Boxing's Greates Writer Dies

 

Boxing’s Greatest Writer Dies

On Sunday, March 25^th, the boxing world lost another icon with the passing of the sport’s greatest writer, Bert Randolph Sugar. Flags at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York were lowered to half-mast to honor the passing of this literary lion of the prize ring.

There is never a good time to die, of course, but Bert’s death will be taken very hard by everyone in the boxing community, coming as it does, less than two months after the passing in early February, of boxing’s greatest trainer and ambassador, Angelo Dundee. I was privileged to have had a close relationship with both men, which greatly influenced my life.

Bert and Angelo were close friends. Their friendship went back fifty-four years. Bert helped Angelo write his second autobiography, My View From The Corner.  I was lucky enough to have befriended Bert Sugar in June of 2004 during my first visit to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. I went that year, and every year subsequently with my mentor and close friend, Angelo Dundee. Angelo was kind enough to introduce me to Bert on that beautiful sunny day some eight years ago. Bert was sitting down in a booth on the Hall grounds surrounded by many of his books, which were for sale. Bert’s books sold out usually within minutes. He autographed every single book he sold, putting huge smiles on the faces of his multitude of fans.

Bert was always gracious and gregarious when mingling with boxing fans. He happily posed for photographs with hundreds of his fans every year during Hall of Fame weekend. Fight fans very much looked forward to seeing Bert in his standard get-up, which consisted of his trademark fedora, Dominican cigars and colorful clothing. He was just as colorful and charismatic in person as he was on TV, if not more so.

Bert Sugar was called, "The Greatest Boxing Writer of the 20th Century" by the International Veterans Boxing Association. Truer words have never been spoken. Whenever you saw him on TV, you automatically knew they were talking about the sport of boxing. 

Perhaps no other writer of the 20^th century has been so associated with any sport as Bert Sugar was with boxing. I was one of the privileged few who knew him as both a friend and a colleague. One thing is certain. Bert Sugar knew more about boxing history than any other historian or writer who ever lived. Bert never boasted about his vast knowledge of boxing history. He didn’t need to. His love for the sport was written all over his expressive face. Bert was always working on his next boxing book or article. He felt that there was much more to be written about the sport he so loved.

Bert was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the non-participant category in 2005. I was there that summer and I watched him make his induction speech. True to form, Bert was funny, irascible and very entertaining that day. He put on an entertaining show for all those in attendance. 

Bert was a brilliant man with Mensa level intelligence. Bert was also a natural raconteur. You could ask him a question about any era in boxing history, and he always had a fascinating and funny story to perfectly illustrate his point. Bert was a veritable human warehouse of boxing knowledge. He fervently believed that to be a good boxing writer and journalist required an insatiable and unquenchable thirst to constantly learn more about boxing and it’s history.

Bert was an American original. He was a self-made creation. Over time it became difficult to tell where the creation ended and the real Bert began.  It didn’t really matter though as Bert was beloved by his fans and friends alike. He realized early on in his career that there were a lot of excellent and outstanding boxing writers covering boxing in the United States.

Award-winning titans of the keyboard such as Jimmy Cannon, Grantland Rice, Damon Runyon (Bert’s favorite writer), Jim Murray and Edwin Pope were all excellent craftsmen with unique and award-winning writing styles. Bert realized he was in heady company and needed some way to distinguish himself amongst his peers.

Bert found great success in boxing by becoming a colorful, charismatic and outsized personality who lived his life in italics while the rest of his peers existed in regular print. Fighters always opened up to Bert because of his empathetic ear and sympathetic words.

Bert had a wonderful flare for the dramatic, which, when combined with his engaging speaking style often made him as big a story as the fighters he was covering. Everything about Bert was over the top. He even had his own style of sartorial splendor. If you were to describe Bert’s clothing style with just one word, that word would be “loud.”  Fans warmly embraced Bert’s eccentricities. In fact, they looked forward to them. It was part of the whole package. In public, Bert always sported his trademark fedora, cigar and beaming smile.

Bert told me privately once that he used his middle name Randolph on all of his books and articles as a way of paying tribute to his beloved mother, with whom he was very close. Bert always spoke lovingly of his parents and how they went out of their way to provide him with a world-class education.

Bert, unlike some writers, always displayed tremendous respect for all boxers. Boxers are outsiders in many ways. They often come from immigrant families and, as such, other areas of opportunity are closed to them for various reasons.  Boxing is the last refuge for the downtrodden and underprivileged. In boxing, your heritage or ethnicity doesn’t really matter. All that counts is if you can fight and Bert knew that implicitly.

Bert was always on, constantly sharing his stories and vast boxing knowledge with other writers and fans. It was his way of making sure his stories would one day outlive him. For instance, while having dinner with Angelo Dundee and Bert one night in New York, Bert leaned across the table and told me that Rocky Marciano had indeed lost a fight during his career to a fighter named Ted Lowry but the verdict was later changed to a unanimous decision in his favor thanks to pressure exerted on his behalf by the mob.

Bert was unfailingly kind to fans and aspiring boxing writers. He would go out of his way to put in a good word for any writer who asked for his help. Each year at Canastota, Bert would give daily talks on the Hall of Fame grounds to an appreciative and huge audience. In June 2011, Bert conducted an interview on the Hall grounds with his one of his all-time favorite boxers, George Chuvalo. George and Bert sat together and swapped stories for an hour with an appreciative audience roaring their approval with each anecdote. 

Bert Sugar was born June 7, 1937 in Washington, DC. Often when Bert would mention his birth date to an audience, he would pause and add, “No, I wasn’t wearing a fedora when I was born.” Bert didn’t start his life dreaming of becoming the most successful boxing author of all-time. His parents, like many Jewish parents, pushed Bert to get an education and then go into a profession, which could keep him employed for the remainder of his life.

Following his parent’s advice, Bert graduated from the University of Maryland. He then entered law school at the University of Michigan. Upon obtaining an MBA and a law degree from the University of Michigan, Bert successfully passed the bar in the District of Columbia. Bert practiced law for a very short time. He just didn’t enjoy it. He had an active mind and felt he was wasting his time remaining holed up in his law office while the world was passing him by. Bert always believed he was destined for greater things.

Pretty soon Bert relocated to New York, which changed his life for the better and provided him with constant excitement and satisfaction. Bert was an excitement junkie, always wanting to be where the action was, and always craving a great cigar, a great boxing match and, a great time.

The light in Bert’s mind was always on and he soon found his true passion – writing! Bert’s passion became his occupation. He loved writing. It was his reason for being.  In fact, he was a successful writer almost from the beginning. His first writing jobs had nothing to do with professional boxing, or sports in general.

It didn’t take Bert long after arriving in New York to find work in the burgeoning world of advertising. Bert shone in the world of jingles and slogans. His biggest success in the advertising world was the creation of the world famous Nestles jingle,  “N-E-S-T-L-E-S, Nestles makes the very best” advertising campaign, which was a monster hit all over the world and enriched his bank account many times over.

Bert had strong passion for and attraction to boxing and soon after moving to New York, he quickly became a recognized figure in the sport. You could always find Bert  ringside at Madison Square Garden, happily conversing with his literary peers. As the 1960’s came to a close, Bert felt he needed a regular platform for his boxing articles, stories and opinions. He fed his passion and love for pugilism by becoming the editor-in-chief of Boxing Illustrated. Bert’s writing style was very honest and unadorned although extremely descriptive.

Bert possessed an uncanny ability to take controversial fights and complex issues and make them easily understandable and interesting for all fight fans.  Bert’s books were always in demand due in part to his fluid, almost populist writing style. Bert usually injected a healthy dose of humor into his prose, which was readily apparent in his books and articles. Bert’s sense of humor was very attractive to all of his readers. In person Bert was a very funny man and rather self-deprecating. He always took his boxing writing seriously, but he never took himself seriously.

When it came to writing about boxing, Bert had several rules, which governed his prose. He steadfastly believed in keeping prose simple as possible. He also remarked that there should be an element of fun in your prose. If you are enjoying writing it then the reader will no doubt enjoy reading it.  One of Bert’s other rules was that a writer should know his/her topic intimately.  Factual errors were unforgivable in Bert’s opinion. 

Bert was the most prolific boxing writer the sport has ever seen. He has written over 80 books on the sport of boxing, which is a staggering total to say the least. I remember asking Angelo Dundee how on earth did Bert write 80 separate books on boxing? Angelo response was like Bert’s writing, terse and to the point. Angelo told me, “Bert writes books like most men use the washroom. Early and often!”

Some of the boxing books that Bert penned were, Sting Like a Bee, Inside Boxing, and The 100 Greatest Boxers of All Time. Bert also wrote hundreds of articles for the finest (sports) magazines in the world. His writing has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Sports Business Journal and The New Yorker.

Bert took great enjoyment from his work as a longtime contributor to HBO.  Sugar was no stranger to the Silver Screen either, appearing in Rocky, Play it to the Bone, Night and the City and The Great White Hype. Bert was a highly decorated writer and author, receiving the 1990 Boxing Writers Association of America's Nat Fleischer Award for "Excellence in Boxing Journalism." Bert was a much sought after expert in many documentaries, such as “Unforgivable Blackness,” the PBS documentary about the black heavyweight world champion, Jack Johnson.

Bert’s contributions to the sport of boxing as a writer, author and broadcast commentator are immeasurable and will most certainly live forever. As long as fight fans continue to read about boxing, Bert Sugar will always be their favorite writer. His typewriter may no longer be active but his words will remain with us for a long time to come.

    

George La Blanche: Canada's Unknown Original Boxing Champion.

      George La Blanche, nicknamed, "The Marine," was born to French Canadian parents in Point Levi, located in southern Quebec, Canada on December 19th, 1856. His real name was George Blais. George LaBlanche is one of many great Canadian boxers whose name has faded into obscurity with the passing of time.  I first heard his name years ago when I was reading the book, Ring Magazine's Pictorial History of Boxing. I was surprised to find out that Canada had produced a world champion prizefighter prior to the immortal George Dixon, from Nova Scotia.

As is most often the case, the information that existed about him came from a boxing book written and published by Americans. Canadians have always proven to be very poor preservers of our own sporting history, especially when it comes to boxing. In fact, suffice to say, without extensive due diligence exercised by some American boxing writers and historians, there would be almost nothing in print concerning some of Canada's earliest boxing heroes.

La Blanche stood five feet, six inches in height and weighed barely 150 pounds soaking wet. He took on any fighter who would meet him from 150 to 170 pounds, which was the weight range for the middleweight division back in the 1880's. The limits for various weight divisions in boxing's pioneer days were never officially set in stone. Because boxing faced so many obstacles back then from many areas in society such as churches, local governments and even rival promoters, that considerable leeway was given to weight restrictions back then in order to get the fight signed, sealed and delivered to the public. General rules regarding different weight classes existed back then but were never duly enforced until much later in boxing history. This is why you hear about fights where the disparity in weight between the two combatants was enormous.

Such fights usually took place, for the most part, prior to 1920. For instance, Sam Langford weighed about 156 lbs. when he faced future heavyweight champ Jack Johnson, in Langford's 20th fight as a pro. Johnson weighed in at 206 lbs., giving him an advantage of exactly 50 lbs. over his smaller opponent. This was not an uncommon circumstance in boxing back then. What made Canadian George la Blanche unique in that perspective was the fact that he simply refused to fight anyone weighing over 170 lbs. In fact, he often turned down more lucrative fights than he accepted.

In 1920, New York passed the Walker Law, creating a set of codified boxing rules and weight classes..  When you look at some of the magnificent fighters who were active during the same time period as La Blanche, the late 1880's to 1903, La Blanche's success becomes even more remarkable when you consider that he was not an elite level boxer. He was rather crude in his approach even by the standards of the era in which he fought. He was not a gifted classic stand-up boxer like James J. Corbett, nor did he possess the one punch knockout power of a James J. Jeffries. He possessed enough of the skills of both Corbett and Jeffries to successfully fight the best men of his era.

Although not a technically sound boxer, La Blanche was nonetheless very agile and extremely quick on his feet, which served him well in his battles with boxers who exhibited much more technical ring expertise. La Blanche was able to pick his spots and jump into the fray whenever an opening presented itself. His quickness of foot helped him to dart in and land some hard shots and then just as quickly back away out of the range of his opponent's counters.

La Blanche was an anomaly in boxing in the sense that he was not known for being a knockout artist although he did possess good power in both hands. He was a rugged customer in the ring and many of his victories occurred when his opponents where simply too tired and beaten to continue because of the accumulation of punches they had absorbed from La Blanche.  La Blanche had a good chin early in his career, which often stood him in good stead when facing a quicker fighter with heavy hands. La Blanche was patient in the ring and willing to wait for his opponents to make mistakes. He was no stranger to the rougher aspects of his sport, such as cuffing, heeling, head butting and elbowing. Even when penalized a point for such transgressions, he didn't really care as the damage he had inflicted on his hapless foe usually led to their eventual demise in the later rounds. He was more than willing to lose a point or a round or two in order to win the battle.

       Like many fighters of his time, La Blanche was reared in poverty and joined the army as a teenager in order to further his life and his career aspirations. Also, the army guaranteed La Blanche three things that life in rural southern Quebec couldn't give him, namely three square meals a day, a job, and a future. La Blanche began his boxing career in 1882 while serving his country as an enlisted man in the Canadian military. La Blanche was a driver in Battery "B" as a member of a Canadian Light artillery unit. His army job required him to use his wits and constantly think on his feet, qualities that would go on to serve him well in his boxing career.

While in the army and, after his discharge from active duty, La Blanche regularly fought men much taller and heavier than himself. This was pretty much the norm in the very early days of boxing in Canada and the United States. Back in the early days of the sport, weight classes were not as defined or enforced as strictly as they are today. In fact, one of La Blanche's first fights was against a man named J. Putnam at the Quebec Citadel. Putnam weighed in at 190 lbs., giving him a whopping forty-pound weight advantage over the smaller La Blanche. In the end it didn't matter as La Blanche knocked Putnam out cold in four rounds with a left hook, proving that the bigger they are, the harder they fall. It was a costly victory because La Blanche ended up breaking his left hand during the fight, which temporarily put him on the sidelines. As he became more successful in boxing, La Blanche began to pick and choose his opponents more carefully, always sure avoid those fighters who were simply too big for him to hurt.

       It's important to note that in the 1880's, a boxer's hands weren't as well protected as they are today in boxing. Today, the exact amount of tape and gauze, which a fighter is allowed to apply to their hands is strictly mandated by state and boxing regulatory bodies, as is the size and type of gloves they are permitted to wear in the ring. This still doesn't prevent a fighter today from subverting the rules.

Back then, there were virtually no codified rules in place to dictate what, if anything, a fighter could put on his hands or the size of the gloves he was to wear, if they wore any at all when entering the ring for combat. Fighters in the 1800's usually had their manager or backers draw up a contract with their opponent's manager(s). Such a contract contained the "articles of combat', which, in effect, were rules agreed upon beforehand by both camps. The articles covered the size of the gloves the fighters were to use and what, if anything, a fighter could apply to his hands prior to donning the mitts.  In those bygone days of yore, fighters like La Blanche sometimes wrapped very light, strands of cloth or tape over the knuckles but not much more.

Boxing gloves, or "mufflers" as they were more commonly referred to back then, were made of poor quality and usually weighed not more than 2 to 4 ounces. As a result of such flimsy hand protection, fighters often suffered broken hands, fingers, knuckles and arms. In those formative years of the late 1800's, a fighter who punched his opponent in the head often suffered more damage (to his hand) than the man who absorbed the punch. 

George La Blanche's luck changed for the better in the early 1880's when, On December 11th, 1883, with the help of some very influential sporting figures and friends, he was able to obtain an honorable discharge from the Canadian marines while he was stationed in Boston, Massachusetts. The next month, on January 28th, 1884, with the help of his co-managers, Tom Bogue and Warren Lewis, La Blanche challenged George Smith, a full-fledged heavyweight fighter to a match, which ended in a disappointing six round draw at the Cribb Club. Such draws were not unusual in those early days near the turn of the century. In fact, it was quite common for a fight to end in a draw or a no-decision unless a knockout was scored by one of the fighters. Many religious groups held a lot of political power at that time, much like today, and they often exercised that power to influence public morality, as it pertained to wagering money on sporting events, in particular, prize fights, which they viewed as exceedingly sinful, especially when they lost their money.

       These religious groups saw boxing as immoral in the eyes of the church, and used the full weight of their political clout to put intense pressure on public officials to ban the sport of boxing. They were temporarily successful in many states throughout the union. In fact, it was not unheard of for a boxer to be arrested after his fight because someone in attendance felt that the bout was morally offensive, or a sin, and thus filed a complaint or morals charge against both combatants. Quite often, the morally outraged individual had wagered and lost a large amount of money on the outcome of one the fights.

The moral outrage experienced by the patron came more from the lightness of his wallet than the profundity of his religious beliefs. (Jack Johnson and "Jewish" Joe Choynski were once arrested and jailed for a month in Texas, after participating in a prizefight. The truth came out years later when it was discovered that both fighters had paid off all of the right officials in order to allow the fight to go on without a hitch. It was only when the local judge doubled the price of his bribe, and both fighters refused, that they were then jailed. Incidentally, Choynski knocked out a very young and inexperienced Johnson in 4 rounds. It was Joe Choynski who taught Jack Johnson the finer points of boxing, which Johnson put to great use later on in his championship career.) Therefore, in an effort to appease both the religious and political power groups of the day, many boxing matches were deemed draws, regardless of the true outcome of these fights, in an effort to show those in power that the sport was merely a form of gentlemanly exercise rather than the punch for pay bloodbaths that in reality, they often were.

(In actual fact, majorities of prizefighters from the late 19th century came from impoverished backgrounds and were simply trying to make some money in order to provide a better life for their immediate family. Sure, these fighters were definitely not choirboys, but, by the same token, they were often denied access to polite society and other more established and approved fields of endeavor by the very same religious groups that actively sought to ban their sport.

 In a very real sense, it was a class struggle. With all other avenues of progress closed to them, for whatever reasons, pugilists like George La Blanche were willing to literally fight their way to a better station in life. If boxers were allowed to be paid handsomely for something as crude as fighting, then, in a short time, they would eventually be able buy their way into polite society, which was something that these class-conscious religious groups saw as a direct threat to their own positions in society. They simply didn't want to share the wealth.)

On March 21st, 1884, La Blanche, following the advice of his trainers, Charles Gleason and Mike Quilligan, gave a pretty one-sided beating to tough Tom Bates of England, stopping him in five brutal rounds. La Blanche, eager to show his fans that the beating he issued to Bates was not a fluke, followed up his convincing victory over the resilient Bates with another impressive display of power, punishing Denny Kelleher before stopping him in the fourth round on October 3rd, 1884, once again at the Cribb Club.

His stunning victory over Kelleher was pivotal in helping La Blanche secure a fight with Peter McCoy, then one of the top middleweight fighters in the game, in April, 1885, at the venerable Boston Boxing Club. An interesting sidebar to this fight was that McCoy weighed in at a mere 143 pounds whereas La Blanche tipped the scales at 170 pounds, giving him a considerable weight and strength advantage. Since the weight limits were rather blurred in that era, any fighter over 170 pounds was generally considered to be a heavyweight.

That being said, a fighter tipping the scales between 155 to 169 lbs. was usually labeled a middleweight. La Blanche regularly fought heavyweight fighters when his own weight went up. Why did La Blanche fight heavyweights? The answer is simple. Heavyweights made the most money of any weight class in the sport. Economically, the risk made sense to La Blanche. Unfortunately, the McCoy match turned out to be a disappointment for La Blanche, as it was declared a draw after eight bruising rounds.

       As often happens in the bizarre world of boxing, the draw with McCoy proved to be a real boon to La Blanche's career. It gained him a new legion of fans, more notoriety in the press and numerous offers from some financial backers to set up a fight between La Blanche and future boxing immortal, the original nonpareil Jack Dempsey, universally regarded then as the middleweight world champion. In fact, Dempsey was held in such high esteem by both fans and reporters, he was often referred to as the best fighter in the world, irrespective of weight.

Born in Ireland on December 15th, 1862, Dempsey emigrated to New York with his family where he found work as a child laborer in a Brooklyn Barrel factory. At the age of 20, Dempsey first ventured into wrestling but found boxing more to his liking. He started out as a lightweight at only 20 years of age in 1883. In 1884, Dempsey knocked out George Fulljames to capture the world middleweight crown, although overseas he was regarded as only the American middleweight champion. Truth be told, he probably was the best middleweight fighter in the world at that time. Although George Fulljames lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, he was in fact born in London, England. At the time he fought Jack Dempsey, Fulljames was the Canadian lightweight champion. Both Fulljames and Depmsey weighed around 125 lbs for their fight even though it was listed as a middleweight title fight.

On Sunday, March 14th, 1886, at Larchmont, Long Island, George La Blanche and Jack Dempsey, two fierce combatants who loathed each other fought for a then record amount for middleweights of $2000 each plus a mutually agreed upon side bet of $500 per fighter. La Blanche, the fighting marine from Canada, stood toe-to-toe with Dempsey giving as good as he got before succumbing in the thirteenth round. The fight lasted forty-nine minutes and five seconds and was an all-out war, both men feeling sore and beat up for many weeks after the fight.

Three years later on August 27th, 1889, at the California Athletic Club in San Francisco, California (which was James J. Corbett's home club), they met again in a finish fight, which lasted 32 rounds, ending only when La Blanche knocked out Dempsey with his infamous pivot punch, or, " La Blanche Swing," as it was referred to in the press. The pivot punch was essentially a backhanded punch or slap, made effective by cracking your opponent across the mouth with your knuckles. La Blanche himself once described how to throw the pivot punch to devastating effect. "This blow is delivered by closing the eyes, turning rapidly on one heel and letting the right hand go at random." (Tacoma News Tribune, Tacoma, Washington.) To simplify it even further, La Blanche simply extended his right arm like a stick and spun around backwards, landing the back of his closed fist on Dempsey's chin, which dropped Dempsey to the ground, out cold, for the full count. Several bystanders said it reminded them of what a man looked like when struck in the head with a hammer. It was the first and last time the pivot blow was ever used in boxing. In karate, it is a very common striking move.

The New York State Athletic Commission banned the rabbit punch and the pivot blow. The New York State Athletic Commission was very powerful in boxing’s infancy, and once they issued a ban on those two punches, virtually every other athletic commission in North America and around the world followed suit. La Blanche's victory over Dempsey won him the American version of the world middleweight title. His victory was not considered legitimate in many quarters because it was attained with the help of the pivot blow.

 Because fellow Canadian George Dixon won the world featherweight crown in 19 rounds at the New Pelican Club in Soho, London, United Kingdom on June 27th, 1890, George La Blanche could rightfully claim that he was the very first Canadian prizefighter to ever lay claim to a world boxing title.

Sadly, La Blanche's claim on the middleweight title was rather tenuous at best and ended rather ignominiously for him on February 20th, 1890, when he was knocked out in 12 rounds by a fighter named Young Mitchell in a fight he later admitted was fixed. La Blanche, who always outspent his income, was broke and in desperate need of more money than he was being paid for fighting Young Mitchell.

La Blanche agreed to take a dive for an additional $1000 cash, to be delivered to him prior to the fight. In fact, La Blanche told his friends and family members ahead of time, the exact round in which he would fall, so they could get their bets down on Young Mitchell. La Blanche hit the canvas in the 12th round and didn't move until the count of ten had been tolled over him. No evidence was ever found indicating that Young Mitchell was in on or even aware of the fix. Nevertheless, the promoter withheld La Blanche’s purse for the fight.

       A year later, on November 17th, 1890 in Butte, Montana, La Blanche was disqualified in the 13th round for kicking George Kessler in the groin. The fight was originally listed as a knockout loss suffered by La Blanche at the hands of Kessler, although this was patently untrue. Kessler only had two professional fights before retiring to become a boxing referee of some distinction. Kessler was originally born in Britain and rarely talked about his fight with George La Blanche. There are British boxing journals that suggest several reasons as to why La Blanche kicked Kessler in the groin, none of which can ever be proven. One source suggests that La Blanche had not trained properly for the fight and thus was exhausted by the 13th round. The exhaustion story is hard to believe when you consider that only a year earlier La Blanche fought Jack Dempsey for 32 hard, brutal rounds in a finish fight.

The dive against Mitchell was really the beginning of the end for George la Blanche. He lost 22 of his last 27 fights before retiring for good in on July 20th, 1899 following a 3rd round knockout loss to a pug named Dick O'Brien. His last years were very sad, as he drifted across the United States and Canada penniless, offering to do manual labor for a dollar a day.  His old friend John L. Sullivan helped him out by taking him along on several old timers boxing tours, where La Blanche fought controlled exhibitions against other all time greats.

La Blanche visited Montreal many times during the last ten years of his life, always feeling cheered up when greeted by family members. He owned a saloon in San Francisco for a while during this period but was forced to sell it when he began to consume more of the saloon's stock than he was selling to customers. During the last years of his life La Blanche was often in and out of prison in the United States throughout  New England, for various crimes such as grand larceny and aggravated assault.

La Blanche was a very heavy drinker and, when inebriated, he became uncontrollable and often extremely violent, reliving past ring glories in his drunken stupors. George la Blanche died in Lawrence, Massachusetts on May 3rd, 1918. In death he found lasting peace, which, so often eluded him when alive.

Zachary Wohlman AKA Kid Yamaka

If ever a young man was born to be a fighter, it is Zachary Wohlman, aka Kid Yamaka. At first glance, with his hands held high in a tight defence, while constantly circling his opponent, Wohlman could be any young fighter embarking on a career in professional boxing. The difference between Wohlman and other young pugilistic prospects lies in how he approaches the sport.

Many young fighters fight because they are naturally good athletes and boxing is one of many sports at which they excel. Still others take up boxing for the fame, glory and money that are available only to the sport’s most elite fighters. Zachary Wohlman needs to fight. He needs to fight like a drowning man needs to breathe. It is literally the essence of his being. If you looked at his DNA in a microscope, you would see the word “Everlast” imprinted upon it.

At 23 years of age, he already displays traits reminiscent of much older and more experienced fighters. He shows great focus training in the gym and displays tremendous concentration during his fights. With only two professional fights on his ledger, Wohlman is quickly becoming the talk of the town. This in itself is rather impressive, when you consider the town he lives in is Hollywood.

Wohlman knows that talk is cheap in Hollywood and that his accomplishments in the ring are the legacy he will leave behind once his career is over. Hollywood is a town where celebrities are so ubiquitous that most stars only make the news when they get in trouble or break the law. Well, Wohlman used to get in trouble and break the law when he was a young teen. Now, after spending time in a marine boot camp and juvenile detention, Wohlman has left his wild years long behind in search of a better life. Through hard work, grim determination and an unquenching desire to succeed at all costs, he has found that better life in boxing. Hell surely awaits any boxer who tries to take the better life away from him.

Wohlman is the answer to a future trivia question. He is the only amateur ever trained by recent Hall of Fame inductee Freddie Roach, the consensus best trainer in boxing today. Many young fighters starting out in the fight game often have trouble avoiding the pitfalls of the business side of the sport. This is something Wohlman will never have to worry about thanks to his best friend and confidante, Paulie Malignaggi, the former WBO/IBF junior-welterweight world champion.

Malignaggi advised Wohlman that he has many business options out there and did not necessarily have to sign with the first manager to approach him. He told his young friend to take his time and consider all of the many proposals that were coming his way.. Ultimately Wohlman signed with Malignaggi’s manager, Steven Bash. With his management situation resolved to his satisfaction, Wohlman now has one less thing that he has to worry about. All Wohlman wants to do is go to the gym everyday and train. If it were up to him, he would have no days off.

Kid Yamaka is an unusual nickname. It was jokingly suggested by Freddie Roach to compliment the fact that Wohlman is Jewish. Wohlman is a student of the game and knows full well that during the early part of the previous century, Jewish boxers were in abundance in boxing in every weight division. The list of great Jewish fighters is remarkable. Warriors such as Barney Ross, Bob Olin, Solly Seeman, Lew Tendler, Georgie Abrams and, of course, the immortal Benny Leonard, the Wizard of the Ghetto, are all familiar names to the young San Fernando Valley born and bred Kid Yamaka.

Back in the early 20th century, Jewish fighters starting out had no advantages at all. Most of them were self-taught, whereas Wohlman has the fistic genius of Freddie Roach, in his corner, providing him with an almost incalculable advantage. Roach works to smooth off the rough edges in Wohlman’s style in the gym, pruning away bad habits, turning a young and eager kid into a polished, professional welterweight contender. Roach’s influence is clearly evident as Wohlman’s overall skills begin to improve with each fight.

During fights, Roach sagely gives Wohlman advice and encouragement in between rounds. As kind and generous as Roach is, he is also a strict disciplinarian. Make no mistake about it. Roach does not ever suffer fools or people that waste his time. Any fighter that screws up via drugs, crime or running the streets is gone for good. Luckily for Wohlman, those days are long in his past.

In his first pro fight against Ricardo Malfavon, Wohlman displayed fast hands and a tight defense with his hands held high and close to his face while winning a 4 round unanimous decision. He also showed that he is religiously committed to pounding his foe’s body, in particular throwing his left hand to the liver numerous times and to great effect. Such body work always pays huge dividends over the long run during a fight. There are not many fighters in boxing that can consistently take the Mexican left hook to the liver and still be around at the end of a fight. Wohlman’s bodywork will benefit him further when he begins to engage in longer bouts of 8 to 10 rounds.

Something else Wohlman displayed in his debut pro match, much to his own surprise, was power. He dropped Malfavon with a check left hook, near the end of the fourth and final round, sending the 400 Wohlman fans in attendance into a loud frenzy. Wohlman counterpunched effectively throughout the 4 round match making Malfavon pay for every errant punch he threw.

Wohlman showed the savvy of an old pro by continuously circling the ring, forcing Malfavon to keep turning, never allowing him the chance to set his feet and sit down on his shots. Malfavon did manage to catch Wohlman with some stiff shots but those were few and far between and the Jewish warrior took them well.

The world famous Wild Card Gym is the center of Wohlman’s universe. He even he bought a place right near it, so that he can hang out there on his off days. A few other fighters hang out at the Wild Card gym too. One of them is Manny Pacquiao, the pound for pound finest fighter in the world. Wohlman has sparred with many of the world champions that train at the gym such as Amir Khan, Paulie Malignaggi and Alfredo Angulo, the Mexican knock out artist with crushing power in both hands.

Angulo is a junior middleweight, and is bigger, stronger and hits harder than Wohlman. However, Wohlman had no fear when sparring with the Mexican slugger, using his speed of hand and foot and vast array of boxing skills to keep Angulo at bay. Mind you, Wohlman admits that he was sore for a couple of days after because of the shots he absorbed from Angulo on his arms and flanks. It should be pointed out that Angulo is big, even for a junior-middleweight, while Wohlman is a small welterweight.. The kid still held his own and then some.

Wisely, Roach has kept the young, Jewish phenom from sparring with Manny Pacquiao, although Wohlman would not turn the opportunity down were it offered to him. Roach also came up with his young protégée’s nickname, “Kid Yamaka,” a phonetic spelling of “yarmulke,” the Jewish skullcap worn by observant Jews while praying in synagogue. There are few Jewish fighters fighting professionally these days. Yuri Foreman, Dmitry Salita and Israeli cruiserweight, Ran Nakash come to mind. Salita in fact called Wohlman to welcome him to the fraternity.

Roach’s roster of world champions is a long one and still growing. He is the most sought after trainer in boxing today. Wohlman hopes to be on that elite list of world champions trained by Roach one day. For Roach to take interest in such a young fighter, is a huge statement of the confidence and belief that he has in Wohlman. By his own account, Wohlman is about 3 years away from a world welterweight title shot. Wohlman is also very patient and happy to learn the tools of his trade however long it takes him. He is well aware that it takes time, hard work, toughness and discipline to become a world champion. He is willing to do whatever it takes to reach that ultimate pinnacle.

Wohlman’s favorite fighter is Sugar Ray Robinson, widely regarded as the pound for pound, greatest fighter of all time. Wohlman liked Robinson’s hit and not be hit style, which is the nature of the sport. He also admired the way Robinson used the whole ring to his advantage, using his ring smarts and boxing skills to out think and outpoint his many rivals. There is a certain symmetric irony in the fact that Wohlman idolizes the man generally considered to be the greatest fighter ever while also working at the same gym as today’s pound for pound king, and Robinson’s only real rival as the greatest fighter of all time, Manny Pacquiao. Probably the most appealing thing about Sugar Ray Robinson for Wohlman is that the Sugar man took care of business inside the ring and then took care of his own businesses outside the ring. Ray Robinson was a self-made man. It is indeed difficult to think of a better fighter to idolize than Sugar Ray Robinson.

Any fighter who gets in the ring with Wohlman expecting to encounter a nice Jewish boy will be sadly mistaken and extremely sorry at the end of the night. Wohlman has boxing skills to spare, dazzling his opponents with both foot and hand speed. He throws sizzling fast combination, preferring to use his ring smarts to outfox and outpoint his opponents.

Years ago, while watching Marvelous Marvin Hagler- butcher Mustafa Hamsho to a bloody pulp, a broadcaster remarked to Sugar Ray Leonard that Hamsho had guts. “Ray calmly responded, “Yes, but guts gets you killed. Smart wins you fights.” Wohlman has taken those words to heart. Why stand in ring center and needlessly trade with an opponent? The idea of the sport is to hit and not get hit and that is not lost on Wohlman. His strength is his boxing skill set, and it makes more sense to play to his own strengths rather than those of his opponent.

Wohlman credits the sport of boxing for resurrecting him personally and professionally. He is probably right. Boxing permanently instilled some much-needed discipline in Wohlman when he was a teenager. Boxing has also given him two things equally as important as self-discipline, namely, hope and a future. A young man without hope or a future is nothing more than a ticking time bomb waiting to go off and hurt someone, usually himself. Without boxing, Wohlman would either be in prison or dead.

Zachary Wohlman’s early life is so incredible that it reads more like science fiction than biography. Perhaps the most frightening thing about Wohlman’s early trials and tribulations is that they are all true. They all happened! Wohlman’s story began in some of the roughest areas of the San Fernando Valley. Wohlman was left to fend for himself at a young age, after emerging from a broken home. Wohlman usually could be found wandering the crime and drug infested streets of Woodland Hills on his own, looking for food, lodging and trouble. He rarely found all three on the same night.

All you have to do is read the local papers of most big American cities to know that the majority of children who begin life like Wohlman simply do not survive. They either die young in the streets, or end up pursuing a life of crime. The fact that Kid Yamaka survived his early teenage ordeals and is now thriving and succeeding at a high level in the toughest of all sports, is nothing short of a miracle. The fact that he has never given up on his lifelong dream of being a pro boxer, regardless of how bad that early life was, is a testament to the current and future greatness of this young man.

Is Sergio Martinez An All-Time Great?

Is Sergio Martinez An All-Time Great?

Sergio Martinez looked magnificent recently while successfully defending his middleweight crown against the recognized number two contender in the world, Matthew Macklin. Macklin had his moments, but when the going got tough, Martinez upped his game significantly and got his feisty challenger from across the pond out of there near the end of the 11^th round. It goes into the record book officially as a twelfth round TKO. Macklin’s lead trainer Buddy McGirt, wisely stopped the fight, telling the referee that Macklin could no longer continue.

Macklin, like all fighters, still wanted to continue but trusted his corner and their decision on his behalf. He was bleeding heavily from multiple cuts and had absorbed a lot of punishment over the latter half of the fight. The decision by McGirt, a former world champion, was indeed the correct call.

 Martinez’s record now stands at W49, KO28, L2, D2. Macklin now falls back to W28, KO19, L4, D0. The records of both men are great enough to make most fighters envious. Martinez’s win over Macklin raises another important question. Namely, just how great is Martinez and, is he an all-time great?  This would require an intimate look at his career record and the quality of his opponents. By the way, just for the sake of edification, an all-time great boxer is a fighter that would be world champion in every era of boxing history. Using that as our sole criteria, the list of true all-time great middleweight champions is not as long as most people would think.

An all-time great middleweight champion, or champion from any weight division for that matter, is a fighter who cleans out his division while holding onto the title belt for a significantly long period of time.  A great fighter may be champion for a year or two. An all-time great would be the king of the hill for a much longer time period.

In his last 36 professional fights, Martinez has 34 wins with one loss and one draw. However the loss and the draw were both bogus decisions that should have been wins for Maranvilla if not for inept refereeing and crooked judging. The draw occurred when he faced and thrashed Kermit Cintron. On February 14^th, 2009 in Florida, Martinez actually dropped Citron for a ten count only to have Cintron rise, complain to referee Frank Santore Jr. that he was just confused and not hurt. Santore Jr., unbelievably bought Cintron’s b.s. story and allowed the fight to continue.  That fight was a travesty and embarrassment to boxing. Yet, Martinez refused to complain or blame anyone for his misfortune. He accepted it in stride and moved on, which is the mark of a true champion.

Of course, immediately after that fight, both men’s careers went in decidedly different directions. Martinez rose to become the best middleweight boxer in the world while Cintron’s career went into the dumper and, most recently, ended after an emphatic knockout loss to rising star Saul Alvarez.

On December fifth of the same year came an even worse decision in a fight against Paul Williams at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic. Now we know that Williams management had bribed judges and officials in New Jersey to always score fights on his behalf regardless of what actually took place in the ring. That night, Martinez gave Williams a terrific beating only to be on the losing end of a majority decision in favor of Paul Williams.

To his eternal credit, Martinez showed that he is indeed a breed apart from other world champions by not complaining publicly about getting screwed for the second fight in a row. He simply shrugged his shoulders, smiled and moved on, which endeared him to fights fans around the world forever.

So, to set the record straight for posterity, since his knockout loss to Antonio Margarito on February 19^th, 2000, Martinez has really gone 38 and 0, which is a record only Floyd Mayweather Jr. can match. This is ironic because Martinez wants to fight Mayweather Jr. somewhere down the line, sooner rather than later. If Mayweather Jr. does not ever end up fighting Pacquiao (and the odds are he never will) then it is very unlikely he would agree to face Maranvilla, a fighter with a quirky style, tremendous speed and power, great footwork and a granite chin.  Why does facing Mayweather Jr. matter so much to Martinez? Money! He stands to make somewhere in the area of $25-$30 million dollars for such a fight. Much like the Pacquio fight, a Mayweather-Martinez fight will also never happen.

So, is Martinez among the best ever middleweight champions the division has ever seen? I think so. The middleweight division has long been boxing’s most popular weight class. This is primarily because most people are closer to being middleweights than heavyweights.

Without a doubt, the middleweight division has given boxing some of its greatest and most colorful fighters ever. There have been some middleweight champs, such as Mickey Walker and Harry Greb, who fought and defeated some of the top ranked heavyweight fighters on a regular basis. Mickey Walker fought and lost to Max Schmeling but not before he held future champ Jack Sharkey to a draw.

Harry Greb, the famed “Pittsburgh Windmill” gave future heavyweight champ Gene Tunney a horrific beating, which turned out to be the sole defeat of Tunney’s stellar career.  Greb fought his whole career while blind in his left eye and was still the most avoided fighter in the sport during his time.

Harry Greb ranks as an all-time great middleweight champion in everyone’s books. That is to say, you can put him in any era of boxing history and he would still be the best middleweight in the world. Today’s fans often tend to forget some of the great middleweight champs of the past. This is sad, when you consider that the 160 lb. class has given us some of boxing’s most exciting fighters, such as Tony Zale, Marcel Cerdan, Jake LaMotta, Sugar Ray Robinson, Gene Fullmer and Carmen Basilio. Their collective ring accomplishments are still discussed today whenever boxing historians get together.

Boxing titles change hands often these days, making it very difficult for any champion to gain universal recognition as the best fighter in his weight class. From 1970 on, however, the general consensus among boxing experts is that there have been four superior middleweight world champions who have been in a class of their own. They rank in order of succession, Carlos Monzon, Marvin Hagler, Bernard Hopkins and now, Sergio Martinez. There can be absolutely no doubt Martinez is proving with each fight that he is in the prime of a great career and Hall of Fame title reign.

The interesting thing about Martinez is that he considers himself a true junior-middleweight rather than a full-fledged middleweight. He fights at 160 lbs rather than 154 lbs because there is more money and prestige attached to the middleweight division. In fact, he often enters the ring closer to the junior middleweight limit of 154 lbs. rather than at the top end of the middleweight limit, which is 160lbs.

Sergio Martinez looked superb in his recent victory at Madison Square Gardens in New York, on St. Patrick’s Day. Martinez was facing British born Irishman Matthew Macklin, the number two-ranked middleweight in the world. Macklin looked good in the early part of the fight. Trained by Buddy McGirt, Macklin followed McGirt’s plan of head movement and moving side to side very well. Macklin’s head movement made it very difficult for Martinez to find a home for his left hook in the early going.

The problem with game plans are that they do not take into consideration the possibility that your opponent will alter his game, thus rendering your original plan useless. As the fight wore on, Martinez became more effective and gradually figured Macklin out. One of the keys to greatness for any fighter is the ability to improvise on the spot and Martinez is the best fighter in the world today when it comes to ad-libbing in the ring.

Another point to take into consideration is that Martinez is a southpaw and no one likes to fight southpaws. Even southpaws hate fighting southpaws. The age-old wisdom when facing a southpaw is to circle away from his power hand, which would be his left.

Macklin do so effectively in the beginning but then Martinez made the necessary adjustments, leaving Macklin confused and off-balance in the ring later on in the match.

Macklin landed some good hard shots on Martinez early in the bout. Martinez took his time figuring out his foe, while not being bothered by the challenger’s punches. Macklin deserves credit for giving the champ a good fight. Macklin landed his share of power shots, although Martinez’s granite chin stood him in good stead throughout the match. Macklin was coming off a highly disputed loss against Felix Sturm in Germany.

As the fight progressed, Martinez gave Macklin many different angles to look at in every round. Macklin rarely saw the same stance or style twice in any round from Martinez. This made it supremely hard for Macklin to adjust his style to counter Martinez. Martinez’s continual foot movement just did not allow Macklin enough time to set himself properly in order to fire back any telling combinations at the champion.

As the fight wore on, Macklin was reduced to leaping in and throwing two or three punches at a time, while leaving himself very exposed and susceptible to hard counter left hands, which Martinez threw and landed almost unerringly for the latter half of the match.

The seventh round was the turning point in the fight.  Macklin got a gift from the referee after he tripped Martinez and it was ruled an official knockdown. The faux knockdown gave Macklin a small and temporary points lead in the fight. It was also the last round he won in the fight. The end was nigh.

Martinez finally figured Macklin by the eighth round, and started to turn his Irish foe, confusing the younger fighter and muting his attack. Martinez simply could not miss with his left hand all night long. He began to whack Macklin with hard left power shots repeatedly. Martinez would then slide to his left, turning Macklin, and then whack him again with more left hands. Macklin was simply unable to block Martinez’s left hands. In the end, it cost him the fight.

For some reason, it never occurred to Macklin to move away from southpaw Martinez’s left hand, and go the opposite direction, rather than walk towards it, into the champ’s power alley, like a moth to light.

From the eighth round on Martinez piled up the points and rounds until he dropped Macklin near the end of the 11^th round with a stiff, hard, short left hand. Macklin arose groggily and Martinez turned him one last time and then landed his best punch of the night, a vicious left hook high on Macklin’s cheek which dropped the Irishman for the second time. Macklin rose on unsteady legs, bleeding from cuts on his forehead and over his left eye. He beat the count as the round ended but his trainer Buddy McGirt wisely ended the fight.

 It goes into the books as 12^th round knockout victory for Sergio Martinez, the universally recognized middleweight champion of the world. All great middleweight champions have had tough fights in which they needed to use every ounce of skill and energy they possessed to pull out a win. Martinez did just that against Macklin, a very good fighter in his own right.

Martinez’s title defenses recently have followed a similar pattern. The challenger comes out and gives Martinez a bit of trouble early in the fight. Martinez then figures them out and wears them down meticulously until the very last rounds, when he decides he has had enough and knocks his challenger out. To be able to score knockouts near the end of such tough and brutal fights against the best fighters in the world only serves to underscore the championship heart, talent, courage and determination of Sergio Martinez.  Not only is he the universally recognized world middleweight champion, he may very well be the best boxer in the world right now pound for pound. When he retires, he will enter the Hall of Fame in Canastota unanimously on the very first ballot. To accomplish that, you have to be, beyond a shadow of a doubt, an all-time great.

The Rebirth of Ian Clyde "The Shotgun Reloads"

 

THE REBIRTH OF IAN CLYDE

“The Shotgun Reloads”

“There are no second acts in American life,” once said F. Scott Fitzgerald many years ago. Fitzgerald’s theory was that you get one shot in life at getting it right and if you screw up, you are doomed to a life of failure and misery. It is safe to assume that Mr. Fitzgerald never met Canada’s Ian Clyde.

Ian Clyde is one of the most beloved and admired athletes to ever come out of Canada. As a celebrated amateur boxer, Clyde won the Canadian flyweight title ten years in a row. This is a record that stood for many years. As a professional fighter Clyde was ranked number one in the world and came within a couple of points of capturing the IBF world flyweight title. If not for some home cooking in South Korea, Clyde would have been the world flyweight champion.

Unlike many retired athletes, Ian has virtually no bitterness about his career. In fact, quite the opposite is true. He feels blessed by God to have had the legendary Angelo Dundee as his trainer and manager for his entire pro career. Ian always called Dundee “Uncle Angelo,” and Dundee’s wife Helen, “Aunty Helen.” Ian always speaks of them both very often and in the most loving terms. Indeed it would be harder to find another human being on this planet more modest than Ian Clyde.

Perhaps the most interesting character trait of Ian Clyde aka “The Shotgun,” is that he is always truly surprised whenever anyone expresses their fondness for him or memories of him. He really does look forward to each new day as a blessing and a fresh start.  I have been lucky to know Ian now for just under ten years. I first met Ian courtesy of Angelo Dundee. Before I met Ian, Angelo told me, “To know Ian Clyde is to love Ian Clyde.” With each passing day, I am beginning to understand what he meant.

Recently Ian and I along with many other Canadians had the somber task of flying to Clearwater, Florida for the funeral of Angelo Dundee. Ian and I both loved Angelo for different and similar reasons. Ian grew up with a polio-like disease, which required him to wear awkward leg braces while attending elementary school. As we all know, children can be frightening cruel in elementary school and in Ian’s case, this was especially true as many of them taunted him daily by calling him a cripple and laughing at him.

Ian fell in love early with boxing and during elementary school he would tell everyone he was going to become a professional boxer and, that Muhammad Ali’s trainer Angelo Dundee would be his trainer too. As one would guess, the other kids laughed long and loud at Ian’s boast. Ian never became angry with them for their terrible taunts. The daily derision he received from these kids just made him more resolute to succeed at boxing.

Angelo Dundee made every taunt Ian ever received disappear when he signed Ian to a contract and agreed to train and manage him professionally. Angelo always believed in Ian and this belief never waned even in the slightest degree throughout their long professional association and personal friendship. Ian never missed an opportunity to thank Angelo for his eternal belief in him. Ian also told Angelo how much he loved him and important he was in Ian’s life overall. Angelo always told Ian the feeling was more than mutual and it was.

To give you an idea of the engaging character of Ian Clyde, during Angelo’s funeral, when we were all weeping, he whispered to me, “I could have done more for him.” That would be an incredible comment from anyone but it was even more astounding coming from Ian. Why? Ian spoke with Angelo often over the years. Ian Clyde was essentially Angelo Dundee’s second son. Although Ian always expressed his affection for Angelo to Angelo, he still feels he should have done more for his mentor and close friend.

Essentially, the comment, “I could have done more for him,” perfectly sums up Ian Clyde, a man always looking to go the extra mile for those that mean the most to him in his life. Ian has had a tough time financially over the past decade. Yet, he still felt obliged to attend Angelo Dundee’s funeral. He would not even consider not attending the funeral of this man who believed in him throughout his career and long after. Angelo’s confidence in and admiration for Ian never waned.

Ian is a very emotional person. This has nothing to do with boxing. This is essentially Ian’s own personal make-up. It is the way in which he is wired. Ian wears his heart on his sleeve because he knows of no other way to live his life. Through every setback personally and professionally that he has encountered, Ian has never expressed anger or bitterness towards anyone, except for the pastor who married him and his second wife.

This is the same pastor who preached every weekend at his church on the sanctity and holiness of marriage, and then went and had a sexual affair with Ian’s wife. The pastor ran off with Ian’s wife and moved with her to B.C. This was almost a mortal blow to Ian because his wife tokk their three young children with her to B.C. This meant that their high school years are spent far away from their father, who has resided in Montreal now for over a quarter of a century.   The children visit him every summer and during the holidays too but for Ian, that is not enough. What puzzles Ian most is how a pastor can so wantonly break the vows of his own church and still be licensed to serve as a minister by the same church.

Ian’s greatest desire in recent years was for Angelo Dundee to meet his four children. Angelo has three daughters and one son. Hs daughter Heather is the eldest and is the product of Ian’s first marriage. His second marriage produced Amanda, Christine and Kevin. It is precisely because he and Angelo shared similar life values that it was important to Ian that his children meet Angelo.

Ian’s pride in his children is omnipresent. He talks about them often and he always sports a huge smile when discussing his offspring. Ian is a very involved, encouraging and proud father. The day of Angelo’s funeral was a very long day. Ian and I were staying in the same hotel but on that very emotionally draining day, we did not make it back to our hotel until 3:30 in the morning. As I headed for the elevator, Ian walked right by me down the hall. I asked him where he was going. He said he wanted to send his children some emails.  I suggested to him that the emails could wait and that getting some much needed rest should be foremost on his mind.

Ian smiled wearily. He said, “I want my kids to wake up knowing that I was thinking about them.”  For Ian, his children are paramount to his very existence. He is a hands-on father, speaking with his children every single day. As a result, Ian is very close with all of his children, which he regards as his single greatest achievement. Angelo and Ian both believed that family always comes first. Angelo’s well known credo of, “It don’t cost nothing to be nice to someone” is also shared by Ian.

At Angelo Dundee’s funeral, Ian was really taken aback by the affection he received from many of the people in attendance.  Muhammad Ali’s wife Lonnie made a point of seeking out Ian and talking with him. She told him how Muhammad was thinking of him and wished him well. Ian was a stable mate of Muhammad Ali.

Angelo’s son Jimmy, himself a grandfather, gave Ian a bear hug and repeatedly told Ian that he was family. To be accepted like that took some of the sting out of being ignored by the boxing establishment in Quebec, a wrong that has to this date not yet been righted. Like many Canadians in the arts, Ian has received world-wide recognition for his boxing and fitness skills and his coaching, teaching and mentoring abilities everywhere but in Canada.

After Angelo’s funeral, Ian was introduced to Matt Baiamonte, Dino Spencer and Tom Tsatas, the new owners of the famed Fifth Street Gym in Miami, Florida, started originally by Chris and Angelo Dundee. They offered Ian a job on the spot. This says a lot about the boxing establishments in both Canada and the United States.

Ian Clyde was a world ranked fighter for many years as a Canadian amateur and as a professional, yet he is to this day largely ignored by both amateur and professional boxing organizations in Canada. Given Ian’s vast and amateur background it is somewhat astounding that he is not involved in training our Olympic boxing hopefuls. Considering Ian’s successful professional career and the fact that he was trained by Angelo Dundee, widely considered boxing’s most outstanding trainer, it is inconceivable that he has not been hired to help guide a young Canadian hotshot to a title shot. Canadian Mikael Zewski would benefit greatly from Ian’s experience and expertise. Ian was known in the pros for his speed and for his brutal body attack, something, which would be a boon to Zewski’s already impressive skill set.

Ian has an advantage over many of today’s boxing trainers due to his extensive background in physical fitness, which is an area in boxing today that is receiving a tremendous amount of attention. Boxers these days fully realize that being good at boxing is simply not enough to succeed in the sport.

Toda’s fighters require much more than a world class set of boxing skills. They must also be in excellent physical condition and able to go three minutes of every round for a full twelve rounds. This is much easier said than done. Many of today’s trainers are simply not equipped in that area and thus must hire a training specialist to help improve and maintain their fighter’s physical conditioning. 

Today’s boxing world champions are in vastly superior physical shape different than those great fighters of many years ago. Today’s top pugilists have seemingly never ending stamina and the ability to go the championship route of twelve rounds at the same energy level in each round without tiring during the fight. This kind of high impact aerobic training was pioneered by Ian many years ago during his own career and was a key component of his boxing success.

Like so many Canadians before him in many different fields of endeavor, Ian Clyde will now travel south to the United States to achieve success. He will begin by training promising young American boxers in Miami Beach. He is yet another fistic gem lost to Canada due to the egotism and infighting that governs professional boxing in Quebec, his home province. Let’s hope that his impending trip to Miami is a huge success. After many lean years, it looks like Ian Clyde is about to rise to the top again in his chosen profession. Of all of the many boxing stories currently in the news, this may be the best of all.

The Night Jack Dempsey KO'ed Ty Cobb

Ty Cobb was one of the most talented baseball players of all time. He was also the most hated ballplayer of all time. Cobb was despised by his teammates, opposing players, the press, fans, management and, in particular African Americans. One time, Cobb got to practice in Detroit very early in the morning. He was working on his swing. During one swing, his cap flew off and the wind carried it about 25 yards away from the batter's box. Kept took no mind of it. He just kept practicing his swing.

A man walked up and tapped Cobb on the shoulder very gently to let him know that he had retrieved his hat. That man was a groundskeeper. He was also African American and Ty Cobb beat him to death. Cobb , you see, was from the state of Georgia, thus his nickname, the Georgia Peach. Like most white Southerners, Cobb had a pathological hatred of African Americans. Cobb was also a member of the KKK, as was Rogers Hornsby. Although, Hornsby later admitted it and publicly apologized for his involvement with the group.

The Detroit Tigers paid a sizable amount of money to the grounds-keeper's family to not press charges and keep the event out of the papers. Cobb was a mean-spirited bigot with not one friend in the world. He hated everybody and everybody hated him. One of his teammates described Cobb's nasty nature thusly, "He would climb a mountain just to punch an echo." One year, on the last day of the season, Cobb's Tigers played a doubleheader against  the Cleveland Indians. Cobb held a slight lead in points for the batting title that season over Cleveland's star slugger, Napoleon Lajoie. Lajoie was the polar opposite of Cobb. He was loved by everybody in Baseball, especially the fans. Cobb's own team, the Tigers, hated him so much, they let Lajoie bunt 8 times in those games to get on base and beat Cobb for the  batting title that season.  Cobb sat on the bench and watched his teammates laugh at it him as they helped Lajoie win the batting title.

To make matters worse, when Lajoie had won the title, one of the Tiger fans laughed at Cobb. Cobb ran over to the stands and jumped up into the seats and ran at the man, where he preceded to beat the man into a coma. The man was a war vet and had no arms.  Cobb said he didn't care that the man had no arms.

That night after the last game of the season, the Tigers headed back to their team hotel where the players stayed during the season. Ty Cobb wanted to make a phone call. He went to the lobby and saw a guy on the phone. The guy acknowledged him, smiled and held up five fingers, as if to say, "Five more minutes." The man talked for five, ten, fifteen more minutes and Cobb was now enraged. This had been the most embarrassing and infuriating day of his entire life and now this guy in the phone booth won't get off the phone! Cobb snapped, kicked the door in, which caused glass to shatter everywhere. Cobb grabbed the man by the arm to pull him out of the booth. The man, literally raised Cobb high into the air with his right arm. Cobb was stunned. The man he had interrupted so rudely, was none other than Jack Dempsey, the current reigning, defending and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

Now, if Cobb had profusely apologized right then and there or started to cry and beg for mercy, he may have gotten away with his actions. Cobb being Cobb,  picked himself up and rushed at Dempsey. Dempsey hit him twice. Cobb was out for just under an hour. He awoke in a hospital with a broken nose,  a broken cheekbone, a partial jaw fracture and 8 missing teeth.  Dempsey received dozens of floral bouquets and gifts from the Detroit Tigers thanking hi for what he had done.  When asked by the media who was tougher, Ty Cobb or Jess Willard, Dempsey said, "The phonebooth."

Touching Gloves By Lou Eisen

SALIDO DOES IT AGAIN!

This past Saturday night in Puerto Rico, Mexican slugger Orlando Salido and Puerto Rican slugger Juan Manuel Lopez staged a classic barroom brawl for the ages.  Their roles were switched from their first encounter last April, as Salido entered the ring this time as the defending WBO featherweight world champion. In their original meeting, also in Puerto Rico, Salido entered the squared circle as the challenger and a prohibitive underdog given very little if any chance of defeating the supposedly unbeatable, dynamite-laden fists of Juanma.

By scoring a TKO victory over Juanma in the 8^th round of their initial encounter, Salido proved that he is an elite fighter and the best featherweight boxer in the world today. By turning the trick again in the rematch with a stunning 10^th round kayo of Lopez, in front of a partisan Lopez crowd, Salido emphatically put the boxing world on notice that his original 8^th round kayo victory over Juanma in their first slugfest was in no way a fluke. Salido is for real and real fight fans have taken him to their hearts for his relentless warrior nature. Salido fights as if it was his last day on earth.

In Puerto Rico, this second time around, Salido was an absolute force of nature, always coming forward winging shots, looking to take out Juanma with every punch he threw.  At no time in either fight did Salido seem the least bit disturbed by Juanma’s legendary heavy hands. Juanma deliberately elbowed Salido this time around late in the fight and Salido nor his corner complained about the flagrant foul.  They took it for what it was, the last desperate attempt of a losing fighter trying to regain his former glory.

Salido fought like a pair of well-oiled pistons, continually chugging forward, landing thudding and concussive shots on Juanma seemingly at will. Salido truly is the “Energizer” boxer who only knows one speed – fast forward. Salido knows only one way to fight, which is to throw howizter-powered hooks to the body and head until whoever is in front of him either falls to the canvas or the referee steps in to stop the fight.

For all those people watching Salido-Juanma II on Saturday night, it appeared that Juanma had not yet fully recovered from the first brutal knockout loss he had suffered at the relentless hands of Salido last April. Juanma never seemed to have his legs under him in this fight to any sufficient degree. He always looked to be one good shot away from being dropped. The long awaited rematch between Juanma and Salido was supposed to be a chance for Juan Manuel Lopez to regain his lost laurels, the WBO featherweight world title.  Most boxing experts who viewed the fight did not score a single round for Juanma, including the fifth where he dropped Salido briefly with a check left hook.

 It now remains to be seen if Juanma can even regain his original boxing form, which made him the terror of the featherweight division. Maybe Juanma is finished. He sure looked like it this past Saturday night. In boxing, it can happen that quickly. Careers and lives can end on a single punch. Juanma was wobbled dozens of times during the fight and looked to be in danger of going down every time Salido tagged him with a decent shot.

Salido deserves much credit for agreeing to the rematch in Juanma’s backyard of Puerto Rico. Salido took the crowd right out of the fight in the very first round by immediately jumping on Lopez at the opening bell and rocking him several times in the first stanza.

Surprisingly, Lopez showed a much-improved chin in his ability to absorb Salido’s bombs.  However, just like their first tussle, Lopez was unable to duck slip or slide Salido’s power punches, which would have been much preferable to just shaking them off. It was only a matter of time before this flaw in Juanma’s mettle would catch up with him and spell goodnight.

The other big surprise for the evening was Juanma’s decision to open the fight utilizing his rarely seen boxing abilities. Whereas before Juanma would always resort to trading with his foe whenever he was tagged with a good shot, he now danced away from Salido every time the champ rocked him with a power punch. Yes this strategy gave Juanma more time and distance to recover but it also put him out of counterpunching range too.

The first 8 rounds fell into a familiar pattern with Salido pressing the action, landing powerful body shots on the challenger before bringing his attack upstairs to land damaging punches flush on Juanma’s chin many times. Juanma would briefly try to counter and then flit away whenever Salido got his attention with some bone-rattling power punches. Salido showed a lot of head movement when coming forward, giving Juanma an elusive and thoroughly frustrating target to reach for in each round.

Salido also added another weapon to his arsenal, a looping left hook, which Juanma seemed unable to defend against or even see coming. Salido’s left hook is sneaky because he wings it from the outside, not leaving Juanma any chance to see it until it has landed.  Juanma spent much of the night trapped against the ropes, which provided the champ with ample opportunites to use his new found left hook to great effect.

It was fervently hoped in Puerto Rico that Lopez would thrill the crowd and bring them to their feet, as he had done so many times before, by scoring a brutal knockout of Salido to regain his much beloved WBO featherweight crown. Unfortunately for Puerto Rican fans, it was simply not to be.

Salido applied tremendous pressure right from the get-go, expertly cutting off the ring in each round, forcing Juanma to fight a war of attrition in close, which is not a style that works well against Salido. Juanma has lethal punching power in both hands, but he needs sufficient room to let his hands go. Salido continually cut off the ring and by crowding Juanma, never allowed him enough space to get any leverage on his power shots. Yes, Lopez did box a lot more than he did in their first bout, just as he said he would. However, his decision to box more than slug had virtually no effect on Salido in any round of their rematch.

It is hard to criticize Lopez for his new game plan during the rematch. In their original encounter, Lopez relied on his phenomenal punching power to do the trick, as it had done so many times before, by trying to decapitate Salido with each shot he threw. He spent that whole first fight head hunting to no avail.

Sure Juanma rang Salido’s bell a couple of times in their first spectacular battle but the hard charging Mexican with the chin of granite and the heart of a lion, was not in any way deterred, dropping Juanma with a vicious left hook in the fifth round and then overwhelming him to knock him out in the 8^th round.

Juanma knew he needed another strategy than just standing toe-to-toe and trading bombs if he were to regain his title from Salido. Lopez ran into the classic slugger’s worst nightmare, which is, what happens when you hit your foe with your hardest knockout punches and nothing happens?   Salido took all of Lopez’s crunching shots and still fired back relentlessly with quicker and much more damaging punches.

Lopez said he would revert to boxing technically the second time around and he remained true to his word. He boxed Salido from a distance in an attempt to avoid getting caught with Salido’s crushing counter shots, which cost him his title the first time around.  Lopez wanted to show his hometown fans that his 8^th round knockout loss to Salido last year was nothing more than a fluke.

Well, Salido showed Mexican fight fans along with Juanma’s rabid hometown fans that his first win over Juanma was definitely not a fluke. Salido proved even more superior to Juanma in this rematch, issuing the former champ a much more emphatic beat down than he had given him in their original bout.

Although Salido was defending his WBO featherweight world title, there was something much more valuable and prestigious at stake when these two great fighters entered the ring, namely ownership of the bragging rights between Puerto Rico and Mexico and which country has superior fighters and world champions. This is a boxing rivalry that has been in existence for more than 100 years. Mexico won this chapter of their endless, ongoing war for fistic supremacy.

In retrospect, the signs of Juanma’s apparent sudden demise were there all along but most fight fans and media tended to overlook the ever widening cracks in Juanma’s supposed wall of invincibility. In fact, the first signs that Juanma may not be as dominant as first thought, appeared in his brutal 12 round  super bantamweight title fight in 2009 with Rogers Mtagwa. Juanma won a disputed unanimous decision but was essentially out on his feet at the finish line.

Salido knew that coming into the rematch he would absolutely have to knock out Juanma to retain his crown.  He had no illusions about receiving a decision in his favor in his opponent’s hometown.

The Orlando Salido that has now convincingly knocked out Juan Manuel Lopez in two consecutive fights almost one year apart, is certainly not the same boxer we have been watching ply his trade all over the world, for the last ten years.  What happened to Salido in the course of the last several years to turn him from a top flight pro boxer into an elite and outstanding world champion?

I think the answer may lie farther back, even before he engaged Juanma in battle. It was his war with Yuriorkis Gamboa that infused Salido with the confidence that he could be the best featherweight in the world. He needed to do two different things to accomplish that goal. He had to increase his stamina to the point where he cold fight toe-to-toe for 12 full rounds without a break and he had to start knocking all of his opponents out and never again rely on the judges for a decision in his favor.

 In his match with Gamboa, aka the Guantanamo Cyclone, Salido gave perhaps the best performance of his career up to that point and yet, still lost. It enraged him inside. This was a different kind of rage. He was angry with himself for leaving the decision in the hands of the judges. He vowed to never let that happen again. So far, he has kept that promise to himself.

It’s a good thing too that he no longer relies on the judges. In their rematch, Showtime’s unofficial scorer Chuck Giampa scored the fight, including what turned out to be the 10^th and final round for Salido by a wide margin over Juanma, as did all of the ringside observers. However, two of the three official judges had Juanma unbelievably ahead. Juanma lost every round by a wide margin, including the 5^th round, where he scored a flash knockdown of Salido with a check left hook.

The disgusting fact that two of the three judges assigned to the fight had Juanma ahead is exactly what drives Salido to new heights in his chosen sport.

Salido knows from many unfortunate past experiences that such disgraceful and criminally inaccurate scoring is now the norm in professional boxing.  That is why so many people watch Salido fight and then are stunned to learn that he has 11 losses on his ledger. How can a fighter this talented have that many losses? Easy. He was the victim of home cooking many times throughout his career. In his case, it has only made him a tougher, meaner and more successful prizefighter.

After his original victory over Juanma last April 16^th in Puerto Rico, Salido had two more fights to finish out the year. He knocked out Kenichi Yamaguchi by 11^th round kayo and then he iced Weng Haya in 8 rounds. In other words, Salido continued to fight and to improve rather than relax and enjoy his spoils. He has trained relentlessly for the past year and a half and his conditioning is remarkable.  After his 10^th round stoppage of Juanma, Salido told Jim Grey that he still had at least another 3 to 5 rounds left in his tank. His second victory over Juanma was a vicious and grueling fight, much more so than their first encounter. The ninth round was the best round of the year so far and was reminiscent of the 10^th round of the May, 2005 all out war between Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo.

During the sensational and hectic 9^th round, both Salido and Juanma took turns using each other’s head for batting practice. Both men were landing concussive bombs bringing the crowd to its feet screaming all over the world. Both men were out on their feet numerous times in that sizzling 9^th round, but somehow fought their way back into the fight.

At the conclusion of that epic round, everyone including the fighters, the fans and the broadcasters were absolutely breathless from watching three full minutes of toe-to-toe slugging action without even a single pause or clinch by either fighter. How much more could either man possibly have left to give? The answer to that question would be answered very soon.

As it turned out, the blistering 9^th round was Juanma’s last stand of the fight. He had virtually nothing left within him to give.  Salido came out for the tenth and what turned out to be final round frisky, eager for action and hungry for battle. He caught Juanma with a crushing right hook, that was the beginning of the end,  and then threw 5 more punishing headshots in quick succession, much like a machine gun firing off a round. Juanma took every blow on his chin, finally falling violently to the canvas, almost in slow motion, with his head thudding loudly off of the mat.

Rather than take a count to clear his obviously concussed head Juanma rose immediately and then fell back into the ropes, staggering several times before referee Roberto Ramirez did the right thing and stopped the fight. Ramirez saved Juanma’s life by ending the fight. It is truly unfortunate that Juanma was too concussed to realize that at the time.  Ironically Juanma displayed more heart and courage in defeat than he had ever shown before in any of his previously impressive victories. Salido’s corner, when watching the replay of the knockout, took their hats off to Juanma. He had fought his heart out. He went out on his shield, the way a true professional boxer is supposed to.

Salido said that Juanma was a very tough fighter with very heavy hands and a lot of power. Unbelievably, Salido remarked that he still had more rounds left in the tank just in case Juanma survived the 10th round. Not even Superman could have survived that blazing 9^th round melee as well as the 10^th round.  Salido still wanted to go on! Salido reached his physical zenith in this fight at a time when most fighters would be struggling just to last the rounds. Salido is a champion for the ages!

The question everyone was wondering in both the ninth and tenth rounds was, “What on earth is holding Juanma up?” At that point, it was nothing more than heart, courage and his grim determination to see this war through to its bitter end. Ultimately it proved to be not enough to surmount Salido’s ironclad desire for victory. Why Juanma felt obliged to besmirch his phenomenal ring efforts by needlessly accusing the referee of stopping the fight to pay off his gambling debts is anyone’s guess. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In an ironic twist of fate that can only occur in boxing, it was Roberto Ramirez’s son who stopped their first fight, also in favor of Salido. Lopez accused both men of stopping both fights to pay off gambling debts.  The only thing that can be said in Juanma’s defense is that he had just taken in the range of two hundred hard punches to his head and was probably suffering from a severe concussion. Nevertheless Juanma owes the referee an apology. For a man falsely accused of gambling debts, Mr. Ramirez wisely decided not to wager that Juanma could still go another round.