Saúl "Canelo" Álvarez scored a crushing 3rd round KO of James Kirkland at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas in 2015.
Canelo entered the fight with struggles in three of his last four bouts: Floyd Mayweather handed Canelo his first pro loss, and the budding Mexican star (understandably) had trouble with the styles of Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara. He sought a big performance a week after Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao delivered boxing's biggest event.
Kirkland had faced plenty of outside the ring issues for years, which included prison time and in-ring inactivity, but he'd only lost once as a pro. Still, Kirkland was being brought in as an opponent and was about a 6-to-1 underdog.
Prectably, Kirkland attacked and consistently out-threw Canelo. But he was wild and missed many of his shots while Canelo was far more precise with his own. In round 1, a right hand made Kirkland go to the deck. He wasn't that hurt and got up, but he was bleeding from the nose.
Round 2 was exciting as fought at a faster pace, but featured but no knockdowns. Then a counter right uppercut put Kirkland down again in round 3, and it unraveled for him from there. A right hand after the action resumed turned Kirkland about halfway around and ended the fight.
“Once I dropped him the first time I knew I had him,” Canelo said. “I’m ready for any rival. I don’t run away from anyone. I’m ready for anyone."
That Canelo Alvarez-James Kirkland knockout was legit scary, watch the impact from this punch in slow motion, it looked like Kirkland's soul was trying to leave his body.
''I was a poor boy who craved an education. Because of hard work and my aII-around athIetic abiIity, I got in a year at the CaIifornia AgricuIturaI CoIIege in Davis, CaIifornia. Then I won the nationaI and internationaI amateur heavyweight boxing championship. That was in 1935, just 10 years ago. In spite of my success as an amateur boxer, I certainIy never wouId have become a professionaI if I were not desperate for money then.
AIready I knew that boxing was the toughest of aII sports - the most punishing and tiring - even worse than rowing with a coIIege crew. You have to foIIow a persistent training grind to keep in shape at aII times. And you have to go aII-out every second that you're in the ring - aII-out with efforts in which there can be no rhythm because aII your movements are broken - on offense or defense.
When you taIk about a 'hungry' fighter, that was me during my first three years as a professionaI. If I hadn't been hungry and broke I never wouId have stuck with it. RareIy do you find a coIIege boxer who is as financiaIIy desperate as I was. Most of them find some way of ending the financiaI pressure - reIatives, friends or a sideIine Iike music, campus work, etc.
And those who are desperate enough to try to cash in on unusuaI athIetic abiIity in the ring seIdom get far because they start thinking about the gambIe they are taking with their features and their brain. They think about the risk they run of getting disfigured or of becoming punchy during the training grind or in bouts. Then they are throught - too nervous and cautious to fight effectiveIy.
Because of my desperation for money, I became tough mentaIIy as weII as physicaIIy. I eIiminated such thoughts.''
Interesting story about Lou Nova, he was nicknamed "The Alameda Assassin", but he had another nickname, "The Cosmic Puncher", and it's fascinating how he earned that second nickname.
Lou Nova was a 1930s and 40s heavyweight contender who defeated Max Baer and Tommy Farr, but lost to heavyweight champion Joe Louis. For a time, Nova was advised by "Oom the Omnipotent," a scam artist yogi who said his real name was Pierre Bernard, and who convinced Nova that the fighter had a "cosmic punch." But trainer Ray Arcel saw right through Oom's nonsense from the beginning.
Oom reportedly studied yoga in the 1800s and incorporated the art into demonstrations. For instance, Oom would go into "trances" that allowed him to withstand various painful pokes and prods. He also later studied hypnotism and the occult. More importantly, observant reporters noted Oom was a businessman who owned a bank, a realty company, a baseball park, a private zoo and chunks of land.
Through his travels, Oom was accused of essentially using his knowledge of yoga and mysticism to take advantage of younger people, and especially women. For example, a teenage woman accused Oom of keeping her younger sister at his New York apartment, which Oom called his "Sanskrit College."
In the lead-up to Lou Nova's 1939 fight against former heavyweight champion Max Baer, Nova got in contact with Oom, who called himself, "the reincarnation of the Supreme Being, Oom, the Omnipotent." Nova was taught several actual yoga poses and techniques that seemed to help his overall condition, and he benefited from Oom's private zoo, like riding Oom's elephants and having toucans and leopards around for photographers during fight promotions.
However, along with the benefits came Oom's wacky ideas. First, Oom convinced Nova he could harness otherworldly power and deliver a "cosmic punch." Second, Nova could flex his abdominal muscles in such a way that he would be impervious to body punches. Third, a "dynamic stance," which looked more like an old-timey bare knuckle fighter stance, would help Nova gain enough power to smash his hand through a wall.
"I told him he couldn't even knock over an old man like me with that stance," said Ray Arcel, "and to get busy with his gym work."
Prior to working with Nova, Arcel either trained or helped train fighters like Jack "Kid" Berg, Benny Leonard, Abe Goldstein, Ceferino Garcia and Henry Armstrong. But in the 1930s and 40s, Arcel gained even more fame as the trainer of several Joe Louis victims. As a trainer, Arcel wound up carting off so many of his fighters who got knocked out by Joe Louis—from Jack Sharkey, Paulino Uzcudun and James Braddock, to Johnny Paychek and Nathan Mann—that newspaper writers began calling Arcel "the meat wagon." And Arcel knew better than to trust Oom.
Nova defeated Max Baer in their first fight, but had a tough time with the aging former champion. Nova was then roughed up by "Two Ton" Tony Galento before sending Baer into retirement and earning a shot at champion Joe Louis. That was around when Arcel joined Nova's camp.
"The first day I joined Nova I walked into the gym and there he was in a John L. Sullivan stance," joked Arcel. I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. He informed me that he was in the dynamic stance. Nova got to believing all this stuff before he was through and a lot of other people were half convinced."
Unfortunately for Nova, Joe Louis didn't buy into the magic stuff either and jolted Nova with a right hand that knocked him down, and then stopped him moments later in round 6 at the Polo Grounds in New York, 1941.
"I saw Joe [Louis] kind of squinting out of the corner of his eyes at Lou and waiting to see if that cosmic punch would materialize," laughed Arcel. "Nova was still winding up for that cosmic punch when Louis let him have it."
Nova regained enough form to have a good year in 1944, but never quite reached top contender status again. Arcel would lament that he felt Nova was easily taken advantage of and perhaps too eager to believe Oom at a critical time during his career, though Nova basically moved on and quickly forgot the parlor tricks.
In 1946, Oom picked up a wad of money to finance his international travels and shenanigans by returning to an old trick of his: a big divorce settlement. In stark contrast to his high profile life as an all-knowing swinger, Pierre Bernard the businessman and trickery artist died quietly in French hospital in 1955.
Pierre Bernard aka "Oom the Omnipotent."
Lou Nova trains using the methods of "Oom the Omnipotent."
Lou Nova really did have a good punch, he stopped Max Baer twice, he was a good fighter up until the point he met "Two Ton" Tony Galento, that fight changed Nova forever. Galento was known to be a dirty fighter, he would use thumbs, elbows, you name it, and Galento is alleged to have fought dirty against Nova, thumbing him in the eyes, almost blinding him, and really roughed Nova up. This is an interview conducted with Lou Nova by the Los Angeles Times in 1988.
Jab From the Past : With New Fight Facing Him, Lou Nova Focuses On the Many Memories of a Memorable Boxing Career
By EARL GUSTKEY
July 24, 1988 12 AM PT
LAS VEGAS — The old heavyweight pointed to the photographs on the wall, to the framed black-and-white of his 1941 bout against Joe Louis, and to another showing his knockout of Max Baer.
“Max Baer . . . ,” Lou Nova said quietly. “Max Baer could hit harder than anyone. Harder than Sonny Liston. . . . Harder than Tyson? Oh, my yes. Listen, Mike Tyson isn’t a great fighter yet. He will be, but he isn’t yet.”
In the late 1930s, the 6-foot 2-inch, 200-pound Nova came out of Alameda, Calif., with a crackling left jab, a knockout right hand and a dream that he would be the man to take Louis’ heavyweight championship.
Lou Nova thinks a lot about the old days. Though a fit-looking 75, he is battling cancer.
James J. Corbett, like Nova, was a heavyweight from the Bay Area. In 1892, Corbett dethroned John L. Sullivan for the heavyweight championship.
“I can’t get over the coincidence between Corbett and me,” Nova said. “We’re both from the same area, we both represented the San Francisco Olympic Club, we were both world amateur boxing champions, we were both prominent pro heavyweights, we both became Broadway actors, we were the only two boxers ever admitted to the Lamb’s Club (for actors) in New York, and he died of cancer.
“Now I’ve got it. How do you like that? Makes you wonder . . . “
The morning sun was warming the sun porch in Nova’s Las Vegas mobile home. The memories came tumbling down.
Of the 20 men Louis defeated during his championship years, Nova is one of the more interesting ones.
Born in Hollywood, Nova was the son of a symphony pianist. In the mid-1930s, he was a standout football player and javelin thrower at Alameda High School. He was recruited to play football at UC Davis, where he was, for one season, a single-wing tailback.
“If pro football players made any money in those days, I probably would have wound up playing pro ball,” he said.
Of course, no one made much money in those days. Nova recalled a visit to a downtown Oakland boxing gym.
“Amateur boxing was very big in those days,” he said. “Every big city in the country had thousands of amateur boxers. So I was a good high school athlete, and I figured I could box, too. So one day I walked into Duffy’s Gym, around 1935. I was wearing cardboard soles in my shoes.
“Duffy’s Gym was in the seedy part of town. The trainer there, Harold Broom, also owned a bar in the neighborhood, and the boxers who used the gym could always get a free bowl of hot stew at the bar. I lived on that stew.
“Well, I learned pretty quickly. I was the national (and world) amateur heavyweight champion in 1935. Max Baer’s first manager, Ham Lorimar, was around the gym a lot, and he became my first manager, until he sold my contract for $10,000 to Ray Carlin.”
Nova turned pro in 1936 and won his first 20 bouts, until losing a decision to Maxie Rosenbloom at Hollywood Legion Stadium in 1938. Nova then easily decisioned Britain’s Tommy Farr before achieving his breakthrough victory, an 11th-round knockout of Baer in 1939.
“After that, I knew I’d eventually get my shot at Louis,” Nova recalled. “So I signed for a fight with Tony Galento, with the winner guaranteed a shot at Louis. The Galento fight ruined me.”
Nova fought Galento in Philadelphia. As The Times’ Jim Murray described it decades later, “Galento should have been arrested that night for practicing surgery without a license.”
The referee finally stopped it, in the 14th, and declared Galento the winner. The Associated Press reporter described the referee’s shirt as blood-soaked “from collar to waist.”
The reporter also called it “the most brutal bout of modern times.”
“I was never the same after that fight,” Nova said.
“See, my trainer then was Ray Arcel. Ray’s still around. People think he’s some kind of boxing genius. Let me tell you something. Ray Arcel didn’t know anything about boxing. He’d never been a fighter. I never forgave him for letting that fight go that long.
“I’d never taken a beating before. I always assumed when you’re taking a bad beating, your corner stops it. Mine didn’t.
“They put me in the hospital for three days. To this day, I have no memory of anything in that fight after the third round, including the three days in the hospital.
“Physically, I bounced back. But mentally, never. I subconsciously promised myself never to let myself take that kind of beating again. I finally got my chance with Louis. But I wasn’t the same fighter. I was cautious, very conservative. I really believe I’d have beaten him had I never fought Galento.
“Years later, people who knew Louis told me that Louis was afraid of me. He knew I’d beaten Tommy Farr worse than he did, but that it really bothered him that I’d knocked out Baer twice. And he knew that I had the best left jab in boxing in those days.
“Looking back on it all, I really believe I was the worst-managed fighter in history. I had ability, I’d shown that. All my life, I’ve wondered how far I’d have gone if my corner had stopped that Galento fight early.”
Arcel, who turns 89 next month, seemed surprised when told Nova blamed him for the length of his beating by Galento.
“I’m sorry Lou feels that way,” Arcel said. “I was his trainer, but I had no authority to stop the fight. Ray Carlin was his manager, he was in the corner, and he was in complete charge.
“Lou Nova was a courageous and talented heavyweight. He had talent. At his best, he would’ve given any heavyweight in any era a lot of trouble.”
Louis-Nova, on Sept. 29, 1941, was witnessed by 56,549 at New York’s Polo Grounds. It isn’t on anyone’s best-remembered list. Nova, boxing cautiously, largely avoided contact with the stalking Louis, until Louis knocked him out with one right hand in the sixth round.
After expenses, the 27 year old returned to Southern California with a check for $125,000, wondering how best to invest it.
“This banker was recommended to me, a guy named Davis,” Nova recalled, starting to laugh. “I’d found this piece of property in the farm country of the San Fernando Valley, near Van Nuys. It was a four-bedroom, three-bath house on 6 acres, with fruit orchards. It also had a guest house and stables. Remember, this is 1941.
“It was on the market for $25,000. So I asked this Davis guy for advice, and he said: ‘Nova, you go ahead and buy that place if you really want it, but don’t sink a lot of money into it, because that farmland out there (in the San Fernando Valley) will never be worth anything. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll put that money in long-term, 3% bonds.’
“I bought the place anyway. And when my wife divorced me in 1954, she wound up with the whole thing anyway.”
Nova broke up, laughing heartily at the story.
Nova and Louis later became friends. Louis also lived in Las Vegas in his last years, working for Caesars Palace. He died in 1981.
“Joe and I became closer as we got older,” he said. “I saw him maybe once a week in his last years.”
After he left boxing in 1944, Nova took up acting. He appeared on stage in “Guys & Dolls” and still performs, when he’s feeling well, as a stand-up comic. In the 1960s, Nova was selling a padded stool-like exercise device that enabled people to easily stand on their heads.
Nova has always had a thing about standing on his head. For 40 years, he has been convinced that headstanding would cure baldness, face wrinkles, hypertension, double chins, disk trouble, halitosis, sinus trouble, deafness, hemophilia, constipation and tooth decay.
He had a contraption he called the Yogi Nova. He pointed to one in his bedroom. It had aluminum legs, and raised, padded arms where the shoulders rested.
“I sold thousands of those things, for $20 apiece,” he said.
Nova said he learned of the wonders of headstanding decades ago from a yoga instructor, Dr. Pierre Bernard, also known as “Oom the Omnipotent.”
“Walk with your head up and your heart has to work too hard pumping all that blood to it,” he said.
As Nova has always said after fighting Galento, if he’s an expert on anything, it’s blood.
Lou Nova's fight with Tony Galento, this fight gained a reputation as one of the dirtiest and bloodiest in boxing history. Galento is alleged to have used an array of illegal tactics, including head-butting, heeling, elbowing, and back-handing, in addition to eye-gouging with his thumbs. This is the only actual footage of the fight, a brief clip at the end of this video.
These are the only two photos I can find from the actual Lou Nova-Tony Galento fight itself. One thing about Lou Nova, he had heart, he took one severe thumping from Tony Galento, who used every dirty trick in the book, before succumbing in the 14th round.
Like I said before, Lou Nova could punch. In his first fight with Max Baer, the left side of Baer's face was battered out of shape after ten rounds of the most excruciating fighting he had ever undergone, and was bleeding so severely from a severe laceration of the lower lip he could hardly breathe when the referee stopped the bout. Nova beat Baer again by TKO in 1941.
Hasim Rahman sporting a baseball-sized Haematoma sustained during his showdown with Evander Holyfield in 2002. The swelling was believed to be the result of an accidental clash of heads.
The injury was significant enough for referee, Tony Orlando call an end to the contest midway through the 8th round and Holyfield was awarded the win by split technical decision.
Holyfield, who was 39 at the time showed that he was still among the elite, landing 44% of punches thrown before the fight was stopped. It should be noted that Holyfield was notorious for headbutting his opponents, he would lean in really close while infighting and it often resulted in a clash of heads, it's the reason Mike Tyson but his ear off, Tyson had become furious that Holyfield was getting away with headbutting him.
"If there was something I would have done differently. I think of all the running I did and wonder if it was necessary. I mean I ran a lot, which was always difficult with my bad foot. Well one day I run into Jake LaMotta, and I ask him how much he ran. He looks at me and says, 'Vito, I never ran a f...... day in my life."
Comments
The brutal power of Canelo.
Saúl "Canelo" Álvarez scored a crushing 3rd round KO of James Kirkland at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas in 2015.
Canelo entered the fight with struggles in three of his last four bouts: Floyd Mayweather handed Canelo his first pro loss, and the budding Mexican star (understandably) had trouble with the styles of Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara. He sought a big performance a week after Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao delivered boxing's biggest event.
Kirkland had faced plenty of outside the ring issues for years, which included prison time and in-ring inactivity, but he'd only lost once as a pro. Still, Kirkland was being brought in as an opponent and was about a 6-to-1 underdog.
Prectably, Kirkland attacked and consistently out-threw Canelo. But he was wild and missed many of his shots while Canelo was far more precise with his own. In round 1, a right hand made Kirkland go to the deck. He wasn't that hurt and got up, but he was bleeding from the nose.
Round 2 was exciting as fought at a faster pace, but featured but no knockdowns. Then a counter right uppercut put Kirkland down again in round 3, and it unraveled for him from there. A right hand after the action resumed turned Kirkland about halfway around and ended the fight.
“Once I dropped him the first time I knew I had him,” Canelo said. “I’m ready for any rival. I don’t run away from anyone. I’m ready for anyone."
That Canelo Alvarez-James Kirkland knockout was legit scary, watch the impact from this punch in slow motion, it looked like Kirkland's soul was trying to leave his body.
Both Willie Pep and Sugar Ray Robinson put up absurd records in their primes, numbers that almost don’t even look real.
Willie Pep before Sandy Saddler in 1948: 134-1-1
Sugar Ray Robinson before Randolph Turpin in 1951: 129-1-2
''I was a poor boy who craved an education. Because of hard work and my aII-around athIetic abiIity, I got in a year at the CaIifornia AgricuIturaI CoIIege in Davis, CaIifornia. Then I won the nationaI and internationaI amateur heavyweight boxing championship. That was in 1935, just 10 years ago. In spite of my success as an amateur boxer, I certainIy never wouId have become a professionaI if I were not desperate for money then.
AIready I knew that boxing was the toughest of aII sports - the most punishing and tiring - even worse than rowing with a coIIege crew. You have to foIIow a persistent training grind to keep in shape at aII times. And you have to go aII-out every second that you're in the ring - aII-out with efforts in which there can be no rhythm because aII your movements are broken - on offense or defense.
When you taIk about a 'hungry' fighter, that was me during my first three years as a professionaI. If I hadn't been hungry and broke I never wouId have stuck with it. RareIy do you find a coIIege boxer who is as financiaIIy desperate as I was. Most of them find some way of ending the financiaI pressure - reIatives, friends or a sideIine Iike music, campus work, etc.
And those who are desperate enough to try to cash in on unusuaI athIetic abiIity in the ring seIdom get far because they start thinking about the gambIe they are taking with their features and their brain. They think about the risk they run of getting disfigured or of becoming punchy during the training grind or in bouts. Then they are throught - too nervous and cautious to fight effectiveIy.
Because of my desperation for money, I became tough mentaIIy as weII as physicaIIy. I eIiminated such thoughts.''
Interesting story about Lou Nova, he was nicknamed "The Alameda Assassin", but he had another nickname, "The Cosmic Puncher", and it's fascinating how he earned that second nickname.
Lou Nova was a 1930s and 40s heavyweight contender who defeated Max Baer and Tommy Farr, but lost to heavyweight champion Joe Louis. For a time, Nova was advised by "Oom the Omnipotent," a scam artist yogi who said his real name was Pierre Bernard, and who convinced Nova that the fighter had a "cosmic punch." But trainer Ray Arcel saw right through Oom's nonsense from the beginning.
Oom reportedly studied yoga in the 1800s and incorporated the art into demonstrations. For instance, Oom would go into "trances" that allowed him to withstand various painful pokes and prods. He also later studied hypnotism and the occult. More importantly, observant reporters noted Oom was a businessman who owned a bank, a realty company, a baseball park, a private zoo and chunks of land.
Through his travels, Oom was accused of essentially using his knowledge of yoga and mysticism to take advantage of younger people, and especially women. For example, a teenage woman accused Oom of keeping her younger sister at his New York apartment, which Oom called his "Sanskrit College."
In the lead-up to Lou Nova's 1939 fight against former heavyweight champion Max Baer, Nova got in contact with Oom, who called himself, "the reincarnation of the Supreme Being, Oom, the Omnipotent." Nova was taught several actual yoga poses and techniques that seemed to help his overall condition, and he benefited from Oom's private zoo, like riding Oom's elephants and having toucans and leopards around for photographers during fight promotions.
However, along with the benefits came Oom's wacky ideas. First, Oom convinced Nova he could harness otherworldly power and deliver a "cosmic punch." Second, Nova could flex his abdominal muscles in such a way that he would be impervious to body punches. Third, a "dynamic stance," which looked more like an old-timey bare knuckle fighter stance, would help Nova gain enough power to smash his hand through a wall.
"I told him he couldn't even knock over an old man like me with that stance," said Ray Arcel, "and to get busy with his gym work."
Prior to working with Nova, Arcel either trained or helped train fighters like Jack "Kid" Berg, Benny Leonard, Abe Goldstein, Ceferino Garcia and Henry Armstrong. But in the 1930s and 40s, Arcel gained even more fame as the trainer of several Joe Louis victims. As a trainer, Arcel wound up carting off so many of his fighters who got knocked out by Joe Louis—from Jack Sharkey, Paulino Uzcudun and James Braddock, to Johnny Paychek and Nathan Mann—that newspaper writers began calling Arcel "the meat wagon." And Arcel knew better than to trust Oom.
Nova defeated Max Baer in their first fight, but had a tough time with the aging former champion. Nova was then roughed up by "Two Ton" Tony Galento before sending Baer into retirement and earning a shot at champion Joe Louis. That was around when Arcel joined Nova's camp.
"The first day I joined Nova I walked into the gym and there he was in a John L. Sullivan stance," joked Arcel. I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. He informed me that he was in the dynamic stance. Nova got to believing all this stuff before he was through and a lot of other people were half convinced."
Unfortunately for Nova, Joe Louis didn't buy into the magic stuff either and jolted Nova with a right hand that knocked him down, and then stopped him moments later in round 6 at the Polo Grounds in New York, 1941.
"I saw Joe [Louis] kind of squinting out of the corner of his eyes at Lou and waiting to see if that cosmic punch would materialize," laughed Arcel. "Nova was still winding up for that cosmic punch when Louis let him have it."
Nova regained enough form to have a good year in 1944, but never quite reached top contender status again. Arcel would lament that he felt Nova was easily taken advantage of and perhaps too eager to believe Oom at a critical time during his career, though Nova basically moved on and quickly forgot the parlor tricks.
In 1946, Oom picked up a wad of money to finance his international travels and shenanigans by returning to an old trick of his: a big divorce settlement. In stark contrast to his high profile life as an all-knowing swinger, Pierre Bernard the businessman and trickery artist died quietly in French hospital in 1955.
Pierre Bernard aka "Oom the Omnipotent."
Lou Nova trains using the methods of "Oom the Omnipotent."
I can't help but chuckle every time I see this photo of Lou Nova riding an Elephant owned by "Oom the Omnipotent."
Lou Nova really did have a good punch, he stopped Max Baer twice, he was a good fighter up until the point he met "Two Ton" Tony Galento, that fight changed Nova forever. Galento was known to be a dirty fighter, he would use thumbs, elbows, you name it, and Galento is alleged to have fought dirty against Nova, thumbing him in the eyes, almost blinding him, and really roughed Nova up. This is an interview conducted with Lou Nova by the Los Angeles Times in 1988.
Jab From the Past : With New Fight Facing Him, Lou Nova Focuses On the Many Memories of a Memorable Boxing Career
By EARL GUSTKEY
July 24, 1988 12 AM PT
LAS VEGAS — The old heavyweight pointed to the photographs on the wall, to the framed black-and-white of his 1941 bout against Joe Louis, and to another showing his knockout of Max Baer.
“Max Baer . . . ,” Lou Nova said quietly. “Max Baer could hit harder than anyone. Harder than Sonny Liston. . . . Harder than Tyson? Oh, my yes. Listen, Mike Tyson isn’t a great fighter yet. He will be, but he isn’t yet.”
In the late 1930s, the 6-foot 2-inch, 200-pound Nova came out of Alameda, Calif., with a crackling left jab, a knockout right hand and a dream that he would be the man to take Louis’ heavyweight championship.
Lou Nova thinks a lot about the old days. Though a fit-looking 75, he is battling cancer.
James J. Corbett, like Nova, was a heavyweight from the Bay Area. In 1892, Corbett dethroned John L. Sullivan for the heavyweight championship.
“I can’t get over the coincidence between Corbett and me,” Nova said. “We’re both from the same area, we both represented the San Francisco Olympic Club, we were both world amateur boxing champions, we were both prominent pro heavyweights, we both became Broadway actors, we were the only two boxers ever admitted to the Lamb’s Club (for actors) in New York, and he died of cancer.
“Now I’ve got it. How do you like that? Makes you wonder . . . “
The morning sun was warming the sun porch in Nova’s Las Vegas mobile home. The memories came tumbling down.
Of the 20 men Louis defeated during his championship years, Nova is one of the more interesting ones.
Born in Hollywood, Nova was the son of a symphony pianist. In the mid-1930s, he was a standout football player and javelin thrower at Alameda High School. He was recruited to play football at UC Davis, where he was, for one season, a single-wing tailback.
“If pro football players made any money in those days, I probably would have wound up playing pro ball,” he said.
Of course, no one made much money in those days. Nova recalled a visit to a downtown Oakland boxing gym.
“Amateur boxing was very big in those days,” he said. “Every big city in the country had thousands of amateur boxers. So I was a good high school athlete, and I figured I could box, too. So one day I walked into Duffy’s Gym, around 1935. I was wearing cardboard soles in my shoes.
“Duffy’s Gym was in the seedy part of town. The trainer there, Harold Broom, also owned a bar in the neighborhood, and the boxers who used the gym could always get a free bowl of hot stew at the bar. I lived on that stew.
“Well, I learned pretty quickly. I was the national (and world) amateur heavyweight champion in 1935. Max Baer’s first manager, Ham Lorimar, was around the gym a lot, and he became my first manager, until he sold my contract for $10,000 to Ray Carlin.”
Nova turned pro in 1936 and won his first 20 bouts, until losing a decision to Maxie Rosenbloom at Hollywood Legion Stadium in 1938. Nova then easily decisioned Britain’s Tommy Farr before achieving his breakthrough victory, an 11th-round knockout of Baer in 1939.
“After that, I knew I’d eventually get my shot at Louis,” Nova recalled. “So I signed for a fight with Tony Galento, with the winner guaranteed a shot at Louis. The Galento fight ruined me.”
Nova fought Galento in Philadelphia. As The Times’ Jim Murray described it decades later, “Galento should have been arrested that night for practicing surgery without a license.”
The referee finally stopped it, in the 14th, and declared Galento the winner. The Associated Press reporter described the referee’s shirt as blood-soaked “from collar to waist.”
The reporter also called it “the most brutal bout of modern times.”
“I was never the same after that fight,” Nova said.
“See, my trainer then was Ray Arcel. Ray’s still around. People think he’s some kind of boxing genius. Let me tell you something. Ray Arcel didn’t know anything about boxing. He’d never been a fighter. I never forgave him for letting that fight go that long.
“I’d never taken a beating before. I always assumed when you’re taking a bad beating, your corner stops it. Mine didn’t.
“They put me in the hospital for three days. To this day, I have no memory of anything in that fight after the third round, including the three days in the hospital.
“Physically, I bounced back. But mentally, never. I subconsciously promised myself never to let myself take that kind of beating again. I finally got my chance with Louis. But I wasn’t the same fighter. I was cautious, very conservative. I really believe I’d have beaten him had I never fought Galento.
“Years later, people who knew Louis told me that Louis was afraid of me. He knew I’d beaten Tommy Farr worse than he did, but that it really bothered him that I’d knocked out Baer twice. And he knew that I had the best left jab in boxing in those days.
“Looking back on it all, I really believe I was the worst-managed fighter in history. I had ability, I’d shown that. All my life, I’ve wondered how far I’d have gone if my corner had stopped that Galento fight early.”
Arcel, who turns 89 next month, seemed surprised when told Nova blamed him for the length of his beating by Galento.
“I’m sorry Lou feels that way,” Arcel said. “I was his trainer, but I had no authority to stop the fight. Ray Carlin was his manager, he was in the corner, and he was in complete charge.
“Lou Nova was a courageous and talented heavyweight. He had talent. At his best, he would’ve given any heavyweight in any era a lot of trouble.”
Louis-Nova, on Sept. 29, 1941, was witnessed by 56,549 at New York’s Polo Grounds. It isn’t on anyone’s best-remembered list. Nova, boxing cautiously, largely avoided contact with the stalking Louis, until Louis knocked him out with one right hand in the sixth round.
After expenses, the 27 year old returned to Southern California with a check for $125,000, wondering how best to invest it.
“This banker was recommended to me, a guy named Davis,” Nova recalled, starting to laugh. “I’d found this piece of property in the farm country of the San Fernando Valley, near Van Nuys. It was a four-bedroom, three-bath house on 6 acres, with fruit orchards. It also had a guest house and stables. Remember, this is 1941.
“It was on the market for $25,000. So I asked this Davis guy for advice, and he said: ‘Nova, you go ahead and buy that place if you really want it, but don’t sink a lot of money into it, because that farmland out there (in the San Fernando Valley) will never be worth anything. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll put that money in long-term, 3% bonds.’
“I bought the place anyway. And when my wife divorced me in 1954, she wound up with the whole thing anyway.”
Nova broke up, laughing heartily at the story.
Nova and Louis later became friends. Louis also lived in Las Vegas in his last years, working for Caesars Palace. He died in 1981.
“Joe and I became closer as we got older,” he said. “I saw him maybe once a week in his last years.”
After he left boxing in 1944, Nova took up acting. He appeared on stage in “Guys & Dolls” and still performs, when he’s feeling well, as a stand-up comic. In the 1960s, Nova was selling a padded stool-like exercise device that enabled people to easily stand on their heads.
Nova has always had a thing about standing on his head. For 40 years, he has been convinced that headstanding would cure baldness, face wrinkles, hypertension, double chins, disk trouble, halitosis, sinus trouble, deafness, hemophilia, constipation and tooth decay.
He had a contraption he called the Yogi Nova. He pointed to one in his bedroom. It had aluminum legs, and raised, padded arms where the shoulders rested.
“I sold thousands of those things, for $20 apiece,” he said.
Nova said he learned of the wonders of headstanding decades ago from a yoga instructor, Dr. Pierre Bernard, also known as “Oom the Omnipotent.”
“Walk with your head up and your heart has to work too hard pumping all that blood to it,” he said.
As Nova has always said after fighting Galento, if he’s an expert on anything, it’s blood.
Lou Nova's fight with Tony Galento, this fight gained a reputation as one of the dirtiest and bloodiest in boxing history. Galento is alleged to have used an array of illegal tactics, including head-butting, heeling, elbowing, and back-handing, in addition to eye-gouging with his thumbs. This is the only actual footage of the fight, a brief clip at the end of this video.
These are the only two photos I can find from the actual Lou Nova-Tony Galento fight itself. One thing about Lou Nova, he had heart, he took one severe thumping from Tony Galento, who used every dirty trick in the book, before succumbing in the 14th round.
Like I said before, Lou Nova could punch. In his first fight with Max Baer, the left side of Baer's face was battered out of shape after ten rounds of the most excruciating fighting he had ever undergone, and was bleeding so severely from a severe laceration of the lower lip he could hardly breathe when the referee stopped the bout. Nova beat Baer again by TKO in 1941.
And Lou Nova did this to Pat Comiskey in 1941.
Lou Nova was quite a character in boxing lore, in his later years he was a stand up comedian in Las Vegas.
This is actually my favorite photo of Lou Nova, jogging up some stairs during his time training with "Oom the Omnipotent" it's a cool image.
Time for a music break. Big Pun is up there with that the best that ever did it.
Hasim Rahman sporting a baseball-sized Haematoma sustained during his showdown with Evander Holyfield in 2002. The swelling was believed to be the result of an accidental clash of heads.
The injury was significant enough for referee, Tony Orlando call an end to the contest midway through the 8th round and Holyfield was awarded the win by split technical decision.
Holyfield, who was 39 at the time showed that he was still among the elite, landing 44% of punches thrown before the fight was stopped. It should be noted that Holyfield was notorious for headbutting his opponents, he would lean in really close while infighting and it often resulted in a clash of heads, it's the reason Mike Tyson but his ear off, Tyson had become furious that Holyfield was getting away with headbutting him.
"If there was something I would have done differently. I think of all the running I did and wonder if it was necessary. I mean I ran a lot, which was always difficult with my bad foot. Well one day I run into Jake LaMotta, and I ask him how much he ran. He looks at me and says, 'Vito, I never ran a f...... day in my life."