Gene Fullmer wearing a mask head protector, love these images with boxers wearing the mask. Fullmer was one of the most brutal middleweights in the history of the sport, strong as an ox, going up against Fullmer was like trying to stop an advancing tank. He used the cross-arm guard, nasty infighter, would maul the heck out of his opponents.
Gene Fullmer had a wicked overhand right, when he threw the punch it looked like a drunk throwing a beer bottle in a bar fight, if it caught you it was devastating. He took Joe Miceli out with it in 1958.
A lot of people probably remember Tex Cobb from movies and television, after retiring from boxing, Cobb appeared in numerous films, most notably The Champ, Uncommon Valor, Raising Arizona, Fletch Lives, Ernest Goes to Jail, The Naked Gun 33 1/3, The Final Insult, and the opening sequence of Ace Ventura Pet Detective. He also has appeared in many television shows, such as Miami Vice, The X-Files, and Walker, Texas Ranger. As a fighter, sometimes toughness is all you need in this game and it can take you a long way, Tex Cobb was cut from that cloth. Tex had a legendary chin. But he could bang as well, his 8-round war with Earnie Shavers is a classic, he broke Shavers jaw with an uppercut in that fight. Many people consider Shavers the hardest puncher in boxing history, but he couldn't dent Cobb's chin.
40 Years On: The Tex Cobb – Earnie Shavers War Remembered By James Slater - 08/02/2020 -
“Nobody hits like Shavers. If anybody hit harder than Shavers, I’d shoot him,” -Randy “Tex” Cobb.
There have been legendary heavyweight slugfests and then there is the Tex Cobb Vs. Earnie Shavers punch-a-thon. Two tough men, one with a granite chin the other with pulverizing punching power, which would prevail? Neither Cobb nor Shavers could ever be described as slick, or even skilled, yet heart, guts and a willingness to go into the deepest of trenches was never lacking from either man – especially when they met each other in a fight that took place 40 years ago today. The 1980 war between Cobb and Shavers serves as a graphic illustration of just how hard a sport boxing can be. The fight took place on the under-card of the Thomas Hearns v Pipino Cuevas welterweight title fight and seldom has a supporting bout been so special. Shavers, who was on the downside of a memorable career, was to have fought Gerry Cooney. But due to a torn muscle suffered by Cooney, Cobb stepped in to face the shaven-headed slugger. In contrast to the 35 year old Shavers, 26 year old Cobb was an up and coming fighter, one with a 16-0 record. Both men met at ring centre and got to work straight away. Shavers started more slowly than Cobb, however, his hands noticeably sluggish. Cobb was doing his level best to box, pumping out his decent jab. Then, shockingly, Shavers looked to be tired, this as early as round-two. On top of this bad news was the fact that Shavers had recently undergone retinal surgery on his left eye, his vision at risk in each fight from there on in. And in this same round, a bad cut opened up over Shavers’ eye. Cobb just kept chopping away. Shavers came out for the third-round and at last got something going. He connected with a couple of hard rights to the head. Yet despite this, Cobb was unhurt. Both men looked very sluggish now, on their feet in particular, and this gave Shavers a chance. more chances to land with his slow but powerful fists. Shavers was unloading well at the end of the session. In the fourth, Cobb’s left hand was starting to get lower and lower and both guys took turns in backing each other up. Shaver’s cut was worse now, the blood running into his eye. But Cobb was also cut, over his right eye. These two tiring, bloodied heavyweights were hammering out punches in a fight that was impossible to avert one’s eyes from. After they were patched up to the best of their corner-men’s abilities between rounds, the action resumed in the fifth. A big right crashed into Cobb’s head yet he appeared unfazed. Shavers turned it on, unleashing a barrage of punches, practically all of which landed on Cobb; flush on his chin. Cobb would not budge and fans were on their feet in the Joe Louis Arena. This was a slow-motion slugfest, yes, but it was thoroughly engrossing. By the sixth-round, the two were simply knocking chunks out of each other. There really have not been too many fights quite like this one. As the bell sounded, both fighters staggered back to their stools, sucking up what reserves they had so as to come out for more flat-footed warfare in round-seven seventh. It was far from pretty, but this was a FIGHT. The two warriors traded, before Cobb got on top and began slamming Shavers all over the ring. Shavers was taking a real pasting and he had nothing left but his heart. In a state of near exhaustion at the end of the brutal round, Shavers heard (perhaps) calls to stop the fight. It was evident the end was not far away, and Shavers had no balance at all in the eighth-round; driven across the ring as he was yet again. It was a sight to see: Shavers, stuck in a corner taking shots, doubled over yet refusing to fall. Cobb was simply pounding away at a frighteningly game, yet defenceless target and finally the ref dived in and stopped the beating. The saying we often hear in boxing is how two men, after going through an especially rough and tough fight, “leave a piece of themselves in the ring.” This was the case 40 years ago.
Trevor Berbick, he's probably best remembered as being Muhammad Ali's last opponent and as a Mike Tyson victim, but he was a good fighter and I like watching him operate. He was at his best when the fight turned into a slow grinding battle down in the trenches, a war of attrition, watching him wear opponents down with his brutal thudding shots was a thing of beauty.
Trevor Berbick lived a bit of a wild life, he was sort of a loose cannon, and sadly in 2006 Trevor Berbick was murdered by his own nephew with a machete in his home country of Jamaica over a land dispute.
Henry Armstrong is the only boxer in history to hold undisputed championships in three weight classes simultaneously. He was the Featherweight, Lightweight, and Welterweight champion all at the same time, he accomplished this feat in 1938, this was back when there was only one champion in each division, ridiculous domination of the sport. He beat a ton of great fighters during that period, Benny Bass, Chalky Wright, Baby Arizmendi, Lou Ambers, Barney Ross, Bobby Pacho, Ceferino Garcia, Frankie Click, Mike Belloise, Petey Sarron, 10 champions, 9 hall of famers, all that in the one belt era, huge achievement. One of the greatest pound for pound fighters in the history of boxing. This is one of the most iconic sports photos ever taken, showing him with two crowns and reaching for the third.
Henry Armstrong was nicknamed "Homicide Hank" due to his relentless pressure, hard-hitting, and aggressive fighting style, which involved throwing a high volume of punches with great power. He was a brutal puncher, he scored something like 26 straight knockouts at one point, in fact there was a three year period from 1937-1940 where he went 59-1-1 (51 KO) over three weight classes.
Benny Lynch, great, great, Scottish flyweight, could hit like a mule kicks.
Benny Lynch: The rise and fall of the people's champion
Benny Lynch was Scotland's first boxing world champion by the age of 22 but his career was over when he was 25 and he was dead by 33.
No wonder the meteoric rise and fall of the boxing legend often referred to as the people's champion still generates interest 70 years after his death.
The latest telling of the story of the diminutive tough guy from Glasgow's Gorbals is a new documentary, Benny, to be screened at the Glasgow Film Festival.
Born in 1913, Lynch rose from being a sickly child in the poverty-stricken tenements to become world flyweight champion.
But his descent was as steep as his rise and just over a decade later he was dead, following a battle with alcoholism.
Seumas Mactaggart, one of the producers of the film, says he wanted to focus on Lynch's achievements as a boxer and not his tragic decline.
He says: "When you see the fantastic archive we have it really gives you sense of how hard he could hit.
"These guys were way under eight and a half stone (54kg) but you look at the ferocity of the punches and also the speed at which they moved and it is amazing.
"He could punch with both hands and hit as hard with each of them. When he was at his prime, no-one could touch him."
Lynch managed 119 fights in his short career.
He won the world flyweight title in 1935 when he beat Jackie Brown in Manchester, reportedly flooring his opponent eight times before the bout was stopped in the second round.
Jim Watt, who became lightweight world champion 40 years later in 1979, tells the documentary: "Benny is the most important figure as far as Scottish boxing is concerned.
"He was the first one to do it. He showed us that a little guy from Glasgow, a little guy from Scotland, could be champion of the whole wide world."
The film's producer says Lynch was already massively popular in Glasgow before he became world champion.
He says: "There were 2,000 Scots at the fight in Manchester and the place was pandemonium when he won.
"When he came back up to Glasgow, the estimates range from between 20,000 and 100,000 at Central Station.
"It was phenomenal the turnout and the regard that people had for Benny."
Mr Mactaggart says that Benny's problems began soon after he won the world title.
He says: "There was a guy called Sammy Wilson who discovered Benny as a young lad and really mentored him.
"He was almost a father figure to him. He took him all the way through and then unfortunately there was a spilt with Sammy just after he won the world championship.
"Although he went on and was successful after, for Benny you got the feeling that without Sammy as a safe pair of hands and a person in his corner he was a bit lost."
Lynch established himself as the "undisputed" flyweight champion of the world when he narrowly beat Small Montana in London in 1937.
But Mr Mactaggart says the pinnacle of his career was swiftly followed by a decline.
"Once you have the world title you have everything you wanted," he says.
"The feeling was that his hunger went and other distractions came along.
"There were also people who came along looking for a piece of Benny and it was not good for him. There was not someone there to protect him like Sammy Wilson had in the past."
By the following year, Lynch's drinking lifestyle meant that he could no longer make the weight for the flyweight division.
He forfeited his title against American Jackie Jurich because he was overweight.
His last fight was against Aurel Toma in London in October 1938.
It was the first time he had ever been knocked out.
His boxing licence was revoked on medical grounds in 1939 and he slipped into freefall.
"For Benny, boxing was everything and that was the end," says the documentary producer.
"The boxing ring was his home. It was where he felt most comfortable. Without that it became much more difficult for him."
Lynch made attempts to dry out, spending time in a monastery in Ireland, but died from malnutrition-induced respiratory failure in 1946, at the age of 33.
Some people consider Stanley Ketchel to be the greatest middleweight in history, he was one of the most brutal punchers in the history of the sport, his power was so great that he actually floored heavyweight champion Jack Johnson when they fought, this is a middleweight flooring a heavyweight, that's how hard Ketchel punched. Billy Papke was one of the most violent men in the history of the sport, he ended up shooting his ex-wife in 1936 and then turning the gun on himself, he actually had to shoot himself three times in the heart to get the job done. Ketchel and Papke fought four times, and they legit tried to kill each other every time they fought, they hated each other.
Welcome To Hell: Stanley Ketchel In 1908 – Part Four: A Heart Unbreakable
October 18, 2011 By Matt McGrain:
On Thanksgiving day of 1936, Billy Papke was drinking. When the owner of the bar closed up to go home for his turkey dinner, Papke muttered that he would go home too. He drove to the house of his ex-wife. A neighbour later reported hearing five shots. The first two struck Papke’s ex-, killing her. He then turned the gun upon himself and fired at his heart from point blank range. He did not die. He fired another shot. Again, he did not die. Papke fired a third shot and his heart finally stopped beating. It is impossible to know Papke’s final thoughts. He left the world three sons, so despite the terrible disarray of his personal life, it is likely that his mind went out to family as he died. But it is not unreasonable to suppose that as his once great heart bled out, Papke’s mind raced back to the finest day of his professional life, the ninth of September of 1908, the day he took the great Stanley Ketchel apart at the seams, took him apart so brutally that some thought Ketchel might have been taken apart for all time. Papke had been in pursuit of a rematch ever since Ketchel inflicted his first lost. It became his obsession. He spoke of it at length before his August meeting with Sailor Burke: “I will beat Ketchel the next time I meet him. The first punch he landed put me out for six rounds. I was careless that was all. The punch broke three of my teeth. I couldn’t open my jaw. I was dazed for six rounds. At the end of the sixth round, when I was sitting in my corner, I came round…I am going to force Ketchel into the ring with me.” Ketchel wouldn’t take much forcing. After some squirming concerning the weight, most of it by Papke, the fight was made. But just as Papke had looked past Burke, there were disturbing hints that Ketchel was looking past Papke. Acknowledging Papke as the greatest middleweight in the world, himself accepted, Ketchel credited “Smiling Billy” – Papke had been smiling ever since the rematch had been signed – as being his most difficult fight to date: “He is certainly the toughest man I ever met in my life and I have stacked up against the best of them. He is the only man who fights in the same style I use myself. He keeps boring in all the time…I will either knock him out or else he will put the crusher on me.” But Ketchel had been increasingly linked with the greatest prize of all, the heavyweight title, then held by the respected but less-than awe-inspiring Tommy Burns. The calls became a cacophony when Ketchel disposed of the heavier Thomas so easily and the figures being discussed as payment were also in a different weight class. Ketchel’s head had seemingly been turned: “I regard Papke as one of the first stepping stones in my path toward the heavyweight championship. When am through with him I will devote all my time to Tommy Burns.” Ketchel had done something extraordinary in clearing out the top men of a stacked middleweight division but no matter how massive the river he crosses and no matter what the value of the prize on the other shore, no fighter should ever look to use a rattlesnake as a stepping stone. Ketchel began as a favourite and eventually men who wanted to bet on the champion were offering three to one. But as preperations continued, the odds began to shorten. Both men worked out publicly, daily, and this time around in front of thousands. Whilst Ketchel’s reputation as the most destructive puncher in all of boxing preceded him, many were swayed by what they saw in each respective training camp. Firstly, Ketchel’s camp appears to have been less well planned and he at first had some issues securing sparring partners. The LA Herald: “…he is inclined to forget that he is training instead of fighting, and has been accustomed to knocking out these assistants. He has such a frightful kick in either hand…he scares his sparring partners half to death before he even hits them…a new one or two appear in camp every day to work with him.” As sparring partners poured out of the camp O’Connor took a novel approach. The Herald again: “Frightened at the results following recent workouts…Joe O’Connor has refused to permit anybody to box with Ketchel unless armoured…Sparring partners at this camp now must wear a baseball catcher’s chest protector to prevent the possibility of the champion’s fist being driven through their bodies, and Ketch as been warned to keep his fists away from all unprotected portions of the anatomy of his sparring partners, including their heads.” Whilst Kethcel’s display of power was impressive, it was also expected and his inability to headhunt and his lack of quality, stable sparring caused some concern. One partner, Carl Solomon was better known as a wrestler than a boxer. Additionally, in the build up to the Thomas fight stories had appeared questioning Ketchel’s commitment. He had been seen “breaking his curfew” and “associating with undesirables.” Worse, there were rumours of his using opium, rumours The New York World would later feel confident enough to print. Although there were no such stories during the build up to Papke II, this story combined with Ketchel’s interest in the heavyweight title and the difficulties he was experiencing in camp began to create doubt. But nothing so affected the odds as much as Papke himself. “Papke is one human iceberg,” observed The Herald. “He refuses to credit the stories that Ketchel is…[an] invincible human marvel, and the fact that he is sensationally slugging in his training camp…does not affect him in the least. He figures that he is a certain winner.” Most fighters re-write the fights they have lost. The enormous stores of ego that allow men like Papke to take to the ring against dynamite punchers like Ketchel is huge and even more fragile in a case like this where the man has already been defeated by his opponent. Papke told the press over and over again that he had been unseated from his sense in the first round against Ketchel but still survived to hear the bell. If Ketchel could not knock him out then, how could he do so now? Papke had no doubt. He publicly laid the then huge sum of $500 on himself to lift the title. “Papke continues to grind away in a systematic manner,” continued The Herald. “[he is] working for conditioning and the development of his wallop.” Papke wasn’t planning to utilise his advantage in foot speed as it was clearly displayed in the first fight. He wanted Ketchel in the furnace. On September the third, Papke knocked one of his own sparring partners. His training for power seemed to be paying dividends. In contrast to Ketchel, Papke treated his ringmen with care, “and does not punish his sparring partners” but within seconds of his workout with Jim Tremble Papke sent over a picture-perfect right. Tremble needed to be helped to his corner. The Herald: “Papke expressed his regret afterwards and said he would be more careful in future. Sentiment regarding the possibilities of the result…is changing fast and the fans are beginning to ask themselves how Ketchel came to be such an odds on favourite. Now that they have had ample time to visit both camps and see the fighters…Papke money is dead easy to find.” A “prominent sportsman” explained to the journalist his reasoning for backing Papke: “I find Ketchel to be a slashing, rushing, open fighter…Papke is cool-headed and can slug…Papke has a terrific wallop and if he ever cracks Ketchel on the jaw with a square swing or hook there will be a new champion. Papke’s confidence also impresses me.” The day before the fight, The Herald compared Ketchel to Jim Jeffries, who would be refereeing him the match, labelling him “the pugilistic marvel of the decade, ranking as prominently today as Jeffries ranked in his prime.” The Evening World labelled him “another Fitzsimmons, the greatest of the modern fistic artists.” The World also knew Papke. “It will be a desperate scrap.” Billy’s ring walk was almost Zen-like, “a broad smile on his features, in excellent humour with himself and all the world…he was almost childlike in his supreme confidence,” (The LA Herald). It is also important to note that Papke, “immediately walked over and shook hands with the champion.” Much has been written about the first round of this fight, and more about the supposed “sucker-punch” Papke is said to have landed at any point between the referee’s instructions and the first bell. For the most part, this is gross exaggeration. Papke did decline Ketchel’s second handshake, ring-centre, after Jim Jeffries had waved them in, but only because this was almost exactly what Ketchel had done in the first fight. Indeed, a Daily Arizona sub-header remarked that “Papke, Remembering Former Experience, Refuses To Shake Hands At Call Of Time And Sails Into Champion Like A Thunderbolt,” As well as noting that the “sucker punch” that Papke claimed decided the first fight was landed in near exact circumstances, it is also important to stress that the punch was landed after time was called. The punch was not illegal and nor was it a matter for debate in the press reports the following day, although it did become a minor issue later that week, around the time negotiations for a third fight began in earnest. According to The Evening World, Papke had even announced before the fight that he would not be shaking hands before the bell, specifically because Ketchel had taken advantage of him in their first fight. The same article states that Papke invited Ketchel to “come on and fight” before attacking, giving Ketchel every chance to withdraw his extended hand. Whatever the specifics, Papke took a vicious initiative and remained in control throughout perhaps the most devastating beating in all of ring history. In a hellish first round, Papke knocked Ketchel down for the nine count no less than three times. Papke had adjusted. In the first fight he had used his superior foot speed to make space for his attacks, but Ketchel’s more scientific approach had baffled him. Papke’s new plan was seeming suicide against the world’s greatest puncher, but his step straight into the heat of Ketchel’s attack with a short right hand robbed the champion of his shifting offence. Married to a sneak uppercut that Papke developed especially for the occasion, it baffled Stanley long enough for him to take control. Exchanging furious punches on the inside, Papke suddenly went to the body, and when Ketchel attempted to reply in kind he launched a left to the head and a right to the eye and “opened up a gash. As Ketchel staggered, Papke swung a left full in the face, sending Ketchel to the floor.” (LA Herald) Referee Jeffries would describe this as the winning punch after the fight, and Papke would agree with him. Stunned, Ketchel hoisted himself onto all fours, and “gazed in a dazed manner about himself” (LA Herald) before hoisting himself up at the count of nine. Jeffries stepped aside and Papke “launched himself at [Ketchel] and a smashing right swing sent him half way across the ring and down on his face” where he “lay still for five seconds before [he] began to work his way to his feet…just as Jeff[ries] counted nine” The Washington Times then described the pitiless third knock down, on Ketchel who “was able to stand but a second later was pitched face-first into the canvas again when Papke sent another hard blow to his defenceless face.” During the round, roars had reverberated around the ring, but at the bell there was silence. Ketchel’s eye was closed. In the corner he was lanced to no avail and sent back to a slaughter without ring parallel. “Not since the end days of the fight to the finish was a more bloody contest seen,” offered The Evening World. For the next seven rounds, Ketchel somehow found the reserves to meet Papke as an equal, but “whenever Ketchel tried his famous shift The Thunderbolt quickly stepped close inside,” driving Ketchel back, forcing him to fight in the purest terms rather than employ tactics. In the second, Ketchel missed frequently and was punished, his face a “mass of gore.” By the fourth, Papke, still smiling had reduced Ketchel to “a terrible condition.” In the fifth, Ketchel had his first real success as they exchanged uppercuts and body-blows, but still Papke was unmarked. In the sixth Ketchel landed his best punch, a right to the solar plexus but was “clearly in distress…Papke was smiling.” Some sources have Ketchel winning the seventh and he “tried to smile” as he returned to his corner, blood pouring form his blind eye. In the eighth, Ketchel was brutalised horribly, shipping multiple flush headshots, blood now pouring from his nose. The 1900’s crowd began to call for the fight’s end, a rarity for the era. Both men were smothered in Ketchel’s blood. By the ninth both of Ketchel’s eyes were shut and he staggered blindly about the ring as Papke thrashed him. In the tenth, The San Fransisco Call describes Ketchel’s face as “barely human looking.” Ketchel prepared himself for the eleventh by trying to scrape the blood from his eyes, the left still gaping from the failed lancing between rounds one and two. The LA Herald: “The minute between rounds was not enough for Ketchel to recover his wits and although he responded to the gong he was unsteady on his legs and beclouded of brain and about all he could do was cover up and try to stall the round. Papke would not have it…forcing an opening he [landed] a clean right to the head flooring Ketchel for the count of nine.” Only a heart unbreakable could have drawn Ketchel from the canvas in that moment. Papke, still smiling the same smile he had worn on his way to the ring, approached, but Ketchel was not even looking at him, rather he was looking out to the crowd, arms hanging at his sides, and he “did not raise his hands to ward off the punch that toppled him from the championship pedestal.” Ketchel’s condition was horrific. The Evening World: “Both his eyes were closed tight. His face was battered out of shape, as if Papke had knocked him about with a baseball bat instead of two fists. His face was crooked as if his cheekbones had been beaten in. His mouth was a mere gash. His whole body was covered with unsightly lumps where Papke’s iron fists had landed…it will be months before he fights again, if he ever does.” Jeffries, no stranger to the worst savageries of the ring, labelled Ketchel the gamest fighter he had ever seen. Papke agreed with him. Ketchel offered “no excuses” then demanded an immediate rematch through broken, bleeding lips. Then he vanished. Papke made him wait eleven days before confirming a rematch would be made. The day before, Ketchel had been able to leave his house for the first time for a “trip to the baths.” Papke had come to terms over his first theatrical engagement. On the 18th Ketchel met with the press for the first time since the fight. His quiet confidence was noted but he was seen by many as damaged goods. Then he up and vanished once more, according to some for Mexico. “For all the information his manager gives out, Ketchel may be in Odessa. O’Connor is to smart to let anyone know his business and there is suspicion that he doesn’t know it to well himself.” (The San Francisco Call). When on the first of November the two fighters arrived in San Francisco, the pattern continued, with Ketchel unavailable to the press and O’Connor refusing to divulge, or not aware of, how Stan had even come to the city. Papke, on the other hand was a huge hit with the locals and the press alike. His fighting style, obsession with Ketchel and the way that his life ended has given a certain impression of Papke, but in fact he was quite the gentleman, “as modest a person as one could meet in quite a long time.” (The Call). He spoke well of his opponent and the city he was a guest in. Conscious of the impression his ring demeanor left upon the press and public, he also talked of his ambitions to go to college, and stressed that in-spite of newspaper cartoons to the contrary, “I have never worked down a mine.“ Papke was determined that he should be liked. Ketchel, on the other hand was “doing nothing to enhance his popularity locally.” Papke installed himself in San Rafael and began light training the very next day. He would soon be joined there by an exclusively heavyweight stable of sparring partners including Al Kauffman, who would before long challenge for Jack Johnson’s soon to be won heavyweight title. He broke the habit of a lifetime, sparring on the Sabbath for the benefit of the near star-struck locals. Ketchel set up shop further south, in Alameda. He started training later than Papke, but more in earnest. Whilst “Smiling Billy” as Papke had been christened after his smiling destruction of Ketchel, was slightly underweight, Ketchel had an estimated six pounds to shed. The betting opened with Papke a 10-8 favourite, even money to knock Ketchel out once more inside the distance. Ketchel’s first public workout on the tenth, however, was something of a revelation. “Certainly, Ketchel did not loosen up like a man who saw the gymnasium for the first time in months,” said The Call. “He went at his work with vim and dash.” It seems almost a certainty that Ketchel’s vanishing act of the month before had allowed him to make those first tentative moves back into training away from prying eyes. By the thirteenth it was clear that something special was happening as Ketchel trained “harder than he ever had before in his life.” He was talking again, too: “If I didn’t think I could beat him, I would not fight him…I will beat him and do it so completely that after it is over the fight fans will forget that he ever did beat me, or if they remember him at all it will just be to wonder how he beat me…I will tell you one thing and mark me it will come true. If I knock him off his pins once in the coming fight it will be all over for him…I feel certain I will trim this new champion worse than he trimmed me.” From hell, to the wilderness, to the ring again, Ketchel was ready for the furnace. Papke, for his part, accelerated to a pitch. By the 23rd he was boxing 7-10 fast rounds almost daily with heavyweights, knocking the 185lb Dane Ollie Cornett out on his feet in three rounds, “an eagle pecking a snake to pieces…a ring mathematician who leaves nothing to chance.” (The Call) The main sphere of Papke’s improvement seems to have been in a shortening of his punches, born almost completely of his “switch-killing” punch, that step inside married to a straight right hand that had posed so many problems for Ketchel. He had also added a higher guard, which he showcased against the baffled Kauffman who again and again failed to reach Papke as the champion stabbed at the heavyweight before covering up. At the final press conference on the 26th, Papke predicted a win inside of ten rounds: “It is possible that there are some middleweights who might beat me, but Ketchel is not amongst them. Ketchel will merely prove a warm up for me. I’ve got that boy, there is very little danger of me losing to him. I honestly think Mr.Ketchel is getting in the ring with me just to receive the losing end of the purse. He is a game fellow and will probably take a good beating. I hope he does. I intend to give him a beating he won’t forget for the rest of his life.” Ketchel did not come to the conference, but predicted a win inside of twelve rounds. The San Francisco Call, present for every round of sparring and more, liked Papke’s prediction better: “Ketchel has but one chance to win. He may land one of those wild swings. Outside of that he has as much chance as a one-legged man winning a roller-skating race…Papke is a better boxer and just as hard a hitter, knows pugilism better, has a better head, hits truer and shorter…this writer is neither a profit nor the son of a profit but if Papke doesn’t lay [Ketchel] low within fifteen, he misses his mark and misses it badly.” In truth, Ketchel hated Papke by now. He is said to have uncovered that hatred finally just before or during the first round, supposedly telling Papke that “it took you twelve rounds to knock out a blind man. Well I’m going to let you keep your eyes open until round eleven so you can see me knock you out!” My guess is that this did not happen. Instead, Ketchel revealed his hatred in a different way, launching the most savage attack of his violent career in the very first round. Driven to the ropes, Papke tried to fire back with his fight-winner from ten short weeks before, but now it was Ketchel’s turn to show adaptations. Throughout the fight, he would step away and to the side in response to this attack, making new space for himself, sometimes forced to take Papke’s punches, but now able once again to deliver his own wider blows, often two-handed. Papke did not panic, instead he went to his other prize punch, the uppercut, and Ketchel met him like for like, inviting Papke to measure artillery. Papke was forced in these opening seconds to either attempt a new adjustment or accept Ketchel’s invitation to burn. For a man like Ppake this was likely no choice at all, and they swapped furious punches across the ring, the round decided by a blistering right hand to Papke’s body. Papke won the second but Ketchel was now concentrating firmly upon the body, and whilst he was hit hard and often upstairs, he had the run of it in terms of bodywork. Papke had seem shocked in the first though he now was recovering his confidnce, but a messy third followed. The beginning of the fourth saw some bad moments for Ketchel as he “missed with a wild left…and a fearful right to the jaw.” A bad start to the fifth saw Ketchel missing wildly again, but suddenly he found his stride in earnest. The New York Times: “Stepping aside at crucial junctures, Ketchel swung his right time and again flush on his opponent’s jaw, now and then alternating with left drives to the body…he drove a hard left to the stomach and Papke had not put up his hands before he encountered a hard right to the jaw.” At some point in this round, either a straight left to the stomach or a “ponderous right hand to the jaw” (LA Times) sent Papke spilling from the ring (it is a testimony perhaps to the speed with which Ketchel was mixing up his attack that the press can’t agree upon the offending punch!). Papke grabbed his man as he fell throw the ropes and Ketchel toppled down with him onto the pressmen at ringside, fighting even as they were pushed back into the ring. In the sixth, Papke baulked. He backed up, boxing cautiously for the first time in the brutal series, but Ketchel came right after him. The two swapped punches, Ketchel paying the toll to get inside and work the body, and when they came away both were bleeding from the nose. Papke went to his seat “uneasily” at the end of the round (LA Times). The seventh began messily as the two were separated by the referee for the first time. Ketchel employed his switch, also for the first time behind this action, landing “a left to the body and two left uppercuts to the head.” Papke “bled freely” at the end of the round. By the ninth Papke was “tottering about the ring” and, according to the New York Times, Ketchel was “apparently withholding” the knockout punch. Papke “fought back desperately” but Ketchel lashed punches almost exclusively to the body. Papke rallied in the tenth, countering Ketchel’s body punches with his own. The bell rang for the eleventh, the round Ketchel had told Papke he would put him out if the legend is to be believed. Uncharacteristically jabbing, Ketchel followed up with a violent push, charging in behind Ketchel and landing “two hard rights to the stomach.” The Times takes up the story: “As they broke out of a clinch, Ketchel swung at three-quarters-length landing squarely on the point of the chin. Papke struck at full length, his head rapping the floor with terrible force. He had just enough strength to regain his feet.” In an eerie echo of Ketchel’s own desperate struggle in their second fight, Papke had regained his feet at the count of nine but was unable to defend himself. Ketchel approached him but unlike Billy he was not smiling as he “sent his right to the head four times in quick succession and almost pushed Papke to the floor with a left hook. Papke fell forwards on his knees his hands supporting him, his head bowed as if in agony.” Twenty six years almost to the hour before three bullets at point blank range would end his life, Billy Papke’s heart failed him for the first time. For Ketchel, 1908 was over.
Stanley Ketchel'd life ended prematurely and violently as well, he died after being shot by Walter Dipley (also known as Walter Kurtz) on October 15, 1910. Dipley shot Ketchel with a .22 caliber rifle while the boxer was eating breakfast, striking him in the shoulder and lung. Ketchel was rushed to a hospital in Springfield, Missouri, where he died shortly after. Dipley claimed he shot Ketchel in self-defense after Ketchel had assaulted his wife, Goldie Smith. However, evidence later revealed that Goldie was not Dipley's wife, and there was no proof of assault. Furthermore, Ketchel was shot in the back. Dipley and Smith were both convicted of first-degree murder. Dipley spent 23 years in prison, while Smith's conviction was later overturned.
Billy Papke stands over Stanley Ketchel after knocking him down in their second fight, Ketchel took one of the worst beatings in boxing history in this fight, many people thought Ketchel would never fight again after this. But fight again he did, returning the favor to Papke in the rematch.
Joe Choynski, late 1800s - early 1900s heavyweight, one of the hardest punchers in boxing history, he had one of the coolest nicknames, "Chrysanthemum Joe."
Chrysanthemum Joe
November 28, 2023
By Jamie Rebner
“Jeffries number one? No, sir. Give me Joe Choynski anytime. I faced both and should know. Jeffries had a powerful wallop, but Choynski had a paralyzing punch. His left hand was a corker. He was the hardest puncher in the last fifty years, with Joe Walcott a close second. I think his left hook was even more effective than Dempsey’s. Choynski could paralyze you, even if he didn’t catch you flush.”
These are the words of no less an authority than all-time great heavyweight Jack Johnson, his reply in a 1940 interview to the question of who was the hardest puncher he had ever faced. On February 25, 1901, Choynski and Johnson battled in Galveston, Texas, Johnson’s hometown. Since at that time boxing was illegal in Texas, the event was billed as an exhibition, which it was until Choynski landed a devastating left hook in the third round to become one of the precious few to ever stop the man who later became the first Black heavyweight champion.
Choynski and Johnson in prison.
Both pugilists were arrested immediately after the illegal match, but being put in a jail cell with Choynski turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Johnson.
The advice he received from the older and wiser pro during their brief lock-up was instrumental in making “The Galveston Giant” a complete fighter. “A man who can move like you,” Choynski had told him, “should never have to take a punch.”
“Joe developed a great liking for me,” recalled Johnson years later. “Every day we would box in the jail yard, surrounded by police officers and guests. I learned more in those two weeks than I had learned in my entire existence up to that point.”
Choynski and Johnson pose for the camera.
Born in San Francisco on November 8, 1868, Joseph Bartlett Choynski was the son of Isador Choynski, a Jewish Polish immigrant, and Harriett Ashim, who was from England. As Christopher LaForce explains in his excellent biography, The Choynski Chronicles, young Joe was the fourth of five children, but there is no record of his birth because the majority of medical records did not survive the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires.
Choynski’s father was an erudite man, a writer and newspaper publisher, who established an antiquarian bookstore. He also had a fiery temper and this along with his keen intelligence he passed on to his son. The man who would later be known as “The California Terror” and “Little Joe” began his amateur career in 1884 and went on to win the Pacific Coast championship in 1887 before turning pro the following year. Another of Choynski’s nicknames was “Chrysanthemum Joe,” this appellation inspired by his choosing to let his mane of thick hair grow long, his coiffure of flowing and flowery locks an eccentric trait for the time.
Despite routinely giving up between thirty and seventy pounds to his opponents, Choynski’s skill and power allowed him to succeed. Part of the reason Choynski had to compete against much larger men is that the light heavyweight division was not established until 1903, a year before he retired. Standing 5’10” and weighing around 170 pounds, Choynski, like many great fighters of the time, thought nothing of taking on adversaries who were taller and heavier. Besides, there’s no better equalizer than raw power and in that regard Choynski was exceptionally gifted.
Choynski shared the ring with the best battlers of his era, many of whom were world champions. In addition to Johnson, that list includes “Ruby Rob” Fitzsimmons, “Gentleman Jim” Corbett, James J. Jeffries, Kid McCoy, Tom Sharkey, and the legendary Barbados Joe Walcott, all of whom are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. But unfortunately none gave Choynski a chance when they held a world title belt, freezing “Little Joe” out and adding him to the list of pugilistic legends who never had a chance to compete for a strap. It speaks to Choynski’s power, ability and doggedness that those who did face him never granted him a rematch.
Jeffries and Choynski in the ring. This was likely an exhibition match.
Indeed, Jack Johnson wasn’t the only all-time great to acknowledge Choynski’s punching prowess. Despite holding a fifty pound weight advantage over Joe, James J. Jeffries, aka “The Boilermaker,” could not defeat Choynski, the judges scoring their twenty round contest in 1897 a draw.
“To this day, I can’t figure out how a runt like him could hurt so damned bad,” declared Jeffries some years later. “During our scrap, he clipped me with a right that landed high on my cheekbone. I figured my whole face was caved in, and when I tried to feel what was left with my hands, there wasn’t any sensation at all. That was the hardest punch I ever took and had it landed a little lower I would have been knocked out for the first time in my life.”
A newspaper illustration for the Jeffries vs Choynski duel.
The San Francisco papers reporting on the Jeffries vs Choynski battle the next day all remarked on the difference in size between the two men, one stating that the match-up looked like a rematch between David and Goliath, only David didn’t have his sling. “Lucky for me, he didn’t,” remarked Jeffries. “He could do well enough with his fists.”
Bob Fitzsimmons and James Corbett also declared that the hardest blows they ever received in the squared circle were delivered by “The California Terror.” The Fitzsimmons bout in 1894 was declared a draw after five rounds due to police intervention, but Choynski believed that the knockdown he scored in the last round would have ended the fight had the police not stepped in.
Choynski (left), Jeffries and Corbett.
Choynski and “Gentleman Jim” fought three times in 1889. The matches took place in the San Francisco area, where both men grew up, and generated substantial local interest. The second bout, which occurred on a barge in Benicia Harbor, was the most notable, with Choynski getting the worst of a bloody battle before being stopped in round twenty-seven. But Corbett suffered for the victory as both his hands were severely damaged. He later wrote that his win that day was “the very toughest battle I had ever fought or was to fight; one in which I was to receive more punishment than I have ever had in all my battles put together.”
Years later Corbett praised Choynski’s extraordinary power. “Little Joe was the hardest hitter I ever tangled with,” he declared.
While never a world champion, “Chrysanthemum Joe” is a genuine boxing legend.
In 1904, Joe Choynski hung up his gloves, ending a 20 year boxing career with fifty wins in 79 total bouts. After retiring, he worked as a trainer and referee and was employed by several athletic associations. He also assisted in the promotion of championship bouts, including the famous Johnson vs Jeffries showdown in 1910. Online sources indicate that Choynski toured with heavyweight legend Peter Jackson in the production of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” a best-selling anti-slavery novel, and consulted on the production of the Jim Corbett biopic, “Gentleman Jim.”
“Chrysanthemum Joe” eventually went into business and settled in Cincinnati, where he died on January 25, 1943.
Joe Choynski was finally inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1998. Having posthumously achieved the highest honor in the sport, he is now rightfully included on any list of the greatest Jewish prizefighters of all time and no doubt deserves ranking alongside the hardest punchers in heavyweight history. — Jamie Rebner
Irish Bob Murphy is one of my favorite fighters, nothing cute about his style, he was just a redheaded, tough as nails, Irish brawler that could hit hard, he took a lot of guys out with his brutal punches. This is a great article written by a young journalist that just happened to bump into Bob Murphy at a bar one morning and began to pick Murphy's brain about his boxing career. This is great stuff, I couldn't imagine being a reporter, sitting at a bar looking for a story, and in walks freakin' Irish Bob Murphy.
“Irish Bob” In The Morning
By Bernie McCoy
Its been validly stated that drinking is the “black lung disease” of the newspaper business. It certainly was back in those long gone years when I was starting out on what can only generously be referred to as a “career”. I learned the drinking part of “newspapering” long before I mastered the “five Ws and an H in the lead graph” part of the business. I logged a generous amount of time in saloons and my rationalization was that was where you met and gathered interesting material that might get you a byline on a story. It was where I met Irish Bob Murphy. If you’ve ever been in what in Florida is known as a gin mill, you know the “Pilot House”. It was directly across 36th Street from the Miami International Airport in a section of the city known as Miami Springs, a bit of Chamber of Commerce overstatement. In those days, the Pilot House was heavily populated by Eastern Airlines workers and other round-the-clock employees, including a fair number of cops. The bar’s primary draw was that it was open 21 hours a day, 7am-3am, and 24 hours if you knew where the back door was and the guy behind it recognized you. This particular morning, it was either a couple of hours before or shortly after my shift at the paper and I was, at least to anyone who asked, in the Pilot House looking for material. A big guy came in and sat on the stool next to me and ordered “a shot of Bushmill, beer back” (I remember that detail because that was also the drink combination in front of me). I remarked on that and we got to talking. After a short time, I told him he looked like a fighter and he conceded that he had done some fighting in his time, in and out of the ring, and in response to my question said he was Irish Bob Murphy. At this point in his life Murphy was not yet forty and not only did he look like a fighter, but he suggested a line you often hear in Texas: he had the look of “being rode hard and put away wet”. Fueled by youthful impetuousness and the beer and Bushmill, I jumped headlong into a sililoquy on Murphy’s career. I told him that the first fight of his that I had seen was against Harry Matthews in the Garden in early ’51 on the Friday Night Fights on NBC TV. He, of course, remembered it well and said that when he lost, he was sure he had blown his chance at a shot a the lightheavy weight title. But, he remembered, he came back in the same ring shortly thereafter and knocked out a “tough Philly fighter” named Dan Bucceroni and that coupled with the fact that “Joey Maxim wanted no part of Harry Matthews got me a title shot later in the year”. Murphy remembered that Joey Maxim was the cleverest boxer he was ever in with, “I couldn’t have hit him if we had fought in a phone booth” (Murphy was actually a big favorite going into the bout but lost a lopsided 15 round decision to Maxim, again in the Garden). I asked Murphy if “Kid” Matthews was the toughest guy he ever fought and he replied that Jake LaMotta was “way tougher” than anyone he had fought; that hitting LaMotta was like “hitting a telephone pole” and that he had never been so relieved when his first fight with LaMotta was stopped after the seventh round. “If that bell for the eight round had rung, I’m not sure I could have gotten my hands up. “LaMotta, Murphy said, “was like Marciano in the sense that he just kept coming forward and throwing punches and no matter where he hit you, he hurt you”. LaMotta later beat Murphy over ten rounds in a fight that, if you’re fortunate, you might catch on the ESPN Classic station which shows it periodically. I made the assumption, then, that LaMotta was the hardest puncher that Murphy had ever faced and he quickly contradicted me. “Not by a long shot, I fought a guy by the name of Clarence Henry, a tall skinny heavyweight who caught me as hard as I was ever hit, knocked me flat cold, in Detroit, and that was at a time was I was knocking out everybody I got in with. I mean, Clarence Henry could punch”. We had been talking for sometime at this point and I figured I had a good human interest piece which would go a long way toward explaining another day in the Pilot House. Murphy said his main regret about his career in the ring was that he didn’t “smell the roses” when he was up near the top of the lightheavy weight division. “You think its going to last forever, the big cities, the nice hotels, the great meals, the women, everyone looking to get close to you, to do something for you. “Then one morning you look around and you’re fighting in someplace like Waterbury Connecticut and the hotel isn’t as nice and neither is the pre-fight meal and instead of the Garden its some auditorium with a couple of thousand people. “Then about a day later, its pretty much over, you’re on a losing streak and everybody wants a chance to beat Irish Bob Murphy. “And after that…” Bob Murphy, once one of the best lightheavy weight fighters looked around the Pilot House, the sun now coming into the place in dusty streaks, and shook his head and signalled the guy behind the bar, “give me and my friend here, one more”. The Bushmill had kicked in by then and I remarked that I thought that the streaks of sunlight in the bar seemed similar to patterns I had seen in some gyms across the country. Murphy snorted into his drink and he said he had hated training, particularly the road work and that sunlight patterns in gyms were not something that stuck in his mind. We finished “the one more” and had another, and then Murphy got up to leave, vaguely referring to some people he had to meet. Not long after that I saw a line come across on a wire service that “Irish Bob Murphy, former fighter” had died. He never did make forty. I did that “human interest” piece for the paper. I left out the part about the Pilot House and the “Bushmill, beer back”, but I thought it was worthwhile and made interesting reading. Of course in those days, I was convinced every word I wrote was worthwhile and made for interesting reading. The copy editor, at the time, disagreed, making the point that Murphy wasn’t from Miami “so there’s no local angle, plus nobody’s interested in another ‘stumblebum fighter story”. He was right about the local angle, but Irish Bob Murphy was never a “stumblebum fighter” even that morning he spent with a kid writer in a Miami gin mill.
Irish Bob Murphy Murphy was a brawler and he took a lot of punishment even when he won, guys that like to stand toe to toe and trade don't have a very long shelf life in boxing. He was good while he lasted, but the toll he took caught up with him quickly. But man could he whack.
"Smokin" Bert Cooper, a very dangerous 1980's-90s heavyweight. He was dangerous because the guy could bang. I'll never forget his knockout of Cecil Coffee.
This is why Bert Cooper was so dangerous, one of the most brutal knockouts you'll ever see, it was an uppercut, it broke Cecil Coffee's nose on impact, and blood immediately began pouring out of his nose.
Randy Turpin, "The Leamington Licker", one of the only men to beat Sugar Ray Robinson in his prime. The night Randy Turpin beat Robinson for the world middleweight championship in 1951 will forever be legendary, one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. Turpin had an awkward style, it gave Robinson fits, and he was a hard puncher, he was ghost with a hammer in his hand.
Randy Turpin's life ended tragically in 1966, some organized crime figures shot him and his infant daughter because Turpin threatened to expose their fight-fixing rackets, Turpin died but his daughter survived.
There's an awesome Randy Turpin statue in Market Square, Warwick, Warwickshire, England. It's a life-size bronze statue of the boxer in a typical fighting pose. The statue was unveiled in 2001 to commemorate Turpin's achievements as the first British boxer to win the World Middleweight Championship.
Carmen Basilio, "The Onion Picker" dips his hands in an ice bucket after a fight. Basilio was about as savage as it gets, vicious pressure fighter with a chin made of Tungsten.
Comments
Gene Fullmer wearing a mask head protector, love these images with boxers wearing the mask. Fullmer was one of the most brutal middleweights in the history of the sport, strong as an ox, going up against Fullmer was like trying to stop an advancing tank. He used the cross-arm guard, nasty infighter, would maul the heck out of his opponents.
Gene Fullmer had a wicked overhand right, when he threw the punch it looked like a drunk throwing a beer bottle in a bar fight, if it caught you it was devastating. He took Joe Miceli out with it in 1958.
"If you screw things up in tennis, it's 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it's your a.."
A lot of people probably remember Tex Cobb from movies and television, after retiring from boxing, Cobb appeared in numerous films, most notably The Champ, Uncommon Valor, Raising Arizona, Fletch Lives, Ernest Goes to Jail, The Naked Gun 33 1/3, The Final Insult, and the opening sequence of Ace Ventura Pet Detective. He also has appeared in many television shows, such as Miami Vice, The X-Files, and Walker, Texas Ranger. As a fighter, sometimes toughness is all you need in this game and it can take you a long way, Tex Cobb was cut from that cloth. Tex had a legendary chin. But he could bang as well, his 8-round war with Earnie Shavers is a classic, he broke Shavers jaw with an uppercut in that fight. Many people consider Shavers the hardest puncher in boxing history, but he couldn't dent Cobb's chin.
40 Years On: The Tex Cobb – Earnie Shavers War Remembered By James Slater - 08/02/2020 -
“Nobody hits like Shavers. If anybody hit harder than Shavers, I’d shoot him,” -Randy “Tex” Cobb.
There have been legendary heavyweight slugfests and then there is the Tex Cobb Vs. Earnie Shavers punch-a-thon. Two tough men, one with a granite chin the other with pulverizing punching power, which would prevail? Neither Cobb nor Shavers could ever be described as slick, or even skilled, yet heart, guts and a willingness to go into the deepest of trenches was never lacking from either man – especially when they met each other in a fight that took place 40 years ago today. The 1980 war between Cobb and Shavers serves as a graphic illustration of just how hard a sport boxing can be. The fight took place on the under-card of the Thomas Hearns v Pipino Cuevas welterweight title fight and seldom has a supporting bout been so special. Shavers, who was on the downside of a memorable career, was to have fought Gerry Cooney. But due to a torn muscle suffered by Cooney, Cobb stepped in to face the shaven-headed slugger. In contrast to the 35 year old Shavers, 26 year old Cobb was an up and coming fighter, one with a 16-0 record. Both men met at ring centre and got to work straight away. Shavers started more slowly than Cobb, however, his hands noticeably sluggish. Cobb was doing his level best to box, pumping out his decent jab. Then, shockingly, Shavers looked to be tired, this as early as round-two. On top of this bad news was the fact that Shavers had recently undergone retinal surgery on his left eye, his vision at risk in each fight from there on in. And in this same round, a bad cut opened up over Shavers’ eye. Cobb just kept chopping away. Shavers came out for the third-round and at last got something going. He connected with a couple of hard rights to the head. Yet despite this, Cobb was unhurt. Both men looked very sluggish now, on their feet in particular, and this gave Shavers a chance. more chances to land with his slow but powerful fists. Shavers was unloading well at the end of the session. In the fourth, Cobb’s left hand was starting to get lower and lower and both guys took turns in backing each other up. Shaver’s cut was worse now, the blood running into his eye. But Cobb was also cut, over his right eye. These two tiring, bloodied heavyweights were hammering out punches in a fight that was impossible to avert one’s eyes from. After they were patched up to the best of their corner-men’s abilities between rounds, the action resumed in the fifth. A big right crashed into Cobb’s head yet he appeared unfazed. Shavers turned it on, unleashing a barrage of punches, practically all of which landed on Cobb; flush on his chin. Cobb would not budge and fans were on their feet in the Joe Louis Arena. This was a slow-motion slugfest, yes, but it was thoroughly engrossing. By the sixth-round, the two were simply knocking chunks out of each other. There really have not been too many fights quite like this one. As the bell sounded, both fighters staggered back to their stools, sucking up what reserves they had so as to come out for more flat-footed warfare in round-seven seventh. It was far from pretty, but this was a FIGHT. The two warriors traded, before Cobb got on top and began slamming Shavers all over the ring. Shavers was taking a real pasting and he had nothing left but his heart. In a state of near exhaustion at the end of the brutal round, Shavers heard (perhaps) calls to stop the fight. It was evident the end was not far away, and Shavers had no balance at all in the eighth-round; driven across the ring as he was yet again. It was a sight to see: Shavers, stuck in a corner taking shots, doubled over yet refusing to fall. Cobb was simply pounding away at a frighteningly game, yet defenceless target and finally the ref dived in and stopped the beating. The saying we often hear in boxing is how two men, after going through an especially rough and tough fight, “leave a piece of themselves in the ring.” This was the case 40 years ago.
Trevor Berbick, he's probably best remembered as being Muhammad Ali's last opponent and as a Mike Tyson victim, but he was a good fighter and I like watching him operate. He was at his best when the fight turned into a slow grinding battle down in the trenches, a war of attrition, watching him wear opponents down with his brutal thudding shots was a thing of beauty.
Trevor Berbick lived a bit of a wild life, he was sort of a loose cannon, and sadly in 2006 Trevor Berbick was murdered by his own nephew with a machete in his home country of Jamaica over a land dispute.
Trevor Berbick on a Jamaican stamp.
Henry Armstrong is the only boxer in history to hold undisputed championships in three weight classes simultaneously. He was the Featherweight, Lightweight, and Welterweight champion all at the same time, he accomplished this feat in 1938, this was back when there was only one champion in each division, ridiculous domination of the sport. He beat a ton of great fighters during that period, Benny Bass, Chalky Wright, Baby Arizmendi, Lou Ambers, Barney Ross, Bobby Pacho, Ceferino Garcia, Frankie Click, Mike Belloise, Petey Sarron, 10 champions, 9 hall of famers, all that in the one belt era, huge achievement. One of the greatest pound for pound fighters in the history of boxing. This is one of the most iconic sports photos ever taken, showing him with two crowns and reaching for the third.
Henry Armstrong was nicknamed "Homicide Hank" due to his relentless pressure, hard-hitting, and aggressive fighting style, which involved throwing a high volume of punches with great power. He was a brutal puncher, he scored something like 26 straight knockouts at one point, in fact there was a three year period from 1937-1940 where he went 59-1-1 (51 KO) over three weight classes.
Benny Lynch, great, great, Scottish flyweight, could hit like a mule kicks.
Benny Lynch: The rise and fall of the people's champion
Benny Lynch was Scotland's first boxing world champion by the age of 22 but his career was over when he was 25 and he was dead by 33.
No wonder the meteoric rise and fall of the boxing legend often referred to as the people's champion still generates interest 70 years after his death.
The latest telling of the story of the diminutive tough guy from Glasgow's Gorbals is a new documentary, Benny, to be screened at the Glasgow Film Festival.
Born in 1913, Lynch rose from being a sickly child in the poverty-stricken tenements to become world flyweight champion.
But his descent was as steep as his rise and just over a decade later he was dead, following a battle with alcoholism.
Seumas Mactaggart, one of the producers of the film, says he wanted to focus on Lynch's achievements as a boxer and not his tragic decline.
He says: "When you see the fantastic archive we have it really gives you sense of how hard he could hit.
"These guys were way under eight and a half stone (54kg) but you look at the ferocity of the punches and also the speed at which they moved and it is amazing.
"He could punch with both hands and hit as hard with each of them. When he was at his prime, no-one could touch him."
Lynch managed 119 fights in his short career.
He won the world flyweight title in 1935 when he beat Jackie Brown in Manchester, reportedly flooring his opponent eight times before the bout was stopped in the second round.
Jim Watt, who became lightweight world champion 40 years later in 1979, tells the documentary: "Benny is the most important figure as far as Scottish boxing is concerned.
"He was the first one to do it. He showed us that a little guy from Glasgow, a little guy from Scotland, could be champion of the whole wide world."
The film's producer says Lynch was already massively popular in Glasgow before he became world champion.
He says: "There were 2,000 Scots at the fight in Manchester and the place was pandemonium when he won.
"When he came back up to Glasgow, the estimates range from between 20,000 and 100,000 at Central Station.
"It was phenomenal the turnout and the regard that people had for Benny."
Mr Mactaggart says that Benny's problems began soon after he won the world title.
He says: "There was a guy called Sammy Wilson who discovered Benny as a young lad and really mentored him.
"He was almost a father figure to him. He took him all the way through and then unfortunately there was a spilt with Sammy just after he won the world championship.
"Although he went on and was successful after, for Benny you got the feeling that without Sammy as a safe pair of hands and a person in his corner he was a bit lost."
Lynch established himself as the "undisputed" flyweight champion of the world when he narrowly beat Small Montana in London in 1937.
But Mr Mactaggart says the pinnacle of his career was swiftly followed by a decline.
"Once you have the world title you have everything you wanted," he says.
"The feeling was that his hunger went and other distractions came along.
"There were also people who came along looking for a piece of Benny and it was not good for him. There was not someone there to protect him like Sammy Wilson had in the past."
By the following year, Lynch's drinking lifestyle meant that he could no longer make the weight for the flyweight division.
He forfeited his title against American Jackie Jurich because he was overweight.
His last fight was against Aurel Toma in London in October 1938.
It was the first time he had ever been knocked out.
His boxing licence was revoked on medical grounds in 1939 and he slipped into freefall.
"For Benny, boxing was everything and that was the end," says the documentary producer.
"The boxing ring was his home. It was where he felt most comfortable. Without that it became much more difficult for him."
Lynch made attempts to dry out, spending time in a monastery in Ireland, but died from malnutrition-induced respiratory failure in 1946, at the age of 33.
Love this shot from a distance of Benny Lynch training.
Some people consider Stanley Ketchel to be the greatest middleweight in history, he was one of the most brutal punchers in the history of the sport, his power was so great that he actually floored heavyweight champion Jack Johnson when they fought, this is a middleweight flooring a heavyweight, that's how hard Ketchel punched. Billy Papke was one of the most violent men in the history of the sport, he ended up shooting his ex-wife in 1936 and then turning the gun on himself, he actually had to shoot himself three times in the heart to get the job done. Ketchel and Papke fought four times, and they legit tried to kill each other every time they fought, they hated each other.
Welcome To Hell: Stanley Ketchel In 1908 – Part Four: A Heart Unbreakable
October 18, 2011 By Matt McGrain:
On Thanksgiving day of 1936, Billy Papke was drinking. When the owner of the bar closed up to go home for his turkey dinner, Papke muttered that he would go home too. He drove to the house of his ex-wife. A neighbour later reported hearing five shots. The first two struck Papke’s ex-, killing her. He then turned the gun upon himself and fired at his heart from point blank range. He did not die. He fired another shot. Again, he did not die. Papke fired a third shot and his heart finally stopped beating. It is impossible to know Papke’s final thoughts. He left the world three sons, so despite the terrible disarray of his personal life, it is likely that his mind went out to family as he died. But it is not unreasonable to suppose that as his once great heart bled out, Papke’s mind raced back to the finest day of his professional life, the ninth of September of 1908, the day he took the great Stanley Ketchel apart at the seams, took him apart so brutally that some thought Ketchel might have been taken apart for all time. Papke had been in pursuit of a rematch ever since Ketchel inflicted his first lost. It became his obsession. He spoke of it at length before his August meeting with Sailor Burke: “I will beat Ketchel the next time I meet him. The first punch he landed put me out for six rounds. I was careless that was all. The punch broke three of my teeth. I couldn’t open my jaw. I was dazed for six rounds. At the end of the sixth round, when I was sitting in my corner, I came round…I am going to force Ketchel into the ring with me.” Ketchel wouldn’t take much forcing. After some squirming concerning the weight, most of it by Papke, the fight was made. But just as Papke had looked past Burke, there were disturbing hints that Ketchel was looking past Papke. Acknowledging Papke as the greatest middleweight in the world, himself accepted, Ketchel credited “Smiling Billy” – Papke had been smiling ever since the rematch had been signed – as being his most difficult fight to date: “He is certainly the toughest man I ever met in my life and I have stacked up against the best of them. He is the only man who fights in the same style I use myself. He keeps boring in all the time…I will either knock him out or else he will put the crusher on me.” But Ketchel had been increasingly linked with the greatest prize of all, the heavyweight title, then held by the respected but less-than awe-inspiring Tommy Burns. The calls became a cacophony when Ketchel disposed of the heavier Thomas so easily and the figures being discussed as payment were also in a different weight class. Ketchel’s head had seemingly been turned: “I regard Papke as one of the first stepping stones in my path toward the heavyweight championship. When am through with him I will devote all my time to Tommy Burns.” Ketchel had done something extraordinary in clearing out the top men of a stacked middleweight division but no matter how massive the river he crosses and no matter what the value of the prize on the other shore, no fighter should ever look to use a rattlesnake as a stepping stone. Ketchel began as a favourite and eventually men who wanted to bet on the champion were offering three to one. But as preperations continued, the odds began to shorten. Both men worked out publicly, daily, and this time around in front of thousands. Whilst Ketchel’s reputation as the most destructive puncher in all of boxing preceded him, many were swayed by what they saw in each respective training camp. Firstly, Ketchel’s camp appears to have been less well planned and he at first had some issues securing sparring partners. The LA Herald: “…he is inclined to forget that he is training instead of fighting, and has been accustomed to knocking out these assistants. He has such a frightful kick in either hand…he scares his sparring partners half to death before he even hits them…a new one or two appear in camp every day to work with him.” As sparring partners poured out of the camp O’Connor took a novel approach. The Herald again: “Frightened at the results following recent workouts…Joe O’Connor has refused to permit anybody to box with Ketchel unless armoured…Sparring partners at this camp now must wear a baseball catcher’s chest protector to prevent the possibility of the champion’s fist being driven through their bodies, and Ketch as been warned to keep his fists away from all unprotected portions of the anatomy of his sparring partners, including their heads.” Whilst Kethcel’s display of power was impressive, it was also expected and his inability to headhunt and his lack of quality, stable sparring caused some concern. One partner, Carl Solomon was better known as a wrestler than a boxer. Additionally, in the build up to the Thomas fight stories had appeared questioning Ketchel’s commitment. He had been seen “breaking his curfew” and “associating with undesirables.” Worse, there were rumours of his using opium, rumours The New York World would later feel confident enough to print. Although there were no such stories during the build up to Papke II, this story combined with Ketchel’s interest in the heavyweight title and the difficulties he was experiencing in camp began to create doubt. But nothing so affected the odds as much as Papke himself. “Papke is one human iceberg,” observed The Herald. “He refuses to credit the stories that Ketchel is…[an] invincible human marvel, and the fact that he is sensationally slugging in his training camp…does not affect him in the least. He figures that he is a certain winner.” Most fighters re-write the fights they have lost. The enormous stores of ego that allow men like Papke to take to the ring against dynamite punchers like Ketchel is huge and even more fragile in a case like this where the man has already been defeated by his opponent. Papke told the press over and over again that he had been unseated from his sense in the first round against Ketchel but still survived to hear the bell. If Ketchel could not knock him out then, how could he do so now? Papke had no doubt. He publicly laid the then huge sum of $500 on himself to lift the title. “Papke continues to grind away in a systematic manner,” continued The Herald. “[he is] working for conditioning and the development of his wallop.” Papke wasn’t planning to utilise his advantage in foot speed as it was clearly displayed in the first fight. He wanted Ketchel in the furnace. On September the third, Papke knocked one of his own sparring partners. His training for power seemed to be paying dividends. In contrast to Ketchel, Papke treated his ringmen with care, “and does not punish his sparring partners” but within seconds of his workout with Jim Tremble Papke sent over a picture-perfect right. Tremble needed to be helped to his corner. The Herald: “Papke expressed his regret afterwards and said he would be more careful in future. Sentiment regarding the possibilities of the result…is changing fast and the fans are beginning to ask themselves how Ketchel came to be such an odds on favourite. Now that they have had ample time to visit both camps and see the fighters…Papke money is dead easy to find.” A “prominent sportsman” explained to the journalist his reasoning for backing Papke: “I find Ketchel to be a slashing, rushing, open fighter…Papke is cool-headed and can slug…Papke has a terrific wallop and if he ever cracks Ketchel on the jaw with a square swing or hook there will be a new champion. Papke’s confidence also impresses me.” The day before the fight, The Herald compared Ketchel to Jim Jeffries, who would be refereeing him the match, labelling him “the pugilistic marvel of the decade, ranking as prominently today as Jeffries ranked in his prime.” The Evening World labelled him “another Fitzsimmons, the greatest of the modern fistic artists.” The World also knew Papke. “It will be a desperate scrap.” Billy’s ring walk was almost Zen-like, “a broad smile on his features, in excellent humour with himself and all the world…he was almost childlike in his supreme confidence,” (The LA Herald). It is also important to note that Papke, “immediately walked over and shook hands with the champion.” Much has been written about the first round of this fight, and more about the supposed “sucker-punch” Papke is said to have landed at any point between the referee’s instructions and the first bell. For the most part, this is gross exaggeration. Papke did decline Ketchel’s second handshake, ring-centre, after Jim Jeffries had waved them in, but only because this was almost exactly what Ketchel had done in the first fight. Indeed, a Daily Arizona sub-header remarked that “Papke, Remembering Former Experience, Refuses To Shake Hands At Call Of Time And Sails Into Champion Like A Thunderbolt,” As well as noting that the “sucker punch” that Papke claimed decided the first fight was landed in near exact circumstances, it is also important to stress that the punch was landed after time was called. The punch was not illegal and nor was it a matter for debate in the press reports the following day, although it did become a minor issue later that week, around the time negotiations for a third fight began in earnest. According to The Evening World, Papke had even announced before the fight that he would not be shaking hands before the bell, specifically because Ketchel had taken advantage of him in their first fight. The same article states that Papke invited Ketchel to “come on and fight” before attacking, giving Ketchel every chance to withdraw his extended hand. Whatever the specifics, Papke took a vicious initiative and remained in control throughout perhaps the most devastating beating in all of ring history. In a hellish first round, Papke knocked Ketchel down for the nine count no less than three times. Papke had adjusted. In the first fight he had used his superior foot speed to make space for his attacks, but Ketchel’s more scientific approach had baffled him. Papke’s new plan was seeming suicide against the world’s greatest puncher, but his step straight into the heat of Ketchel’s attack with a short right hand robbed the champion of his shifting offence. Married to a sneak uppercut that Papke developed especially for the occasion, it baffled Stanley long enough for him to take control. Exchanging furious punches on the inside, Papke suddenly went to the body, and when Ketchel attempted to reply in kind he launched a left to the head and a right to the eye and “opened up a gash. As Ketchel staggered, Papke swung a left full in the face, sending Ketchel to the floor.” (LA Herald) Referee Jeffries would describe this as the winning punch after the fight, and Papke would agree with him. Stunned, Ketchel hoisted himself onto all fours, and “gazed in a dazed manner about himself” (LA Herald) before hoisting himself up at the count of nine. Jeffries stepped aside and Papke “launched himself at [Ketchel] and a smashing right swing sent him half way across the ring and down on his face” where he “lay still for five seconds before [he] began to work his way to his feet…just as Jeff[ries] counted nine” The Washington Times then described the pitiless third knock down, on Ketchel who “was able to stand but a second later was pitched face-first into the canvas again when Papke sent another hard blow to his defenceless face.” During the round, roars had reverberated around the ring, but at the bell there was silence. Ketchel’s eye was closed. In the corner he was lanced to no avail and sent back to a slaughter without ring parallel. “Not since the end days of the fight to the finish was a more bloody contest seen,” offered The Evening World. For the next seven rounds, Ketchel somehow found the reserves to meet Papke as an equal, but “whenever Ketchel tried his famous shift The Thunderbolt quickly stepped close inside,” driving Ketchel back, forcing him to fight in the purest terms rather than employ tactics. In the second, Ketchel missed frequently and was punished, his face a “mass of gore.” By the fourth, Papke, still smiling had reduced Ketchel to “a terrible condition.” In the fifth, Ketchel had his first real success as they exchanged uppercuts and body-blows, but still Papke was unmarked. In the sixth Ketchel landed his best punch, a right to the solar plexus but was “clearly in distress…Papke was smiling.” Some sources have Ketchel winning the seventh and he “tried to smile” as he returned to his corner, blood pouring form his blind eye. In the eighth, Ketchel was brutalised horribly, shipping multiple flush headshots, blood now pouring from his nose. The 1900’s crowd began to call for the fight’s end, a rarity for the era. Both men were smothered in Ketchel’s blood. By the ninth both of Ketchel’s eyes were shut and he staggered blindly about the ring as Papke thrashed him. In the tenth, The San Fransisco Call describes Ketchel’s face as “barely human looking.” Ketchel prepared himself for the eleventh by trying to scrape the blood from his eyes, the left still gaping from the failed lancing between rounds one and two. The LA Herald: “The minute between rounds was not enough for Ketchel to recover his wits and although he responded to the gong he was unsteady on his legs and beclouded of brain and about all he could do was cover up and try to stall the round. Papke would not have it…forcing an opening he [landed] a clean right to the head flooring Ketchel for the count of nine.” Only a heart unbreakable could have drawn Ketchel from the canvas in that moment. Papke, still smiling the same smile he had worn on his way to the ring, approached, but Ketchel was not even looking at him, rather he was looking out to the crowd, arms hanging at his sides, and he “did not raise his hands to ward off the punch that toppled him from the championship pedestal.” Ketchel’s condition was horrific. The Evening World: “Both his eyes were closed tight. His face was battered out of shape, as if Papke had knocked him about with a baseball bat instead of two fists. His face was crooked as if his cheekbones had been beaten in. His mouth was a mere gash. His whole body was covered with unsightly lumps where Papke’s iron fists had landed…it will be months before he fights again, if he ever does.” Jeffries, no stranger to the worst savageries of the ring, labelled Ketchel the gamest fighter he had ever seen. Papke agreed with him. Ketchel offered “no excuses” then demanded an immediate rematch through broken, bleeding lips. Then he vanished. Papke made him wait eleven days before confirming a rematch would be made. The day before, Ketchel had been able to leave his house for the first time for a “trip to the baths.” Papke had come to terms over his first theatrical engagement. On the 18th Ketchel met with the press for the first time since the fight. His quiet confidence was noted but he was seen by many as damaged goods. Then he up and vanished once more, according to some for Mexico. “For all the information his manager gives out, Ketchel may be in Odessa. O’Connor is to smart to let anyone know his business and there is suspicion that he doesn’t know it to well himself.” (The San Francisco Call). When on the first of November the two fighters arrived in San Francisco, the pattern continued, with Ketchel unavailable to the press and O’Connor refusing to divulge, or not aware of, how Stan had even come to the city. Papke, on the other hand was a huge hit with the locals and the press alike. His fighting style, obsession with Ketchel and the way that his life ended has given a certain impression of Papke, but in fact he was quite the gentleman, “as modest a person as one could meet in quite a long time.” (The Call). He spoke well of his opponent and the city he was a guest in. Conscious of the impression his ring demeanor left upon the press and public, he also talked of his ambitions to go to college, and stressed that in-spite of newspaper cartoons to the contrary, “I have never worked down a mine.“ Papke was determined that he should be liked. Ketchel, on the other hand was “doing nothing to enhance his popularity locally.” Papke installed himself in San Rafael and began light training the very next day. He would soon be joined there by an exclusively heavyweight stable of sparring partners including Al Kauffman, who would before long challenge for Jack Johnson’s soon to be won heavyweight title. He broke the habit of a lifetime, sparring on the Sabbath for the benefit of the near star-struck locals. Ketchel set up shop further south, in Alameda. He started training later than Papke, but more in earnest. Whilst “Smiling Billy” as Papke had been christened after his smiling destruction of Ketchel, was slightly underweight, Ketchel had an estimated six pounds to shed. The betting opened with Papke a 10-8 favourite, even money to knock Ketchel out once more inside the distance. Ketchel’s first public workout on the tenth, however, was something of a revelation. “Certainly, Ketchel did not loosen up like a man who saw the gymnasium for the first time in months,” said The Call. “He went at his work with vim and dash.” It seems almost a certainty that Ketchel’s vanishing act of the month before had allowed him to make those first tentative moves back into training away from prying eyes. By the thirteenth it was clear that something special was happening as Ketchel trained “harder than he ever had before in his life.” He was talking again, too: “If I didn’t think I could beat him, I would not fight him…I will beat him and do it so completely that after it is over the fight fans will forget that he ever did beat me, or if they remember him at all it will just be to wonder how he beat me…I will tell you one thing and mark me it will come true. If I knock him off his pins once in the coming fight it will be all over for him…I feel certain I will trim this new champion worse than he trimmed me.” From hell, to the wilderness, to the ring again, Ketchel was ready for the furnace. Papke, for his part, accelerated to a pitch. By the 23rd he was boxing 7-10 fast rounds almost daily with heavyweights, knocking the 185lb Dane Ollie Cornett out on his feet in three rounds, “an eagle pecking a snake to pieces…a ring mathematician who leaves nothing to chance.” (The Call) The main sphere of Papke’s improvement seems to have been in a shortening of his punches, born almost completely of his “switch-killing” punch, that step inside married to a straight right hand that had posed so many problems for Ketchel. He had also added a higher guard, which he showcased against the baffled Kauffman who again and again failed to reach Papke as the champion stabbed at the heavyweight before covering up. At the final press conference on the 26th, Papke predicted a win inside of ten rounds: “It is possible that there are some middleweights who might beat me, but Ketchel is not amongst them. Ketchel will merely prove a warm up for me. I’ve got that boy, there is very little danger of me losing to him. I honestly think Mr.Ketchel is getting in the ring with me just to receive the losing end of the purse. He is a game fellow and will probably take a good beating. I hope he does. I intend to give him a beating he won’t forget for the rest of his life.” Ketchel did not come to the conference, but predicted a win inside of twelve rounds. The San Francisco Call, present for every round of sparring and more, liked Papke’s prediction better: “Ketchel has but one chance to win. He may land one of those wild swings. Outside of that he has as much chance as a one-legged man winning a roller-skating race…Papke is a better boxer and just as hard a hitter, knows pugilism better, has a better head, hits truer and shorter…this writer is neither a profit nor the son of a profit but if Papke doesn’t lay [Ketchel] low within fifteen, he misses his mark and misses it badly.” In truth, Ketchel hated Papke by now. He is said to have uncovered that hatred finally just before or during the first round, supposedly telling Papke that “it took you twelve rounds to knock out a blind man. Well I’m going to let you keep your eyes open until round eleven so you can see me knock you out!” My guess is that this did not happen. Instead, Ketchel revealed his hatred in a different way, launching the most savage attack of his violent career in the very first round. Driven to the ropes, Papke tried to fire back with his fight-winner from ten short weeks before, but now it was Ketchel’s turn to show adaptations. Throughout the fight, he would step away and to the side in response to this attack, making new space for himself, sometimes forced to take Papke’s punches, but now able once again to deliver his own wider blows, often two-handed. Papke did not panic, instead he went to his other prize punch, the uppercut, and Ketchel met him like for like, inviting Papke to measure artillery. Papke was forced in these opening seconds to either attempt a new adjustment or accept Ketchel’s invitation to burn. For a man like Ppake this was likely no choice at all, and they swapped furious punches across the ring, the round decided by a blistering right hand to Papke’s body. Papke won the second but Ketchel was now concentrating firmly upon the body, and whilst he was hit hard and often upstairs, he had the run of it in terms of bodywork. Papke had seem shocked in the first though he now was recovering his confidnce, but a messy third followed. The beginning of the fourth saw some bad moments for Ketchel as he “missed with a wild left…and a fearful right to the jaw.” A bad start to the fifth saw Ketchel missing wildly again, but suddenly he found his stride in earnest. The New York Times: “Stepping aside at crucial junctures, Ketchel swung his right time and again flush on his opponent’s jaw, now and then alternating with left drives to the body…he drove a hard left to the stomach and Papke had not put up his hands before he encountered a hard right to the jaw.” At some point in this round, either a straight left to the stomach or a “ponderous right hand to the jaw” (LA Times) sent Papke spilling from the ring (it is a testimony perhaps to the speed with which Ketchel was mixing up his attack that the press can’t agree upon the offending punch!). Papke grabbed his man as he fell throw the ropes and Ketchel toppled down with him onto the pressmen at ringside, fighting even as they were pushed back into the ring. In the sixth, Papke baulked. He backed up, boxing cautiously for the first time in the brutal series, but Ketchel came right after him. The two swapped punches, Ketchel paying the toll to get inside and work the body, and when they came away both were bleeding from the nose. Papke went to his seat “uneasily” at the end of the round (LA Times). The seventh began messily as the two were separated by the referee for the first time. Ketchel employed his switch, also for the first time behind this action, landing “a left to the body and two left uppercuts to the head.” Papke “bled freely” at the end of the round. By the ninth Papke was “tottering about the ring” and, according to the New York Times, Ketchel was “apparently withholding” the knockout punch. Papke “fought back desperately” but Ketchel lashed punches almost exclusively to the body. Papke rallied in the tenth, countering Ketchel’s body punches with his own. The bell rang for the eleventh, the round Ketchel had told Papke he would put him out if the legend is to be believed. Uncharacteristically jabbing, Ketchel followed up with a violent push, charging in behind Ketchel and landing “two hard rights to the stomach.” The Times takes up the story: “As they broke out of a clinch, Ketchel swung at three-quarters-length landing squarely on the point of the chin. Papke struck at full length, his head rapping the floor with terrible force. He had just enough strength to regain his feet.” In an eerie echo of Ketchel’s own desperate struggle in their second fight, Papke had regained his feet at the count of nine but was unable to defend himself. Ketchel approached him but unlike Billy he was not smiling as he “sent his right to the head four times in quick succession and almost pushed Papke to the floor with a left hook. Papke fell forwards on his knees his hands supporting him, his head bowed as if in agony.” Twenty six years almost to the hour before three bullets at point blank range would end his life, Billy Papke’s heart failed him for the first time. For Ketchel, 1908 was over.
Stanley Ketchel'd life ended prematurely and violently as well, he died after being shot by Walter Dipley (also known as Walter Kurtz) on October 15, 1910. Dipley shot Ketchel with a .22 caliber rifle while the boxer was eating breakfast, striking him in the shoulder and lung. Ketchel was rushed to a hospital in Springfield, Missouri, where he died shortly after. Dipley claimed he shot Ketchel in self-defense after Ketchel had assaulted his wife, Goldie Smith. However, evidence later revealed that Goldie was not Dipley's wife, and there was no proof of assault. Furthermore, Ketchel was shot in the back. Dipley and Smith were both convicted of first-degree murder. Dipley spent 23 years in prison, while Smith's conviction was later overturned.
Stanley Ketchel, "The Michigan Assassin."
Stanley Ketchel in a fight pose.
Billy Papke, "The Illinois Thunderbolt."
Billy Papke in a fight pose.
Billy Papke poses in his robe.
Billy Papke stands over Stanley Ketchel after knocking him down in their second fight, Ketchel took one of the worst beatings in boxing history in this fight, many people thought Ketchel would never fight again after this. But fight again he did, returning the favor to Papke in the rematch.
Stanley Ketchel returns the favor to Billy Papke in the rematch.
Joe Choynski, late 1800s - early 1900s heavyweight, one of the hardest punchers in boxing history, he had one of the coolest nicknames, "Chrysanthemum Joe."
Chrysanthemum Joe
November 28, 2023
By Jamie Rebner
“Jeffries number one? No, sir. Give me Joe Choynski anytime. I faced both and should know. Jeffries had a powerful wallop, but Choynski had a paralyzing punch. His left hand was a corker. He was the hardest puncher in the last fifty years, with Joe Walcott a close second. I think his left hook was even more effective than Dempsey’s. Choynski could paralyze you, even if he didn’t catch you flush.”
These are the words of no less an authority than all-time great heavyweight Jack Johnson, his reply in a 1940 interview to the question of who was the hardest puncher he had ever faced. On February 25, 1901, Choynski and Johnson battled in Galveston, Texas, Johnson’s hometown. Since at that time boxing was illegal in Texas, the event was billed as an exhibition, which it was until Choynski landed a devastating left hook in the third round to become one of the precious few to ever stop the man who later became the first Black heavyweight champion.
Choynski and Johnson in prison.
Both pugilists were arrested immediately after the illegal match, but being put in a jail cell with Choynski turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Johnson.
The advice he received from the older and wiser pro during their brief lock-up was instrumental in making “The Galveston Giant” a complete fighter. “A man who can move like you,” Choynski had told him, “should never have to take a punch.”
“Joe developed a great liking for me,” recalled Johnson years later. “Every day we would box in the jail yard, surrounded by police officers and guests. I learned more in those two weeks than I had learned in my entire existence up to that point.”
Choynski and Johnson pose for the camera.
Born in San Francisco on November 8, 1868, Joseph Bartlett Choynski was the son of Isador Choynski, a Jewish Polish immigrant, and Harriett Ashim, who was from England. As Christopher LaForce explains in his excellent biography, The Choynski Chronicles, young Joe was the fourth of five children, but there is no record of his birth because the majority of medical records did not survive the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires.
Choynski’s father was an erudite man, a writer and newspaper publisher, who established an antiquarian bookstore. He also had a fiery temper and this along with his keen intelligence he passed on to his son. The man who would later be known as “The California Terror” and “Little Joe” began his amateur career in 1884 and went on to win the Pacific Coast championship in 1887 before turning pro the following year. Another of Choynski’s nicknames was “Chrysanthemum Joe,” this appellation inspired by his choosing to let his mane of thick hair grow long, his coiffure of flowing and flowery locks an eccentric trait for the time.
Despite routinely giving up between thirty and seventy pounds to his opponents, Choynski’s skill and power allowed him to succeed. Part of the reason Choynski had to compete against much larger men is that the light heavyweight division was not established until 1903, a year before he retired. Standing 5’10” and weighing around 170 pounds, Choynski, like many great fighters of the time, thought nothing of taking on adversaries who were taller and heavier. Besides, there’s no better equalizer than raw power and in that regard Choynski was exceptionally gifted.
Choynski shared the ring with the best battlers of his era, many of whom were world champions. In addition to Johnson, that list includes “Ruby Rob” Fitzsimmons, “Gentleman Jim” Corbett, James J. Jeffries, Kid McCoy, Tom Sharkey, and the legendary Barbados Joe Walcott, all of whom are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. But unfortunately none gave Choynski a chance when they held a world title belt, freezing “Little Joe” out and adding him to the list of pugilistic legends who never had a chance to compete for a strap. It speaks to Choynski’s power, ability and doggedness that those who did face him never granted him a rematch.
Jeffries and Choynski in the ring. This was likely an exhibition match.
Indeed, Jack Johnson wasn’t the only all-time great to acknowledge Choynski’s punching prowess. Despite holding a fifty pound weight advantage over Joe, James J. Jeffries, aka “The Boilermaker,” could not defeat Choynski, the judges scoring their twenty round contest in 1897 a draw.
“To this day, I can’t figure out how a runt like him could hurt so damned bad,” declared Jeffries some years later. “During our scrap, he clipped me with a right that landed high on my cheekbone. I figured my whole face was caved in, and when I tried to feel what was left with my hands, there wasn’t any sensation at all. That was the hardest punch I ever took and had it landed a little lower I would have been knocked out for the first time in my life.”
A newspaper illustration for the Jeffries vs Choynski duel.
The San Francisco papers reporting on the Jeffries vs Choynski battle the next day all remarked on the difference in size between the two men, one stating that the match-up looked like a rematch between David and Goliath, only David didn’t have his sling. “Lucky for me, he didn’t,” remarked Jeffries. “He could do well enough with his fists.”
Bob Fitzsimmons and James Corbett also declared that the hardest blows they ever received in the squared circle were delivered by “The California Terror.” The Fitzsimmons bout in 1894 was declared a draw after five rounds due to police intervention, but Choynski believed that the knockdown he scored in the last round would have ended the fight had the police not stepped in.
Choynski (left), Jeffries and Corbett.
Choynski and “Gentleman Jim” fought three times in 1889. The matches took place in the San Francisco area, where both men grew up, and generated substantial local interest. The second bout, which occurred on a barge in Benicia Harbor, was the most notable, with Choynski getting the worst of a bloody battle before being stopped in round twenty-seven. But Corbett suffered for the victory as both his hands were severely damaged. He later wrote that his win that day was “the very toughest battle I had ever fought or was to fight; one in which I was to receive more punishment than I have ever had in all my battles put together.”
Years later Corbett praised Choynski’s extraordinary power. “Little Joe was the hardest hitter I ever tangled with,” he declared.
While never a world champion, “Chrysanthemum Joe” is a genuine boxing legend.
In 1904, Joe Choynski hung up his gloves, ending a 20 year boxing career with fifty wins in 79 total bouts. After retiring, he worked as a trainer and referee and was employed by several athletic associations. He also assisted in the promotion of championship bouts, including the famous Johnson vs Jeffries showdown in 1910. Online sources indicate that Choynski toured with heavyweight legend Peter Jackson in the production of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” a best-selling anti-slavery novel, and consulted on the production of the Jim Corbett biopic, “Gentleman Jim.”
“Chrysanthemum Joe” eventually went into business and settled in Cincinnati, where he died on January 25, 1943.
Joe Choynski was finally inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1998. Having posthumously achieved the highest honor in the sport, he is now rightfully included on any list of the greatest Jewish prizefighters of all time and no doubt deserves ranking alongside the hardest punchers in heavyweight history. — Jamie Rebner
Joe Choynski in his prime.
Joe Choynski in his later years.
My favorite photo of Joe Choynski in his later years.
Prince Naseem Hamed makes an entrance to the ring floating on a magic carpet.
Irish Bob Murphy is one of my favorite fighters, nothing cute about his style, he was just a redheaded, tough as nails, Irish brawler that could hit hard, he took a lot of guys out with his brutal punches. This is a great article written by a young journalist that just happened to bump into Bob Murphy at a bar one morning and began to pick Murphy's brain about his boxing career. This is great stuff, I couldn't imagine being a reporter, sitting at a bar looking for a story, and in walks freakin' Irish Bob Murphy.
“Irish Bob” In The Morning
By Bernie McCoy
Its been validly stated that drinking is the “black lung disease” of the newspaper business. It certainly was back in those long gone years when I was starting out on what can only generously be referred to as a “career”. I learned the drinking part of “newspapering” long before I mastered the “five Ws and an H in the lead graph” part of the business. I logged a generous amount of time in saloons and my rationalization was that was where you met and gathered interesting material that might get you a byline on a story. It was where I met Irish Bob Murphy. If you’ve ever been in what in Florida is known as a gin mill, you know the “Pilot House”. It was directly across 36th Street from the Miami International Airport in a section of the city known as Miami Springs, a bit of Chamber of Commerce overstatement. In those days, the Pilot House was heavily populated by Eastern Airlines workers and other round-the-clock employees, including a fair number of cops. The bar’s primary draw was that it was open 21 hours a day, 7am-3am, and 24 hours if you knew where the back door was and the guy behind it recognized you. This particular morning, it was either a couple of hours before or shortly after my shift at the paper and I was, at least to anyone who asked, in the Pilot House looking for material. A big guy came in and sat on the stool next to me and ordered “a shot of Bushmill, beer back” (I remember that detail because that was also the drink combination in front of me). I remarked on that and we got to talking. After a short time, I told him he looked like a fighter and he conceded that he had done some fighting in his time, in and out of the ring, and in response to my question said he was Irish Bob Murphy. At this point in his life Murphy was not yet forty and not only did he look like a fighter, but he suggested a line you often hear in Texas: he had the look of “being rode hard and put away wet”. Fueled by youthful impetuousness and the beer and Bushmill, I jumped headlong into a sililoquy on Murphy’s career. I told him that the first fight of his that I had seen was against Harry Matthews in the Garden in early ’51 on the Friday Night Fights on NBC TV. He, of course, remembered it well and said that when he lost, he was sure he had blown his chance at a shot a the lightheavy weight title. But, he remembered, he came back in the same ring shortly thereafter and knocked out a “tough Philly fighter” named Dan Bucceroni and that coupled with the fact that “Joey Maxim wanted no part of Harry Matthews got me a title shot later in the year”. Murphy remembered that Joey Maxim was the cleverest boxer he was ever in with, “I couldn’t have hit him if we had fought in a phone booth” (Murphy was actually a big favorite going into the bout but lost a lopsided 15 round decision to Maxim, again in the Garden). I asked Murphy if “Kid” Matthews was the toughest guy he ever fought and he replied that Jake LaMotta was “way tougher” than anyone he had fought; that hitting LaMotta was like “hitting a telephone pole” and that he had never been so relieved when his first fight with LaMotta was stopped after the seventh round. “If that bell for the eight round had rung, I’m not sure I could have gotten my hands up. “LaMotta, Murphy said, “was like Marciano in the sense that he just kept coming forward and throwing punches and no matter where he hit you, he hurt you”. LaMotta later beat Murphy over ten rounds in a fight that, if you’re fortunate, you might catch on the ESPN Classic station which shows it periodically. I made the assumption, then, that LaMotta was the hardest puncher that Murphy had ever faced and he quickly contradicted me. “Not by a long shot, I fought a guy by the name of Clarence Henry, a tall skinny heavyweight who caught me as hard as I was ever hit, knocked me flat cold, in Detroit, and that was at a time was I was knocking out everybody I got in with. I mean, Clarence Henry could punch”. We had been talking for sometime at this point and I figured I had a good human interest piece which would go a long way toward explaining another day in the Pilot House. Murphy said his main regret about his career in the ring was that he didn’t “smell the roses” when he was up near the top of the lightheavy weight division. “You think its going to last forever, the big cities, the nice hotels, the great meals, the women, everyone looking to get close to you, to do something for you. “Then one morning you look around and you’re fighting in someplace like Waterbury Connecticut and the hotel isn’t as nice and neither is the pre-fight meal and instead of the Garden its some auditorium with a couple of thousand people. “Then about a day later, its pretty much over, you’re on a losing streak and everybody wants a chance to beat Irish Bob Murphy. “And after that…” Bob Murphy, once one of the best lightheavy weight fighters looked around the Pilot House, the sun now coming into the place in dusty streaks, and shook his head and signalled the guy behind the bar, “give me and my friend here, one more”. The Bushmill had kicked in by then and I remarked that I thought that the streaks of sunlight in the bar seemed similar to patterns I had seen in some gyms across the country. Murphy snorted into his drink and he said he had hated training, particularly the road work and that sunlight patterns in gyms were not something that stuck in his mind. We finished “the one more” and had another, and then Murphy got up to leave, vaguely referring to some people he had to meet. Not long after that I saw a line come across on a wire service that “Irish Bob Murphy, former fighter” had died. He never did make forty. I did that “human interest” piece for the paper. I left out the part about the Pilot House and the “Bushmill, beer back”, but I thought it was worthwhile and made interesting reading. Of course in those days, I was convinced every word I wrote was worthwhile and made for interesting reading. The copy editor, at the time, disagreed, making the point that Murphy wasn’t from Miami “so there’s no local angle, plus nobody’s interested in another ‘stumblebum fighter story”. He was right about the local angle, but Irish Bob Murphy was never a “stumblebum fighter” even that morning he spent with a kid writer in a Miami gin mill.
Irish Bob Murphy Murphy was a brawler and he took a lot of punishment even when he won, guys that like to stand toe to toe and trade don't have a very long shelf life in boxing. He was good while he lasted, but the toll he took caught up with him quickly. But man could he whack.
Good shot of Irish Bob Murphy.
One more good shot of Irish Bob Murphy.
"Smokin" Bert Cooper, a very dangerous 1980's-90s heavyweight. He was dangerous because the guy could bang. I'll never forget his knockout of Cecil Coffee.
This is why Bert Cooper was so dangerous, one of the most brutal knockouts you'll ever see, it was an uppercut, it broke Cecil Coffee's nose on impact, and blood immediately began pouring out of his nose.
Randy Turpin, "The Leamington Licker", one of the only men to beat Sugar Ray Robinson in his prime. The night Randy Turpin beat Robinson for the world middleweight championship in 1951 will forever be legendary, one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. Turpin had an awkward style, it gave Robinson fits, and he was a hard puncher, he was ghost with a hammer in his hand.
This is my favorite photo of Randy Turpin, love the shot of him bending down coiling back to throw a punch.
Turpin relaxing, reading the newspaper with a knight in armor next to him.
Randy Turpin's life ended tragically in 1966, some organized crime figures shot him and his infant daughter because Turpin threatened to expose their fight-fixing rackets, Turpin died but his daughter survived.
There's an awesome Randy Turpin statue in Market Square, Warwick, Warwickshire, England. It's a life-size bronze statue of the boxer in a typical fighting pose. The statue was unveiled in 2001 to commemorate Turpin's achievements as the first British boxer to win the World Middleweight Championship.
Randy Turpin, "The Leamington Licker."
Carmen Basilio, "The Onion Picker" dips his hands in an ice bucket after a fight. Basilio was about as savage as it gets, vicious pressure fighter with a chin made of Tungsten.
Good shot of Carmen Basilio in a fight pose.
Awesome shot of Carmen Basilio, a real blood and guts warrior.
This is one of the most famous boxing photos ever taken, Carmen Basilio with a Black eye, grinning.
Basilio was a savage, he was involved in many ring wars.
The two fights between Carmen Basilio and Tony Demarco were two of the best fights in boxing history, both were basically life-and-death struggles.