Ray Arcel: A Boxing Biography–Book Review by Thomas Hauser

Published

12 years ago

July 31, 2012

Arcel book cover 300 The image of Ray Arcel that exists today is that of a sage old trainer who knew the science of boxing and was a gentleman. He preached patience as the foundation of training and never made himself the center of attention.

Ray Arcel: a Boxing Biography by Donald Dewey (McFarland and Company) explores Arcel’s life in detail. The author has an appreciation of boxing and boxing history. His writing is a bit ponderous at times, but the book is intelligent and insightful.

Arcel was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1899. His family moved to New York when he was young so that his dying mother could be near her parents. Dewey questions the veracity of certain stories that Arcel told about himself that were repeated by others so often that they came to be accepted as true. For example, Arcel told people that he graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York (a school for gifted students). The school records don’t support that claim.

Stephanie “Steve” Arce (Ray’s second wife, who was married to him for thirty-nine years) told Dewey that her husband “wasn’t really much of a family man.” The facts appear to support that statement. Arcel’s daughter attempted suicide at age 23 by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. He didn’t talk much about that or the death of his first wife from cancer. Indeed, Steve was married to him for more than three decades before she learned that Ray’s father had remarried after Ray’s mother died. Even then, he didn’t tell her about a half-sister and step-brother that he had.

One thing that Arcel did talk about, though, was boxing. He often emphasized the following themes:

* “A trainer can only work with the talent that’s there. He can’t give some kid a talent for boxing. What he can give him are the moves and steps that will help him give a good performance in the show when it counts.”

* “Just to train your fighters, to have them hit the bag and skip rope and develop stamina; that doesn’t mean anything. Get it out of your head that this is just some blooming gymnasium.”

* “Every young man that came to me, I made a complete study of his personal habits, his temperament. There are some people you can scold and some people you have to be careful with. No two people are alike. Unless a kid was obviously not cut out for the ring, I always took my time figuring him out.”

* “Never overestimate yourself or underestimate the other guy. See what the other guy has. See what his strengths are. See what his weaknesses are. See how you can overcome anything he has to offer.”

* “The name of the game has always been outsmarting the other fighter, not beating him to a pulp. If you can’t outsmart him, [if you] don’t use your brain, you’re going to be a loser.”

* “One thing you see far too often is a fighter coming back to his corner after a round and immediately being manhandled by everybody there. This one has this to say; that one has that to say. I always kept in my mind that the fighter came back to rest. The last thing he needed was all that screaming at him.”

During the course of Arcel’s career, he trained champions in each of boxing’s eight classic weight divisions. At various times, he worked with Benny Leonard, Jackie “Kid” Berg, Barney Ross, James Braddock, Max Baer, Tony Zale, Kid Gavilan, and Ezzard Charles. There came a time when he was in the corner for a succession of charter members of Joe Louis’s “Bum of the Month Club.” Johnny Paycheck, Al McCoy, Paulino Uzcudun, Nathan Mann, Abe Simon, Buddy Baer, and Lou Nova were all knocked out with Arcel in their corner. Before one of those bouts, when the fighters met in the center of the ring for the referee’s final pre-fight instructions, Louis looked at Arcel and blurted out, “You here again?”

Arcel was most active as a trainer during the years that organized crime was a commanding presence in boxing. Dewey acknowledges that Ray trained fighters who were controlled by mob figures like Owney Madden and Frankie Carbo. In that regard, Arcel once said of Madden, “Any other business he was involved in; that was his business, not mine.” Carbo’s fighters fell under the umbrella of, “When a manager asked me to train a fighter, the first thing I asked was to see his manager’s license. If he had a license, that meant he’d been approved by the licensing commission. If the commission didn’t have a problem with the people behind that manager and his fighter, why should I?”

That said; Arcel was aware of the moral ambiguities of his position. “All I know is the boxing business,” he offered. “There’s nothing else I can do. Nothing else I’d want to do. But sometimes . . .”

Sometime came in the 1950s. On September 14, 1953, Arcel was knocked unconscious on the streets of Boston by a man wielding a lead pipe. He was taken to Massachusetts Memorial Hospital in critical condition and remained there for nineteen days. It was widely assumed that the assault resulted from his involvement on the business end of a Saturday Night Fights series televised by ABC that threatened the TV monopoly established by James Norris and the IBC.

Thereafter, Arcel took a job in the purchasing department of Meehanite Metal (a company that blended alloys for foundry use). He returned to boxing in 1972 to work with Roberto Duran, who challenged Ken Buchanan at Madison Square Garden for the lightweight crown.

Arcel stayed with Duran through some glorious highs and one particularly heartbreaking low. The worst moment in the trainer’s career came in New Orleans on November 25, 1980, when Duran pled “no mas” is his rematch against Sugar Ray Leonard.

Dewey writes, “For all his insistence that every fighter had to be handled differently and no two boxers were the same, all [of Arcel’s] perceptions answered to very fixed laws. The first of these laws, inscribed more deeply the longer his career stretched, was that he simply didn’t want to be surprised by anything that happened. Whatever he had assured himself of with Duran over years of professional collaboration, ‘no mas’ had never been an ingredient of it.”

Longtime friend Jerry Izenberg accompanied Arcel back to his hotel after the fight and described him as “looking like a heart attack.” Later that evening, Arcel broke down in his room and cried. “The whole situation was more than I could take,” he admitted later. “It took a long time for me to get over it, if I ever did.”

Yet Arcel never asked Duran why he quit, “I didn’t think it was my business,” he said.

Nineteen months later, at age 83, Arcel notched his last victory in a fighter’s corner when Larry Holmes knocked out Gerry Cooney at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Dewey’s book is filled with anecdotes. One of my favorites involves the time that Arcel was training Charlie Phil Rosenberg, who was struggling to make the 118-pound limit for a bantamweight title fight against Eddie Martin in 1925.

Arcel had some strange ideas, including the belief that a person shouldn’t drink water or anything else during meals. For a fighter struggling to make weight, water was rationed in particularly sparse quantity.

“I always had to sleep with one eye open,” Arcel said of the nights leading up to Rosenberg’s fight against Martin. “Charlie would get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and I would stand there with the door open. He kept cussing me. ‘I just want to gargle,’ he’d say. And I’d tell him, ‘I’m watching your Adam’s apple, Charlie. Don’t swallow that water.’”

“After this fight is over,” Rosenberg told Arcel, “I’m going to kill you.”

Rosenberg beat Martin on a fifteen-round decision.

Arcel lived another sixty-nine years.

Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His next book (And the New: An Inside Look at Another Year in Boxing) will be published later this summer by the University of Arkansas Press.

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Fury-Usyk Reignited: Can the Gypsy King Avenge his Lone Defeat?

Published

22 hours ago

December 20, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Fury-Usyk-Reignated-Can-the-Gypsy-King-Avenge-His-Londe-Defeat?

In professional boxing, the heavyweight division, going back to the days of John L. Sullivan, is the straw that stirs the drink. By this measure, the fight on May 18 of this year at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was the biggest prizefight in decades. The winner would emerge as the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999 when Lennox Lewis out-pointed Evander Holyfield in their second meeting.

The match did not disappoint. It had several twists and turns.

Usyk did well in the early rounds, but the Gypsy King rattled Usyk with a harsh right hand in the fifth stanza and won rounds five through seven on all three cards. In the ninth, the match turned sharply in favor of the Ukrainian. Fury was saved by the bell after taking a barrage of unanswered punches, the last of which dictated a standing 8-count from referee Mark Nelson. But Fury weathered the storm and with his amazing powers of recuperation had a shade the best of it in the final stanza.

The decision was split: 115-112 and 114-113 for Usyk who became a unified champion in a second weight class; 114-113 for Fury.

That brings us to tomorrow (Saturday, Dec. 21) where Usyk and Fury will renew acquaintances in the same ring where they had their May 18 showdown.

The first fight was a near “pick-‘em” affair with Fury closing a very short favorite at most of the major bookmaking establishments. The Gypsy King would have been a somewhat higher favorite if not for the fact that he was coming off a poor showing against MMA star Francis Ngannou and had a worrisome propensity for getting cut. (A cut above Fury’s right eye in sparring pushed back the fight from its original Feb. 11 date.)

Tomorrow’s sequel, bearing the tagline “Reignited,” finds Usyk a consensus 7/5 favorite although those odds could shorten by post time. (There was no discernible activity after today’s weigh-in where Fury, fully clothed, topped the scales at 281, an increase of 19 pounds over their first meeting.)

Given the politics of boxing, anything “undisputed” is fragile. In June, Usyk abandoned his IBF belt and the organization anointed Daniel Dubois their heavyweight champion based upon Dubois’s eighth-round stoppage of Filip Hrgovic in a bout billed for the IBF interim title. The malodorous WBA, a festering boil on the backside of boxing, now recognizes 43-year-old Kubrat Pulev as its “regular” heavyweight champion.

Another difference between tomorrow’s fight card and the first installment is that the May 18 affair had a much stronger undercard. Two strong pairings were the rematch between cruiserweights Jai Opetaia and Maris Briedis (Opetaia UD 12) and the heavyweight contest between unbeatens Agit Kabayal and Frank Sanchez (Kabayel KO 7).

Tomorrow’s semi-wind-up between Serhii Bohachuk and Ismail Madrimov lost luster when Madrimov came down with bronchitis and had to withdraw. The featherweight contest between Peter McGrail and Dennis McCann fell out when McCann’s VADA test returned an adverse finding. Bohachuk and McGrail remain on the card but against late-sub opponents in matches that are less intriguing.

The focal points of tomorrow’s undercard are the bouts involving undefeated British heavyweights Moses Itauma (10-0, 8 KOs) and Johnny Fisher (12-0, 11 KOs). Both are heavy favorites over their respective opponents but bear watching because they represent the next generation of heavyweight standouts. Fury and Usyk are getting long in the tooth. The Gypsy King is 36; Usyk turns 38 next month.

Bob Arum once said that nobody purchases a pay-per-view for the undercard and, years from now, no one will remember which sanctioning bodies had their fingers in the pie. So, Fury-Usyk II remains a very big deal, although a wee bit less compelling than their first go-around.

Will Tyson Fury avenge his lone defeat? Turki Alalshikh, the Chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and the unofficial czar of “major league” boxing, certainly hopes so. His Excellency has made known that he stands poised to manufacture a rubber match if Tyson prevails.

We could have already figured this out, but Alalshikh violated one of the protocols of boxing when he came flat out and said so. He effectively made Tyson Fury the “A-side,” no small potatoes considering that the most relevant variable on the checklist when handicapping a fight is, “Who does the promoter need?”

The Uzyk-Fury II fight card will air on DAZN with a suggested list price of $39.99 for U.S. fight fans. The main event is expected to start about 5:45 pm ET / 2:45 pm PT.

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Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year

Published

2 days ago

December 19, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Unheralded-Bruno-Sarace-went-to-Tijuana-and-Forged-the TSS-2024-Upset-of-the-Year

Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year

The Dec. 14 fight at Tijuana between Jaime Munguia and Bruno Surace was conceived as a stay-busy fight for Munguia. The scuttlebutt was that Munguia’s promoters, Zanfer and Top Rank, wanted him to have another fight under his belt before thrusting him against Christian Mbilli in a WBC eliminator with the prize for the winner (in theory) a date with Canelo Alvarez.

Munguia came to the fore in May of 2018 at Verona, New York, when he demolished former U.S. Olympian Sadam Ali, conqueror of Miguel Cotto. That earned him the WBO super welterweight title which he successfully defended five times.

Munguia kept winning as he moved up in weight to middleweight and then super middleweight and brought a 43-0 (34) record into his Cinco de Mayo 2024 match with Canelo.

Jaime went the distance with Alvarez and had a few good moments while losing a unanimous decision. He rebounded with a 10th-round stoppage of Canada’s previously undefeated Erik Bazinyan.

There was little reason to think that Munguia would overlook Surace as the Mexican would be fighting in his hometown for the first time since February of 2022 and would want to send the home folks home happy. Moreover, even if Munguia had an off-night, there was no reason to think that the obscure Surace could capitalize. A Frenchman who had never fought outside France, Surace brought a 25-0-2 record and a 22-fight winning streak, but he had only four knockouts to his credit and only eight of his wins had come against opponents with winning records.

It appeared that Munguia would close the show early when he sent the Frenchman to the canvas in the second round with a big left hook. From that point on, Surace fought mostly off his back foot, throwing punches in spurts, whereas the busier Munguia concentrated on chopping him down with body punches. But Surace absorbed those punches well and at the midway point of the fight, behind on the cards but nonplussed, it now looked as if the bout would go the full 10 rounds with Munguia winning a lopsided decision.

Then lightning struck. Out of the blue, Surace connected with an overhand right to the jaw. Munguia went down flat on his back. He rose a fraction-of-a second before the count reached “10,”, but stumbled as he pulled himself upright. His eyes were glazed and referee Juan Jose Ramirez, a local man, waived it off. There was no protest coming from Munguia or his cornermen. The official time was 2:36 of round six.

At major bookmaking establishments, Jaime Munguia was as high as a 35/1 favorite. No world title was at stake, yet this was an upset for the ages.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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Steven Navarro is the TSS 2024 Prospect of the Year

Published

3 days ago

December 18, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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“I get ‘Bam’ vibes when I watch this kid,” said ESPN ringside commentator Tim Bradley during the opening round of Steven Navarro’s most recent match. Bradley was referencing WBC super flyweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, a precociously brilliant technician whose name now appears on most pound-for-pound lists.

There are some common threads between Steven Navarro, the latest fighter to adopt the nickname “Kid Dynamite,” and Bam Rodriguez. Both are southpaws currently competing in the junior bantamweight division. But, of course, Bradley was alluding to something more when he made the comparison. And Navarro’s showing bore witness that Bradley was on to something.

It was the fifth pro fight for Navarro who was matched against a Puerto Rican with a 7-1 ledger. He ended the contest in the second frame, scoring three knockdowns, each the result of a different combination of punches, forcing the referee to stop it. It was the fourth win inside the distance for the 20-year-old phenom.

Isaias Estevan “Steven” Navarro turned pro after coming up short in last December’s U.S. Olympic Trials in Lafayette, Louisiana. The #1 seed in the 57 kg (featherweight) division, he was upset in the finals, losing a controversial split decision. Heading in, Navarro had won 13 national tournaments beginning at age 12.

A graduate of LA’s historic Fairfax High School, Steven made his pro debut this past April on a Matchroom Promotions card at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas and then inked a long-term deal with Top Rank. He comes from a boxing family. His father Refugio had 10 pro fights and three of Refugio’s cousins were boxers, most notably Jose Navarro who represented the USA at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was a four-time world title challenger as a super flyweight. Jose was managed by Oscar De La Hoya for much of his pro career.

Nowadays, the line between a prospect and a rising contender has been blurred. Three years ago, in an effort to make matters less muddled, we operationally defined a prospect thusly: “A boxer with no more than a dozen fights, none yet of the 10-round variety.” To our way of thinking, a prospect by nature is still in the preliminary-bout phase of his career.

We may loosen these parameters in the future. For one thing, it eliminates a lot of talented female boxers who, like their Japanese male counterparts in the smallest weight classes, are often pushed into title fights when, from a historical perspective, they are just getting started.

But for the time being, we will adhere to our operational definition. And within the window that we have created, Steven Navarro stood out. In his first year as a pro, “Kid Dynamite” left us yearning to see more of him.

Honorable mention: Australian heavyweight Teremoana Junior (5-0, 5 KOs)

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