Terry Downes and Paul Pender during their July 1961 middleweight title fight, the top photo shows Terry Downes driving Paul Pender into the ropes with a jab, the bottom photo shows Terry Downes standing over Paul Pender after knocking him down.
Terry Downes is new middleweight Champion. This photo shows Terry Downes (left) posing with Paul Pender after their championship fight at the Empire Pool Wembley in July 1961. Pender, who had held the title, retired with a cut eye at the end of the tenth round.
On October 11, 1960 at Empire Poll, Wembley, London, England British middleweight champion Terry Downes fought Joey Giardello in the featured match. Downes prevailed winning a ten round decision. Joey Giardello is a legend in the sport, all-time great middleweight, he was an Italian from New York, tough as leather, had an Iron chin, one of the best ring technicians you'll ever see on film, he could knock you out or box your ears off, he really was the total package.
"British middleweight champion Terry Downes stormed into the world's top ten last night with an overwhelming decision over ranking American Joey Giardello. He immediately challenged Paul Pender or Gene Fullmer to a world title fight. Downes mixed his natural brawling ability with a kind of boxing skill he has never displayed before to defeat Giardello from Philadelphia. It was one of the finest middleweight fights seen in Britain for years. The critics had said it would turn into a bloodbath because both fighters were inclined to cut easily. But it didn't turn out that way. Downes was the only one who bled. That was in the 3rd round, from a cut over his left eyebrow. Downes started the fight pushing out a classic left jab in the good old English style - something he had never done so consistently and so well before." - Associated Press. Unofficial AP scorecard - 7-1-2 Downes. Giardello claimed to have broken his right hand in the 2nd or 3rd round and was never able to put any force behind it.
Terry Downes vs Sugar Ray Robinson, the greatest pound-for-pound fighter in the history of this sport.
“I didn't beat Sugar Ray, I beat his ghost.”
On September 25, 1962 in Empire Pool, London, Terry Downes defeated 41-year-old Sugar Ray Robinson via a 10-round points decision. Robinson, well past his prime, struggled against the energy and tenacity of the 26-year-old Downes. Terry Downes was as honest as it gets in this sport, a lot of guys would have gloated about scalping the great Sugar Ray Robinson, but Downes knew better. Reflecting on the win, Downes modestly remarked, "I didn't beat Sugar Ray; I beat his ghost." It was a simple comment, but it brings chills to my spine every time I hear it. Ironically, despite being younger, Downes retired in 1964 at just 28 years old, while Robinson continued fighting until the age of 44.
Some great photos of Terry Downes during his career. This photo is self explanatory, lifting a weight with his freaking teeth. It just shows you what it takes to make it in this sport.
Don Fullmer adjusts headgear on Terry Downes during a training session. Don Fullmer is the brother of Gene Fullmer, there were actually three Fullmer brothers that were boxers, Gene, Jay, and Don.
Manny Pacquiao mauled Antonio Margarito over 12 rounds on this day in 2010 to pick a belt in his eighth weight division.
Manny Pacquiao dished out a dazzling boxing lesson to the much bigger Antonio Margarito at the Cowboys Stadium in Texas, winning a wide unanimous decision over 12 rounds.
Pacquiao, 31, picked up the vacant WBC light-middleweight belt, giving him a title or slice of the same in an eighth weight division, the first having come down at flyweight way back in 1998. Although the category limit is 11st, this fight was made at a catchweight 10st 10lbs to even up the chances. Margarito looked in great shape at bang on the 150lbs, but when Pacquiao scaled a light 10st 4 1/2lbs, it seemed his strategy would be to use his speed and mobility to dance around the former welter king.
And so it duly proved, with the southpaw Filipino so much faster (of both hand and foot) than his strong, straight-ahead opponent who at 5ft 11ins towered over him by 4 1/2ins. In and out, side to side, Pacquiao moved and landed solid punches with either hand throughout 36 minutes that were one-sided but always fascinating.
"A really hard fight," Pacquiao said. "The hardest fight of my boxing career. Margarito is really fast and strong. He is big, bigger than me."
"I feel for my opponent," Pacquiao said. "His eyes (were swollen and cut) and bloody face. I wanted the ref to look at that. "In the 12th round I wasn't looking for the knockout.”
"We were going good until I got caught," Margarito said. "And then that is when the problems started coming.”
Charley Retzlaff, aka "The Duluth Dynamiter." A dangerous heavyweight contender in the 1930's, dangerous because the majority of his fights ended with a bang, he put 54 of his opponents on ice.
Ranching, fighting, selling cars, they were all just a way to make a living for Charley Retzlaff, a kayo artist from the North Dakota tundra whose opponents were often stretched out quicker than a calf at branding time.
Retzlaff made a mockery of a large number of the fighters he faced, knocking out 54 of 74 opponents. He won 61 fights in the 11 years that he fought, all but seven of those by knockout. He rightly earned the nom de plume, the Duluth Dynamiter. He defeated a future world heavyweight champion, scored a knockout on a wrestling card, got knocked out by a fellow named Joe Louis and was the reigning Minnesota heavyweight champion when he retired.
Retzlaff was the best heavyweight of his time in the state and well beyond, although he was not a native Minnesotan. He was born in Leonard, N.D., the son of German immigrants who had staked their claim there in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Once it became clear that Retzlaff was going to pursue a boxing career, he relocated to Duluth where on March 15, 1929 he knocked out Herman Raschke in two rounds. Retzlaff won his first 23 fights before losing on disqualification to Antonio de la Mata in on November 14, 1930 in Chicago, but promptly set the record straight. One month later in a rematch he needed only one round to dispatch the same opponent.
The knockout over de la Mata started a string of 11 straight wins before he suffered another loss, by unanimous decision to Joe Sekyra, who secured the victory by flooring Retzlaff for an eight-count in the seventh round of their 10-round bout. That was in September of 1931 and Retzlaff was 38-2-1 when he was matched against Dick Daniels for the state heavyweight title in January the following year. Retzlaff needed only two minutes and 20 seconds to become Minnesota’s new heavyweight champion, knocking Daniels down three times. His first two defenses of that title were both against Art Lasky, a fellow Minnesotan and fellow Hall of Fame inductee tonight. Retzlaff stopped Lasky in six rounds on May 12, 1933, at the St. Paul Auditorium and again on September 19, 1935, at the same site. Retzlaff fought only five more times. He won on points over Ford Smith at the Auditorium in October of the same year.
Then, in January, Retzlaff ventured to Chicago Stadium where he was matched against a rising undefeated star who was 23-0 at the time.
The young upstart was a fellow named Joe Louis who was 24-0 after knocking out Retzlaff in the first round. Retzlaff fought only three more times, knocking out two more opponents before escaping with only a draw against Arne Anderson in defense of his Minnesota title on September 19, 1940.
He retired after that bout and returned to the family ranch in North Dakota to take over for his eldest daughter,Lois, who had handled matters there for several years.
Retzlaff did not pass on a love of boxing to his offspring. Only his son Jim tried his hand in the ring. He scored a first-round knockout at the St. Paul Hippodrome in 1957 and promptly retired. Retlaff did have a brother, Al, however, who fought four fights and retired 2-2 after losing on points and then by kayo.
The highlight of Retzlaff’s boxing career was his split decision victory against future heavyweight champion James J. Braddock, the Cinderella Man, on May 13, 1932, in Boston Garden. Two years later, Braddock surprised the boxing world by dethroning Max Baer for the heavyweight title.
One of the most interesting inclusions on Retzlaff’s record took place on February 27, 1940 in Fargo, North Dakota. Retzlaff stopped one Abe Kashey, a wrestler making his boxing debut in 40 seconds of the fourth round. It was the only boxing match on what was a wrestling card.
Dan Retzlaff is Charley’s grandson and never saw his grandfather fight. Nevertheless, he does have distant memories and the stories, of course, told to him by his father and mother.
“My dad got laid out in the field a couple of times,’’ Dan said, “for talkin’ back to Grandpa Chaz. That’s pretty much all I heard about him, aside from when he moved from the ranch to Detroit Lakes and opened a car dealership.’’
Dan recalls riding past the dealership when he was very young with his father, but doesn’t recall much beyond that. “I do know that Grandpa Chaz was at that dealership until he died in 1970.’’
He recalls also that Grandpa Chaz protected him one time from his parents’ displeasure. “I broke some sort of glass, a light, while they were gone and got a cut on my face.’’ Grandpa Chaz went into defensive posture and Dan doesn’t recall that his parents every discovered the misdeed.
There are other memories of incidents that may have been influenced by the family exposure to boxing. Grandpa Chaz delivered whippings in the ring and occasionally to his offspring who passed on that knowledge to their offspring. The family ranch has been passed on, too.
The town’s only ballpark now occupies a part of the ranch that was donated to the city of Leonard. And Charley Retzlaff, Grandpa Chaz, now occupies a place in the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame.
Charley Retzlaff in 1936. I've been searching ebay for a while looking for a photo of him as a collectible, not much available of him. It's a shame because hard punchers are a fascinating breed.
"My mother was the kindest woman, but she was tough too. She had to be. I went through life with one thing my mother taught me: when a man hits you, you hit him back. Ain’t no other way. Those guys who tried to make my life hell, taking me on three-on-one, four-on-one, they learnt after a while that I wasn’t the same Leon. They saw my progress in the gym. Pretty soon I was on the local amateur team, then I was representin’ my country. I kept winnin’ and got a chance to travel and see the world. Finally, I went all the way to the Olympics. Without fightin’ back, I’d have got nowhere." - Leon Spinks
Alexis Argüello – The Gentleman Who Fought His Demons
Alexis Argüello was everything the sport claimed to admire. Elegant, respectful, and precise, he carried himself like royalty in the ring and humility outside it. A three division world champion, he never gloated, never mocked an opponent, and always bowed his head in gratitude after victory. Fans called him “The Gentleman of Boxing.”
But behind that calm and polished image was a man quietly battling himself. Argüello grew up in deep poverty in Nicaragua, a country north of Costa Rica, shaped by violence and instability. Fame gave him fortune, but not peace. Even as he rose through the divisions, earning respect from men like Aaron Pryor and Ray Mancini, he carried an emptiness that success could not fill.
After retiring, he returned home and entered politics, trying to rebuild the same country that once tore itself apart. But corruption, betrayal, and the ghosts of his past weighed heavily. Friends noticed the change, the smile was still there, but it no longer reached his eyes.
In 2009, Alexis Argüello was found dead in his home. Official reports said he took his own life, but those who knew him say the real cause was something harder to define, the slow heartbreak of a man who gave everything to the world and was left with nothing for himself.
He was proof that even the most graceful warriors fight unseen battles, and that sometimes, the quietest men carry the loudest pain.
Manny Pacquiao secured his place in boxing history on this day in 2009 with a 12th-round technical knockout of welterweight king Miguel Cotto.
When it finished, Pacquiao had won his seventh title in seven weight divisions, a first in boxing history. Puerto Rican idol Cotto exited the MGM Grand Garden Arena with white shorts stained red. "It's an honour to win a seventh title," Pacquiao said. "It's history for me and, more importantly, a Filipino did it."
“He hit harder than we expected,” Joe Santiago, Cotto’s trainer, said. “He was stronger than we expected. Manny broke him down.”
It was give-and-take early on, and Cotto was boxing beautifully for about three-and-a-half rounds. However, in the third, Pacquiao dropped Cotto with a punishing southpaw right hand and the momentum of the fight shifted clearly in Pacquaio’s favour.
The fight was fought at a catchweight of 145 lbs, Cotto had already struggled to make the welterweight limit of 147 lbs in previous fights. He never fought at welterweight again.
Cotto maintained that it had been his decision to push forward. “I didn’t know where the punches were coming from,” Cotto said. “And I didn’t protect myself from his punches.”
“The key to this victory was staying disciplined,” Pacquiao’s coach Freddie Roach said. “We didn’t panic in the ring.”
"In the beginning we fought Cotto's fight too much, stayed on the ropes too long, but as the fight went on Manny's speed was too much. Manny dictated the fight. Cotto's corner should have stopped the fight three rounds sooner when Cotto began to run away.”
"Cotto was taking quite a bit of punches,” said referee Kenny Bayless. "Because of the amount of punishment he was taking we looked closely with the ring doctor about the eighth round and talked about how much longer he could go. He was hitting Pacquiao with good jabs but it wasn't doing much. The guy was relentless."
This was more than just another knockout. This one was historic.
"Many times when a fighter gets hit on any part of the face there is no pain. But if you want to give pain to your rivaI, the thing to do is hit him in the body: in the hanging ribs, in the soIar pIexus, in the Iiver. It is painfuI and many times scary.
I've hit fighters in their bodies with so much force that they couIdn't heIp but Iet out an invoIuntary groan Iike a wounded woIf. UsuaIIy the man who connects wiII jump at the hurt fighter with more punches. I never attacked after such a punch. I used to step back and Iet my rivaI savor every second of pain. I was not a sadist but a technician; I know how discouraging those punches were to the body. I became worId's champion by throwing one. A Ieft hook to the Iiver." - Jose Torres
This was one of the best ring wars you'll ever see, Michael "The Jedi" Watson vs Nigel "The Dark Destroyer" Benn, 1989.
On This Date 30 Years Ago: Michael Watson Stopped Nigel Benn In A Domestic Classic
By James Slater - 05/21/2019
It was a Sunday evening to remember 30 years ago on this date: May 21st, 1989. Unbeaten middleweight power-puncher Nigel Benn, perfect at 22-0 with all 22 wins coming well inside the distance, met countryman Michael Watson, who was 21-1(17) at the time; the loss coming against James Cook, the draw against Israel Cole. Inside the purposely erected “Super Tent,” Benn attempted to defend his Commonwealth title, retain his unbeaten record and move into the word’s top-10. Watson, the betting underdog, was convinced his combination of superior boxing skill, experience and savvy would prove too much for Benn’s raw power and sheer aggression. A sold-out Finsbury Park crowd settled in to witness what was assumed by all to be a great one. Live on ITV in the UK and also going out on television in the US, the fight turned out to be a classic Boxer Vs. Puncher affair – brains against brawn. Benn, sporting a new ponytail hairdo (he had reportedly spent a good few hours sat in the barber’s chair ahead of this, his planned breakthrough fight, and he doubtless wanted to look good) came out blazing at Watson. “The Force,” as Watson was known, had wasted no time treating himself to any such grooming, instead remaining in the gym putting in every ounce of his time getting ready for his own aimed for arrival in the world rankings. It was hot and heavy for Watson early on, Benn relentlessly slinging leather. Watson, his hands cupped by the sides of his head, boxed and moved, at times played a little rope-a-dope and never lost a single split second of his tunnel vision concentration. Crucially, Watson also fired back as Benn launched his wicked hooks, refusing to be overwhelmed. It was an incredible pace and already, by the third-round, Benn was running out of ideas and possibly stamina. Watson, who had thrown and landed some superb counter-shots, was unable to relax for a moment, yet Benn was using up an enormous amount of energy and he was getting precious little for it in return. The drama reached fever-pitch in the fourth, as Watson drove Benn across the ring into the ropes. His hands down, taking punches, Benn than came whipping back with hard shots of his own. The noise was deafening, even on TV, let alone what it must have been like inside the red-hot Super Tent, and as commentator Reg Gutteridge said, no-one was sure how badly Benn had been hurt – had he been playing possum? The fifth-round gave us our answer, as Watson, snapping Benn’s head back with shot after shot, saw his rival voluntarily move backwards. Watson now had the upper hand as Benn, unsteady in his movements, was open-mouthed and clearly feeling the insane pace he himself had set. Benn was still firing out shots, but Watson could see them coming and his own return shots were flowing, the effort of pumping them out far less strenuous compared to the bite-down fury Benn was displaying. Benn, a victim of the sheer belief he had in his punching power, had no plan-B and Watson knew it. In the sixth, a shot to the face forced Benn to turn his back on Watson – “a perfect punch!” bellowed co-commentator Jim Watt, who perhaps felt Benn might be on the urge of quitting. Instead, the punch had unintentionally caught Benn in the eye. Benn then gave it one last effort, firing out some rights that were blocked, but seconds later, the sand in his hourglass sifting away, Benn was decked by a stiff jab. “Oh, he’s gone,” Gutteridge said, as Benn fell, almost in slow-motion. At the time, more than a few fans and experts felt Benn, having been so ruthlessly exposed, might have seen his thrilling and promising career come to a rapid end. Instead, “The Dark Destroyer” was able to relocate to America and then come back and achieve greatness. Watson, tragically, saw his own career end after his ill-fated second fight with Chris Eubank. But on this night three decades ago, Watson was the middleweight king of British boxing.
“I came across Michael Watson in my 23rd fight and, after 22 KOs, I thought I was the best thing since sliced bread. I went out all guns blazing, expecting him to go, but it just didn't happen.''
''I came back to my corner at the end of the fifth round and I was exhausted. I remember trying to catch my breath and I saw Michael look over and wink as if to say 'I've got you now boy.' His punches didn't hurt, but Michael was a good fighter who knew what he had to do to beat me.” - Nigel Benn
The highlights from Michael Watson-Nigel Benn. What a war. Benn came out guns blazing, throwing heavy bombs, Watson was one tough son of a gun to be able to weather that storm and turn the tide. It's crazy that Watson actually stops Benn with a jab, Benn was absolutely exhausted from throwing haymakers.
Speaking of great fights, Diego Corrales vs Jose Luis Castillo, 2005. Round 10 is one of the greatest rounds in boxing history, the definition of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
Diego Corrales – The Round of His Life
May 7, 2005. Diego “Chico” Corrales was locked in a war with José Luis Castillo, a fight so violent that even the commentators stopped calling it round by round and simply called it a battle for survival. Nine rounds of hell had already passed, both men beaten and bloodied, neither willing to yield. Then came the tenth.
Early in the round, Castillo caught Corrales clean and sent him crashing to the canvas. Corrales spat out his mouthguard, buying precious seconds as the referee cleaned it and the crowd booed. Moments later, Castillo dropped him again. The fight seemed over. Corrales’ trainer, Joe Goossen, leaned in and whispered, “You gotta get inside now.” Corrales nodded, eyes burning with defiance.
He came out swinging. Somehow, through exhaustion and pain, Corrales landed a right hand that staggered Castillo. The momentum shifted instantly. A left hook followed, then another, and suddenly Castillo was on the ropes. The referee stepped in. Corrales had done the impossible.
That night, he turned certain defeat into one of boxing’s most unforgettable victories. “I love this sport,” Corrales said afterward, his face swollen but his spirit unbroken. “I love it because it’s about heart.”
The tenth round of Corrales vs Castillo wasn’t just a moment in a fight, it was a masterpiece of courage. A reminder that even when everything is gone, one more punch can still change everything.
Buck "Tombstone" Smith, one of the most fascinating stories you'll ever see in boxing. Although Smith was never considered more than a journeyman fighter, he is one of boxing's all-time knockout kings with 121 KO's. He would go around from town to town taking any fights he could get, all the while working different jobs, he worked in a graveyard at one point and that's how he got his nickname. He ended up fighting over 229 times, mostly low caliber competition but he also stepped in the ring with some big names and held his own against names like Julio Cesar Chavez, Buddy McGirt, Mark Breland, Harold Brazier, and Kirkland Laing. The thing is, Buck Smith could fight. He had one hell of a chin and brutal punching power, that's always a dangerous combination to go up against.
One night, two fights, two states, two wins for warrior Buck Smith
By: Bill Tibbs
He fought 205 times as a pro. He recorded 183 wins. He recorded 121 knockouts.
Boxing’s ultimate stay-busy warrior, Buck “Tombstone” Smith was a fighter who never turned down an assignment. So, when his manager got the call offering a fight in Wichita, Kansas in May 1992, he (of course) accepted. But he also got a call to lace them up in Oklahoma City the same night. What to do?
Legend Buck “Tombstone” Smith (183-20-2, 121 KO’s), the power punching, Midwest boxing legend who, along with having one of boxing’s genuinely great nicknames, registered some incredible numbers.
He fought 205 times as a pro. He recorded 183 wins. He recorded 121 knockouts.
Buck tore up the highways during his incredible 22-year, 205-bout run and would often fight 3-4 times in a month. To say manager Sean Gibbons, with him from the first day until the last, kept him busy would be a slight understatement.
Smith turned pro in the summer of 1987 and their philosophy from the get-go was “have gloves will travel”. Staying busy mostly on the Midwest circuit, ripe with club shows in the 80s and 90s, it was possible that you could keep very active if you were willing to answer the call. Buck, from Oklahoma City, was in a perfect location to mine the Midwest club scene and he answered the call every time.
While Sean and Buck chose to stay as busy as possible between big fights with club-level opposition, they weren’t just inflating statistics - make no mistake, Buck could fight. He squared off against some very good boxers in his career.
Before retiring Buck would see action against British star Kirkland Laing, world title challenger Harold Brazier, Hall of Fame champion Buddy McGirt, Australian world title challenger Shannon Taylor, world champion Mark Breland, world champion Antonio Margarito, and Mexican, Hall of Fame legend Julio Cesar Chavez.
“Under different circumstances, Buck could have been a world champion if he got the right fight”, said manager Gibbons. “The guy pretty much trained himself. But let me tell you, if he caught you with that left hook, which was all world class, it was night night baby - boom”, said Gibbons laughing. “He could crack with that left. Lights out Daddy-O”.
What Gibbons did face during his time keeping his fighter so busy was opposition from certain commissioners that felt this barnstorming schedule of boxing couldn’t or shouldn’t be allowed for one reason or another.
Gibbons, never one to shy away from a good dust-up, pushed back every time.
“The commissions were all over me for keeping him so busy, fighting so much; it was ridiculous”, said Gibbons. “It’s what he did for a living, and he was a very skilled boxer who could fight a lot and do it safely because he knew how to box and protect himself in there”, he continued. “It was our philosophy to stay busy between big fights, instead of just hitting a heavy bag for months on end to fight a few times a year”, he said.
So, when Gibbons got the calls for fights in 2 states on the same night, he had to take them. First off, they fought, that’s what they did, and if they could pull it off, they would. And, make no mistake, Gibbons was enjoying giving the middle finger salute to the commissions who seemed dedicated to giving him problems.
“You think Buck fights too much?”, said Gibbons laughing, “watch this”.
On May 19, 1992, Smith would fight early on a card in Wichita, Kansas (driving from Oklahoma City) stopping Marco Davis in the 2nd round. Post-fight, into the car, still in trunks and hand wraps, with Gibbons for the 2 ½ -hour drive back to Oklahoma City where Buck would go a full 6 rounds later in the night winning a decision over Rodney Johnson.
For those keeping score that’s 1 night, 320 miles, 5 hours, 2 states, 2 bouts, 2 wins.
Last summer I caught up with Buck Smith, who has worked in the electronics industry for years, in Tulsa, Oklahoma and we had some great conversations as he shared his memories of his time in boxing. And, yes, his double-header came up.
“I remember that night as a busy night”, said Smith with a laugh. “I got my stoppage win early in the night. We jumped into the car, me with all my stuff still on, and off we went to our next stop. I had some great times over the years with Sean. We travelled the world, had some great fights; that night was a crazy one indeed”, he said.
31 years ago this month, Buck “Tombstone” Smith who climbed through the ropes all over the United States along with England, Australia, South Africa, and Mexico, made history by recording 2 wins on the same night, in 2 different states.
Buck Smith was always a dangerous fighter because of his power. Case in point, his fight against Kirkland Laing, a very talented boxer. Kirkland Laing's nickname was "The Gifted One", a name was that was given to him due to his natural talent and unconventional boxing style, which allowed him to defeat the legendary Roberto Durán in 1982. Laing is boxing Smith's ears off in this fight until out of nowhere he gets caught by Smith's left hook.
Buck Smith was no joke, you were never safe against him. Take his fight with Kevin Pompey for example, Pompey had him trapped against the ropes and was teeing off, until Smith landed a right hand counter bomb that instantly changed matters.
He faced a long list of world-rated contenders and champions including Julio Caesar Chavez, Buddy McGirt, Antonio Margarito, Mark Breland, Shannon Taylor and Harold Brazier, among others.
Oklahoma’s Midwest legend Buck “Tombstone” Smith turned pro in 1987 and would fight for 22-years before retiring for good in 2009. During that time, he built up an incredible 183-20-2 (121 KO’s) record as one of the busiest fighters on the circuit. He faced a long list of world-rated contenders and champions including Julio Caesar Chavez, Buddy McGirt, Antonio Margarito, Mark Breland, Shannon Taylor and Harold Brazier, among others.
In an interview a few years ago, long-time Smith manager Sean Gibbons told me, “Under different circumstances, Buck could have been a world champion. That guy had a left hook, that if he caught you, it was night, night baby. He could crack with that left. He had world class power in that hand and if it connected, oh Daddy, it was lights out. But in all seriousness Billy, this is a guy who was basically training himself, in his garage, or where he could, and he’s going rounds with some of boxing’s best. This guy could fight. It always bothered me, in fact it is one thing that I look back on and feel bad about, that he never got to fight for a world title; he earned it. And like I said, I don’t care who he is fighting, if he lands that left on the sweet spot it’s night, night daddy. But, he had more to his game than just a good left hook, he had good feet, moved well, could box and he was tough. Buck was a really, really good guy and I have nothing but fond memories of him in the ring and my time working with him. Viva Tombstone”.
People unfamiliar with the talent of the boxer-puncher Smith might lean towards writing him off as little more than a novelty act mining boxing’s lower leagues to build up a glossy record. And make no mistake, Smith did stay as busy as he possibly could, against any, and all, opposition. His attitude was better to be under the lights in a real fight, than be in the gym sparring. However, don’t let the crazy numbers fool you, this guy had the talent to box with anyone. All that time on task allowed him to build his skills into that of a very accomplished fighter who was always one punch away from taking anyone out, from a 4-round, preliminary opponent to a decorated world champion.
While Smith never did fight for a world title he did face off against some outstanding fighters and earned the respect of every opponent he faced. His career would see him fighting in Culiacan, Mexico against Mexican legend Julio Caesar Chavez, in London at the famous Royal Albert Hall picking up a huge, upset knockout over British star Kirkland Laing, in Australia against former world title challenger Shannon Taylor, and in South Africa against local star Gary Murray, among other locales. Add that to the multitude of places he fought all over the United States and you have one busy boxer.
Smith’s story, and resume, is a unique one, even for his era, and completely foreign to the new regime of fighters out there today. He was old school. Stay as busy as you can, fight as often as you can, and use the stay-busy fights to always stay sharp waiting for the big bouts.
MaxBoxing had a chance to catch up with one of boxing’s truly unique characters, with a unique story. As nice and friendly out of the ring as he was talented in it - chatting with the champ - Buck Smith.
Bill Tibbs: Hi Buck, thanks for taking a few minutes to chat.
Buck Smith: Hey Bill, no problem, happy to do it. Thanks.
BT: Tell me about your amateur career. And, what led you into the pro game?
BS: I never really had an amateur career. Maybe a couple fights as a kid, a few while in the service, but not really what you would call an amateur career. You know, did some slap boxing in the neighborhood as a kid but no amateur career to speak of.
BT: Had you always wanted to be a pro fighter? Was that something you wanted to do or did it just kind of happen?
BS: Growing up I actually thought about it. Well four careers really. I thought about being a policeman, a fire fighter, a football player, or a boxer. My buddy and I looked into the police force, but they were paying like 20-30 000 dollars a year and we were like, ‘To get shot at? No thanks’. (Laughs). I was a pretty good high school football player. My Dad said to me, ‘You have 3 choices. The military, the post office, (because he retired from the post office), or jail’ (laughs). I was in the military reserves for 8 years.
BT: You had an incredibly busy schedule. Was that always the plan? Fighting anyone, anywhere, as often as you can?
BS: The guys I was around, and boxing with, Marty (Jakubowski), Dwayne (Swift) and Harold (Brazier) kept busy fighting a lot. So, that is just kind of what I was used to. My manager Sean Gibbons, along with Pete Susens, both great, great guys. They knew how to handle things, they kept me busy, and they knew how to move us. All their stable of fighters, they knew how to best work with the fighters, they knew what worked best for each fighter and how to keep them busy and put them in the right fights.
BT: I talk to Marty regularly, he’s doing well, at the Knuckleheads Gym in Chicago.
BS: What a great fighter he was. A very talented boxer.
BT: Fighting the 4 and 6 rounders, on small club shows, fighting as often as you did, do you find they helped you improve? Or was it more just keeping busy?
BS: You know Bill, I was able to work on a lot of things in those fights that helped me as I went along. Plus, I had complete trust in Sean and Pete. If they told me this is where we are going, I was like, ‘Ok, let’s go’. I didn’t question them; they knew how to best handle my career. But, I learned a lot in those fights. I learned how to slip punches, learned how to box, how to punch off certain moves; those fights were great for that. To be honest, I really didn’t think I felt like I was boxing to my potential until I went 10 rounds with Buddy McGirt and I had a 100 some odd fights by then (laughs). Buddy thanked me after the fight, congratulated me on giving him a good fight and I thanked him for teaching me how to box.
BT: Of course, you had the classic night where you fought twice in one night in two different states.
BS: I was the first bout of the night on a show in Wichita, Kansas and I stopped the guy in the 2nd round. We jumped in the car, I was still in my hand wraps and trunks and drove to Oklahoma City where I went 6 rounds and picked up my second win of the night. I was tired after that night, mostly from the driving and rushing, you know. But it was a fun night.
BT: Do you regret never getting a shot at the title? Sean (Mgr. Gibbons) has told me many times that in the right spot you could have absolutely won a world title.
BS: Well, sure I would have liked to win a title, get all the belts, you know. But I was still going to compete. I still loved to box and you know I got the right fights to get there. Sean and Pete put me in the right fights but maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. Sean and Pete did what they could to move me into a title shot but you know maybe if I had beaten Kevin Pompey I could have gotten the shot. But, I broke my hands in that fight. Both hands were so badly swollen after the fight I could hardly get my gloves off. I would have liked a title shot but at the same time I didn’t get too caught up in it, I was still competing in the best fights out there. I was in some great fights with some great fighters. As my career moved along, I didn’t dwell on it too much.
BT: Who would you say was the toughest fighter you fought?
BS: I don’t know if I can say that one guy was the toughest, that is hard to say. Every fighter I faced was tough in their own way. Any fighter that will get in the ring with you is tough. But, I will say that one of the best, most talented fighters I faced was Harold Brazier. He was an excellent, excellent boxer. That guy was always ready to fight, in great shape. One night we fought 15 rounds and I was trying to pace myself and he’s getting stronger and stronger as the fight goes (laughs). When Harold fought, he was always ready to go and fight hard, no slacking anytime.
BT: Looking back, what was one of the most exciting venues you fought in?
BS: Well, I’d have to say that the first time I fought in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. That was very exciting to me, I couldn’t believe I was even there. You know I’m fighting on the Leonard-Hearns undercard. I’m a small-town guy from Oklahoma and there I was in Vegas at the big show.
BT: Did you have a day job during your boxing career?
BS: No, I didn’t. I was so busy travelling and fighting. I did odd jobs back at home between fights. I’d work here and there, painting, construction, roofing, and I worked for a while in a graveyard. The guys started calling me “Tombstone”, and that is how I got my nickname.
BT: Speaking of names, is Buck your real name?
BS: Yes, it is. I was named after my father.
BT: That’s a great Oklahoma name.
BS: (Laughs). Yeah, I guess it is.
BT: What have you been doing since you retired?
BS: I opened a gym and ran that for about 15 years, doing promotions as well. Finally shut it down as I got tired of babysitting (laughs). I used to think ‘Man, this isn’t like the old days with Sean and I’. Then, I went to work or an electrical company, I’ve been there for about 3 years. I needed that insurance. But, I still help out at the gyms around town a bit, take a look at some of the amateurs and try to help them out. I have been married for 26 years and I have 2 daughters and 3 grandchildren.
BT: Any regrets?
BS: No, not really. Maybe that I didn’t let my hands heal up between fights, let them heal up properly. But, we were always moving, always working, so that just wasn’t the deal then. But, I do wish I’d let my hands heal up properly when they were injured. Otherwise, none at all. I had the perfect life as a boxer. I stayed in shape, always had to run and stay ready. That was one thing the O’Grady’s (long-time Oklahoma promoters) insisted on, be ready. Run, run, run. Stay in shape. I had a great time with Sean, we went all over the place, all over the world. Pete, he was great. Sean and Pete are both great guys and I’m glad they were handling my career.
BT: How do you want to be remembered?
BS: Well, I’d like to be remembered as a guy who made it close to the big show, never got the big prize but I did a few things that should be remembered. I accomplished some things in the sport and gave the fans some good fights and always tried to entertain the fans. Sean and Pete - wonderful guys, real great memories from them from all the years we worked together. You know training at Pete’s gym, living at his house, living with Sean, all those miles we travelled (laughs). Sean and I had a lot of great times together, a lotta great times. I wouldn’t change a thing - great memories. I hope the fans remember me as a guy who had a good left hook, a good boxer and a guy who could fight 4 or 6 rounds one week and fight a 12 round fight the next. I’d fight anyone, anywhere, anytime.
BT: Buck, I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed our conversation. You are the last of the breed of guy who can have a career like you did, in North America anyway. You were a unique character in the sport, and a very good fighter. I really enjoyed watching you fight and thank you again for the interview.
One more Buck Smith fight, here he is squaring off with Robert Wangila, a tough as nails Olympic Gold medalist from Kenya. Smith explodes with brutal power shots and sends Wangila through the ropes and clear out of the ring.
In case you haven't guessed, I'm a huge Buck Smith fan. You can't help but love the guy, fascinating fighter. He was a real road warrior. This is a photo of Buck Smith and Big Joe Haug in Oklahoma City, OK after his second fight of the night, he had traveled 170 miles from Wichita, KS where he had fought Marco Davis three hours earlier.
Meant to post this yesterday, was busy though. Manny Pacquiao, aka "Pac-Man", is such a legend, one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters in boxing history, win titles in 8 different weight divisions, that's a record, that's THE record, he won titles from flyweight to super welterweight. He was so lethal, his firepower was unbelievable, just a machine gun puncher, he would hit you with blazing fast non-stop combinations. You just couldn't keep him off of you.
Marco Antonio Barrera had established himself as the best featherweight in the world by overcoming Erik Morales and Naseem Hamed but found himself engulfed in 11 one-sided rounds in San Antonio by a ferocity he hadn’t previously experienced in 62 professional fights on November 14th, 2003.
Four seconds before the end of the 11th a new supremo in machine-like 24-year-old Filipino Manny Pacquiao was crowned.
"I'm surprised he lasted that long," said Pacquiao. "Very early on I knew I was going to knock him out.”
Barrera's trainer, Rudy Perez, had hoped it would be the final bout for the 29-year-old from Mexico City: "It was a bad night for Marco," Perez said. "It's his decision, but I don't want him to fight again.”
“Sometimes I feel like I’ve been living a hundred years. I’ve tasted too much, that’s the trouble. I’ve tasted poverty as a child; I tasted what I thought was love and went through a few marriages; I came close to death in a plane crash and then tasted the sweet, pure taste of survival; I’ve tasted the applause of thousands of people and suffered the stinging and cruel criticism; and I tasted two miserable stints in the Army and the Navy during World War Two; but I’ve always been truthful and tried to smile through the good, the bad and the ugly times.” – Willie Pep
More than a boxer, Willie Pep was a lesson in life: a man who endured blows from the ring and from fate itself yet always stood tall.
True greatness is not only measured in victories, but in the ability to smile through the storms.
Young Jack Thompson was a terrific boxer-puncher, who was able to box skilfully, but also carried a knockout punch in both fists. Born Cecil Lewis Thompson on August 17, 1904, in Los Angeles, California, Thompson turned professional in late 1922, and matched against much more experienced opposition from the beginning, he went an unimpressive 8-11-5 in his first 24 bouts. However, from late 1924 onward, Thompson became a very different fighter, and was soon proving himself a threat to any welterweight in the world.
Thompson’s career is all the more impressive when the racial overtones of the time are taken into account. But, Thompson persevered by fighting anyone who would get into the ring with him, and he was helped by his reputation of always providing action packed fights whenever he fought. Despite this, Thompson still had to deal with the racism of the time and many of his career defeats where ’home town’ decisions that he was subjected to while fighting on the road.
During his career Thompson fought top welterweights such as Young Harry Wills, Young Corbett III, Tommy Cello, Harry ‘Kid’ Brown, King Tut, Don Fraser, Oakland Jimmy Duffy, Joe Dundee, Jackie Fields, Red Herring, Bermondsey Billy Wells, Tommy Freeman, Bucky Lawless, Freddie Fitzgerald, Jimmy McLarnin, and Lou Brouillard.
On March 25, 1929, Thompson fought Jackie Fields for the vacant NBA world welterweight title and lost a controversial point’s decision over 10 rounds.
In a rematch with Fields on May 9, 1930, Thompson won the NBA world welterweight title, when he out-pointed fields over 15 rounds. Thompson lost the title 5 months later, when Tommy Freeman beat him on points over 15 rounds, losing another dubious decision. Thompson got his revenge 7 months later when he stopped Freeman in the 12th round to regain the World welterweight title. Thompson’s 2nd world championship reign lasted 6 months, after he lost a 15 round decision to Lou Brouillard. This defeat seemed to take the sparkle out of Thompson, and he went 2-2 in his remaining fights, before announcing his retirement after winning a 6 rounds decision over Leonard Bennett, on May 25, 1932.
Thompson retired with a final record of (79-31-12, 49 KO).
Young Jack Thompson and Jackie Fields fought three times, two great fighters, one of boxing's great trilogies. But their first fight in March of 1929 was interrupted and broke out in a deadly riot in which one person was killed and 35 were injured when a balcony railing gave way.
March 25, 1929: Fields vs Thompson
Two young boxers hid under the canvas as a violent panic swept over Chicago Coliseum. Referee Ed Purdy grabbed Jackie Fields and Young Jack Thompson, who had been battling each other for nearly eight rounds, and yelled to them, “Duck out of here and get under the ring!” The two fighters dove beneath the canvas where they anxiously waited in the darkness beside a number of rattled ringsiders as a full-scale riot interrupted their world championship fight.
Fields and Thompson were fighting for the National Boxing Association’s version of the welterweight world championship. The NBA had stripped Joe Dundee when he failed to schedule a title defense before the deadline, four days before the Fields vs Thompson fight held on March 25, 1929. The New York State Athletic Commission was still willing to give Dundee, who had won the title nearly two years earlier, some more time to make his first real defense, though.
When he annihilated Dundee in a non-title bout on August 30, 1928, the 24-year-old Thompson became an overnight sensation after six years and over eighty professional fights. Following that stunning second round TKO victory, Thompson risked his standing against Fields a month later.
Jackie Fields
It had been nearly five years since Fields won Olympic gold as a featherweight in 1924. The 21 year old became a top challenger to Dundee’s crown with a convincing decision victory over Thompson, a second-round KO of Sergeant Sammy Baker, along with a comfortable points win over Baby Joe Gans at Madison Square Garden.
Promoter Jim Mullen promised a $5,000 diamond-encrusted belt to the winner. He billed Fields as “Greater than Benny Leonard” and Thompson as the “Colored Wonder who knocked out Dundee.” Fields was the betting favorite on account of his victory in the first fight six months earlier.
Fields controlled the first five rounds of the match with his jab. He had always been a slick boxer with an educated left, developing power and a mean streak as he grew into the welterweight division. Thompson loaded up too much on his right, a punch renowned for its concussive power. However, Fields began to tire in the sixth and his punches became wild. Thompson now found a home for his right crosses in the seventh, and he went for broke to start the eighth, but by the two minute mark of the round, Fields had gained his second wind. Then, the fight abruptly stopped.
A Fields fan in section Q on the Coliseum’s floor level shouted an ugly racist remark at Thompson. Two Thompson fans yelled back, which resulted in the Fields fan getting even nastier. One of the Thompson fans, Kenneth Taylor, pulled out a gun, and his friend reached for his knife. Someone yelled, “Look out, he’s got a gun!” Fans in and around section Q bolted, knocking over the wooden folding chairs, which created such a thunderous roar that people believed the Coliseum was crumbling. Only the ring lights remained on, making it too dark to see much in the stands.
People in the balcony began to panic, and two men, Herman Landman and Andrew Stout, were knocked over the railing, falling onto fleeing fans below. Landman suffered a fractured skull and died the next day. Stout experienced internal injuries and was in critical condition. Photographers turned to take pictures of the transpiring events. Upon seeing smoke from the cameras’ flashes, someone yelled, “Fire!”
Young Jack Thompson
The power then mysteriously went out, causing all nine thousand spectators to either rush for the exits or follow referee Purdy’s instruction to Fields and Thompson to seek cover under the ring. “We could hear people screaming and hollering and running in all directions,” Fields later recalled. “It’s pitch dark down there and there’s a lot of other guys besides Thompson and myself.”
From under the canvas, Fields couldn’t place the noise of the chairs crashing all around the arena. He mistook it for gunshots. “Then came the rat-tat-tat that sounded like machine gunfire,” Fields explained. “This was the Capone era so you could expect anything. ’At least we’re safe from the shooting,’ I remember saying.”
Electricians struggled to get to the power source through the stampede as Emil Denemark of the Illinois State Athletic Commission attempted to calm the frantic masses. He was knocked down and kicked in the face for his trouble. Denemark was among over a hundred spectators hurt in the fracas, but he was fortunate not to be one of the three dozen with injuries serious enough to spend the night in the hospital.
Deputy Police Commissioner John Stege barreled his way through the crowd like a fullback opening the lane for the electrician to get to work on restoring power, while Detective Chief John Egan managed to find a press telephone and called for backup. Twelve police cars, six fire trucks, and three ambulances raced to the Coliseum. Dozens of police officers cordoned off the area surrounding the ring.
Once the lights were restored and backup arrived, the chaos quickly subsided. To Fields, the riot felt like it had taken at least half an hour. In reality, everything had happened in five minutes. The decision was quickly made to continue the fight.
Fields figured he was up on Purdy’s card and pumped his jab as Thompson desperately tried for a knockout for the rest of the eighth and throughout the last two rounds. When the final bell rang, Purdy hoisted up Fields’s hand as the NBA’s new welterweight world champion.
The Illinois commission’s investigation suggested one solution to prevent future riots. It had nothing to do with increasing security personnel, formulating an evacuation plan, or backing up the electricity. Instead, the commission made the baffling proposal to ban bouts between fighters of different races. Since all of the champions at the time were white, it effectively meant only white fighters could challenge for any of the titles in the significant fight town of Chicago.
Fields went on to win the undisputed welterweight championship against Joe Dundee that July in Detroit. After ten non-title fights, Fields defended his crown against Thompson on May 9, 1930, also in Detroit. Thompson, who like Fields would grab the championship twice, won a far less eventful third fight.
Years later, Fields and Thompson discussed the wild night they both had to hide under the canvas. “I asked Thompson later how he felt when the lights went off while we were fighting,” Fields said. “I was trying to get a good shot at your chin when they were out,” Thompson joked, “because I couldn’t nail you when they were on!”
Fields and Thompson remain forever linked by their eventful trilogy and by the unforgettable night when chaos reigned in the Chicago Coliseum. –David Harazduk
Sonny Liston immediately after his knockout victory over Albert Westphal. You can see Westphal stretched out on the canvas in the background, and Liston standing there with an ice cold, emotionless, blank stare on his face. One of the most intense boxing photos ever taken.
Sonny Liston was one intimidating man, he could give you a look that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, it was almost like he was looking right through you. He had most guys beat before they even entered the ring.
Sonny Liston was found dead in a house filled with silence, the kind of silence that makes people talk. Some said drugs. Others said he was killed. A few insisted he knew something he should not have known. His death was a mystery, but the truth is his life had been one long chase away from a past that never let go.
Long before the world called him heavyweight champion, Liston was an inmate with hands that frightened prison guards. He learned to fight behind bars, in a place where survival mattered more than technique. He came from beatings, poverty, and a childhood that felt like punishment. By the time he stepped into a real ring, he already understood violence better than anyone cheering in the crowd.
Keep him in the same position, frozen in time, then move the camera around to the left like they do in the matrix movie keeping the same facial expression.
When Sonny Liston reached the top of the heavyweight division, he did it with a presence that made men look away. He did not smile for cameras. He did not charm reporters. He walked to the ring like a man who had seen darker places than any opponent could imagine. He won the world title with brutal certainty, yet the cheers never matched the achievement. America resisted him. He did not look like the hero they wanted.
Even as champion, he carried resentment and suspicion from every corner. Fans doubted him. Writers mocked him. Promoters tiptoed around him. He was a champion without a country behind him, a man who collected belts but never affection.
And when he fell, the whispers grew even louder. Deals in back rooms. Fights that people questioned. A career slowly slipping into shadows. Then came that final night in that locked house, and the questions that still have no answer.
Sonny Liston could knock out anyone brave enough to stand in front of him, but he could never escape what shaped him long before he ever put on gloves. His story is not just how he fought, it is how he lived, always looking over his shoulder at a past that never stopped following him.
Sonny Liston, one of the most the most feared fighters in history. The thing about Sonny Liston, he wasn't just a brutal puncher, he was a phenomenal technical boxer, he had the greatest jab in heavyweight history. Though he was known for his power and intimidation, and many of his victories came through quick finishes, though he was also a technical boxer who took knockouts where they came. He had these huge hands, the biggest hands ever seen on a heavyweight, and his jab was like a shotgun blast, he could knock you out with his jab alone, and he used that jab to set up his heavy artillery. Of course he was one of the most destructive punchers in boxing history, his power was absolute murder. His run to the title in the late 50s was truly frightening, he cleaned out the heavyweight division like the surface of the sun going through butter, the top ten was incinerated.
Cox's Corner
The One Heavyweight You Would Not Want To Face
By: Monte Cox
Jan 1, 2007
Imagine you are a heavyweight contender of the year 2007. You have been thrown into a time machine to face a feared, legendary heavyweight fighter of the past. You don’t know who your famous opponent will be until you step into the ring. Ask yourself, “Who is the one fighter that I would least like to have staring at me from across the ring?”
You don’t worry about your opponent being Muhammad Ali. You know you are likely going to lose if it is Ali, but you don’t fear him. Muhammad’s opponents didn’t enter the ring with their knees shaking. An opponent of Ali might know that they are going to have trouble catching him because of his amazing speed and athleticism, but there is no fear of what Ali might do to them, no fear of his Sunday punch. The same goes for Larry Holmes. No. The most feared heavyweights in boxing history are the ones to worry about, the men that truly struck terror in the heart of their opponent’s.
George Foreman is one of those men. Against George however, one can always hope to survive the first few rounds and come on in the late rounds. One can hope that. It may be a false hope, but such a thought might give encouragement. George in his prime was a terror but he faded after five or six rounds. One could at least be comforted by the idea that if one can survive those early rounds there is a chance to come on to win later in the fight.
Some of today’s behemoths might be under the mistaken impression that Joe Louis was “too small”, although the wise man would worry about his combined boxing skill, accuracy and shocking punching power. To a man who weighs 230-250 plus pounds he might think that such a weight advantage would aid him in surviving Louis punches. It did not help the 250 pound Buddy Baer or 260 pound Primo Carnera survive Louis bone crushing hammers, but the modern heavyweight can at least believe he is the bigger man come fight night.
Mike Tyson would be wearisome to today's heavyweights, but like Foreman one could hope to take Tyson past the first few rounds and frustrate him. Keep Tyson at bay, box him, stay out of harms way the first few rounds then fight back. One would be able to enter the ring with a clear battle plan to combat Tyson. If you can discourage Tyson then you might beat him.
The heavyweight one truly would not want to face, who was truly intimidating and had size, strength, power and the most menacing countenance of any fighter was Sonny Liston. Sonny’s frightening scowl had most of his opponents beaten before the opening bell. Muhammad Ali called Sonny “the scariest” opponent he ever met in a ring. Not only was Liston a monster in physical appearance but also in temperament. Sonny was an enforcer with the mob, he didn’t fear any man. He beat the hell out of police officers, he didn’t care. He was one mean mutha. When Sonny gazed at you with his baleful glare he literally wanted to burn a hole right through you. His opponent’s knew it too. Heavyweight contender Henry Cooper wanted no part of Liston. His manager said, “When we saw Sonny Liston coming, we’d cross to the other side of the street.”
Sonny Liston was taller than Mike Tyson at around 6’1” and he weighed 212-220 pounds in his prime. There is no question that if he were fighting today he would be about the same weight as fighters like Hasim Rahman or Oliver McCall both who were about the same height and weighed around 230 pounds. Liston’s incredible reach of 84” is 3 longer than that of Wladimir Klitschko and is tied with that of Lennox Lewis. His fists were the size of ham hocks measuring 15”. Thick, massive and menacing are the words that describe how big, powerful and intimidating a man that was Sonny Liston.
Mike Tyson once stated that the one fighter in history he would least like to have met in the ring was Sonny Liston. Liston was an intimidator of intimidator’s, a man among men, and a bull among bullies. Liston was a tough guy, a killer that nobody wanted to fight.
There was a good reason that Sonny Liston was feared. He was a pulverizing puncher. During his prime years between 1958 and 1963, he scored 21 straight victories with 18 knockouts, 13 of those were 3 rounds or less. In one of the three bouts that lasted the distance his opponent had to climb back into the ring at the final bell to beat the count. Not only did Sonny possess crushing power, but was also a good, solid technician in the ring. Sonny could beat you inside and outside, that is a short list of great fighters who can make that claim.
Liston had one of the best jabs in boxing history and was a crippling body puncher. Liston’s arms were massively muscled, and his left jab hit with true shock power. Even when off target, which it rarely was, it exploded with enough force to knock an opponent off balance so that he had to recover and set up again before he could attack. His left hook was devastating. It never occurred to Liston that he might lose a fight. He did not enter the ring hoping to outpoint his rival and knock him out only if opportunity presented itself as is the case with some fighters. His aim was destruction. He smashed you with the jab, tore your head off with the uppercut and hammered you to the canvas with his lethal left hook and looked awesome while doing it.
Unlike George Foreman or Mike Tyson, Sonny didn’t get tired or frustrated after the first few rounds if his opponent’s survived his initial onslaught. Sonny had proven stamina to fight 12 hard rounds. Surviving against Sonny just meant a prolonged beating.
Sonny’s reputation has suffered somewhat because of his controversial matches against Muhammad Ali. Certainly the type of fighter that gives Sonny the most trouble is the quick and clever boxer who can move and stay away as much as possible. This would not be the case with today’s lumbering giants. Today’s big men would be targets for Liston’s shotgun jab coming behind a reach among the best in heavyweight history. Smashing them with his jab the ever aggressive Liston moves inside and pounds the bodies of the big men with powerful lefts and rights and then switches to the head with jolting uppercuts and crushing hooks. Liston would be the invincible destroyer, annihilating his way through the heavyweight division if he were fighting today.
As the modern heavyweight exits his time machine and enters the ring he sees, to his horror, none other than Sonny Liston glaring at him like a hungry lion waiting to devour his next meal. The modern heavyweight enters the ring to face the most evil stare down he has ever encountered. His knees begin to fail him. He returns to his corner unsure of himself. The bell rings. A feeling of impending dooms sickens him. Sonny Liston is coming.
This SI Classic, reprinted from February 1991, tells the tale of Sonny Liston, upon whom fortune never smiled, even when he was the heavyweight champ
SOMEDAY THEY'RE GONNA WRITE A BLUES SONG JUST FOR FIGHTERS. IT'LL BE FOR SLOW GUITAR, SOFT TRUMPET AND A BELL.
-CHARLES (SONNY) LISTON
PART I
It was already dark when she stepped from the car in front of her house on Ottawa Drive, but she could see her pink Cadillac convertible and Sonny's new black Fleetwood under the carport in the Las Vegas night.
Where could Charles be? Geraldine Liston was thinking.
All through the house the lamps were lit, even around the swimming pool out back. The windows were open too, and the doors were unlocked. It was quiet except for the television playing in the room at the top of the stairs.
By 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 5, 1971, Geraldine had not spoken to her husband for 12 days. On Christmas Eve she had called him from St. Louis after flying there with the couple's seven-year-old son, Danielle, to spend the holidays with her mother. Geraldine had tried to phone him a number of times, but no one had answered at the house. At first she figured he might be off roistering in Los Angeles, and so she didn't pay his absence any mind until the evening of Dec. 28. That night, in a fitful sleep, she had a vision so unsettling that it awakened her and sent her to her mother's room.
"I had the worst dream," Geraldine says. "He was falling in the shower and calling my name, 'Gerry, Gerry!" I can still see it. So I got real nervous. I told my mother, 'I think something's wrong.' But mother said, 'Oh, don't think that. He's all right.' "
In fact, Sonny Liston had not been right for a long time, and not only for the strange dual life he had been leading—spells of choirboy abstinence squeezed between binges of drinking and drugs—but also for the rudderless, unfocused existence he had been reduced to. Jobless and nearly broke, Liston had been moving through the murkier waters of Las Vegas's drug culture. "I knew he was hanging around with the wrong people," one of his closest friends, gambler Lem Banker, says. "And I knew he was in desperate need of cash."
So, as the end of 1970 neared. Liston had reached that final twist in the cord. Eight years earlier he was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world—a 6'1½", 215-pound hulk with upper arms like picnic roasts, two magnificent 14-inch fists and a scowl that he mounted for display on a round, otherwise impassive face. He had won the title by flattening Floyd Patterson with two punches, left hooks down and up, in the first round of their fight on Sept. 25, 1962; 10 months later he had beaten Patterson again in one round.
Liston did not sidestep his way to the title; the pirouette was not among his moves. He reached Patterson by walking through the entire heavyweight division, leaving large bodies sprawled behind him: Wayne Bethea, Mike DeJohn, Cleveland Williams, Nino Valdes, Roy Harris, Zora Folley et al. Finally, a terrified Patterson waited for him, already fumbling with a getaway disguise, dark glasses and a beard.
Before the referee could count to 10 in that first fight, Liston had become a mural-sized American myth, a larger-than-life John Henry with two hammers, an 84-inch reach, 23 knockouts (in 34 bouts) and 19 arrests. Tales of his exploits spun well with the fight crowd over beers in dark-wood bars. There was the one about how he used to lift up the front end of automobiles. And one about how he caught birds with his bare hands. And another about how he hit speed bags so hard that he tore them from their anchors and ripped into heavy bags until they burst, spilling their stuffing.
"Nobody hit those bags like Sonny," says 80-year-old Johnny Tocco, one of Liston's first and last trainers. "He tore bags up. He could turn that hook, put everything behind it. Turn and snap. Bam! Why, he could knock you across the room with a jab. I saw him knock guys out with a straight jab. Bam! In the ring, Sonny was a killing machine."
Perhaps no prizefighter had ever brought to the ring so palpable an aura of menace. Liston hammered out danger, he hammered out a warning. There was his fearsome physical presence; then there was his heavy psychic baggage, his prison record and assorted shadows from the underworld. Police in three cities virtually drove him out of town; in one of them, St. Louis, a police captain warned Liston that he would wind up dead in an alley if he stayed.
In public Liston was often surly, hostile and uncommunicative, and so he fed one of the most disconcerting of white stereotypes, that of the ignorant, angry, morally reckless black, roaming loose, with bad intentions, in white society. I le became a target for racial typing in days when white commentators could still utter undisguised slurs without Ted Koppel asking them to, please, explain themselves. In the papers, Liston was referred to as "a gorilla," "a latter day caveman" and "a jungle beast." His fights against Patterson were seen as morality plays, Patterson was Good, Liston was Evil.
On July 24, 1963, two days after the second Patterson fight, Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray wrote: "The central fact...is that the world of sport now realizes it has gotten Charles (Sonny) Liston to keep. It is like finding a live bat on a string under your Christmas tree."
The NAACP had pleaded with Patterson not to fight Liston. Indeed, many blacks watched Liston's spectacular rise with something approaching horror, as if he were climbing the Empire State Building with Fay Wray in his hands. Here suddenly was a baleful black felon holding the most prestigious title in sports. This was at the precise moment in history when a young civil rights movement was emerging, a movement searching for role models. Television was showing freedom marchers being swept by fire hoses and attacked by police dogs. Yet, untouched by image makers, Liston steadfastly refused to speak any mind but his own. Asked by a young white reporter why he wasn't fighting for freedom in the South. Liston deadpanned, "I ain't got no dog-proof ass."
Four months after Liston won the title, Esquire thumbed its nose at its white readers with an unforgettable cover. On the front of its December 1963 issue, there was Liston glowering out from under a tasseled red-and-white Santa Claus hat, looking like the last man on earth America wanted to see coming down its chimney.
Now at the end of the Christmas holiday of 1970, that old black Santa was still missing in Las Vegas. Geraldine crossed through the carport of the Listons' split-level and headed for the patio out back. Danielle was at her side. Copies of the Las Vegas Sun had been gathering in the carport since Dec. 29. Geraldine opened the back door and stepped into the den. A foul odor hung in the air, permeating the house, and so she headed up the three steps toward the kitchen. "I thought he had left some food out, and it had spoiled," she says. •"But I didn't see anything."
Leaving the kitchen, she walked toward the staircase. She could hear the television from the master bedroom. Geraldine and Danielle climbed the stairs and looked through the bedroom door, to the smashed bench at the foot of the bed and the stone-cold figure lying with his back up against it, blood caked on the front of his swollen shirt and his head canted to one side. She gasped and said. "Sonny's dead."
"What's wrong?" Danielle asked.
She led the boy quickly down the stairs. ""Come on, baby," she said.
On the afternoon of Sept. 27, 1962, Liston boarded a flight from Chicago to Philadelphia. He settled into a seat next to his friend Jack McKinney, an amateur fighter who was then a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Daily News. This was the day Liston had been waiting forever since he first laced on boxing gloves, at the Missouri State Penitentiary a decade earlier. Forty-eight hours before, he had bludgeoned Patterson to become heavyweight champion. Denied a title fight for years, barred from New York City rings as an undesirable, largely ignored in his adopted Philadelphia, Liston suddenly felt vindicated, redeemed. In fact, before leaving the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago, he had received word from friends that the people of Philadelphia were awaiting his triumphant return with a ticker-tape parade.
The only disquieting tremor had been some other news out of Philadelphia, relayed to him by telephone from friends back home, that Daily News sports editor Larry Merchant had written a column confirming Liston's worst fears about how his triumph might be received. Those fears were based upon the ruckus that had preceded the fight. The New York Times's Arthur Daley had led the way: "Whether Patterson likes it or not, he's stuck with it. He's the knight in shining armor battling the forces of evil."
Now wrote Merchant: ""So it is true—in a fair fight between good and evil, evil must win.... A celebration for Philadelphia's first heavyweight champ is now in order. Emily Post probably would recommend a ticker-tape parade. For confetti we can use shredded warrants of arrest."
The darkest corner of Liston's personality was his lack of a sense of self. All the signs from his past pointed the same way and said the same thing: dead end. He was the 24th of 25 children fathered by Tobey Liston, a tenant cotton farmer who lived outside Forrest City, Ark. Tobey had two families, one with L5 children and the other with 10; Charles was born ninth to his mother, Helen. Outside the ring, he battled his whole life against writers who suggested that he was older than he claimed he was. "Maybe they think I'm so old because I never was really young," he said. Usually he would insist he was born on May 8, 1932, in the belly of the Great Depression, and he growled at reporters who dared to doubt him on this: "Anybody who says I'm not 30 is calling my momma a liar."
"Sonny was so sensitive on the issue of his age because he did not really know how old he was," says McKinney. "When guys would write that he was 32 going on 50, it had more of an impact on him than anybody realized. Sonny didn't know who he was. He was looking for an identity, and he thought that being the champion would give him one."
Now that moment had arrived. During the flight home, McKinney says. Liston practiced the speech he was going to give when the crowds greeted him at the airport. Says McKinney, who took notes during the flight: "He used me as a sort of test auditor, dry-running his ideas by me."
Liston was excited, emotional, eager to begin his reign. "There's a lot of things I'm gonna do." he told McKinney. "But one thing's very important: I want to reach my people. I want to reach them and tell them. "You don't have to worry about me disgracin' you. You won't have to worry about me stoppin' your progress.' I want to go to colored churches and colored neighborhoods. I know it was in the papers that the better class of colored people were hopin' I'd lose, even prayin' I'd lose, because they was afraid I wouldn't know how to act.... I remember one thing so clear about listenin' to Joe Louis fight on the radio when I was a kid. I never remember a fight the announcer didn't say about Louis, 'A great fighter and a credit to his race.' Remember? That used to make me feel real proud inside.
"I don't mean to be sayin' I'm just gonna be the champion of my own people," Liston continued. "It says now I'm the world's champion, and that's just the way it's gonna be. I want to go to a lot of places—like orphan homes and reform schools. I'll be able to say, 'Kid, I know it's tough for you, and it might even get tougher. But don't give up on the world. Good things can happen if you let them.' "
Liston was ready. As the plane rolled to a stop, he rose and walked to the door. McKinney was next to him. The staircase was wheeled to the door. Liston straightened his tie and his fedora. The door opened, and he stepped outside. There was no one there except for airline workers, a few reporters and photographers and a handful of p.r. men. "Other than those, no one," recalls McKinney. "I watched Sonny. His eyes swept the whole scene. He was extremely intelligent, and he understood immediately what it meant. His Adam's apple moved slightly. You could feel the deflation, see the look of hurt in his eyes. It was almost like a silent shudder went through him. He'd been deliberately snubbed.
"Philadelphia wanted nothing to do with him. Sonny felt, after he won the title, that the past was forgiven. It was going to be a whole new world. What happened in Philadelphia that day was a turning point in his life. He was still the bad guy. He was the personification of evil. And that's the way it was going to remain. He was devastated. I knew from that point on that the world would never get to know the Sonny that I knew."
On the way out of the airport after a brief press conference, Sonny turned to McKinney and said, "I think I'll get out tomorrow and do all the things I've always done. Walk down the block and buy the papers, stop in the drugstore, talk to the neighbors. Then I'll see how the real peoples feel. Maybe then I'll start to feelin' like a champion. You know, it's really a lot like an election, only in reverse. Here I'm already in office, but now I have to go out and start campaignin'."
That was a campaign that Liston could never win. He was to be forever cast in the role of devil's agent, and never more so than in his two stunning, ignominious losses to Cassius Clay, then beginning to be known as Muhammad Ali. In the history of boxing's heavyweight division, never has a fighter fallen faster, and further, than did Liston in the 15 months it look Ali to reduce him from being the man known as the fiercest alive to being the butt of jokes on TV talk shows.
"I think he died the day he was born," wrote Harold Conrad, who did publicity for four of Liston's fights. By the nearest reckoning, that birth would have been in a tenant's shack, 17 miles northwest of Forrest City and about 60 west of Memphis. Helen had met Tobey in Mississippi and had gone with him to Arkansas around the time of World War I. Young Charles grew up lost among all the callused hands and bare feet of innumerable siblings. "I had nothing when I was a kid but a lot of brothers and sisters, a helpless mother and a father who didn't care about any of us," Liston said. "We grew up with few clothes, no shoes, little to eat. My father worked me hard and whupped me hard."
Helen moved to St. Louis during World War II, and Charles, who was living with his father, set out north to find her when he was 13. Three years later he weighed 200 pounds, and he ruled his St. Louis neighborhood by force. At 18, he had already served time in a house of detention and was graduating to armed robbery. On Jan. 15, 1950, Liston was found guilty of two counts of larceny from a person and two counts of first-degree robbery. He served more than two years in the Missouri state pen in Jefferson City.
The prison's athletic director, Father Alois Stevens, a Catholic priest, first saw Liston when he came by the gym to join the boxing program. To Stevens, Liston looked like something out of Jane's Fighting Ships. "He was the most perfect specimen of manhood I had ever seen," Stevens recalls. "Powerful arms, big shoulders. Pretty soon he was knocking out everybody in the gym. His hands were so large! I couldn't believe it. They always had trouble with his gloves, trouble getting them on when his hands were wrapped."
In 1952 Liston was released on parole: he turned pro on Sept. 2, 1953, leveling Don Smith in the first round in St. Louis. Tocco met Liston when the fighter strolled into Tocco's gym in St. Louis. The trainer's first memory of Liston is fixed, mostly for the way he came in—slow and deliberate and alone, feeling his way along the edges of the gym, keeping to himself, saying nothing. That was classic Liston, casing every joint he walked into, checking for exits. As Liston began to work, Tocco saw the bird tracks up and down Liston's back, the enduring message from Tobey Liston.
"What are all those welts from?" Tobey asked him.
Said Liston, "I had bad dealin's with my father."
"He was a loner," Tocco says. "He wouldn't talk to nobody. He wouldn't go with nobody. He always came to the gym by himself. He always left by himself. The police knew he'd been in prison, and he'd be walking along, and they'd always stop him and search him. So he went through alleys all the time. He always went around things. I can still see him, either coming out of an alley or walking into one."
Comments
Terry Downes and Paul Pender during their July 1961 middleweight title fight, the top photo shows Terry Downes driving Paul Pender into the ropes with a jab, the bottom photo shows Terry Downes standing over Paul Pender after knocking him down.
Terry Downes is new middleweight Champion. This photo shows Terry Downes (left) posing with Paul Pender after their championship fight at the Empire Pool Wembley in July 1961. Pender, who had held the title, retired with a cut eye at the end of the tenth round.
The life of a prizefighter, a battle-scarred Terry Downes with his family.
On October 11, 1960 at Empire Poll, Wembley, London, England British middleweight champion Terry Downes fought Joey Giardello in the featured match. Downes prevailed winning a ten round decision. Joey Giardello is a legend in the sport, all-time great middleweight, he was an Italian from New York, tough as leather, had an Iron chin, one of the best ring technicians you'll ever see on film, he could knock you out or box your ears off, he really was the total package.
"British middleweight champion Terry Downes stormed into the world's top ten last night with an overwhelming decision over ranking American Joey Giardello. He immediately challenged Paul Pender or Gene Fullmer to a world title fight. Downes mixed his natural brawling ability with a kind of boxing skill he has never displayed before to defeat Giardello from Philadelphia. It was one of the finest middleweight fights seen in Britain for years. The critics had said it would turn into a bloodbath because both fighters were inclined to cut easily. But it didn't turn out that way. Downes was the only one who bled. That was in the 3rd round, from a cut over his left eyebrow. Downes started the fight pushing out a classic left jab in the good old English style - something he had never done so consistently and so well before." - Associated Press. Unofficial AP scorecard - 7-1-2 Downes. Giardello claimed to have broken his right hand in the 2nd or 3rd round and was never able to put any force behind it.
Terry Downes vs Sugar Ray Robinson, the greatest pound-for-pound fighter in the history of this sport.
“I didn't beat Sugar Ray, I beat his ghost.”
On September 25, 1962 in Empire Pool, London, Terry Downes defeated 41-year-old Sugar Ray Robinson via a 10-round points decision. Robinson, well past his prime, struggled against the energy and tenacity of the 26-year-old Downes. Terry Downes was as honest as it gets in this sport, a lot of guys would have gloated about scalping the great Sugar Ray Robinson, but Downes knew better. Reflecting on the win, Downes modestly remarked, "I didn't beat Sugar Ray; I beat his ghost." It was a simple comment, but it brings chills to my spine every time I hear it. Ironically, despite being younger, Downes retired in 1964 at just 28 years old, while Robinson continued fighting until the age of 44.
Some great photos of Terry Downes during his career. This photo is self explanatory, lifting a weight with his freaking teeth. It just shows you what it takes to make it in this sport.
Downes hitting the speed bag.
Terry Downes and his dog Champ hanging out with some young fans.
Don Fullmer adjusts headgear on Terry Downes during a training session. Don Fullmer is the brother of Gene Fullmer, there were actually three Fullmer brothers that were boxers, Gene, Jay, and Don.
Terry Downes standing next to a car following his victory against Paul Pender.
Downes with cigar in mouth.
Downes skips rope.
Downes takes a break from training.
Downes clowns for the camera.
Terry Downes, warrior.
Terry Downes, aka "The Paddington Express", aka, "Dashing, Bashing, Crashing."
"Fractured eye socket, torn lip and I still wasn’t ready to quit… the mentality you have when your born to fight." - Mason Cartwright
Manny Pacquiao mauled Antonio Margarito over 12 rounds on this day in 2010 to pick a belt in his eighth weight division.
Manny Pacquiao dished out a dazzling boxing lesson to the much bigger Antonio Margarito at the Cowboys Stadium in Texas, winning a wide unanimous decision over 12 rounds.
Pacquiao, 31, picked up the vacant WBC light-middleweight belt, giving him a title or slice of the same in an eighth weight division, the first having come down at flyweight way back in 1998. Although the category limit is 11st, this fight was made at a catchweight 10st 10lbs to even up the chances. Margarito looked in great shape at bang on the 150lbs, but when Pacquiao scaled a light 10st 4 1/2lbs, it seemed his strategy would be to use his speed and mobility to dance around the former welter king.
And so it duly proved, with the southpaw Filipino so much faster (of both hand and foot) than his strong, straight-ahead opponent who at 5ft 11ins towered over him by 4 1/2ins. In and out, side to side, Pacquiao moved and landed solid punches with either hand throughout 36 minutes that were one-sided but always fascinating.
"A really hard fight," Pacquiao said. "The hardest fight of my boxing career. Margarito is really fast and strong. He is big, bigger than me."
"I feel for my opponent," Pacquiao said. "His eyes (were swollen and cut) and bloody face. I wanted the ref to look at that. "In the 12th round I wasn't looking for the knockout.”
"We were going good until I got caught," Margarito said. "And then that is when the problems started coming.”
We live for this sport.
Charley Retzlaff, aka "The Duluth Dynamiter." A dangerous heavyweight contender in the 1930's, dangerous because the majority of his fights ended with a bang, he put 54 of his opponents on ice.
Ranching, fighting, selling cars, they were all just a way to make a living for Charley Retzlaff, a kayo artist from the North Dakota tundra whose opponents were often stretched out quicker than a calf at branding time.
Retzlaff made a mockery of a large number of the fighters he faced, knocking out 54 of 74 opponents. He won 61 fights in the 11 years that he fought, all but seven of those by knockout. He rightly earned the nom de plume, the Duluth Dynamiter. He defeated a future world heavyweight champion, scored a knockout on a wrestling card, got knocked out by a fellow named Joe Louis and was the reigning Minnesota heavyweight champion when he retired.
Retzlaff was the best heavyweight of his time in the state and well beyond, although he was not a native Minnesotan. He was born in Leonard, N.D., the son of German immigrants who had staked their claim there in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Once it became clear that Retzlaff was going to pursue a boxing career, he relocated to Duluth where on March 15, 1929 he knocked out Herman Raschke in two rounds. Retzlaff won his first 23 fights before losing on disqualification to Antonio de la Mata in on November 14, 1930 in Chicago, but promptly set the record straight. One month later in a rematch he needed only one round to dispatch the same opponent.
The knockout over de la Mata started a string of 11 straight wins before he suffered another loss, by unanimous decision to Joe Sekyra, who secured the victory by flooring Retzlaff for an eight-count in the seventh round of their 10-round bout. That was in September of 1931 and Retzlaff was 38-2-1 when he was matched against Dick Daniels for the state heavyweight title in January the following year. Retzlaff needed only two minutes and 20 seconds to become Minnesota’s new heavyweight champion, knocking Daniels down three times. His first two defenses of that title were both against Art Lasky, a fellow Minnesotan and fellow Hall of Fame inductee tonight. Retzlaff stopped Lasky in six rounds on May 12, 1933, at the St. Paul Auditorium and again on September 19, 1935, at the same site. Retzlaff fought only five more times. He won on points over Ford Smith at the Auditorium in October of the same year.
Then, in January, Retzlaff ventured to Chicago Stadium where he was matched against a rising undefeated star who was 23-0 at the time.
The young upstart was a fellow named Joe Louis who was 24-0 after knocking out Retzlaff in the first round. Retzlaff fought only three more times, knocking out two more opponents before escaping with only a draw against Arne Anderson in defense of his Minnesota title on September 19, 1940.
He retired after that bout and returned to the family ranch in North Dakota to take over for his eldest daughter,Lois, who had handled matters there for several years.
Retzlaff did not pass on a love of boxing to his offspring. Only his son Jim tried his hand in the ring. He scored a first-round knockout at the St. Paul Hippodrome in 1957 and promptly retired. Retlaff did have a brother, Al, however, who fought four fights and retired 2-2 after losing on points and then by kayo.
The highlight of Retzlaff’s boxing career was his split decision victory against future heavyweight champion James J. Braddock, the Cinderella Man, on May 13, 1932, in Boston Garden. Two years later, Braddock surprised the boxing world by dethroning Max Baer for the heavyweight title.
One of the most interesting inclusions on Retzlaff’s record took place on February 27, 1940 in Fargo, North Dakota. Retzlaff stopped one Abe Kashey, a wrestler making his boxing debut in 40 seconds of the fourth round. It was the only boxing match on what was a wrestling card.
Dan Retzlaff is Charley’s grandson and never saw his grandfather fight. Nevertheless, he does have distant memories and the stories, of course, told to him by his father and mother.
“My dad got laid out in the field a couple of times,’’ Dan said, “for talkin’ back to Grandpa Chaz. That’s pretty much all I heard about him, aside from when he moved from the ranch to Detroit Lakes and opened a car dealership.’’
Dan recalls riding past the dealership when he was very young with his father, but doesn’t recall much beyond that. “I do know that Grandpa Chaz was at that dealership until he died in 1970.’’
He recalls also that Grandpa Chaz protected him one time from his parents’ displeasure. “I broke some sort of glass, a light, while they were gone and got a cut on my face.’’ Grandpa Chaz went into defensive posture and Dan doesn’t recall that his parents every discovered the misdeed.
There are other memories of incidents that may have been influenced by the family exposure to boxing. Grandpa Chaz delivered whippings in the ring and occasionally to his offspring who passed on that knowledge to their offspring. The family ranch has been passed on, too.
The town’s only ballpark now occupies a part of the ranch that was donated to the city of Leonard. And Charley Retzlaff, Grandpa Chaz, now occupies a place in the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame.
Charley Retzlaff in 1936. I've been searching ebay for a while looking for a photo of him as a collectible, not much available of him. It's a shame because hard punchers are a fascinating breed.
"My mother was the kindest woman, but she was tough too. She had to be. I went through life with one thing my mother taught me: when a man hits you, you hit him back. Ain’t no other way. Those guys who tried to make my life hell, taking me on three-on-one, four-on-one, they learnt after a while that I wasn’t the same Leon. They saw my progress in the gym. Pretty soon I was on the local amateur team, then I was representin’ my country. I kept winnin’ and got a chance to travel and see the world. Finally, I went all the way to the Olympics. Without fightin’ back, I’d have got nowhere." - Leon Spinks
Two legends, Malcolm X with Muhammad Ali.
Alexis Argüello – The Gentleman Who Fought His Demons
Alexis Argüello was everything the sport claimed to admire. Elegant, respectful, and precise, he carried himself like royalty in the ring and humility outside it. A three division world champion, he never gloated, never mocked an opponent, and always bowed his head in gratitude after victory. Fans called him “The Gentleman of Boxing.”
But behind that calm and polished image was a man quietly battling himself. Argüello grew up in deep poverty in Nicaragua, a country north of Costa Rica, shaped by violence and instability. Fame gave him fortune, but not peace. Even as he rose through the divisions, earning respect from men like Aaron Pryor and Ray Mancini, he carried an emptiness that success could not fill.
After retiring, he returned home and entered politics, trying to rebuild the same country that once tore itself apart. But corruption, betrayal, and the ghosts of his past weighed heavily. Friends noticed the change, the smile was still there, but it no longer reached his eyes.
In 2009, Alexis Argüello was found dead in his home. Official reports said he took his own life, but those who knew him say the real cause was something harder to define, the slow heartbreak of a man who gave everything to the world and was left with nothing for himself.
He was proof that even the most graceful warriors fight unseen battles, and that sometimes, the quietest men carry the loudest pain.
It's "Pac Man" time again.
Manny Pacquiao secured his place in boxing history on this day in 2009 with a 12th-round technical knockout of welterweight king Miguel Cotto.
When it finished, Pacquiao had won his seventh title in seven weight divisions, a first in boxing history. Puerto Rican idol Cotto exited the MGM Grand Garden Arena with white shorts stained red. "It's an honour to win a seventh title," Pacquiao said. "It's history for me and, more importantly, a Filipino did it."
“He hit harder than we expected,” Joe Santiago, Cotto’s trainer, said. “He was stronger than we expected. Manny broke him down.”
It was give-and-take early on, and Cotto was boxing beautifully for about three-and-a-half rounds. However, in the third, Pacquiao dropped Cotto with a punishing southpaw right hand and the momentum of the fight shifted clearly in Pacquaio’s favour.
The fight was fought at a catchweight of 145 lbs, Cotto had already struggled to make the welterweight limit of 147 lbs in previous fights. He never fought at welterweight again.
Cotto maintained that it had been his decision to push forward. “I didn’t know where the punches were coming from,” Cotto said. “And I didn’t protect myself from his punches.”
“The key to this victory was staying disciplined,” Pacquiao’s coach Freddie Roach said. “We didn’t panic in the ring.”
"In the beginning we fought Cotto's fight too much, stayed on the ropes too long, but as the fight went on Manny's speed was too much. Manny dictated the fight. Cotto's corner should have stopped the fight three rounds sooner when Cotto began to run away.”
"Cotto was taking quite a bit of punches,” said referee Kenny Bayless. "Because of the amount of punishment he was taking we looked closely with the ring doctor about the eighth round and talked about how much longer he could go. He was hitting Pacquiao with good jabs but it wasn't doing much. The guy was relentless."
This was more than just another knockout. This one was historic.
"Many times when a fighter gets hit on any part of the face there is no pain. But if you want to give pain to your rivaI, the thing to do is hit him in the body: in the hanging ribs, in the soIar pIexus, in the Iiver. It is painfuI and many times scary.
I've hit fighters in their bodies with so much force that they couIdn't heIp but Iet out an invoIuntary groan Iike a wounded woIf. UsuaIIy the man who connects wiII jump at the hurt fighter with more punches. I never attacked after such a punch. I used to step back and Iet my rivaI savor every second of pain. I was not a sadist but a technician; I know how discouraging those punches were to the body. I became worId's champion by throwing one. A Ieft hook to the Iiver." - Jose Torres
This was one of the best ring wars you'll ever see, Michael "The Jedi" Watson vs Nigel "The Dark Destroyer" Benn, 1989.
On This Date 30 Years Ago: Michael Watson Stopped Nigel Benn In A Domestic Classic
By James Slater - 05/21/2019
It was a Sunday evening to remember 30 years ago on this date: May 21st, 1989. Unbeaten middleweight power-puncher Nigel Benn, perfect at 22-0 with all 22 wins coming well inside the distance, met countryman Michael Watson, who was 21-1(17) at the time; the loss coming against James Cook, the draw against Israel Cole. Inside the purposely erected “Super Tent,” Benn attempted to defend his Commonwealth title, retain his unbeaten record and move into the word’s top-10. Watson, the betting underdog, was convinced his combination of superior boxing skill, experience and savvy would prove too much for Benn’s raw power and sheer aggression. A sold-out Finsbury Park crowd settled in to witness what was assumed by all to be a great one. Live on ITV in the UK and also going out on television in the US, the fight turned out to be a classic Boxer Vs. Puncher affair – brains against brawn. Benn, sporting a new ponytail hairdo (he had reportedly spent a good few hours sat in the barber’s chair ahead of this, his planned breakthrough fight, and he doubtless wanted to look good) came out blazing at Watson. “The Force,” as Watson was known, had wasted no time treating himself to any such grooming, instead remaining in the gym putting in every ounce of his time getting ready for his own aimed for arrival in the world rankings. It was hot and heavy for Watson early on, Benn relentlessly slinging leather. Watson, his hands cupped by the sides of his head, boxed and moved, at times played a little rope-a-dope and never lost a single split second of his tunnel vision concentration. Crucially, Watson also fired back as Benn launched his wicked hooks, refusing to be overwhelmed. It was an incredible pace and already, by the third-round, Benn was running out of ideas and possibly stamina. Watson, who had thrown and landed some superb counter-shots, was unable to relax for a moment, yet Benn was using up an enormous amount of energy and he was getting precious little for it in return. The drama reached fever-pitch in the fourth, as Watson drove Benn across the ring into the ropes. His hands down, taking punches, Benn than came whipping back with hard shots of his own. The noise was deafening, even on TV, let alone what it must have been like inside the red-hot Super Tent, and as commentator Reg Gutteridge said, no-one was sure how badly Benn had been hurt – had he been playing possum? The fifth-round gave us our answer, as Watson, snapping Benn’s head back with shot after shot, saw his rival voluntarily move backwards. Watson now had the upper hand as Benn, unsteady in his movements, was open-mouthed and clearly feeling the insane pace he himself had set. Benn was still firing out shots, but Watson could see them coming and his own return shots were flowing, the effort of pumping them out far less strenuous compared to the bite-down fury Benn was displaying. Benn, a victim of the sheer belief he had in his punching power, had no plan-B and Watson knew it. In the sixth, a shot to the face forced Benn to turn his back on Watson – “a perfect punch!” bellowed co-commentator Jim Watt, who perhaps felt Benn might be on the urge of quitting. Instead, the punch had unintentionally caught Benn in the eye. Benn then gave it one last effort, firing out some rights that were blocked, but seconds later, the sand in his hourglass sifting away, Benn was decked by a stiff jab. “Oh, he’s gone,” Gutteridge said, as Benn fell, almost in slow-motion. At the time, more than a few fans and experts felt Benn, having been so ruthlessly exposed, might have seen his thrilling and promising career come to a rapid end. Instead, “The Dark Destroyer” was able to relocate to America and then come back and achieve greatness. Watson, tragically, saw his own career end after his ill-fated second fight with Chris Eubank. But on this night three decades ago, Watson was the middleweight king of British boxing.
“I came across Michael Watson in my 23rd fight and, after 22 KOs, I thought I was the best thing since sliced bread. I went out all guns blazing, expecting him to go, but it just didn't happen.''
''I came back to my corner at the end of the fifth round and I was exhausted. I remember trying to catch my breath and I saw Michael look over and wink as if to say 'I've got you now boy.' His punches didn't hurt, but Michael was a good fighter who knew what he had to do to beat me.” - Nigel Benn
The highlights from Michael Watson-Nigel Benn. What a war. Benn came out guns blazing, throwing heavy bombs, Watson was one tough son of a gun to be able to weather that storm and turn the tide. It's crazy that Watson actually stops Benn with a jab, Benn was absolutely exhausted from throwing haymakers.
Speaking of great fights, Diego Corrales vs Jose Luis Castillo, 2005. Round 10 is one of the greatest rounds in boxing history, the definition of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
Diego Corrales – The Round of His Life
May 7, 2005. Diego “Chico” Corrales was locked in a war with José Luis Castillo, a fight so violent that even the commentators stopped calling it round by round and simply called it a battle for survival. Nine rounds of hell had already passed, both men beaten and bloodied, neither willing to yield. Then came the tenth.
Early in the round, Castillo caught Corrales clean and sent him crashing to the canvas. Corrales spat out his mouthguard, buying precious seconds as the referee cleaned it and the crowd booed. Moments later, Castillo dropped him again. The fight seemed over. Corrales’ trainer, Joe Goossen, leaned in and whispered, “You gotta get inside now.” Corrales nodded, eyes burning with defiance.
He came out swinging. Somehow, through exhaustion and pain, Corrales landed a right hand that staggered Castillo. The momentum shifted instantly. A left hook followed, then another, and suddenly Castillo was on the ropes. The referee stepped in. Corrales had done the impossible.
That night, he turned certain defeat into one of boxing’s most unforgettable victories. “I love this sport,” Corrales said afterward, his face swollen but his spirit unbroken. “I love it because it’s about heart.”
The tenth round of Corrales vs Castillo wasn’t just a moment in a fight, it was a masterpiece of courage. A reminder that even when everything is gone, one more punch can still change everything.
The legendary round 10 of Diego Corrales vs Jose Luis Castillo. One of the greatest rounds in boxing history.
Buck "Tombstone" Smith, one of the most fascinating stories you'll ever see in boxing. Although Smith was never considered more than a journeyman fighter, he is one of boxing's all-time knockout kings with 121 KO's. He would go around from town to town taking any fights he could get, all the while working different jobs, he worked in a graveyard at one point and that's how he got his nickname. He ended up fighting over 229 times, mostly low caliber competition but he also stepped in the ring with some big names and held his own against names like Julio Cesar Chavez, Buddy McGirt, Mark Breland, Harold Brazier, and Kirkland Laing. The thing is, Buck Smith could fight. He had one hell of a chin and brutal punching power, that's always a dangerous combination to go up against.
One night, two fights, two states, two wins for warrior Buck Smith
By: Bill Tibbs
He fought 205 times as a pro. He recorded 183 wins. He recorded 121 knockouts.
Boxing’s ultimate stay-busy warrior, Buck “Tombstone” Smith was a fighter who never turned down an assignment. So, when his manager got the call offering a fight in Wichita, Kansas in May 1992, he (of course) accepted. But he also got a call to lace them up in Oklahoma City the same night. What to do?
Legend Buck “Tombstone” Smith (183-20-2, 121 KO’s), the power punching, Midwest boxing legend who, along with having one of boxing’s genuinely great nicknames, registered some incredible numbers.
He fought 205 times as a pro. He recorded 183 wins. He recorded 121 knockouts.
Buck tore up the highways during his incredible 22-year, 205-bout run and would often fight 3-4 times in a month. To say manager Sean Gibbons, with him from the first day until the last, kept him busy would be a slight understatement.
Smith turned pro in the summer of 1987 and their philosophy from the get-go was “have gloves will travel”. Staying busy mostly on the Midwest circuit, ripe with club shows in the 80s and 90s, it was possible that you could keep very active if you were willing to answer the call. Buck, from Oklahoma City, was in a perfect location to mine the Midwest club scene and he answered the call every time.
While Sean and Buck chose to stay as busy as possible between big fights with club-level opposition, they weren’t just inflating statistics - make no mistake, Buck could fight. He squared off against some very good boxers in his career.
Before retiring Buck would see action against British star Kirkland Laing, world title challenger Harold Brazier, Hall of Fame champion Buddy McGirt, Australian world title challenger Shannon Taylor, world champion Mark Breland, world champion Antonio Margarito, and Mexican, Hall of Fame legend Julio Cesar Chavez.
“Under different circumstances, Buck could have been a world champion if he got the right fight”, said manager Gibbons. “The guy pretty much trained himself. But let me tell you, if he caught you with that left hook, which was all world class, it was night night baby - boom”, said Gibbons laughing. “He could crack with that left. Lights out Daddy-O”.
What Gibbons did face during his time keeping his fighter so busy was opposition from certain commissioners that felt this barnstorming schedule of boxing couldn’t or shouldn’t be allowed for one reason or another.
Gibbons, never one to shy away from a good dust-up, pushed back every time.
“The commissions were all over me for keeping him so busy, fighting so much; it was ridiculous”, said Gibbons. “It’s what he did for a living, and he was a very skilled boxer who could fight a lot and do it safely because he knew how to box and protect himself in there”, he continued. “It was our philosophy to stay busy between big fights, instead of just hitting a heavy bag for months on end to fight a few times a year”, he said.
So, when Gibbons got the calls for fights in 2 states on the same night, he had to take them. First off, they fought, that’s what they did, and if they could pull it off, they would. And, make no mistake, Gibbons was enjoying giving the middle finger salute to the commissions who seemed dedicated to giving him problems.
“You think Buck fights too much?”, said Gibbons laughing, “watch this”.
On May 19, 1992, Smith would fight early on a card in Wichita, Kansas (driving from Oklahoma City) stopping Marco Davis in the 2nd round. Post-fight, into the car, still in trunks and hand wraps, with Gibbons for the 2 ½ -hour drive back to Oklahoma City where Buck would go a full 6 rounds later in the night winning a decision over Rodney Johnson.
For those keeping score that’s 1 night, 320 miles, 5 hours, 2 states, 2 bouts, 2 wins.
Last summer I caught up with Buck Smith, who has worked in the electronics industry for years, in Tulsa, Oklahoma and we had some great conversations as he shared his memories of his time in boxing. And, yes, his double-header came up.
“I remember that night as a busy night”, said Smith with a laugh. “I got my stoppage win early in the night. We jumped into the car, me with all my stuff still on, and off we went to our next stop. I had some great times over the years with Sean. We travelled the world, had some great fights; that night was a crazy one indeed”, he said.
31 years ago this month, Buck “Tombstone” Smith who climbed through the ropes all over the United States along with England, Australia, South Africa, and Mexico, made history by recording 2 wins on the same night, in 2 different states.
Only in boxing–ya gotta love it!
Buck Smith was always a dangerous fighter because of his power. Case in point, his fight against Kirkland Laing, a very talented boxer. Kirkland Laing's nickname was "The Gifted One", a name was that was given to him due to his natural talent and unconventional boxing style, which allowed him to defeat the legendary Roberto Durán in 1982. Laing is boxing Smith's ears off in this fight until out of nowhere he gets caught by Smith's left hook.
Buck Smith was no joke, you were never safe against him. Take his fight with Kevin Pompey for example, Pompey had him trapped against the ropes and was teeing off, until Smith landed a right hand counter bomb that instantly changed matters.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Boxing/comments/1glzhsp/buck_smith_lands_a_nasty_counter_on_kevin_pompey/
Great interview with Buck Smith.
The Buck stops here: Buck "Tombstone" Smith
By: Bill Tibbs
He faced a long list of world-rated contenders and champions including Julio Caesar Chavez, Buddy McGirt, Antonio Margarito, Mark Breland, Shannon Taylor and Harold Brazier, among others.
Oklahoma’s Midwest legend Buck “Tombstone” Smith turned pro in 1987 and would fight for 22-years before retiring for good in 2009. During that time, he built up an incredible 183-20-2 (121 KO’s) record as one of the busiest fighters on the circuit. He faced a long list of world-rated contenders and champions including Julio Caesar Chavez, Buddy McGirt, Antonio Margarito, Mark Breland, Shannon Taylor and Harold Brazier, among others.
In an interview a few years ago, long-time Smith manager Sean Gibbons told me, “Under different circumstances, Buck could have been a world champion. That guy had a left hook, that if he caught you, it was night, night baby. He could crack with that left. He had world class power in that hand and if it connected, oh Daddy, it was lights out. But in all seriousness Billy, this is a guy who was basically training himself, in his garage, or where he could, and he’s going rounds with some of boxing’s best. This guy could fight. It always bothered me, in fact it is one thing that I look back on and feel bad about, that he never got to fight for a world title; he earned it. And like I said, I don’t care who he is fighting, if he lands that left on the sweet spot it’s night, night daddy. But, he had more to his game than just a good left hook, he had good feet, moved well, could box and he was tough. Buck was a really, really good guy and I have nothing but fond memories of him in the ring and my time working with him. Viva Tombstone”.
People unfamiliar with the talent of the boxer-puncher Smith might lean towards writing him off as little more than a novelty act mining boxing’s lower leagues to build up a glossy record. And make no mistake, Smith did stay as busy as he possibly could, against any, and all, opposition. His attitude was better to be under the lights in a real fight, than be in the gym sparring. However, don’t let the crazy numbers fool you, this guy had the talent to box with anyone. All that time on task allowed him to build his skills into that of a very accomplished fighter who was always one punch away from taking anyone out, from a 4-round, preliminary opponent to a decorated world champion.
While Smith never did fight for a world title he did face off against some outstanding fighters and earned the respect of every opponent he faced. His career would see him fighting in Culiacan, Mexico against Mexican legend Julio Caesar Chavez, in London at the famous Royal Albert Hall picking up a huge, upset knockout over British star Kirkland Laing, in Australia against former world title challenger Shannon Taylor, and in South Africa against local star Gary Murray, among other locales. Add that to the multitude of places he fought all over the United States and you have one busy boxer.
Smith’s story, and resume, is a unique one, even for his era, and completely foreign to the new regime of fighters out there today. He was old school. Stay as busy as you can, fight as often as you can, and use the stay-busy fights to always stay sharp waiting for the big bouts.
MaxBoxing had a chance to catch up with one of boxing’s truly unique characters, with a unique story. As nice and friendly out of the ring as he was talented in it - chatting with the champ - Buck Smith.
Bill Tibbs: Hi Buck, thanks for taking a few minutes to chat.
Buck Smith: Hey Bill, no problem, happy to do it. Thanks.
BT: Tell me about your amateur career. And, what led you into the pro game?
BS: I never really had an amateur career. Maybe a couple fights as a kid, a few while in the service, but not really what you would call an amateur career. You know, did some slap boxing in the neighborhood as a kid but no amateur career to speak of.
BT: Had you always wanted to be a pro fighter? Was that something you wanted to do or did it just kind of happen?
BS: Growing up I actually thought about it. Well four careers really. I thought about being a policeman, a fire fighter, a football player, or a boxer. My buddy and I looked into the police force, but they were paying like 20-30 000 dollars a year and we were like, ‘To get shot at? No thanks’. (Laughs). I was a pretty good high school football player. My Dad said to me, ‘You have 3 choices. The military, the post office, (because he retired from the post office), or jail’ (laughs). I was in the military reserves for 8 years.
BT: You had an incredibly busy schedule. Was that always the plan? Fighting anyone, anywhere, as often as you can?
BS: The guys I was around, and boxing with, Marty (Jakubowski), Dwayne (Swift) and Harold (Brazier) kept busy fighting a lot. So, that is just kind of what I was used to. My manager Sean Gibbons, along with Pete Susens, both great, great guys. They knew how to handle things, they kept me busy, and they knew how to move us. All their stable of fighters, they knew how to best work with the fighters, they knew what worked best for each fighter and how to keep them busy and put them in the right fights.
BT: I talk to Marty regularly, he’s doing well, at the Knuckleheads Gym in Chicago.
BS: What a great fighter he was. A very talented boxer.
BT: Fighting the 4 and 6 rounders, on small club shows, fighting as often as you did, do you find they helped you improve? Or was it more just keeping busy?
BS: You know Bill, I was able to work on a lot of things in those fights that helped me as I went along. Plus, I had complete trust in Sean and Pete. If they told me this is where we are going, I was like, ‘Ok, let’s go’. I didn’t question them; they knew how to best handle my career. But, I learned a lot in those fights. I learned how to slip punches, learned how to box, how to punch off certain moves; those fights were great for that. To be honest, I really didn’t think I felt like I was boxing to my potential until I went 10 rounds with Buddy McGirt and I had a 100 some odd fights by then (laughs). Buddy thanked me after the fight, congratulated me on giving him a good fight and I thanked him for teaching me how to box.
BT: Of course, you had the classic night where you fought twice in one night in two different states.
BS: I was the first bout of the night on a show in Wichita, Kansas and I stopped the guy in the 2nd round. We jumped in the car, I was still in my hand wraps and trunks and drove to Oklahoma City where I went 6 rounds and picked up my second win of the night. I was tired after that night, mostly from the driving and rushing, you know. But it was a fun night.
BT: Do you regret never getting a shot at the title? Sean (Mgr. Gibbons) has told me many times that in the right spot you could have absolutely won a world title.
BS: Well, sure I would have liked to win a title, get all the belts, you know. But I was still going to compete. I still loved to box and you know I got the right fights to get there. Sean and Pete put me in the right fights but maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. Sean and Pete did what they could to move me into a title shot but you know maybe if I had beaten Kevin Pompey I could have gotten the shot. But, I broke my hands in that fight. Both hands were so badly swollen after the fight I could hardly get my gloves off. I would have liked a title shot but at the same time I didn’t get too caught up in it, I was still competing in the best fights out there. I was in some great fights with some great fighters. As my career moved along, I didn’t dwell on it too much.
BT: Who would you say was the toughest fighter you fought?
BS: I don’t know if I can say that one guy was the toughest, that is hard to say. Every fighter I faced was tough in their own way. Any fighter that will get in the ring with you is tough. But, I will say that one of the best, most talented fighters I faced was Harold Brazier. He was an excellent, excellent boxer. That guy was always ready to fight, in great shape. One night we fought 15 rounds and I was trying to pace myself and he’s getting stronger and stronger as the fight goes (laughs). When Harold fought, he was always ready to go and fight hard, no slacking anytime.
BT: Looking back, what was one of the most exciting venues you fought in?
BS: Well, I’d have to say that the first time I fought in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. That was very exciting to me, I couldn’t believe I was even there. You know I’m fighting on the Leonard-Hearns undercard. I’m a small-town guy from Oklahoma and there I was in Vegas at the big show.
BT: Did you have a day job during your boxing career?
BS: No, I didn’t. I was so busy travelling and fighting. I did odd jobs back at home between fights. I’d work here and there, painting, construction, roofing, and I worked for a while in a graveyard. The guys started calling me “Tombstone”, and that is how I got my nickname.
BT: Speaking of names, is Buck your real name?
BS: Yes, it is. I was named after my father.
BT: That’s a great Oklahoma name.
BS: (Laughs). Yeah, I guess it is.
BT: What have you been doing since you retired?
BS: I opened a gym and ran that for about 15 years, doing promotions as well. Finally shut it down as I got tired of babysitting (laughs). I used to think ‘Man, this isn’t like the old days with Sean and I’. Then, I went to work or an electrical company, I’ve been there for about 3 years. I needed that insurance. But, I still help out at the gyms around town a bit, take a look at some of the amateurs and try to help them out. I have been married for 26 years and I have 2 daughters and 3 grandchildren.
BT: Any regrets?
BS: No, not really. Maybe that I didn’t let my hands heal up between fights, let them heal up properly. But, we were always moving, always working, so that just wasn’t the deal then. But, I do wish I’d let my hands heal up properly when they were injured. Otherwise, none at all. I had the perfect life as a boxer. I stayed in shape, always had to run and stay ready. That was one thing the O’Grady’s (long-time Oklahoma promoters) insisted on, be ready. Run, run, run. Stay in shape. I had a great time with Sean, we went all over the place, all over the world. Pete, he was great. Sean and Pete are both great guys and I’m glad they were handling my career.
BT: How do you want to be remembered?
BS: Well, I’d like to be remembered as a guy who made it close to the big show, never got the big prize but I did a few things that should be remembered. I accomplished some things in the sport and gave the fans some good fights and always tried to entertain the fans. Sean and Pete - wonderful guys, real great memories from them from all the years we worked together. You know training at Pete’s gym, living at his house, living with Sean, all those miles we travelled (laughs). Sean and I had a lot of great times together, a lotta great times. I wouldn’t change a thing - great memories. I hope the fans remember me as a guy who had a good left hook, a good boxer and a guy who could fight 4 or 6 rounds one week and fight a 12 round fight the next. I’d fight anyone, anywhere, anytime.
BT: Buck, I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed our conversation. You are the last of the breed of guy who can have a career like you did, in North America anyway. You were a unique character in the sport, and a very good fighter. I really enjoyed watching you fight and thank you again for the interview.
BS: Hey Bill, anytime. Thank you as well.
One more Buck Smith fight, here he is squaring off with Robert Wangila, a tough as nails Olympic Gold medalist from Kenya. Smith explodes with brutal power shots and sends Wangila through the ropes and clear out of the ring.
A short documentary on the legendary career of Buck "Tombstone" Smith.
In case you haven't guessed, I'm a huge Buck Smith fan. You can't help but love the guy, fascinating fighter. He was a real road warrior. This is a photo of Buck Smith and Big Joe Haug in Oklahoma City, OK after his second fight of the night, he had traveled 170 miles from Wichita, KS where he had fought Marco Davis three hours earlier.
Time for a music break.
Meant to post this yesterday, was busy though. Manny Pacquiao, aka "Pac-Man", is such a legend, one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters in boxing history, win titles in 8 different weight divisions, that's a record, that's THE record, he won titles from flyweight to super welterweight. He was so lethal, his firepower was unbelievable, just a machine gun puncher, he would hit you with blazing fast non-stop combinations. You just couldn't keep him off of you.
Marco Antonio Barrera had established himself as the best featherweight in the world by overcoming Erik Morales and Naseem Hamed but found himself engulfed in 11 one-sided rounds in San Antonio by a ferocity he hadn’t previously experienced in 62 professional fights on November 14th, 2003.
Four seconds before the end of the 11th a new supremo in machine-like 24-year-old Filipino Manny Pacquiao was crowned.
"I'm surprised he lasted that long," said Pacquiao. "Very early on I knew I was going to knock him out.”
Barrera's trainer, Rudy Perez, had hoped it would be the final bout for the 29-year-old from Mexico City: "It was a bad night for Marco," Perez said. "It's his decision, but I don't want him to fight again.”
Willie Pep – The Will to Survive
“Sometimes I feel like I’ve been living a hundred years. I’ve tasted too much, that’s the trouble. I’ve tasted poverty as a child; I tasted what I thought was love and went through a few marriages; I came close to death in a plane crash and then tasted the sweet, pure taste of survival; I’ve tasted the applause of thousands of people and suffered the stinging and cruel criticism; and I tasted two miserable stints in the Army and the Navy during World War Two; but I’ve always been truthful and tried to smile through the good, the bad and the ugly times.” – Willie Pep
More than a boxer, Willie Pep was a lesson in life: a man who endured blows from the ring and from fate itself yet always stood tall.
True greatness is not only measured in victories, but in the ability to smile through the storms.
One of my personal favorites right here.
Young Jack Thompson was a terrific boxer-puncher, who was able to box skilfully, but also carried a knockout punch in both fists. Born Cecil Lewis Thompson on August 17, 1904, in Los Angeles, California, Thompson turned professional in late 1922, and matched against much more experienced opposition from the beginning, he went an unimpressive 8-11-5 in his first 24 bouts. However, from late 1924 onward, Thompson became a very different fighter, and was soon proving himself a threat to any welterweight in the world.
Thompson’s career is all the more impressive when the racial overtones of the time are taken into account. But, Thompson persevered by fighting anyone who would get into the ring with him, and he was helped by his reputation of always providing action packed fights whenever he fought. Despite this, Thompson still had to deal with the racism of the time and many of his career defeats where ’home town’ decisions that he was subjected to while fighting on the road.
During his career Thompson fought top welterweights such as Young Harry Wills, Young Corbett III, Tommy Cello, Harry ‘Kid’ Brown, King Tut, Don Fraser, Oakland Jimmy Duffy, Joe Dundee, Jackie Fields, Red Herring, Bermondsey Billy Wells, Tommy Freeman, Bucky Lawless, Freddie Fitzgerald, Jimmy McLarnin, and Lou Brouillard.
On March 25, 1929, Thompson fought Jackie Fields for the vacant NBA world welterweight title and lost a controversial point’s decision over 10 rounds.
In a rematch with Fields on May 9, 1930, Thompson won the NBA world welterweight title, when he out-pointed fields over 15 rounds. Thompson lost the title 5 months later, when Tommy Freeman beat him on points over 15 rounds, losing another dubious decision. Thompson got his revenge 7 months later when he stopped Freeman in the 12th round to regain the World welterweight title. Thompson’s 2nd world championship reign lasted 6 months, after he lost a 15 round decision to Lou Brouillard. This defeat seemed to take the sparkle out of Thompson, and he went 2-2 in his remaining fights, before announcing his retirement after winning a 6 rounds decision over Leonard Bennett, on May 25, 1932.
Thompson retired with a final record of (79-31-12, 49 KO).
Great photo, 1930s welterweight champion Young Jack Thompson working as a riveter.
Young Jack Thompson and Jackie Fields fought three times, two great fighters, one of boxing's great trilogies. But their first fight in March of 1929 was interrupted and broke out in a deadly riot in which one person was killed and 35 were injured when a balcony railing gave way.
March 25, 1929: Fields vs Thompson
Two young boxers hid under the canvas as a violent panic swept over Chicago Coliseum. Referee Ed Purdy grabbed Jackie Fields and Young Jack Thompson, who had been battling each other for nearly eight rounds, and yelled to them, “Duck out of here and get under the ring!” The two fighters dove beneath the canvas where they anxiously waited in the darkness beside a number of rattled ringsiders as a full-scale riot interrupted their world championship fight.
Fields and Thompson were fighting for the National Boxing Association’s version of the welterweight world championship. The NBA had stripped Joe Dundee when he failed to schedule a title defense before the deadline, four days before the Fields vs Thompson fight held on March 25, 1929. The New York State Athletic Commission was still willing to give Dundee, who had won the title nearly two years earlier, some more time to make his first real defense, though.
When he annihilated Dundee in a non-title bout on August 30, 1928, the 24-year-old Thompson became an overnight sensation after six years and over eighty professional fights. Following that stunning second round TKO victory, Thompson risked his standing against Fields a month later.
Jackie Fields
It had been nearly five years since Fields won Olympic gold as a featherweight in 1924. The 21 year old became a top challenger to Dundee’s crown with a convincing decision victory over Thompson, a second-round KO of Sergeant Sammy Baker, along with a comfortable points win over Baby Joe Gans at Madison Square Garden.
Promoter Jim Mullen promised a $5,000 diamond-encrusted belt to the winner. He billed Fields as “Greater than Benny Leonard” and Thompson as the “Colored Wonder who knocked out Dundee.” Fields was the betting favorite on account of his victory in the first fight six months earlier.
Fields controlled the first five rounds of the match with his jab. He had always been a slick boxer with an educated left, developing power and a mean streak as he grew into the welterweight division. Thompson loaded up too much on his right, a punch renowned for its concussive power. However, Fields began to tire in the sixth and his punches became wild. Thompson now found a home for his right crosses in the seventh, and he went for broke to start the eighth, but by the two minute mark of the round, Fields had gained his second wind. Then, the fight abruptly stopped.
A Fields fan in section Q on the Coliseum’s floor level shouted an ugly racist remark at Thompson. Two Thompson fans yelled back, which resulted in the Fields fan getting even nastier. One of the Thompson fans, Kenneth Taylor, pulled out a gun, and his friend reached for his knife. Someone yelled, “Look out, he’s got a gun!” Fans in and around section Q bolted, knocking over the wooden folding chairs, which created such a thunderous roar that people believed the Coliseum was crumbling. Only the ring lights remained on, making it too dark to see much in the stands.
People in the balcony began to panic, and two men, Herman Landman and Andrew Stout, were knocked over the railing, falling onto fleeing fans below. Landman suffered a fractured skull and died the next day. Stout experienced internal injuries and was in critical condition. Photographers turned to take pictures of the transpiring events. Upon seeing smoke from the cameras’ flashes, someone yelled, “Fire!”
Young Jack Thompson
The power then mysteriously went out, causing all nine thousand spectators to either rush for the exits or follow referee Purdy’s instruction to Fields and Thompson to seek cover under the ring. “We could hear people screaming and hollering and running in all directions,” Fields later recalled. “It’s pitch dark down there and there’s a lot of other guys besides Thompson and myself.”
From under the canvas, Fields couldn’t place the noise of the chairs crashing all around the arena. He mistook it for gunshots. “Then came the rat-tat-tat that sounded like machine gunfire,” Fields explained. “This was the Capone era so you could expect anything. ’At least we’re safe from the shooting,’ I remember saying.”
Electricians struggled to get to the power source through the stampede as Emil Denemark of the Illinois State Athletic Commission attempted to calm the frantic masses. He was knocked down and kicked in the face for his trouble. Denemark was among over a hundred spectators hurt in the fracas, but he was fortunate not to be one of the three dozen with injuries serious enough to spend the night in the hospital.
Deputy Police Commissioner John Stege barreled his way through the crowd like a fullback opening the lane for the electrician to get to work on restoring power, while Detective Chief John Egan managed to find a press telephone and called for backup. Twelve police cars, six fire trucks, and three ambulances raced to the Coliseum. Dozens of police officers cordoned off the area surrounding the ring.
Once the lights were restored and backup arrived, the chaos quickly subsided. To Fields, the riot felt like it had taken at least half an hour. In reality, everything had happened in five minutes. The decision was quickly made to continue the fight.
Fields figured he was up on Purdy’s card and pumped his jab as Thompson desperately tried for a knockout for the rest of the eighth and throughout the last two rounds. When the final bell rang, Purdy hoisted up Fields’s hand as the NBA’s new welterweight world champion.
The Illinois commission’s investigation suggested one solution to prevent future riots. It had nothing to do with increasing security personnel, formulating an evacuation plan, or backing up the electricity. Instead, the commission made the baffling proposal to ban bouts between fighters of different races. Since all of the champions at the time were white, it effectively meant only white fighters could challenge for any of the titles in the significant fight town of Chicago.
Fields went on to win the undisputed welterweight championship against Joe Dundee that July in Detroit. After ten non-title fights, Fields defended his crown against Thompson on May 9, 1930, also in Detroit. Thompson, who like Fields would grab the championship twice, won a far less eventful third fight.
Years later, Fields and Thompson discussed the wild night they both had to hide under the canvas. “I asked Thompson later how he felt when the lights went off while we were fighting,” Fields said. “I was trying to get a good shot at your chin when they were out,” Thompson joked, “because I couldn’t nail you when they were on!”
Fields and Thompson remain forever linked by their eventful trilogy and by the unforgettable night when chaos reigned in the Chicago Coliseum. –David Harazduk
This is my favorite shot of Young Jack Thompson, with the plaid trunks.
Sonny Liston immediately after his knockout victory over Albert Westphal. You can see Westphal stretched out on the canvas in the background, and Liston standing there with an ice cold, emotionless, blank stare on his face. One of the most intense boxing photos ever taken.
Sonny Liston was one intimidating man, he could give you a look that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, it was almost like he was looking right through you. He had most guys beat before they even entered the ring.
Sonny Liston was found dead in a house filled with silence, the kind of silence that makes people talk. Some said drugs. Others said he was killed. A few insisted he knew something he should not have known. His death was a mystery, but the truth is his life had been one long chase away from a past that never let go.
Long before the world called him heavyweight champion, Liston was an inmate with hands that frightened prison guards. He learned to fight behind bars, in a place where survival mattered more than technique. He came from beatings, poverty, and a childhood that felt like punishment. By the time he stepped into a real ring, he already understood violence better than anyone cheering in the crowd.
Keep him in the same position, frozen in time, then move the camera around to the left like they do in the matrix movie keeping the same facial expression.
When Sonny Liston reached the top of the heavyweight division, he did it with a presence that made men look away. He did not smile for cameras. He did not charm reporters. He walked to the ring like a man who had seen darker places than any opponent could imagine. He won the world title with brutal certainty, yet the cheers never matched the achievement. America resisted him. He did not look like the hero they wanted.
Even as champion, he carried resentment and suspicion from every corner. Fans doubted him. Writers mocked him. Promoters tiptoed around him. He was a champion without a country behind him, a man who collected belts but never affection.
And when he fell, the whispers grew even louder. Deals in back rooms. Fights that people questioned. A career slowly slipping into shadows. Then came that final night in that locked house, and the questions that still have no answer.
Sonny Liston could knock out anyone brave enough to stand in front of him, but he could never escape what shaped him long before he ever put on gloves. His story is not just how he fought, it is how he lived, always looking over his shoulder at a past that never stopped following him.
Sonny Liston, one of the most the most feared fighters in history. The thing about Sonny Liston, he wasn't just a brutal puncher, he was a phenomenal technical boxer, he had the greatest jab in heavyweight history. Though he was known for his power and intimidation, and many of his victories came through quick finishes, though he was also a technical boxer who took knockouts where they came. He had these huge hands, the biggest hands ever seen on a heavyweight, and his jab was like a shotgun blast, he could knock you out with his jab alone, and he used that jab to set up his heavy artillery. Of course he was one of the most destructive punchers in boxing history, his power was absolute murder. His run to the title in the late 50s was truly frightening, he cleaned out the heavyweight division like the surface of the sun going through butter, the top ten was incinerated.
Cox's Corner
The One Heavyweight You Would Not Want To Face
By: Monte Cox
Jan 1, 2007
Imagine you are a heavyweight contender of the year 2007. You have been thrown into a time machine to face a feared, legendary heavyweight fighter of the past. You don’t know who your famous opponent will be until you step into the ring. Ask yourself, “Who is the one fighter that I would least like to have staring at me from across the ring?”
You don’t worry about your opponent being Muhammad Ali. You know you are likely going to lose if it is Ali, but you don’t fear him. Muhammad’s opponents didn’t enter the ring with their knees shaking. An opponent of Ali might know that they are going to have trouble catching him because of his amazing speed and athleticism, but there is no fear of what Ali might do to them, no fear of his Sunday punch. The same goes for Larry Holmes. No. The most feared heavyweights in boxing history are the ones to worry about, the men that truly struck terror in the heart of their opponent’s.
George Foreman is one of those men. Against George however, one can always hope to survive the first few rounds and come on in the late rounds. One can hope that. It may be a false hope, but such a thought might give encouragement. George in his prime was a terror but he faded after five or six rounds. One could at least be comforted by the idea that if one can survive those early rounds there is a chance to come on to win later in the fight.
Some of today’s behemoths might be under the mistaken impression that Joe Louis was “too small”, although the wise man would worry about his combined boxing skill, accuracy and shocking punching power. To a man who weighs 230-250 plus pounds he might think that such a weight advantage would aid him in surviving Louis punches. It did not help the 250 pound Buddy Baer or 260 pound Primo Carnera survive Louis bone crushing hammers, but the modern heavyweight can at least believe he is the bigger man come fight night.
Mike Tyson would be wearisome to today's heavyweights, but like Foreman one could hope to take Tyson past the first few rounds and frustrate him. Keep Tyson at bay, box him, stay out of harms way the first few rounds then fight back. One would be able to enter the ring with a clear battle plan to combat Tyson. If you can discourage Tyson then you might beat him.
The heavyweight one truly would not want to face, who was truly intimidating and had size, strength, power and the most menacing countenance of any fighter was Sonny Liston. Sonny’s frightening scowl had most of his opponents beaten before the opening bell. Muhammad Ali called Sonny “the scariest” opponent he ever met in a ring. Not only was Liston a monster in physical appearance but also in temperament. Sonny was an enforcer with the mob, he didn’t fear any man. He beat the hell out of police officers, he didn’t care. He was one mean mutha. When Sonny gazed at you with his baleful glare he literally wanted to burn a hole right through you. His opponent’s knew it too. Heavyweight contender Henry Cooper wanted no part of Liston. His manager said, “When we saw Sonny Liston coming, we’d cross to the other side of the street.”
Sonny Liston was taller than Mike Tyson at around 6’1” and he weighed 212-220 pounds in his prime. There is no question that if he were fighting today he would be about the same weight as fighters like Hasim Rahman or Oliver McCall both who were about the same height and weighed around 230 pounds. Liston’s incredible reach of 84” is 3 longer than that of Wladimir Klitschko and is tied with that of Lennox Lewis. His fists were the size of ham hocks measuring 15”. Thick, massive and menacing are the words that describe how big, powerful and intimidating a man that was Sonny Liston.
Mike Tyson once stated that the one fighter in history he would least like to have met in the ring was Sonny Liston. Liston was an intimidator of intimidator’s, a man among men, and a bull among bullies. Liston was a tough guy, a killer that nobody wanted to fight.
There was a good reason that Sonny Liston was feared. He was a pulverizing puncher. During his prime years between 1958 and 1963, he scored 21 straight victories with 18 knockouts, 13 of those were 3 rounds or less. In one of the three bouts that lasted the distance his opponent had to climb back into the ring at the final bell to beat the count. Not only did Sonny possess crushing power, but was also a good, solid technician in the ring. Sonny could beat you inside and outside, that is a short list of great fighters who can make that claim.
Liston had one of the best jabs in boxing history and was a crippling body puncher. Liston’s arms were massively muscled, and his left jab hit with true shock power. Even when off target, which it rarely was, it exploded with enough force to knock an opponent off balance so that he had to recover and set up again before he could attack. His left hook was devastating. It never occurred to Liston that he might lose a fight. He did not enter the ring hoping to outpoint his rival and knock him out only if opportunity presented itself as is the case with some fighters. His aim was destruction. He smashed you with the jab, tore your head off with the uppercut and hammered you to the canvas with his lethal left hook and looked awesome while doing it.
Unlike George Foreman or Mike Tyson, Sonny didn’t get tired or frustrated after the first few rounds if his opponent’s survived his initial onslaught. Sonny had proven stamina to fight 12 hard rounds. Surviving against Sonny just meant a prolonged beating.
Sonny’s reputation has suffered somewhat because of his controversial matches against Muhammad Ali. Certainly the type of fighter that gives Sonny the most trouble is the quick and clever boxer who can move and stay away as much as possible. This would not be the case with today’s lumbering giants. Today’s big men would be targets for Liston’s shotgun jab coming behind a reach among the best in heavyweight history. Smashing them with his jab the ever aggressive Liston moves inside and pounds the bodies of the big men with powerful lefts and rights and then switches to the head with jolting uppercuts and crushing hooks. Liston would be the invincible destroyer, annihilating his way through the heavyweight division if he were fighting today.
As the modern heavyweight exits his time machine and enters the ring he sees, to his horror, none other than Sonny Liston glaring at him like a hungry lion waiting to devour his next meal. The modern heavyweight enters the ring to face the most evil stare down he has ever encountered. His knees begin to fail him. He returns to his corner unsure of himself. The bell rings. A feeling of impending dooms sickens him. Sonny Liston is coming.
I'm not joking when I say Sonny Liston had the biggest hands ever seen on a fighter. Now you can just imagine what it felt like being hit by him.
Sports Illustrated Vault | SI.com home
O Unlucky Man
This SI Classic, reprinted from February 1991, tells the tale of Sonny Liston, upon whom fortune never smiled, even when he was the heavyweight champ
SOMEDAY THEY'RE GONNA WRITE A BLUES SONG JUST FOR FIGHTERS. IT'LL BE FOR SLOW GUITAR, SOFT TRUMPET AND A BELL.
-CHARLES (SONNY) LISTON
PART I
It was already dark when she stepped from the car in front of her house on Ottawa Drive, but she could see her pink Cadillac convertible and Sonny's new black Fleetwood under the carport in the Las Vegas night.
Where could Charles be? Geraldine Liston was thinking.
All through the house the lamps were lit, even around the swimming pool out back. The windows were open too, and the doors were unlocked. It was quiet except for the television playing in the room at the top of the stairs.
By 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 5, 1971, Geraldine had not spoken to her husband for 12 days. On Christmas Eve she had called him from St. Louis after flying there with the couple's seven-year-old son, Danielle, to spend the holidays with her mother. Geraldine had tried to phone him a number of times, but no one had answered at the house. At first she figured he might be off roistering in Los Angeles, and so she didn't pay his absence any mind until the evening of Dec. 28. That night, in a fitful sleep, she had a vision so unsettling that it awakened her and sent her to her mother's room.
"I had the worst dream," Geraldine says. "He was falling in the shower and calling my name, 'Gerry, Gerry!" I can still see it. So I got real nervous. I told my mother, 'I think something's wrong.' But mother said, 'Oh, don't think that. He's all right.' "
In fact, Sonny Liston had not been right for a long time, and not only for the strange dual life he had been leading—spells of choirboy abstinence squeezed between binges of drinking and drugs—but also for the rudderless, unfocused existence he had been reduced to. Jobless and nearly broke, Liston had been moving through the murkier waters of Las Vegas's drug culture. "I knew he was hanging around with the wrong people," one of his closest friends, gambler Lem Banker, says. "And I knew he was in desperate need of cash."
So, as the end of 1970 neared. Liston had reached that final twist in the cord. Eight years earlier he was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world—a 6'1½", 215-pound hulk with upper arms like picnic roasts, two magnificent 14-inch fists and a scowl that he mounted for display on a round, otherwise impassive face. He had won the title by flattening Floyd Patterson with two punches, left hooks down and up, in the first round of their fight on Sept. 25, 1962; 10 months later he had beaten Patterson again in one round.
Liston did not sidestep his way to the title; the pirouette was not among his moves. He reached Patterson by walking through the entire heavyweight division, leaving large bodies sprawled behind him: Wayne Bethea, Mike DeJohn, Cleveland Williams, Nino Valdes, Roy Harris, Zora Folley et al. Finally, a terrified Patterson waited for him, already fumbling with a getaway disguise, dark glasses and a beard.
Before the referee could count to 10 in that first fight, Liston had become a mural-sized American myth, a larger-than-life John Henry with two hammers, an 84-inch reach, 23 knockouts (in 34 bouts) and 19 arrests. Tales of his exploits spun well with the fight crowd over beers in dark-wood bars. There was the one about how he used to lift up the front end of automobiles. And one about how he caught birds with his bare hands. And another about how he hit speed bags so hard that he tore them from their anchors and ripped into heavy bags until they burst, spilling their stuffing.
"Nobody hit those bags like Sonny," says 80-year-old Johnny Tocco, one of Liston's first and last trainers. "He tore bags up. He could turn that hook, put everything behind it. Turn and snap. Bam! Why, he could knock you across the room with a jab. I saw him knock guys out with a straight jab. Bam! In the ring, Sonny was a killing machine."
Perhaps no prizefighter had ever brought to the ring so palpable an aura of menace. Liston hammered out danger, he hammered out a warning. There was his fearsome physical presence; then there was his heavy psychic baggage, his prison record and assorted shadows from the underworld. Police in three cities virtually drove him out of town; in one of them, St. Louis, a police captain warned Liston that he would wind up dead in an alley if he stayed.
In public Liston was often surly, hostile and uncommunicative, and so he fed one of the most disconcerting of white stereotypes, that of the ignorant, angry, morally reckless black, roaming loose, with bad intentions, in white society. I le became a target for racial typing in days when white commentators could still utter undisguised slurs without Ted Koppel asking them to, please, explain themselves. In the papers, Liston was referred to as "a gorilla," "a latter day caveman" and "a jungle beast." His fights against Patterson were seen as morality plays, Patterson was Good, Liston was Evil.
On July 24, 1963, two days after the second Patterson fight, Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray wrote: "The central fact...is that the world of sport now realizes it has gotten Charles (Sonny) Liston to keep. It is like finding a live bat on a string under your Christmas tree."
The NAACP had pleaded with Patterson not to fight Liston. Indeed, many blacks watched Liston's spectacular rise with something approaching horror, as if he were climbing the Empire State Building with Fay Wray in his hands. Here suddenly was a baleful black felon holding the most prestigious title in sports. This was at the precise moment in history when a young civil rights movement was emerging, a movement searching for role models. Television was showing freedom marchers being swept by fire hoses and attacked by police dogs. Yet, untouched by image makers, Liston steadfastly refused to speak any mind but his own. Asked by a young white reporter why he wasn't fighting for freedom in the South. Liston deadpanned, "I ain't got no dog-proof ass."
Four months after Liston won the title, Esquire thumbed its nose at its white readers with an unforgettable cover. On the front of its December 1963 issue, there was Liston glowering out from under a tasseled red-and-white Santa Claus hat, looking like the last man on earth America wanted to see coming down its chimney.
Now at the end of the Christmas holiday of 1970, that old black Santa was still missing in Las Vegas. Geraldine crossed through the carport of the Listons' split-level and headed for the patio out back. Danielle was at her side. Copies of the Las Vegas Sun had been gathering in the carport since Dec. 29. Geraldine opened the back door and stepped into the den. A foul odor hung in the air, permeating the house, and so she headed up the three steps toward the kitchen. "I thought he had left some food out, and it had spoiled," she says. •"But I didn't see anything."
Leaving the kitchen, she walked toward the staircase. She could hear the television from the master bedroom. Geraldine and Danielle climbed the stairs and looked through the bedroom door, to the smashed bench at the foot of the bed and the stone-cold figure lying with his back up against it, blood caked on the front of his swollen shirt and his head canted to one side. She gasped and said. "Sonny's dead."
"What's wrong?" Danielle asked.
She led the boy quickly down the stairs. ""Come on, baby," she said.
On the afternoon of Sept. 27, 1962, Liston boarded a flight from Chicago to Philadelphia. He settled into a seat next to his friend Jack McKinney, an amateur fighter who was then a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Daily News. This was the day Liston had been waiting forever since he first laced on boxing gloves, at the Missouri State Penitentiary a decade earlier. Forty-eight hours before, he had bludgeoned Patterson to become heavyweight champion. Denied a title fight for years, barred from New York City rings as an undesirable, largely ignored in his adopted Philadelphia, Liston suddenly felt vindicated, redeemed. In fact, before leaving the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago, he had received word from friends that the people of Philadelphia were awaiting his triumphant return with a ticker-tape parade.
The only disquieting tremor had been some other news out of Philadelphia, relayed to him by telephone from friends back home, that Daily News sports editor Larry Merchant had written a column confirming Liston's worst fears about how his triumph might be received. Those fears were based upon the ruckus that had preceded the fight. The New York Times's Arthur Daley had led the way: "Whether Patterson likes it or not, he's stuck with it. He's the knight in shining armor battling the forces of evil."
Now wrote Merchant: ""So it is true—in a fair fight between good and evil, evil must win.... A celebration for Philadelphia's first heavyweight champ is now in order. Emily Post probably would recommend a ticker-tape parade. For confetti we can use shredded warrants of arrest."
The darkest corner of Liston's personality was his lack of a sense of self. All the signs from his past pointed the same way and said the same thing: dead end. He was the 24th of 25 children fathered by Tobey Liston, a tenant cotton farmer who lived outside Forrest City, Ark. Tobey had two families, one with L5 children and the other with 10; Charles was born ninth to his mother, Helen. Outside the ring, he battled his whole life against writers who suggested that he was older than he claimed he was. "Maybe they think I'm so old because I never was really young," he said. Usually he would insist he was born on May 8, 1932, in the belly of the Great Depression, and he growled at reporters who dared to doubt him on this: "Anybody who says I'm not 30 is calling my momma a liar."
"Sonny was so sensitive on the issue of his age because he did not really know how old he was," says McKinney. "When guys would write that he was 32 going on 50, it had more of an impact on him than anybody realized. Sonny didn't know who he was. He was looking for an identity, and he thought that being the champion would give him one."
Now that moment had arrived. During the flight home, McKinney says. Liston practiced the speech he was going to give when the crowds greeted him at the airport. Says McKinney, who took notes during the flight: "He used me as a sort of test auditor, dry-running his ideas by me."
Liston was excited, emotional, eager to begin his reign. "There's a lot of things I'm gonna do." he told McKinney. "But one thing's very important: I want to reach my people. I want to reach them and tell them. "You don't have to worry about me disgracin' you. You won't have to worry about me stoppin' your progress.' I want to go to colored churches and colored neighborhoods. I know it was in the papers that the better class of colored people were hopin' I'd lose, even prayin' I'd lose, because they was afraid I wouldn't know how to act.... I remember one thing so clear about listenin' to Joe Louis fight on the radio when I was a kid. I never remember a fight the announcer didn't say about Louis, 'A great fighter and a credit to his race.' Remember? That used to make me feel real proud inside.
"I don't mean to be sayin' I'm just gonna be the champion of my own people," Liston continued. "It says now I'm the world's champion, and that's just the way it's gonna be. I want to go to a lot of places—like orphan homes and reform schools. I'll be able to say, 'Kid, I know it's tough for you, and it might even get tougher. But don't give up on the world. Good things can happen if you let them.' "
Liston was ready. As the plane rolled to a stop, he rose and walked to the door. McKinney was next to him. The staircase was wheeled to the door. Liston straightened his tie and his fedora. The door opened, and he stepped outside. There was no one there except for airline workers, a few reporters and photographers and a handful of p.r. men. "Other than those, no one," recalls McKinney. "I watched Sonny. His eyes swept the whole scene. He was extremely intelligent, and he understood immediately what it meant. His Adam's apple moved slightly. You could feel the deflation, see the look of hurt in his eyes. It was almost like a silent shudder went through him. He'd been deliberately snubbed.
"Philadelphia wanted nothing to do with him. Sonny felt, after he won the title, that the past was forgiven. It was going to be a whole new world. What happened in Philadelphia that day was a turning point in his life. He was still the bad guy. He was the personification of evil. And that's the way it was going to remain. He was devastated. I knew from that point on that the world would never get to know the Sonny that I knew."
On the way out of the airport after a brief press conference, Sonny turned to McKinney and said, "I think I'll get out tomorrow and do all the things I've always done. Walk down the block and buy the papers, stop in the drugstore, talk to the neighbors. Then I'll see how the real peoples feel. Maybe then I'll start to feelin' like a champion. You know, it's really a lot like an election, only in reverse. Here I'm already in office, but now I have to go out and start campaignin'."
That was a campaign that Liston could never win. He was to be forever cast in the role of devil's agent, and never more so than in his two stunning, ignominious losses to Cassius Clay, then beginning to be known as Muhammad Ali. In the history of boxing's heavyweight division, never has a fighter fallen faster, and further, than did Liston in the 15 months it look Ali to reduce him from being the man known as the fiercest alive to being the butt of jokes on TV talk shows.
"I think he died the day he was born," wrote Harold Conrad, who did publicity for four of Liston's fights. By the nearest reckoning, that birth would have been in a tenant's shack, 17 miles northwest of Forrest City and about 60 west of Memphis. Helen had met Tobey in Mississippi and had gone with him to Arkansas around the time of World War I. Young Charles grew up lost among all the callused hands and bare feet of innumerable siblings. "I had nothing when I was a kid but a lot of brothers and sisters, a helpless mother and a father who didn't care about any of us," Liston said. "We grew up with few clothes, no shoes, little to eat. My father worked me hard and whupped me hard."
Helen moved to St. Louis during World War II, and Charles, who was living with his father, set out north to find her when he was 13. Three years later he weighed 200 pounds, and he ruled his St. Louis neighborhood by force. At 18, he had already served time in a house of detention and was graduating to armed robbery. On Jan. 15, 1950, Liston was found guilty of two counts of larceny from a person and two counts of first-degree robbery. He served more than two years in the Missouri state pen in Jefferson City.
The prison's athletic director, Father Alois Stevens, a Catholic priest, first saw Liston when he came by the gym to join the boxing program. To Stevens, Liston looked like something out of Jane's Fighting Ships. "He was the most perfect specimen of manhood I had ever seen," Stevens recalls. "Powerful arms, big shoulders. Pretty soon he was knocking out everybody in the gym. His hands were so large! I couldn't believe it. They always had trouble with his gloves, trouble getting them on when his hands were wrapped."
In 1952 Liston was released on parole: he turned pro on Sept. 2, 1953, leveling Don Smith in the first round in St. Louis. Tocco met Liston when the fighter strolled into Tocco's gym in St. Louis. The trainer's first memory of Liston is fixed, mostly for the way he came in—slow and deliberate and alone, feeling his way along the edges of the gym, keeping to himself, saying nothing. That was classic Liston, casing every joint he walked into, checking for exits. As Liston began to work, Tocco saw the bird tracks up and down Liston's back, the enduring message from Tobey Liston.
"What are all those welts from?" Tobey asked him.
Said Liston, "I had bad dealin's with my father."
"He was a loner," Tocco says. "He wouldn't talk to nobody. He wouldn't go with nobody. He always came to the gym by himself. He always left by himself. The police knew he'd been in prison, and he'd be walking along, and they'd always stop him and search him. So he went through alleys all the time. He always went around things. I can still see him, either coming out of an alley or walking into one."