Olympic final, both understood their next opponent in the tournament would be the toughest yet. But their tears were not from nerves or fear. Instead it was regret and the instinctive understanding that nothing would ever be the same between them. With the gold medal at stake, the two boys were minutes away from fighting each other.
Today the minimum age for a boxer to qualify for an Olympic competition is nineteen and each country is allowed to enter only one boxer in each weight category. But a hundred years ago there was no age minimum and two fighters per country could compete in the same weight class. And so it was that two adolescent American pals, 16-year-old Jackie Fields and 18-year-old Joe Salas, came to face each other in the featherweight final on this day a century ago at the 1924 Paris Olympics.
Joe Salas
The boys had met in 1921 at the renowned Los Angeles Athletic Club, a haven for Jewish and Mexican Americans who were barred from living in certain neighborhoods in Los Angeles at the time. But in a cruel irony, the LAAC excluded black people from becoming members.
The club’s head coach was George Blake, an ex-boxer who had trained aspiring fighters for over fifteen years. Regarded as an honest man and an excellent teacher, Blake was a boxing instructor at Camp Kearney during World War I and a well-respected referee in the pro game. He taught the science of the sport, focusing on proper technique, and both Fields and Salas, who became fast friends, thrived under Blake’s tutelage.
Fields was a tiny flyweight when he began to learn from Blake at the age of 13. When he became good enough to represent the club in amateur tournaments, the slick boxer fought as a bantamweight. Meanwhile, the power-punching Salas was the club’s premier featherweight. Emerging as the best boxing club in America, the LAAC sent seven boxers to the 1924 national championships in Boston, which also served as the U.S. Olympic Trials. Four of them would make the trip to Paris. Three would medal.
Jackie Fields
By the time of the May trials, young Fields could no longer make the bantamweight limit, so he entered as a featherweight on the opposite side of the bracket of his friend. While Salas won the national championship, Fields was bounced in the semifinals because of a combination of a broken hand and Harry Wallach’s southpaw stance. “I never fought a southpaw before,” Fields recalled. With the loss, Fields’s hopes of Olympic glory appeared to be dashed.
But there were powerful men watching in Boston. American Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage, president of the Amateur Athletic Union W.C. Proust, and Spike Webb, head coach of the U.S. Olympic Boxing team, both took a favorable view of Fields and gave him the chance to make the team as an alternate.
In June, the USS America carried the U.S. Olympic team across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris with four featherweights aboard. Coach Webb could only enter two of them and name one alternate. So Fields sparred Patsy Ruffalo on the boat. “Unbeknown to each other, they let us work out to see who would eliminate the other alternate,” Fields remembered. “So, I must have eliminated him.”
Because of internal injuries, Ruffalo would be rushed off the boat to the hospital when it docked in Cherbourg, France. A middleweight alternate from the LAAC named Ad Allegrini forfeited his chance to participate in the Olympics when he heroically donated blood to the wounded Ruffalo.
The 1924 USA Olympic Boxing Team. Front row: Fidel La Barba, Jackie Fields, Coach Spike Webb, Ray Fee, and Joe Salas
Once in Paris, Fields learned that he would face Wallach again, this time in a box-off for the right to represent the U.S. in the Olympics. When the New Yorker had put up his guard in a southpaw stance in the trials, Fields was so confused he told Wallach, “Hey, turn around. You’re fighting wrong.” In Paris, the slightly more experienced Salas set out to teach his friend how to fight a lefty. Fields later said, “I must have looked better than Wallach, so they picked Joe Salas and me.”
The 1924 Olympic boxing competition was a bizarre whirlwind. The glass ceiling of the Vélodrome d’Hiver acted as the sun’s magnifying glass, creating sweltering conditions for the boxers inside. Referees stood helplessly outside the ring. Salas explained, “You did what you could to protect yourself because the referees weren’t right there to help out.” The resulting controversies caused chaos, which led to the occasional riot in the stands. But the two American featherweights boxed their way past four older opponents in five days.
When the time came for the two friends to face off for the gold medal on this day, July 20th, 1924, neither was anxious to face their pal. “We would have done anything not to fight each other,” Salas later declared.
With two Americans in the final, there was the question of which corner head coach Spike Webb would be in, and which one assistant coach Al Lacey would work. Fields believed Webb favored Salas to win. He claimed Webb said, “I’ll have to toss a coin. Heads I’ll go in Salas’s corner, tails Lacey, you go in Fields’s corner.” The perceived slight snapped Fields out of his distress over fighting his friend. “C’mon, Al,” he told Coach Lacey. “We’ll beat ’em. You come with me.”
A poster advertisement for boxing at the 1924 Paris Olympics
During the three-round bout, both men boxed beautifully. Coach Webb later described the fight as “a remarkable exhibition of scientific boxing and clean, hard hitting.” That included the extra minute inexplicably added to the final round. “The decision of the judges went to Fields,” continued Webb, “and it met with the approval of the crowd, as Fields boxed like a master, while Salas also gave a wonderful account of himself.”
After the fight, Fields was allegedly so distraught at beating his friend he went back to the dressing room and cried. But he had won the gold medal. The 16-year-old became the youngest boxer ever to win an Olympic gold medal, a record that not only still stands, but one that will never be broken. “They handed me the gold medal, and then played the National Anthem,” Fields later remembered. “And I started to cry.”
No American featherweight would win an Olympic gold medal again until Meldrick Taylor did so sixty years later. Taylor is the only American 126-pounder to win gold since Fields.
By winning silver, Salas became the first Latino American to win an Olympic medal in any sport, a pioneering achievement that is sadly overlooked today. While he felt he deserved gold, Salas claimed, “There were no hard feelings.” History would prove otherwise.
The coveted gold medal.
Salas returned to Los Angeles a couple weeks ahead of Fields, who took a detour to visit his friends in Chicago, where he had grown up. When he finally arrived in Los Angeles, Fields heard that Salas had accused him of head-butting in the final. Bad blood began to surface, and a rematch was set for September 18th. The rematch was so close that a fourth round was spontaneously ordered. Ultimately, Fields was given the verdict. Salas felt he had been robbed again. As a result, their relationship further deteriorated.
Fields and Salas then fought as professionals on May 8, 1925 in a bitter grudge match. George Blake had chosen to manage Salas’s career, believing Fields too young to turn pro, which only added to the bitterness between the two boys. The defending Olympic champion held a professional record of 2-0 while the defending national champion was 3-0. In the fight, Fields outboxed Salas over ten rounds to win the decision. They never spoke to one another ever again.
Sixty-two years later, Olympic gold medalist Jackie Fields died. Just eight days later, his former best friend Joe Salas followed.
What's even more fascinating is, Jackie Fields' 1924 Paris Olympics Gold medal was sold at auction in 2024, it went for $21,588. Someone actually has that Gold medal in their private collection, that is insane, the Spock vs Captain Kirk Gold medal. I'd give my left pinky finger to own that medal.
Description
Historic gold medal from the 1924 Paris Games, awarded to 16-year-old Jackie Fields, a future legend of welterweight boxing
Rare winner's medal issued to American featherweight boxer Jackie Fields at the Paris 1924 Summer Olympics. Gilt silver, 55 mm, 78 gm, by Andre Rivaud, Paris. The front depicts a triumphant athlete extending his hand to a fallen opponent, with the designer's name "A. Rivaud" etched below his foot, and the Olympic rings at the bottom; the reverse, inscribed, "VIIIeme Olympiade, Paris 1924," depicts a harp and various pieces of sporting equipment. Stamped "Argent" on the edge. The winner's medals for this Olympics were the first to incorporate the Olympic rings into the design. Accompanied by myriad newspaper clippings related to the career of Jackie Fields.
First-place winner’s medals from the Paris 1924 Olympiad are exceedingly rare, with this stunning example representing just the second that we have ever offered. Further augmenting its desirability is the medal’s recipient, Jackie Fields, one of the greatest welterweight boxers of all time. Born Jacob Finkelstein, Fields began his training at an early age, studying with legendary trainers Jack Blackburn and George Blake and sparring with future champs like Fidel LaBarba. He excelled as an amateur fighter, winning over 50 fights, and joined the American national team for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Fields went 5 and 0 against his international opponents and secured a gold medal in the featherweight division, becoming the youngest boxer to ever receive such an honor. The Olympic prize ignited the young boxer, who returned to the States to begin his career as a professional. Fields retired at the age of 25 with a record of 72 wins and nine losses, which included NBA, NYSAC, and The Ring welterweight titles. Fields was elected to the United Savings-Helms Hall of Boxing Fame in 1972, the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1979, the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1987, and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2004.
Jackie Fields was tough as nails, only stopped once in his entire career and it took the murderous punching Jimmy Mclarnin to turn the trick. Fields was a great pure boxer, he fought with a detached retina at the end of his career due to a car accident he was in.
Born Jacob Finkelstein in Chicago, IL on February 9, 1908. Fields began his amateur career in Los Angeles in the early 1920s and, at the age of 16, won the featherweight gold medal at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris.
He turned pro in 1924 and in late 1925 Hall of Famer Jimmy McLarnin kayoed him, the only time in his career he was stopped. Fields also engaged in two bouts with Hall of Fame lightweight champion Sammy Mandell (ND12, L10) in 1927 and 1928 respectively. Victories over King Tut, Mushy Callahan, Vince Dundee, Jack Zivic and Young Jack Thompson positioned Fields for a shot at the vacant NBA welterweight title on March 25, 1929 against Thompson. Fields captured the title via 10-round decision and then defeated Joe Dundee (WF2) to win universal recognition as welterweight champion. Wins over Vince Dundee (W10), Gorilla Jones (W10) and a loss to Young Corbett III in a non-title bout (L10) followed before losing his title to Thompson in 1930 (L15). He bounced back to regain the diadem with a 10-round win over Lou Brouillard on January 28, 1932. He lost the title to Young Corbett III (L10) the next year and retired following a 10-round win over Young Peter Jackson.
Fields amazingly fought his last several bouts with vision in only one eye, having previously suffered from a detached retina in an automobile accident. Widely regarded as scientific boxer with tremendous stamina and a solid punch, Fields' record stands at 72-9-2, 2ND, 1NC (30KOs).
Great shot of Jackie Fields against Lou Brouillard, Brouillard was a hard nut to crack, a tough Southpaw that was built like a fire hydrant, strong as an ox, awkward style. Brouillard was great, he's in the HOF as well.
Comments
The man, the myth, the legend himself.
Sugar Ray Robinson knocked out Jose Basora in less than a minute to successfully defend his middleweight championship at Scranton Stadium, Pennsylvania in 1950.
The fight was over in 52 seconds, one of the fastest knockouts in championship history.
The seconds had barely gotten down the steps before Basora hit the canvas courtesy from a Robinson left hook. He was down four times in the fast and furious fight.
Sugar Ray attends to his beaten opponent in this photo.
Virgin Islands murderous puncher Julian "The Hawk" Jackson was unbeaten in 29 fights with 27 knockouts in 1986 when he ran into the great WBA light-middleweight champion Mike "The Bodysnatcher" McCallum at the Convention Center in Miami Beach, Jackson was halted by the McCallum in two rounds.
Jackson was destroying everything in his path at the time, but he ran into an all-time great in Mike McCallum.
McCallum had to endure some brutal shots from the hard punching Jackson at the beginning of the fight, Jackson came through the door like gangbusters and tried to take McCallum out early, but McCallum's legendary iron chin held up. In the second round, McCallum adjusted and would live up to his nickname and start raining body shots down on Jackson, wearing him down, and going to the head of Jackson as well.
Jackson was down once in the second round before being rescued by referee Eddie Eckert on the ropes under heavy fire from McCallum.
Bob Foster, "The Deputy Sheriff", light heavyweight in the late 60s and 70s, one of the hardest punchers in boxing history, his left hook was absolute murder, If he caught you with that left hook, you were done. He was nicknamed "The Deputy Sheriff" because he was an actual sheriff's deputy in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is one of the coolest photos, Bob Foster in his deputy uniform.
Bob Foster was a frightening, intimidating guy, he had this deep baritone voice and he was tall and lanky, with a long reach, sort of like a deformed version of Tommy Hearns. He could give you a look that would send chills up your spine, he had an aura of menace to him. He ruled the light heavyweight division in the late 60s and 70s with an iron fist, literally, Bob Foster left a trail of destruction in the ring. He reigned as the undisputed light heavyweight boxing champion for six years, from 1968 to 1974, making 14 defenses of his crown. The power Bob Foster carried was just brutal, he took Mike Quarry out with a short left hook in 1972 and it was one of the scariest knockouts you'll ever see. Foster was responsible for quite a few scary knockouts. This is about as intense as it gets as far as boxing photos go, Bob Foster celebrating after knocking out Mike Quarry.
Another angle, Bob Foster looking down at Mike Quarry after taking him out.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/mma-fighter-son-ex-ufc-champion-nearly-kills/
MMA Fighter and Son of Ex-UFC Champion Nearly KILLS Pro Wrestler Live — Police Now Investigating the Brutal Assault (VIDEO)
Hey Ma - wanna see a real pro wrestling match?
I saw that yesterday on Twitter, Rampage Jackson's son beat the crap out of that wrestler, brutal stuff.
Especially when the guy on the ground was already clearly knocked out. Yet the attack continued.
That is clearly assault and battery. Perhaps an attempted murder charge depending on the DA.
He should be charged with attempted murder, it was a sickening attack on a totally defenseless man, he could have killed him. He belongs in jail.
Like I said, Bob Foster left a trail of destruction wherever he went and he was already a lethal puncher, but you didn't want to piss him off.
Bob Foster took out his frustration with a confusing title picture when he defended the light heavyweight championship with a 4th round KO of Hal Carroll at the Catholic Youth Center in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1971.
Following Foster's leap to heavyweight to unsuccessfully challenge champion Joe Frazier, he returned to light heavyweight to find that the WBA had stripped him of his title. Foster wasn't afraid to voice his anger about the situation, and poor Hal Carroll stood in his way.
One ringside report read:
"Bob Foster stopped Hal 'TNT' Carroll in the 4th round of their scheduled 15 round light heavyweight title bout Tuesday night. Foster disposed of Carroll at 2:32 of the 4th round, setting up the 30 year old challenger from Syracuse, N.Y., with a left hook and then spreading him on the canvas with a blistering right.
Carroll picked up 30 stitches over his left eye for his trouble. It was the first time he had ever been knocked down. He claimed the nasty cut was caused by a butt. Foster said "it came from a left hook."
In 1972, Bob Foster took out his anger while defending the light heavyweight championship and reacquiring the WBA light heavyweight title with a vicious 2nd round TKO of Vicente Rondón at the Convention Center in Miami Beach, Florida.
Foster came into the fight understandably bitter as the WBA stripped him of their title before directing it toward Rondón. Foster trashed the WBA and Rondón before the fight and promised to knock the Venezuelan out.
Additionally, Foster and his team were initially advised that Rondón never made the light heavyweight limit before officials changed their minds and claimed he did make weight.
In round one, Rondón backpedaled away from Foster's punching power and not much happened. But in round two, Foster connected with a combination that dropped Rondón and left him with wobbly legs upon rising. It looked like Rondón might make it through the round, but he made the mistake of backing to the ropes, where Foster froze him with a big punch and followed up with two concussive left hands that knocked Rondón clean out.
A distraught Rondón rambled in his dressing room and interpreters wouldn't tell reporters what the fighter was saying. He later moved to heavyweight, but won no more meaningful fights.
"It's the first time a light heavyweight ever defended his title against a heavyweight," Foster growled. "I just wanted to get warmed up in the first round. When he tried to press me and throw his left early in the second round, I floored him with a right and two lefts.
All of a sudden, I didn't want to knock him out. I wanted him to go 15 rounds so I could punish him the entire 15. I don't know who I'm going to fight next. I'm waiting for the WBA to tell me who I have to fight. If I don't do what they say, they may take my title away again."
God, Foster was a dangerous guy. His most famous knockouts happened in 1968, when he took out the iron-chinned Dick Tiger with a brutal left hook. It was the only time in Dick Tiger's legendary career that he was knocked out, and it's really no surprise that it came at the hands of one of the most frightening punchers in boxing history.
Dick Tiger made the mistake of trying to stand toe-to-toe with Foster and exchange. No light heavyweight ever made it out alive in a shootout with Foster, he was just too brutal of a puncher. You couldn't stand in front of Foster like that for very long if you wanted to survive, he would eventually find you.
Mike Quarry made the same mistake as Dick Tiger, he got too close to Foster and tried to exchange. Gosh, getting close to Bob Foster was dangerous as f..., such a murderous puncher, it was like standing in front of a rattlesnake and poking it with a stick, eventually you were going to get bit. Foster was such a nightmare opponent, tall, lanky, with a long reach, it was near impossible to escape.
Great shot of Bob Foster, such a destructive puncher.
“Mickey Duff told me once that it takes three years to make a fighter and ten seconds to ruin one.” - Matchmaker Johnny Bos on his special relationship with the British promoter Mickey Duff
Great photo of Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Geez, what an intimidating beast.
Billy Conn, "The Pittsburgh Kid", one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters in boxing history. Conn is most remembered for coming oh so close to beating the legendary Joe Louis, which is a shame, because Conn is a bonafide all-time great.
Styles make fights. And Billy Conn's style? It was the kind that haunted legends.
Long before he stood toe-to-toe with the most feared man on the planet, before he broke hearts in the thirteenth round of one of boxing’s most painful “what ifs,” Billy Conn was just a kid from Pittsburgh with fast hands, faster feet, and the kind of swagger only the truly gifted can carry without getting crushed under the weight of it. They called him “The Pittsburgh Kid,” but there was nothing small about the way he fought. What he lacked in brute strength, he made up for with something harder to define — timing, rhythm, and an instinctive understanding of space and motion that could not be taught. He turned pro at sixteen, a wiry teenager still learning how to slip punches and win the respect of men who had already tasted blood. His early losses—six of them coming while he fought undersized as a welterweight—weren’t failures, they were bruised chapters in a story still being written. He was figuring it out in real time, and if you watched closely, you could see the pieces falling into place. When he found his home in the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions, Conn transformed. He dropped just a single fight in 25 bouts as a middleweight, losing only on points to the great Young Corbett III. From there, he barely lost again — save for two razor-thin, hotly debated decisions and two soul-testing encounters with Joe Louis. By 1939, Conn was the undisputed Light Heavyweight Champion. But Billy didn’t care about being king of the little guys. He wanted Joe. He wanted to chase down the myth. And in 1941, he got his chance. Everyone expected a slaughter. Joe Louis — the “Brown Bomber,” 200 pounds of cold steel and mechanical brilliance — wasn’t just winning; he was erasing names. By fight night, Conn officially weighed 174 pounds, though in truth he came in at 169. Thirty-one pounds lighter than Louis. A true middleweight in a heavyweight’s world. But that night, Conn didn’t just survive — he dazzled. For twelve rounds, he boxed like he was possessed. He slipped. He danced. He jabbed and moved. Joe Louis, the destroyer of men, looked confused. Conn wasn’t supposed to land first. He wasn’t supposed to disappear between the ropes like a ghost. But he did. Billy was ahead on two of the three scorecards going into the 13th. He needed just one more round — one — to become the lightest heavyweight champion in history. But greatness is a strange beast. It doesn’t whisper; it roars. And Billy Conn, full of fight and fire, chose to finish what he started. He abandoned the plan. He wanted the knockout. He stood in front of the most dangerous man alive and tried to trade bombs. It cost him everything. Joe Louis, sensing his shot, unleashed a perfectly timed counter — the kind of punch that doesn’t just end a fight, it rewrites history. Conn crumbled. And the moment slipped away. Afterward, Louis admitted what so many suspected. Conn had him. Jack Blackburn, Louis’s legendary trainer, even said it plain: “Good thing Billy wasn't satisfied to win on points, and came in so we could hit him.” But why did Conn give Louis such fits? The answer is as complex as it is simple. Joe Louis had no equal in timing and precision. He had the “sweetest left hook” Floyd Patterson ever saw, the kind of jab that didn’t miss, and a right hand that closed careers. But he wasn’t perfect. His footwork, while economical, lacked speed. And against a fighter like Conn — all angles, bursts, and brains — that was dangerous. Conn wasn’t just fast. He was strategic. He didn’t waste movement. His jab — sharp and purposeful — broke rhythm. His feints forced mistakes. He knew when to pivot, when to dart in and out. It was like watching jazz — chaotic to the untrained eye, but precise if you listened to the rhythm. Ezzard Charles once said, “Conn was faster than fast, and he could really box. The only thing God didn’t give him was power.” And yet, for all he lacked in brute strength, Conn had everything else — reflexes, balance, confidence, and grit. He was knocked out only twice in 76 fights. Both times by Louis. The only other time he didn’t finish a fight, he was sick to his stomach, literally vomiting between rounds. That was Conn — not invincible, just unbreakable. Historians and purists still marvel at him. Bobby Franklin called watching Conn “a master class in the Art of Boxing.” He wasn’t flashy for the sake of it. He was art. Technical brilliance wrapped in Irish tenacity. Yet in losing, he gave us one of the most unforgettable nights in boxing history. A night where a 169-pound man nearly dethroned a heavyweight god. Billy Conn didn’t just fight Joe Louis. He made him human.
One of the coolest boxing photos ever taken, Billy Conn hitting the speed bag wearing sunglasses. I actually own the original type 1 photo of this image, I've got it somewhere around my home.
A couple of the most famous boxing photos right here, the face-off between Joe Louis and Billy Conn at the weigh-in.
Joe Louis vs Billy Conn 1.
Billy Conn had Joe Louis beat, but he outboxed him and was up on the scorecards, but he made the fatal mistake of trying to exchange with the greatest puncher the sport has ever known.
And Louis got him. One of the greatest boxing photos ever taken.
Conn and Louis after their encounter.
Louis vs Conn 1 was an epic fight, you know it's a great fight when you can write a whole book about it.
I've actually heard people crap on Joe Louis because of the Billy Conn fight, because Conn came close to beating him. No, that's not a stain on Louis's legacy, Billy Conn was just that damn good.
Water thrown in Conn's face after being knocked out by Louis, this is a beast of a photo.
Billy Conn vs the "Man of Steel" Tony Zale.
Billy Conn lands a left jab to the face of Tony Zale.
Billy Conn cools his head in a water bucket between rounds of match against Melio Bettina at Madison Square Garden. Conn won in 15 rounds to become the light-heavyweight champ.
Billy Con in a fight pose.
Conn on the cover of Ring magazine.
Billy Conn, "The Pittsburgh Kid", beautiful boxing.
Jimmy Slattery, "Slats", all-time great, two-time light heavyweight champion in the 1920s, slick, master ring technician, boxed with his hands down to his sides, he was difficult to hit because of his great ability to move around the ring. Watching him on film is like watching a 1920s version of Muhammad Ali, he floated around the ring and stung like a bee, he was poetry in motion. Holds wins over Jack Delaney, Maxie Rosenbloom, Johnny Risko, and Lou Scozza.
An article about Jimmy Slattery in the newspaper of the era.
Jimmy Slattery posing for the camera.
Jimmy Slattery is indeed a legend.
We have very little film on Jimmy Slattery, but it's enough. He was phenomenal, you just didn't see slick boxers with movement like this in the 1920s.
This is a fascinating story, Spock vs Captain Kirk, two best friends forced to battle to the death, or in this case for Olympic Gold. The great welterweight Jackie Fields, he was a two-time world welterweight champion, great ring technician with an iron chin, fought in the 1920s and 30s. He won the Olympic Gold medal at the 1924 Paris games in the featherweight division, and to this day is still the youngest person to win Olympic Gold accomplishing the feat at the age of 16. But the story of that Gold medal is interesting, because he had to fight his best friend Joe Salas for it in the final.
Boxiana
“We Would Have Done Anything Not To Fight Each Other”
July 19, 2024 David Harazduk
Two best friends sunk into each other’s arms, weeping in the locker room moments before the biggest fight of their lives. Though the teenagers had each beaten four grown men in five days to reach the Olympic final, both understood their next opponent in the tournament would be the toughest yet. But their tears were not from nerves or fear. Instead it was regret and the instinctive understanding that nothing would ever be the same between them. With the gold medal at stake, the two boys were minutes away from fighting each other.
Today the minimum age for a boxer to qualify for an Olympic competition is nineteen and each country is allowed to enter only one boxer in each weight category. But a hundred years ago there was no age minimum and two fighters per country could compete in the same weight class. And so it was that two adolescent American pals, 16-year-old Jackie Fields and 18-year-old Joe Salas, came to face each other in the featherweight final on this day a century ago at the 1924 Paris Olympics.
Joe Salas
The boys had met in 1921 at the renowned Los Angeles Athletic Club, a haven for Jewish and Mexican Americans who were barred from living in certain neighborhoods in Los Angeles at the time. But in a cruel irony, the LAAC excluded black people from becoming members.
The club’s head coach was George Blake, an ex-boxer who had trained aspiring fighters for over fifteen years. Regarded as an honest man and an excellent teacher, Blake was a boxing instructor at Camp Kearney during World War I and a well-respected referee in the pro game. He taught the science of the sport, focusing on proper technique, and both Fields and Salas, who became fast friends, thrived under Blake’s tutelage.
Fields was a tiny flyweight when he began to learn from Blake at the age of 13. When he became good enough to represent the club in amateur tournaments, the slick boxer fought as a bantamweight. Meanwhile, the power-punching Salas was the club’s premier featherweight. Emerging as the best boxing club in America, the LAAC sent seven boxers to the 1924 national championships in Boston, which also served as the U.S. Olympic Trials. Four of them would make the trip to Paris. Three would medal.
Jackie Fields
By the time of the May trials, young Fields could no longer make the bantamweight limit, so he entered as a featherweight on the opposite side of the bracket of his friend. While Salas won the national championship, Fields was bounced in the semifinals because of a combination of a broken hand and Harry Wallach’s southpaw stance. “I never fought a southpaw before,” Fields recalled. With the loss, Fields’s hopes of Olympic glory appeared to be dashed.
But there were powerful men watching in Boston. American Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage, president of the Amateur Athletic Union W.C. Proust, and Spike Webb, head coach of the U.S. Olympic Boxing team, both took a favorable view of Fields and gave him the chance to make the team as an alternate.
In June, the USS America carried the U.S. Olympic team across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris with four featherweights aboard. Coach Webb could only enter two of them and name one alternate. So Fields sparred Patsy Ruffalo on the boat. “Unbeknown to each other, they let us work out to see who would eliminate the other alternate,” Fields remembered. “So, I must have eliminated him.”
Because of internal injuries, Ruffalo would be rushed off the boat to the hospital when it docked in Cherbourg, France. A middleweight alternate from the LAAC named Ad Allegrini forfeited his chance to participate in the Olympics when he heroically donated blood to the wounded Ruffalo.
The 1924 USA Olympic Boxing Team. Front row: Fidel La Barba, Jackie Fields, Coach Spike Webb, Ray Fee, and Joe Salas
Once in Paris, Fields learned that he would face Wallach again, this time in a box-off for the right to represent the U.S. in the Olympics. When the New Yorker had put up his guard in a southpaw stance in the trials, Fields was so confused he told Wallach, “Hey, turn around. You’re fighting wrong.” In Paris, the slightly more experienced Salas set out to teach his friend how to fight a lefty. Fields later said, “I must have looked better than Wallach, so they picked Joe Salas and me.”
The 1924 Olympic boxing competition was a bizarre whirlwind. The glass ceiling of the Vélodrome d’Hiver acted as the sun’s magnifying glass, creating sweltering conditions for the boxers inside. Referees stood helplessly outside the ring. Salas explained, “You did what you could to protect yourself because the referees weren’t right there to help out.” The resulting controversies caused chaos, which led to the occasional riot in the stands. But the two American featherweights boxed their way past four older opponents in five days.
When the time came for the two friends to face off for the gold medal on this day, July 20th, 1924, neither was anxious to face their pal. “We would have done anything not to fight each other,” Salas later declared.
With two Americans in the final, there was the question of which corner head coach Spike Webb would be in, and which one assistant coach Al Lacey would work. Fields believed Webb favored Salas to win. He claimed Webb said, “I’ll have to toss a coin. Heads I’ll go in Salas’s corner, tails Lacey, you go in Fields’s corner.” The perceived slight snapped Fields out of his distress over fighting his friend. “C’mon, Al,” he told Coach Lacey. “We’ll beat ’em. You come with me.”
A poster advertisement for boxing at the 1924 Paris Olympics
During the three-round bout, both men boxed beautifully. Coach Webb later described the fight as “a remarkable exhibition of scientific boxing and clean, hard hitting.” That included the extra minute inexplicably added to the final round. “The decision of the judges went to Fields,” continued Webb, “and it met with the approval of the crowd, as Fields boxed like a master, while Salas also gave a wonderful account of himself.”
After the fight, Fields was allegedly so distraught at beating his friend he went back to the dressing room and cried. But he had won the gold medal. The 16-year-old became the youngest boxer ever to win an Olympic gold medal, a record that not only still stands, but one that will never be broken. “They handed me the gold medal, and then played the National Anthem,” Fields later remembered. “And I started to cry.”
No American featherweight would win an Olympic gold medal again until Meldrick Taylor did so sixty years later. Taylor is the only American 126-pounder to win gold since Fields.
By winning silver, Salas became the first Latino American to win an Olympic medal in any sport, a pioneering achievement that is sadly overlooked today. While he felt he deserved gold, Salas claimed, “There were no hard feelings.” History would prove otherwise.
The coveted gold medal.
Salas returned to Los Angeles a couple weeks ahead of Fields, who took a detour to visit his friends in Chicago, where he had grown up. When he finally arrived in Los Angeles, Fields heard that Salas had accused him of head-butting in the final. Bad blood began to surface, and a rematch was set for September 18th. The rematch was so close that a fourth round was spontaneously ordered. Ultimately, Fields was given the verdict. Salas felt he had been robbed again. As a result, their relationship further deteriorated.
Fields and Salas then fought as professionals on May 8, 1925 in a bitter grudge match. George Blake had chosen to manage Salas’s career, believing Fields too young to turn pro, which only added to the bitterness between the two boys. The defending Olympic champion held a professional record of 2-0 while the defending national champion was 3-0. In the fight, Fields outboxed Salas over ten rounds to win the decision. They never spoke to one another ever again.
Sixty-two years later, Olympic gold medalist Jackie Fields died. Just eight days later, his former best friend Joe Salas followed.
What's even more fascinating is, Jackie Fields' 1924 Paris Olympics Gold medal was sold at auction in 2024, it went for $21,588. Someone actually has that Gold medal in their private collection, that is insane, the Spock vs Captain Kirk Gold medal. I'd give my left pinky finger to own that medal.
Here is the medal, and the auction description:
Description
Historic gold medal from the 1924 Paris Games, awarded to 16-year-old Jackie Fields, a future legend of welterweight boxing
Rare winner's medal issued to American featherweight boxer Jackie Fields at the Paris 1924 Summer Olympics. Gilt silver, 55 mm, 78 gm, by Andre Rivaud, Paris. The front depicts a triumphant athlete extending his hand to a fallen opponent, with the designer's name "A. Rivaud" etched below his foot, and the Olympic rings at the bottom; the reverse, inscribed, "VIIIeme Olympiade, Paris 1924," depicts a harp and various pieces of sporting equipment. Stamped "Argent" on the edge. The winner's medals for this Olympics were the first to incorporate the Olympic rings into the design. Accompanied by myriad newspaper clippings related to the career of Jackie Fields.
First-place winner’s medals from the Paris 1924 Olympiad are exceedingly rare, with this stunning example representing just the second that we have ever offered. Further augmenting its desirability is the medal’s recipient, Jackie Fields, one of the greatest welterweight boxers of all time. Born Jacob Finkelstein, Fields began his training at an early age, studying with legendary trainers Jack Blackburn and George Blake and sparring with future champs like Fidel LaBarba. He excelled as an amateur fighter, winning over 50 fights, and joined the American national team for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Fields went 5 and 0 against his international opponents and secured a gold medal in the featherweight division, becoming the youngest boxer to ever receive such an honor. The Olympic prize ignited the young boxer, who returned to the States to begin his career as a professional. Fields retired at the age of 25 with a record of 72 wins and nine losses, which included NBA, NYSAC, and The Ring welterweight titles. Fields was elected to the United Savings-Helms Hall of Boxing Fame in 1972, the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1979, the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1987, and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2004.
Jackie Fields was tough as nails, only stopped once in his entire career and it took the murderous punching Jimmy Mclarnin to turn the trick. Fields was a great pure boxer, he fought with a detached retina at the end of his career due to a car accident he was in.
Born Jacob Finkelstein in Chicago, IL on February 9, 1908. Fields began his amateur career in Los Angeles in the early 1920s and, at the age of 16, won the featherweight gold medal at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris.
He turned pro in 1924 and in late 1925 Hall of Famer Jimmy McLarnin kayoed him, the only time in his career he was stopped. Fields also engaged in two bouts with Hall of Fame lightweight champion Sammy Mandell (ND12, L10) in 1927 and 1928 respectively. Victories over King Tut, Mushy Callahan, Vince Dundee, Jack Zivic and Young Jack Thompson positioned Fields for a shot at the vacant NBA welterweight title on March 25, 1929 against Thompson. Fields captured the title via 10-round decision and then defeated Joe Dundee (WF2) to win universal recognition as welterweight champion. Wins over Vince Dundee (W10), Gorilla Jones (W10) and a loss to Young Corbett III in a non-title bout (L10) followed before losing his title to Thompson in 1930 (L15). He bounced back to regain the diadem with a 10-round win over Lou Brouillard on January 28, 1932. He lost the title to Young Corbett III (L10) the next year and retired following a 10-round win over Young Peter Jackson.
Fields amazingly fought his last several bouts with vision in only one eye, having previously suffered from a detached retina in an automobile accident. Widely regarded as scientific boxer with tremendous stamina and a solid punch, Fields' record stands at 72-9-2, 2ND, 1NC (30KOs).
Great shot of Jackie Fields against Lou Brouillard, Brouillard was a hard nut to crack, a tough Southpaw that was built like a fire hydrant, strong as an ox, awkward style. Brouillard was great, he's in the HOF as well.
Jackie Fields after defeating Lou Brouillard and regaining the world welterweight title.