Springs Toledo’s “The Ringside Belle,” Part 3

Published

9 years ago

February 12, 2015

Jungle Fever

In 1927, William “Gorilla” Jones, 20, was invited to fight in Akron, Ohio by promoter Suey Welch. Jones accepted the offer, toyed with his more experienced opponent, collected his purse, and then went and blew every dime in a dice game. He approached Welch, hat in hand, and asked for an advance on his next purse. He took that and the fever took him. Off he went looking for “dem bones,” expecting to double back and square up early. Needless to say, he doubled back with his hat in his hand again. It became a routine until Welch let the dice fly himself and signed him. Jones became as much an indentured servant as a fighter under the new banner. During daylight hours, he was at the Welch Athletic Club on South Main Street; by night he was whooping it up in the red-light district. Welch’s father, Akron’s police chief, lent a hand and put out an APB to the gambling dens in the city—“Don’t let Gorilla Jones through the door!”

Jones spent a few years fighting in and around Ohio. He was a defensive specialist who often loafed his way to a decision win but was more than able to send the crowd home early. It depended on the other guy’s ambitions; if those ambitions were too aggressive, Jones would knock him silly. It also depended on Jones’s social calendar; if Jones happened to have an engagement to attend, he would plant his feet, so to speak, to get to the dance on time. Late one night before a fight, Welch heard unfamiliar snoring coming from Jones’s room and opened the door to find a double in Jones’s bed. Jones was you-know-where doing you-know-what.

Late in 1928, Mae West accompanied gangster Owney Madden to the fights at Madison Square Garden. Jones was on the undercard and doing all right. Later, the fighter spotted the movie star and her well-tailored escort in a bar and sent over a round of drinks. West liked his moxie and invited him to see her at the theatre. After the show, West found that she liked his heroic musculature too and invited him to her dressing room.

Maybe the walls caved in. Whatever happened, it must have been stupendous because West began bankrolling Jones’s career and his luck turned for keeps. He filed taxes on his 1929 earnings totaling $85,000 (that’d be $1,158,430 in 2014), drove a shiny new Lincoln Coupe, sported over 90 suits with sharp cuts and side vents, and developed a taste for diamonds that matched that of his new patroness.

By the time West was writing her lines for her Hollywood debut in Night After Night, the man winked at in one of those lines (“Hey Ga-rilla! C’mere!”) —was middleweight champion of the world.

It was 1932. Jones made one defense before losing his crown later that year to a Frenchman who looked like something from The Hills Have Eyes. He soon followed the woman he affectionately called “The Lady” to Los Angeles. Manager Suey Welch went with him and both were put on salary. By 1934, Welch was supervising fight scenes in a Mae West movie and Jones was earning $750 a week. Welch got out of the fight racket for a while and bought a string of theatres. Jones retired in 1940, and as far as the mainstream press knew, got hired as West’s chauffeur, though a chauffeur wasn’t often seen walking a diamond-collared lion on a leash along Central Avenue or fondling his blonde employer in after-hours joints near the Dunbar Hotel. Central Avenue was then predominantly a black community and the residents there knew what blue-eyed gossip columnists could only guess—Jones and Mae West were lovers.

Sometimes word leaked out. There’s a story where some bum made a rude comment about the star and Jones decked him but good. West scolded him for it. “Let ‘em talk,” she said. “I made four million because people were saying nasty things about me and you shouldn’t get in a fight to change that opinion.” There’s another story where the manager of the Ravenswood wouldn’t allow Jones past the lobby to visit West and it was West’s turn to fume —She bought the building.

West’s generosity to Jones was extended to his mother. Daisy Jones, a retired Memphis school principal, was hired on as a wardrobe assistant and travelling companion and stayed on for eighteen years. She adored West. “She is very kind and I like working for her very much,” she told the New York Age.

In the Fifties, Jones taught boxing classes at the Boys’ Club in Watts until his vision began to fail as a result of adult diabetes. In 1957, his almond eyes were obscured behind horn-rimmed glasses and his total annual income was “zero” according to Jet magazine. But West wouldn’t let him live any less than comfortably. She had wisely invested much of his ring earnings into a trust fund, purchased property for him, and paid his bills.

He loved her right back. When a motion-picture company offered him a quarter-million dollars for his story, he turned them down flat because they tried to make him admit he was one of West’s lovers. The Lady always insisted on keeping her private life private and lying to those outside her world was considered loyalty. Jones’s loyalty had no price. “All the money in the world would be no good without friends,” he said in 1974. “I would never betray a friend who has done everything to keep me on top and let me live the life I wanted to live.”

Lowell Darling is a conceptual artist, two-time gubernatorial candidate in California, and president in perpetuity of the Society for the Preservation of Lowell Darling. In the Seventies, he “fell in with hams and muscle heads” at the Cauliflower Alley Club in Hollywood where, he said, old fighters “regrouped en masse to form a constellation of faint stars.” Gorilla Jones was among them. He was damn-near blind by then and wore a wig that might have been found at the end of a push broom at dd’s Discounts the day after Halloween. Jones’s friends at the club knew the truth about the ageless star and the champ, but weren’t broadcasting it. “Let’s just say,” said one of them, “that Mae always had a soft spot in her heart for Gorilla.”

Jones was doing all right. He was living rent-free in a small white frame house in Echo Park, the one with the little figurine of a gorilla straddling the lattice fence at the front. His neighbors knew him as a “gentlemanly fellow who would hastily button his shirt if a lady approached the porch where he sat on warm days.” Inside the house was a makeshift shrine to his glory years. Darling was one of the few invited inside to see it. One day the phone rang. “That must be The Lady,” said Jones as he groped for the receiver.

“Hello Ga-rilla?”

“I have a present I want to give you,” Jones told her.

“How much will it cost me, Ga-rilla?”

“—I want to give you a telephone for your car so we can talk anytime, 24-hours a day.”

They spoke to each other, said Darling, “like lovesick kids.” Sometimes she sent a car to bring him to the Ravenswood for more than talk. By then, Jones (and millions more) had been in love with the star for over half-a-century.

In 1980, 86-year-old Mae West suffered a stroke and that purring lilt went silent. When she was brought home from the hospital, she would lie in bed watching her old movies, transfixed by a character as fascinating to her as it is to us.

Early on the morning of November 22, 1980 she went to sleep, peacefully, and took her last breath. I imagine a shimmer of sunlight reaching into her bedroom like a finger to touch her cheek.

The African-American press remembered her as a friend and a heroine. Headlines trumpeted her disregard of contrived color lines. “Mae West: Snow White Sex Queen Who Drifted” read Jet. “Mae West Had Her Black Friends” read the Call and Post. Columnist Bill Lane wrote that she had “something within that transcended clear skin and sexy hips. She had a humanness that broad-jumped unpretentiously over whiteness and blackness.”

Her funeral service in the Hollywood Hills wasn’t big and flamboyant like she was when the cameras rolled, like we thought she was. It was an intimate gathering of trusted friends, which is what she cherished most in this world. Gorilla Jones, 74, stood weeping without shame by the casket. Every now and then he’d honk his nose and the wig perched on his head would slip.

West’s body was transported back home to Brooklyn to be buried alongside her mother and Battlin’ Jack.

Jones was left behind.

He stopped going to boxing shows and the Braille Institute. He stopped going to the store. “After she passed on,” said a next-door neighbor, “he just went down.” He began passing-up rides to the Cauliflower Alley Club; and eventually wouldn’t leave the house, wouldn’t eat. His once-heroic musculature wasted away to 102 lbs.

On January 4, 1982 they found his body surrounded by his boxing memorabilia, old newspaper clippings, and framed images of The Lady, her bedroom eyes locked on him.

Her bedroom eyes

…spotting someone in the distance, she puts the brakes on her strut and a hand on her hip— “Hey Ga-rilla!” she calls out. “C’mere!”

Special thanks to Lowell Darling, Bruce Kielty, Alice Martin, and Alister Scott Ottesen.

Mae West: Goodness Had Nothing to Do With it (1959); Life (4/18/69); Henry Armstrong’s interviewinPeterHeller’s In This Corner…! 42 World Champions Tell Their Stories (DeCapo, 1973); Mae West: The Lies, the Legend, The Truth by George Eells and Stanley Musgrove (1984), p. 143; Jet “Snow White Sex Queen Who Drifted by Robert E. Johnson (7/25/1974); Private detective’s statements in Mae West: Empress of Sex (HarperCollins 1991); Milton Berle: B.S. I Love You (McGraw-Hill, 1987); UP (Jack Cuddy, 6/4/1937 and 9/27/1944); INS 12/6/1933, Los Angeles Herald and Express (1/16/1934); Jim Murray’s opinion in Los Angeles Times (4/25/1961); AP 8/21/1957. Details regarding Chalky Wright found in Baltimore Afro-American (12/24/1960), Milwaukee Sentinel (12/2/1946); UP 8/24/1957, Los Angeles Sentinel (8/15/1957), Baltimore Afro-American (8/31/1957), and Los Angeles Times (August 1957); Mickey Cohen, in My Own Words: The Autobiography of Michael Mickey Cohen As Told to John Peer Nugent (Prentice-Hall, 1975); Alice Martin told this writer that she believed that West paid for Chalky’s funeral. Archived autopsy report performed by Dr. Gerald K. Ridge, M.D., Deputy Medical Examiner on Albert G. Wright, August 13, 1957 at 1:45pm (rec’d 10/2/2014 from Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner, County of Los Angeles). Details regarding Gorilla Jones found in “Local History: Akron’s King of Rings” by Mark J. Price (Beacon Journal, 6/8/2009); “Lady Luck’s Frown Starts Jones Upward” by Carl Crammer, AP 2/26/1932; MilwaukeeSentinel, (11/22/1931); Jet (7/16/1953, 4/3/1958 and 1/28/1982); Pittsburgh Press (6/13/1934); Lowell Darling (unpublished manuscript; emails to author); Los Angeles Times, 1/6/1982.

Springs Toledo is the author of The Gods of War: Boxing Essays (Tora, 2014, $25).He can be reached at scalinatella@hotmail.com

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Springs Toledo

Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

11 hours ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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In a Shocker, Ryan Garcia Confounds the Experts and Upsets Devin Haney

Published

2 days ago

April 21, 2024

David A. Avila

In-a-Shocker-Ryan-Garcia-Confounds-the-Experts-and-Upsets-Devin-Haney

Its good to be crazy. Like a fox.

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia knocked down WBC super lightweight titlist Devin Haney three times to remind everyone of his fighting abilities in winning by majority decision on Saturday.

“I just knew what I could do,” Garcia said.

Fans will not forget the lanky kid from Victorville, California now.

Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) fooled everyone in playing crazy weeks before the fight, then showed shocking power to hand Haney (30-1, 15 KOs) his first loss as a professional at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Haney’s WBC super lightweight title was not at stake for Garcia because he weighed three pounds over the limit.

After Garcia seemingly acting out of control on social media, Haney’s guard must have slipped in the first round during the first few seconds as Garcia connected with that hellish left hook and Haney, with a look of shock in his eyes, almost went down. He barely survived the first round.

“He caught me with it,” said Haney.

During the next few rounds, Haney proceeded to advance toward Garcia seemingly fully aware of the lethal left hook. He used feints and rights to score with a busier approach as Garcia seemed cocked and ready to counter with a left hook.

In the fourth round it seemed Haney was confident he had regained control of the fight, but every time he opened up with more than a two-punch combination Garcia reminded him whose hands were faster and more dangerous.

Though Garcia seldom jabbed he seemed bent on looking for the right moment to unleash his deadly left hook. And every time the Southern California fighter opened up with a combination he scored and Haney dare not exchange.

A few times Haney smiled as if signifying he escaped.

In the seventh round Haney looked to punish Garcia’s body and instead was met with a three-punch combination included a left hook to the chin and down went Haney slumped on the ground. He managed to beat the count and as soon as Garcia came within reach Haney wrapped his arms around him with a python grip. Despite the warnings by referee Harvey Dock, the fallen fighter would not release and Garcia impatiently fired a weak punch during the break. The referee deducted a point from Garcia though he could have deducted a point from Haney for not obeying his instructions to release his hold. Haney actually went down three times in the round but only one was counted by the referee.

From that point on Haney was very cautious but still looking to win by decision.

Though Garcia kept using a shoulder-roll defense that left his body exposed, he would retaliate with three and four punch combinations that usually Haney could defend against other fighters.. But Garcia’s blazing combinations were too fast to defend.

In the 10^th round Haney looked to attack and was countered by Garcia’s right and a blinding left hook to the chin and another two blows that sent the former undisputed lightweight champion to the floor again.

It didn’t look good for Haney to survive.

Garcia walked into the 11^th round still composed and never out-of-control He dared Haney to exchange and when within striking distance Garcia unleashed another lightning combination and down went Haney again with a defeated look.

Both fighters had fought each other as amateurs six times so there were no surprises between them. But Garcia’s power and speed were superior and that was the difference in a professional fight.

In the final round both were cautious with Garcia’s combination punching proving too dangerous for Haney to open up. Garcia celebrated early as the round ended confident of victory.

After 12 rounds Garcia was seen the victor by majority decision 112-112, 114-110, 115-109.

“You really thought I was crazy,” Garcia told the interviewer and the crowd. “You guys hated on me.”

Other Bouts

Arnold Barboza (30-0) won a curious split decision victory over United Kingdom’s Sean McComb (18-2) in a 10-round super lightweight fight. McComb’s long reach and busy southpaw style gave Barboza trouble. But he managed to win the fight though the crowd was not pleased.

Bektemir Melikuziev (14-1, 10 KOs) defeated France’s Pierre Dibombe (22-1-1) by technical decision after eight rounds due to a cut on his eye from an accidental head butt. It was a very competitive super middleweight fight.

Costa Rica’s David Jimenez (16-1, 11 KOs) outworked John “Scrappy Ramirez (13-1, 9 KOs) in a 12-round scrap to upset the Los Angeles based fighter. After a few close rounds Jimenez simply bullied his way inside and forced Ramirez against the ropes and unloaded his guns.

After 12 rounds two judges saw it 117-111 and 116-114 all for Jimenez.

“I’m a hard-working man from Cartago I come from nothing,” said Jimenez. “My corner told me I had to work inside.”

Charles Conwell (19-0, 14 KOs) stepped on the gas early with vicious body shots and uppercuts and blasted through the resilient Nathaniel Gallimore (22-8-1, 17 KOs) for several rounds. After a brutal fifth and sixth round the referee halted the one-side beating in favor of Conwell who was fighting for the first time under the Golden Boy banner.

Another winner was Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-5) by decision over Vaughn Alexander (18-11-1) in a super middleweight match.

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Haney and Garcia: Bipolar Opposites

Published

3 days ago

April 20, 2024

TSS Press

Haney and Garcia: Bipolar Opposites

One young man flew halfway around the world to take on a world champion in his own living room; not once, but twice. The other young man quit prior to one fight, and then again during another one.

The first guy mentioned is an obedient son of an ultra-streetwise father. The type of parent where, if he doesn’t know the answer (and more times than not he most likely does), he will know where to find it. The second guy doesn’t appear to have that quality guidance scenario going on for him, which is probably for the best, because he believes he has all the answers.

The first guy is on record as saying he wants to go down in boxing history as an all-time great. The other guy? He decided not to continue in a fight while he was still sporting an undefeated record. You may think to yourself if there was ever a time to soldier through, right?

Then yesterday, that same guy missed making weight by 3.2 pounds, and seemed to be more than fine with it, to the point where he actually appeared to be quite pleased with himself.

If you haven’t heard, Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia are going to share a boxing ring in a twelve round go for God knows what will be at stake by the time they actually punch off. The fact that no one from Garcia’s team has stepped in and rescued him from these unfolding events, his own personal well-being, and/or not to mention Devin Haney is, well, troubling in and of itself.

Back in the amateur days, the record shows they split six fights. They were boys back then, so it means zero. If anything, you’d want to be the older of the two, and Ryan had over a three-month age advantage. If you’ve only been on the planet for a total of 120 months or so, every extra month could be a big enough difference in strength and development. Now as world class professionals in their prime? That’s different. Younger is always better. Devin is that guy.

Haney and Garcia fought six times for free but will fight only once as professionals. Then one of them will continue with their march for historic greatness, while the other will head back to Kamp Krazy, where he’s the current Mayor.

It’s never smart to lay 8-1, 9-1 in boxing. And if you see taking Garcia as a value bet with +500 to +600 and beyond, you don’t understand value and you evidently don’t like money.

There is, however, a wagering opportunity here.

Total Rounds: Fight doesn’t go 10.5 rounds.

Take anything over +125. It’s worth a unit on a scale of 5. Logically, there are a lot of ways to cash this ticket: legitimate victory, meltdown, catching lightning in a bottle, etc. Or simply the exiting stage left of a guy who may be already plotting his next career move.

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