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Battle Hymn – Part 3: Rising Up?
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By the summer of 1939, Aaron “Little Tiger” Wade was regularly knocking down white men for pay. Chuck Vickers was one of them, and he had a big mouth. He arrived in Peoria from Cincinnati bragging that he had “never been beaten by a Negro.” When reminded by a local reporter of Wade’s reputation as a ferocious puncher, Vickers flexed his muscles. “He’ll know he has been in a fight,” he said.
Wade told the Peoria Star that he would do something about “the Vickers situation.”
In the third round, Vickers dropped his guard for a moment and that was that. A right-hand blast came out of nowhere and 2500 fans saw him go down like he got shot. After he was counted out, Vickers clawed his way up the ropes only to collapse to the canvas in a daze. He wasn’t saying much on the train home to Cincinnati.
According to the Peoria Star and the Peoria Journal-Transcript, it was Wade’s 61st win in 62 professional fights. That was in August 1939. It had had been four years since he left the amateur circuit and nearly as long since he left his mother behind to follow big brother Bruce to sunny San Francisco.
Bruce, known as “Big Tiger” Wade, spent years competing alongside his younger brother as an amateur and won two localGolden Gloves championships. He turned professional in 1935 and migrated to California by the end of that year, destined to become a journeyman going nowhere. Leroy, the youngest of the four surviving brothers, joined his brothers in California in 1942. Known as “Young Tiger” Wade, he was a Golden Gloves champion in Illinois and Wisconsin before embarking on a professional career that saw him down and out more often than Bruce and Aaron put together. They called him “Canvas Back.”
At eighty-three years old, Bobby Warren is one of only a handful still around who witnessed Murderers’ Row tearing up the West Coast. He spends his afternoons at the King’s Gym in Oakland training fighters. I called him there the day after New Year’s to poke around his memory. “Yeah, I remember the Wades,” he said. “Aaron was the best of the three brothers.” He sure was. Where Bruce was knocked cold by Tony Zale and Leroy was trounced by Carl “Bobo” Olson, Aaron would defeat a future light heavyweight champion now revered as one of boxing’s gods.
The secret of Little Tiger Wade’s success was his power. It was downright startling at times. When he stepped into the ring at National Hall to face Ray Campo after a long layoff, Eddie Muller, the boxing writer for the San Francisco Examiner, sat peering over his typewriter. “A savage left hook caught Campo on the chin and dropped him in a heap,” he wrote. The time was 18 seconds—including the count. Muller never failed to remind sports fans about that power. “Too many guns,” he said, “a deadly puncher with both hands”; “strictly a socker.”
Fists that carry a general anesthetic tend to make light work of opponents. Most trainers consider power a gift, but like most gifts, it comes with a shadow. “Punchers” can get infatuated by the instant gratification of singular shots and early nights; so jabs get put on the shelf and combinations which set up shots and pile up points diminish in frequency. They’re tempted to sleep late too—why bother to train for ten rounds when all you’ll need is three? Wade was gaining weight. By the time he was 26, he had eaten his way out of the welterweight division permanently. “He had a passion for pork,” his son Alan Roy Wade, now 66, told me. “Pork chops, sausage; everything pork. Every day.” There was a butcher shop in the Bay area that he frequented in the forties and he was good to go there with whatever remained of his divvied-up purse. The press noted an ever-widening torso over short legs that inexplicably stayed spindly. “Roly-poly Wade,” said the Baltimore Sun;“The chunky little fellow,” said Muller.
Muller tells us that Wade stood a little over 5’5 and fought small. Crouched and bent at the middle, he got under long arms to “root with both hands in close.” His bull-neck was turned so that his chin was pressed into a shoulder to protect it and make himself a moving target, bobbing like a buoy on stormy seas and winging thunder as he came up. His arms were abnormally long and his punches, Muller noted, were accurate. To old-timers, he was the second coming of the “Barbados Demon” Joe Walcott—which made for a frightening image in the opposite corner. As a result, he was avoided by nearly every contender within reach, and that partially explains why he spent only two months of a twelve-year career in The Ring Ratings.
In his search for fame and fortune, the Little Tiger roamed back and forth between Peoria and San Francisco until 1940, when he established his territory in the City by the Bay. He was known to spend days at Billy Newman’s Gym in Nob Hill, waiting for calls. He’d take a six or eight-rounder just to maintain some kind of an income stream, and became a reliable stand-in for desperate promoters—fighting short-notice fights against Big Boy Hogue in place of an injured Billy Soose, Jack Chase in place of Archie Moore, and R.J. Lewis in place of Charley Burley. Sometimes the calls didn’t come and Wade became frustrated enough to go on hiatuses doing God knows what. One of them lasted a year; and in an era when up-and-comers would fight twice a month, a year off would render a fighter near forgotten.
Sometimes other black gypsies looking for trouble drifted in and Wade would rouse himself for an ambush. R.J. Lewis and Harvey Massey were among his victims.
Lewis had been a professional for four years and fought in fifteen states when he arrived at the Coliseum Bowl. His game plan to beat Little Tiger Wade went out the window when a left hook gonged off his head. A right whistled in next, exploded off his chin, and “when Lewis went down,” Muller tells us, “his head thudded on the canvas and his legs went straight up in the air.” He wobbled up, but the fight was called off by the referee—in 58 seconds. Lewis was dumbstruck. He called it a fluke and demanded a rematch. Two weeks later he went down five times in four rounds before the fight was stopped.
Not long after that, Wade faced Harvey Massey. In over a hundred professional bouts, only two fighters stopped him—Charley Burley and Lloyd Marshall. Wade stopped him in four rounds and became the third. After the fight, Massey went around telling anyone who would listen that he wasn’t hurt and demanded a rematch. Muller tells us more: “A firm believer in his own ability, Massey insisted the match be made on a winner-take-all basis.”
Two weeks later, he was knocked into retirement.
Wade took both purses and went to the pork store.
Fight reports and other points of facts found in Reno Evening Gazette 11/22/35; Nevada State Journal 11/23/35;San Francisco Examiner 8/8/42, 6/6/43 (Wade avoided); 7/17, 18, 19, 20/43; Wade’s style, build, and avoidance issues in San Francisco Examiner 12/11/44, 6/29/40, 6/20/43, and 6/23/43; Joe Walcott comparison, Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, 10/14/47.
Springs Toledo can be contacted at scalinatella@hotmail.com .
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Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce
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Japan’s Mizuki Hiruta smashed through Mexico’s Maribel Ramirez with ease in winning by technical decision and local hero Omar Trinidad continued his assault on the featherweight division on Friday.
Hiruta (7-0, 2 KOs), who prefers to be called “Mimi,” made her American debut with an impressive performance against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez (15-11-4) and retained the WBO super flyweight world title by unanimous decision at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.
The pink-haired Japanese southpaw champion quickly proved to be quicker, stronger and even better than advertised. In the opening round Ramirez landed on the floor twice after throwing errant blows. On one instance, it could have been ruled a knockdown but it was not a convincing blow.
In the second round, Ramirez again attacked and again was met with a Hiruta check right hook and down went the Mexican. This time referee Ray Corona gave the eight-count and the fight resumed.
It was Hiruta’s third title defense but this time it was on American soil. She seemed nervous by the prospect of getting a favorable review from the more than 700 fans inside the casino tent.
For more than a year Hiruta has been training off and on with Manny Robles in the L.A. area. Now that she has a visa, she has spent considerable time this year learning the tricks of the trade. They proved explosively effective.
Though Mexico City’s Ramirez has considerable experience against world champions, she discovered that Hiruta was not easy to hit. Often, the Japanese champion would slip and counter with precision.
It was an impressive American debut, though the fight was stopped in the eighth round after a collision of heads. The scores were tallied and all three saw Hiruta the winner by scores of 80-71 twice and 79-72.
“I’m so happy. I could have done much more,” said Hiruta through interpreter Yuriko Miyata. “I wanted to do more things that Manny Robles taught me.”
Trinidad Wins Too
Omar Trinidad (18-0-1, 13 KOs) discovered that challenger Mike Plania (31-5, 18 KOs) has a very good chin and staying power. But over 10 rounds Trinidad proved to be too fast and too busy for the Filipino challenger.
Immediately it was evident that the East L.A. featherweight was too quick and too busy for Plania who preferred a counter-puncher attack that never worked.
“He was strong,” said Trinidad. “He took everything.”
After 10 redundant rounds all three judges scored for Trinidad 100-90 twice and 99-91. He retains the WBC Continental Americas title.
Other Bouts
Ali Akhmedov (23-1, 17 KOs) blasted out Malcolm Jones (17-5-1) in less than two rounds. A dozen punches by Akhmedov forced referee Thomas Taylor to stop the super middleweight fight.
Iyana “Roxy” Verduzco (3-0) bloodied Lindsey Ellis in the first round and continued the speedy assault in the next two rounds. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the fight in favor of Verduzco at 1:34 of the third round.
Gloria Munguilla (7-1) and Brook Sibrian (5-2) lit up the boxing ring with a nonstop clash for eight rounds in their light flyweight fight. Munguilla proved effective with a slip-and-counter attack. Sibrian adjusted and made the fight closer in the last four rounds but all three judges favored Munguilla.
More Winners
Joshua Anton, Tayden Beltran, Adan Palma, and Alexander Gueche all won their bouts.
Photos credit: Al Applerose
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More
Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.
Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.
Hopefully the worst is over.
Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.
“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.
UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.
Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.
“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.
He knows talent.
Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.
Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.
Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.
Can Trinidad reach world title status?
Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.
It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.
![Mizukii Hiruta Mizukii Hiruta](https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Mizukii-Hiruta-300x298.png)
Mizukii Hiruta
Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.
Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.
Doors open at 4:30 p.m.
Boxing and the Media
The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.
Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.
Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.
Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.
MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.
Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.
Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.
It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.
Photos credit: Lina Baker
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Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards
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Bob Santos, the 2022 Sports Illustrated and The Ring magazine Trainer of the Year, is a busy fellow. On Feb. 1, fighters under his tutelage will open and close the show on the four-bout main portion of the Prime Video PPV event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Jeison Rosario continues his comeback in the lid-lifter, opposing Jesus Ramos. In the finale, former Cuban amateur standout David Morrell will attempt to saddle David Benavidez with his first defeat. Both combatants in the main event have been chasing 168-pound kingpin Canelo Alvarez, but this bout will be contested for a piece of the light heavyweight title.
When the show is over, Santos will barely have time to exhale. Before the month is over, one will likely find him working the corner of Dainier Pero, Brian Mendoza, Elijah Garcia, and perhaps others.
Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) turned 28 last month. He is in the prime of his career. However, a lot of folk rate Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) a very live dog. At last look, Benavidez was a consensus 7/4 (minus-175) favorite, a price that betokens a very competitive fight.
Bob Santos, needless to say, is confident that his guy can upset the odds. “I have worked with both,” he says. “It’s a tough fight for David Morrell, but he has more ways to victory because he’s less one-dimensional. He can go forward or fight going back and his foot speed is superior.”
Benavidez’s big edge, in the eyes of many, is his greater experience. He captured the vacant WBC 168-pound title at age 20, becoming the youngest super middleweight champion in history. As a pro, Benavidez has answered the bell for 148 rounds compared with only 54 for Morrell, but Bob Santos thinks this angle is largely irrelevant.
“Sure, I’d rather have pro experience than amateur experience,” he says, “but if you look at Benavidez’s record, he fought a lot of soft opponents when he was climbing the ladder.”
True. Benavidez, who turned pro at age 16, had his first seven fights in Mexico against a motley assortment of opponents. His first bout on U.S. soil occurred in his native Pheonix against an opponent with a 1-6-2 record.
While it’s certainly true that Morrell, 26, has yet to fight an opponent the caliber of Caleb Plant, he took up boxing at roughly the same tender age as Benavidez and earned his spurs in the vaunted Cuban amateur system, eventually defeating elite amateurs in international tournaments.
“If you look at his [pro] record, you will notice that [Morrell] has hardly lost a round,” says Santos of the fighter who captured an interim title in only his third professional bout with a 12-round decision over Guyanese veteran Lennox Allen.
Bob Santos is something of a late bloomer. He was around boxing for a long time, assisting such notables as Joe Goossen, Emanuel Steward, and Ronnie Shields before becoming recognized as one of the sport’s top trainers.
A native of San Jose, he grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood but not in a household where Spanish was spoken. “I know enough now to get by,” he says modestly. He attended James Lick High School whose most famous alumnus is Heisman winning and Super Bowl winning quarterback Jim Plunkett. “We worked in the same apricot orchard when we were kids,” says Santos. “Not at the same time, but in the same field.”
After graduation, he followed his father’s footsteps into construction work, but boxing was always beckoning. A cousin, the late Luis Molina, represented the U.S. as a lightweight in the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, and was good enough as a pro to appear in a main event at Madison Square Garden where he lost a narrow decision to the notorious Puerto Rican hothead Frankie Narvaez, a future world title challenger.
Santos’ cousin was a big draw in San Jose in an era when the San Jose / Sacramento territory was the bailiwick of Don Chargin. “Don was a beautiful man and his wife Lorraine was even nicer,” says Santos of the husband/wife promotion team who are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Don Chargin was inducted in 2001 and Lorraine posthumously in 2018.
Chargin promoted Fresno-based featherweight Hector Lizarraga who captured the IBF title in 1997. Lizarraga turned his career around after a 5-7-3 start when he hooked up with San Jose gym operator Miguel Jara. It was one of the most successful reclamation projects in boxing history and Bob Santos played a part in it.
Bob hopes to accomplish the same turnaround with Jeison Rosario whose career was on the skids when Santos got involved. In his most recent start, Rosario held heavily favored Jarrett Hurd to a draw in a battle between former IBF 154-pound champions on a ProBox card in Florida.
“I consider that one of my greatest achievements,” says Santos, noting that Rosario was stopped four times and effectively out of action for two years before resuming his career and is now on the cusp of earning another title shot.
The boxer with whom Santos is most closely identified is former four-division world title-holder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. The slick southpaw, the pride of Gilroy, California, the self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World,” retired following a bad loss to Omar Figueroa Jr, but had second thoughts and is currently riding a six-fight winning streak. “I’ve known him since he was 15 years old,” notes Santos.
Years from now, Santos may be more closely identified with the Pero brothers, Dainier and Lenier, who aspire to be the Cuban-American version of the Klitschko brothers.
Santos describes Dainier, one of the youngest members of Cuba’s Olympic Team in Tokyo, as a bigger version of Oleksandr Usyk. That may be stretching it, but Dainier (10-0, 8 KOs as a pro), certainly hits harder.
![Dainier Pero Dainier Pero](https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Daiinier-Pero-300x250.png)
Dainier Pero
This reporter was a fly on the wall as Santos put Dainier Pero through his paces on Tuesday (Jan. 14) at Bones Adams gym in Las Vegas. Santos held tight to a punch shield, in the boxing vernacular a donut, as the Cuban practiced his punches. On several occasions the trainer was knocked off-balance and the expression on his face as his body absorbed some of the after-shocks, plainly said, “My goodness, what the hell am I doing here? There has to be an easier way to make a living.” It was an assignment that Santos would have undoubtedly preferred handing off to his young assistant, his son Joe Santos, but Joe was preoccupied coordinating David Morrell’s camp.
Dainer’s brother Lenier is also an ex-Olympian, and like Dainier was a super heavyweight by trade as an amateur. With an 11-0 (8 KOs) record, Lenier Pero’s pro career was on a parallel path until stalled by a managerial dispute. Lenier last fought in March of last year and Santos says he will soon join his brother in Las Vegas.
There’s little to choose between the Pero brothers, but Dainier is considered to have the bigger upside because at age 25 he is the younger sibling by seven years.
Bob Santos was in the running again this year for The Ring magazine’s Trainer of the Year, one of six nominees for the honor that was bestowed upon his good friend Robert Garcia. Considering the way that Santos’ career is going, it’s a safe bet that he will be showered with many more accolades in the years to come.
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