The Beast of Stillman’s Gym, Part 3

Published

12 years ago

January 19, 2012

The Beast of Stillman’s Gym

PART 3: THE BULL IN BOSTON GARDEN

Jake LaMotta stands in a lawyer’s office in New York City. He recently found out that he was tricked into a signing a contract that would give his manager a piece of him for eight years –-and he ain’t happy. He rips a release form from his pocket and slaps it on the desk in front of him. “Sign,” he says. The manager reads it and hands it to his lawyer. “Jake, I can’t sign that,” he squeaks. “You cheap, chiseling son of a b*tch,” LaMotta says, “You sign that right here and you sign it right now or I’ll strangle you. You think I’m kidding? Right here and right now, or you go out that door dead!”

The manager signed the release, then went to the cops. He said that the fighter assaulted him by kicking him in the stomach and threatening to hit him with a heavy book-end. It made the papers and didn’t do LaMotta’s public image any favors, not that he gave a damn. He beat the rap in criminal court but lost the civil suit and it ended up costing him four large to get rid of his first and last manager. After that, his brother handled his affairs on paper though LaMotta was really in charge. LaMotta was always in charge.

Fueled by the heartfelt belief that the whole world was rotten, LaMotta belonged on a shrink’s couch as much as he belonged in a boxing ring. He fought as if pain was pleasure, often not even bothering to get out of the way of punches despite the fact that his skills were better than anyone knew. It was as if he had something to prove; Or something to pay for. “Subconsciously,” he said when he was old, “I fought as if I didn’t deserve to live.”

Out of his pathology sprang a principle that benefitted not only fans but his own legacy; LaMotta feared no man. And without a mobbed-up manager to maneuver and protect him, he came up the hard way, with a reputation built on those high-risk, low-reward killers that gave champions the heebie-jeebies. Unlike other white prospects who were fed a steady diet of low-cal cream puffs, LaMotta was eye-to-eye with boxing’s roiling, broiling, black underclass. He knew them. “A colored fighter could starve in those days… a lot of them would have to fight with handcuffs on just to get a pay night here and there,” he said, “And some of them were great, believe me.” Great enough to chase “some high-priced top-notchers right out of the ring…

“When one of those bombers got a chance against a white kid on the square, they sure tried their best to show what they could do, because they all had a dream that maybe they’d get enough of an audience clamoring for them so that someday some promoter would give them the chance they deserved and they’d get a shot at the real money. And I mean they were hungry fighters. You would just about have to kill them before they’d give up. Well, I had something going for me too, on that score –-I was just as hungry as they were.”

LaMotta knew Murderers’ Row, and Murderers’ Row knew him.

The trajectory of his career mirrored Archie Moore’s. He was tested in the same fires as Archie Moore. Both became “policemen” in the middleweight division and faced those “colored bombers” before getting a title shot years after they earned it. They never forgot the names of those men. Even in this, the loneliest of sports, the fighter knows that he does not forge himself. He knows that triumphs are measured not by what so much as by who was overcome. In a manner of speaking, both LaMotta and Moore dedicated memorials to those who heaved them into starry greatness even as they themselves stayed behind.

LaMotta was Rocky Graziano’s policeman. “Rocky liked to use the tag with me because I was knocking off guys he would like to give a miss too,” he recalled, “There are always some kinds of fighters you’d just as soon not fight –-the wild swingers, the butters, the ones you just might lose to.” Graziano called him a policeman “long before he won the championship because he didn’t want to be eliminated before he won the title,” and LaMotta was good to clear the path.

Bert Lytell was on that path, and he wasn’t going anywhere.

On April 27^th 1945, the bull snorted in his corner at Boston Garden. Bert, outweighed by 6¾ lbs, was across the ring, ripped and ready for his fourth bout that month. LaMotta had never faced a southpaw before, not that he gave a damn. He was confident that he had the answers. How to beat a southpaw? “Push him back,” he said forty years later when asked how fellow headcase Roberto Duran could defeat Marvin Hagler, “keep on top of him, don’t let him advance to you, that’s how…”

If LaMotta read recent press clippings, he would have expected this one to be aggressive and climb all over him. In February, Bert set a blistering pace against Coolidge Miller, twice ignoring the bell to end the round. Earlier in April, he “applied a sleep-producing wallop” to Irish Johnny Ryan with two seconds left in the third. Bert could sprout horns and charge in when the situation called for it, but he had more dimensions. He reminded doubting reporters that it was speed and skill that saw Robinson defeat LaMotta three out of four times. “I believe the same assets will make it possible for me to win the duke at the [Boston] Garden,” he said, “I am faster than LaMotta and when Jake comes rushing at me he will be an easy target.” He would not try to outbull this bull; instead he intended to wave a red rag just out of range to neutralize any ideas about taking away his southpaw advantage. Bert intended to confuse him.

It almost worked.

Halfway through the first round and frequently throughout the bout, a baffled LaMotta briefly turned southpaw himself in an effort to land something on the 4-1 underdog. He seemed unsure of what to do as Bert circled around him with constant right jabs and hard lefts. According to the Boston Globe, Bert was “an ambitious bicyclist”; though the Boston Evening American specified that he only backed away in the last round and spent the earlier rounds standing up and outboxing him. “Going into the eighth session,” it read the next morning, “Lytell had a commanding lead. His boxing skill and ability to score had LaMotta in serious trouble.” At one point, LaMotta stood center-ring with his hands dropped in frustration and waved him in. In the third, Bert fired over a left cross which opened a cut over his right eye; in the seventh, a left hook by LaMotta sent Bert’s mouthpiece flying.

At the end of ten rounds, LaMotta’s hand was raised in a split decision. The crowd booed loudly.

Sportswriter Jack Conway believed it would take “a return bout to determine whether LaMotta or Lytell is the better fighter,” though many of his peers argued that the better fighter had already been determined. W.A. Hamilton saw LaMotta take four rounds and those by close margins, while Bert took five rounds by country miles. Doc Almy, one of Boston’s most distinguished boxing experts, scored the fight seven rounds to three in Lytell’s favor for doing “far more than his opponent who landed more often in the air than against his rival.” Local boxing writer Eddie Welch had Bert up by eight rounds to two. “Jake LaMotta,” he quipped, “must have thought Sugar Ray Robinson was in the ring with him instead of Lytell.” Some surmised that a Massachusetts boxing rule placing undue emphasis on aggression, whether or not it is effective, worked in LaMotta’s favor.

All the same, Lytell’s “ring generalship, nimble footwork, and fine boxing” convinced Nat Fleischer that it was his best showing. The Ring took note.

It had been only twelve months since Calvin Coolidge Lytle was working as an attendant at a Brooklyn garage; only nine months since “The Chocolate Kid” lost his first professional bout. After earning the decision over LaMotta by fans and much of the boxing press if not the judges, Bert Lytell broke into the top ten of the middleweight division like a brick through a window.

____________________________

Sugar Ray, the Mob, and Bert Lytell, who finds himself chasing one and running from the other in PART 4 OF “THE BEAST OF STILLMAN’S GYM.” (Who needs Harry Potter when you can read stuff like this?)

Graphic is from Sport Magazine, 1949.

LaMotta’s issues with his manager recounted in Raging Bull by Jake LaMotta, pp. 87, 155 and “Lamotta Charged With Assaulting Manager,” Worcester Evening Gazette 11/17/44. LaMotta and Moore’s “memorials” are found in their autobiographies, and in Moore’s case, several newspaper articles from the 1950s. LaMotta-Lytell reported in Boston Evening American 4/27/45; LaMotta on how to beat a southpaw in “The Great Middleweights Talk About The Fight” by Peter Heller, Boxing Scene Collector’s Edition “Duran Vs. Hagler: The Fight of the Century.” Lytell’s fight with Ryan and comments about Robinson found in Boston Evening American, 4/13, 27/45; Lytell-Miller in Providence Journal 2/20/45; LaMotta-Lytell in Boston Evening American, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, AP, and Providence Journal 4/28/45; Nat Fleischer and Doc Almy’s comments in The Ring, July 1945.

Springs Toledo can be contacted at scalinatella@hotmail.com“>scalinatella@hotmail.com.

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Springs Toledo

Zhilei Zhang KOs Joe Joyce; Calls Out Tyson Fury

Published

5 hours ago

September 23, 2023

Arne K. Lang

Zhilei-Zhang-KOs-Joe-Joyce-Calls-Out-Tyson-Fury

Joe Joyce activated his rematch clause after being stopped in the sixth frame by Zhilei Zhang in their first meeting. In hindsight, he may wish that he hadn’t. Tonight at London’s Wembley Stadium, Zhang stopped him again and far more conclusively than in their first encounter.

In the first meeting, Zhang, a southpaw, found a steady home for his stiff left jab. Targeting Joyce’s right eye, he eventually damaged the optic to where the ring doctor wouldn’t let Joyce continue. At the end, the fight was close on the cards and Joyce was confident that he would have pulled away if not for the issue with his eye.

In the rematch tonight, Zhang (26-1-1, 21 KOs) closed the curtain with his right hand. A thunderous right hook on the heels of a straight left pitched Joyce to the canvas where he landed face first. He appeared to beat the count by a whisker, but was seriously dazed and referee Steve Gray properly waived it off. The official time was 3:07 of round three.

Zhang, who lived up to his nickname, “Big Bang,” was credited with landing 29 power punches compared with only six for Joyce (15-2) who came in 25 pounds heavier than in their first meeting while still looking properly conditioned. One would be inclined to say that age finally caught with the “Juggernaut” who turned 38 since their last encounter, but Zhang, 40, is actually the older man. In his post-fight interview in the ring, the New Jersey resident, a two-time Olympian for China, when asked who he wanted to fight next, turned to the audience and said, “Do you want to see me shut Tyson Fury up?”

He meant it as a rhetorical question.

Semi-Windup

Light heavyweight Anthony Yarde was matched soft against late sub Jorge Silva, a 40-year-old Portuguese journeyman, and barely broke a sweat while scoring a second-round stoppage. Yarde backed Silva against a corner post and put him on the deck with a short right hand. Silva’s body language indicated that he had no interest in continuing and the referee accommodated him. The official time was 2:07 of round two.

A 30-year-old Londoner, Yarde (24-3, 23 KOs) was making his first start since being stopped in eight rounds by Artur Beterbiev in a bout that Yarde was winning on two of the scorecards. Silva, a late replacement for 19-3-1 Ricky Summers, falls to 22-9.

Also

Former leading super middleweight contender Zach Parker (23-1, 17 KOs) returned to the ring in a “shake-off-the-rust” fight against 40-year-old Frenchman Khalid Graidia and performed as expected. Graidia’s corner pulled him out after seven one-sided rounds.

In his previous fight, Parker was matched against John Ryder who he was favored to beat. The carrot for the winner was a lucrative date with Canelo Alvarez. Unfortunately for Parker, he suffered a broken hand and was unable to continue after four frames. Tonight, he carried 174 pounds, a hint that he plans to compete as a light heavyweight going forward. Indeed, he has expressed an interest in fighting Anthony Yarde. Graidia declined to 10-13-4.

The Zhang-Joyce and Yarde-Silva fights were live-streamed in the U.S. on ESPN+.

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An Ode to the Polo Grounds on the (Belated) 100th Anniversary of Dempsey-Firpo

Published

1 day ago

September 22, 2023

Arne K. Lang

An-Ods-to-the-Polo-Grouns-on-the-Belated-100th-Anniversary-of-Dempsey-Firpo

If you happen to be up in Harlem this Saturday, they are holding a little shindig at the Polo Grounds Towers Community Center in honor of the 100^th anniversary of the Dempsey-Firpo fight.

Better late than never, as they say. The centennial of this storied fight was actually September 14, a week ago Thursday. But that rubbed up against Mexican Independence Day which prompted little shindigs that would take precedence in a neighborhood where many of the inhabitants speak Spanish.

The Sept. 14, 1923 bout between heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, the Manassa Mauler, and his Argentine challenger Luis Angel Firpo, the Wild Bull of the Pampas, was staged at the Polo Grounds. The match was slated for 15 rounds, but no one expected it would go that far. “The styles of both,” said a Brooklyn Times Union scribe in his pre-fight report, “eliminate the possibility of the affair becoming tedious.”

That proved to be an understatement. Dempsey vs. Firpo consumed only three minutes and 57 seconds of actual fighting, but the action was breathtakingly intense and the crowd, estimated at 80,000, was on its feet the whole while.

There were so many knockdowns and they came so fast that there was disagreement among ringside reporters as to the exact number. In the first round alone, Dempsey put Firpo on the canvas at least five times, if not seven, and Firpo returned the favor twice. However, it was the Argentine that scored the most memorable knockdown. With one mighty swing of his vaunted right hand, Firpo knocked Dempsey clear out of the ring, the Mauler landing head first on a table of ringside reporters and their telegraphers with his feet up in the air. The moment inspired one of the most famous paintings in sports, George Bellows “Dempsey and Firpo,” on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York since the museum opened in 1931.

Dempsey was reeling and almost out before the first round ended, but he gathered his senses and ended the contest in the next frame. His final punch, with Firpo bleeding heavily from his mouth, “lifted the Argentine giant from his feet and hurled him headlong to the floor with the crash of a mighty oak falling from great heights.” So wrote Grantland Rice.

The Polo Grounds sat in a hollow in the northern reaches of Harlem across the Harlem River from Yankee Stadium. It was the home of the New York Giants of the National League from 1891 until the franchise left for San Francisco at the end of the 1957 season. It also housed the New York Giants football team from its inception in 1925 through 1955 and in its end days, served as the temporary home of New York’s two expansion teams, the Mets and the Jets.

Professional boxing was first served up at the Polo Grounds in 1922. There were four boxing shows there in 1923 preceding Dempsey-Firpo, but these were small potatoes by comparison, notwithstanding the fact that each of the four shows included a title fight. Dempsey-Firpo was the first collaboration between Tex Rickard and Charles Stoneham who owned the controlling interest in the baseball team.

Rickard and Stoneham had a lot in common. Rickard ran gambling saloons in mining camps in Alaska and Nevada before making his mark as a boxing promoter and settling in New York where he headed up the boxing department at Madison Square Garden. Charles Stoneham was a gambler too. He made his fortune operating bucket shops, funneling his winnings into a string of thoroughbred race horses and a horse track and casino in Havana. His silent partner in many of his business ventures was purportedly the infamous Arnold Rothstein. (A so-called bucket shop was a business where people could bet on the rise and fall of stocks and other commodities like wheat and oil without taking an ownership stake in any of the companies that comprised the marketplace.)

Rickard died in 1929, opening the door to Broadway ticket scalper Mike Jacobs who supplanted Rickard as New York’s most powerful boxing promoter. Jacobs acquired the exclusive rights to stage boxing shows at both the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium. Charles Stoneham and his counterpart with the Yankees both profited when a card was held at either property.

Yankee Stadium was more modern and could accommodate a larger crowd, so Jacobs tended to pot his biggest promotions there. Joe Louis had 12 fights at Yankee Stadium, but only two at the Polo Grounds, namely his famous 1941 fight with Billy Conn and his fight later that year with Lou Nova. However, important matches continued to land at the Polo Grounds. Thirty-four boxers who would go on to be enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame had one or more fights at the Polo Grounds.

—

I’m dating myself, but this reporter is among an ever-shrinking cadre of people who once sat in the grandstand of the Polo Grounds. The allurement was baseball. Although born in Brooklyn, I was a Giants fan.

I vaguely remember descending the steep iron staircase that led from the 155^th Street subway station to the ticket booths. When one exited the subway, he was on Coogan’s Bluff, named for the former Manhattan borough president who owned the land on which the stadium sat. Coogan’s Bluff became a euphemism for the Polo Grounds itself, as Chavez Ravine would become a euphemism for Dodger Stadium.

Coogan’s Bluff

The Polo Grounds had an odd, triangular-shaped configuration. The distance to both foul poles was short whereas centerfield was cavernous, the perfect playland for the wonderful Willie Mays whose range was unsurpassed. In the words of the late, great Jim Murray, Willie’s glove was where triples went to die.

When Charles Stoneham died in 1936, the ballclub passed to his son Horace Stoneham who moved the team in San Francisco and eventually sold it to local interests. Stoneham was vilified in New York for abandoning the city, but the park and surrounding neighborhood had deteriorated. The stadium was torn down in 1964 and became the site of a giant, low-income housing project, Polo Grounds Towers, a complex consisting of four 30-story buildings run by the New York City Housing Authority. The Polo Grounds Community Center is housed in Tower #2.

The Dempsey-Firpo fight was an incandescent moment in America’s Golden Era of Sports. It was a big deal in South America too. In Buenos Aires, tens of thousands of people reportedly jammed the streets around the newspaper offices to follow the progress of the fight on bulletin boards. The last boxing show at the Polo Grounds was staged on June 20, 1960. Floyd Patterson avenged his loss to Ingemar Johannson with a fifth-round stoppage. The predicted crowd of 40,000 failed to materialize. The official attendance was 31,892.

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—

Arne K. Lang is a recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling. His latest book, titled Clash of the Little Giants: George Dixon, Terry McGovern, and the Culture of Boxing in America, 1890-1910, was released by McFarland in September, 2022.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 253: Oscar De La Hoya Reloading in LA and More

Published

2 days ago

September 21, 2023

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-253-Oscar-De-La-Hoya-Reloading-in-LA-and-More

Oscar De La Hoya sat with a satisfied look inside his glittering building on Wilshire Boulevard, unveiling plans to stage a welterweight showdown between southpaw contenders next month.

Lately, the six-division world champion turned promoter from nearby East Los Angeles has attended every boxing show produced by his company Golden Boy Promotions. Big or small, the former fighter who acquired millions as a prizefighter has put full attention on expanding his boxing empire.

Golden Boy Promotions has reloaded.

On Tuesday, De La Hoya discussed plans to match Alexis Rocha with Top Rank’s Giovanni Santillan on Saturday, October 21, at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif. DAZN will stream the show.

Rocha (23-1, 15 KOs) seems to have gained his man strength. Five out of seven of his past foes have not heard the final bell. The Orange County fighter’s seek and destroy style has made him a crowd favorite throughout Southern California.

Santillan (31-0, 16 KOs) is a different kind of cat. The San Diego-based welterweight was groomed by Thompson Boxing Promotions and then aided by Top Rank. With the loss of promoter Ken Thompson who passed away earlier this year, Top Rank has taken over the reins of the crafty fighter.

Both Rocha (pictured with Oscar) and Santillan are familiar with each other through sparring.

“I feel that I’ve grown so much over time and now’s my moment, and I want to keep just banging on the door for a world title. I know that Giovani is going to be a good opponent,” said Rocha who is based in Santa Ana.

San Diego’s Santillan expressed excitement about fighting in Los Angeles.

“This isn’t the first time that I go into enemy territory,” Santillan said. “I think that I will gain the LA fan base after this fight.”

It’s the kind of fight that would have sold out the Olympic Auditorium down the street. Battles between fighters from rival towns in Southern California resulted in fights like Bobby Chacon versus Danny “Lil Red” Lopez, or East L.A.’s Ruben Navarro versus South L.A.’s Raul Rojas.

Crosstown rivalries made the Olympic Auditorium a legendary venue for decades. And the Los Angeles area has always been a hotbed for boxing talent. Always.

De La Hoya knows that and has lived it.

“As Golden Boy, we know our position, we know exactly what we have to do in order to position that fighter to get them to that world title. Alexis Rocha is knocking on the door. Giovani has an amazing opportunity. So, this is what boxing is all about,” said De La Hoya.

MarvNation

Welterweights Eduard Skavynskyi (14-0) of Ukraine and Mexico’s Alejandro Frias (14-9-2) headline the main event at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California on Saturday Sept. 23.

This is Skavynskyi’s first time fighting in the U.S. All his previous fights were in Russia and Ukraine.

Also, co-headlining are female minimumweights Yadira Bustillos (7-1) and Katherine Lindenmuth (5-1) in a rematch set for eight rounds.

Bustillos fights out of Las Vegas and Lindenmuth is based in New Mexico and looking to avenge her loss a year ago.

For tickets and information go to: https://www.tix.com/ticket-sales/marvnation/6815/event/1344994?fbclid=paaabuvxlnjny1dafchk0wwkftjganfmww6bayhkj7autu-mhjyz8ll__ycga

Heavyweight Rematch in England

Once again, the United Kingdom presents a heavyweight show and this time a rematch between China’s Zhilei Zhang (25-1-1, 20 KOs) and England’s Joe Joyce (15-1, 14 KOs) on Saturday, Sept 23. ESPN will stream the Frank Warren boxing card from London.

Zhang stopped Joyce in the sixth round this past April. Can he do it again?

Welterweight showdown in Florida

Jessica McCaskill (12-3) and Sandy Ryan (6-1) meet for several welterweight world titles on Saturday, Sept. 23, in Orlando, Florida. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.

Super lightweight Richardson Hitchins (16-0, 7 KOs) test top contender Jose “Chon” Zepeda (37-3, 28 KOs) in the co-main event. Conor Benn is also on the card.

Fights to Watch

Sat. ESPN+ 2 p.m. Zhilei Zhang (25-1-1) vs Joe Joyce (15-1).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Jessica McCaskill (12-3) vs Sandy Ryan (6-1); Richardson Hitchins (16-0) vs Jose Zepeda (37-3).

Alexis Rocha photo credit: Golden Boy / Cris Esqueda

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