Battle Hymn – Part 4: “This is Archie Moore Talking”?

Published

10 years ago

March 31, 2014

The Little Tiger’s ring mayhem made managers shy. When the calls got thin, Wade had that trouble familiar to most of us when we’re young and full of beans: he had trouble making rent. In the 1940 Census, he was living at 1004 McAllister Street in San Francisco’s Fillmore district. He had been a professional prize fighter for five years, but could only afford to rent a room in a shoe shiner’s house. He listed his occupation as “trainer,” his industry as “prize fighter,” and his income as “0.”

Late in 1940, another desperate middleweight disembarked at San Diego after a four-month tour of Australia. Wade ate his pork on a shoestring and scanned the San Francisco fog for more meat. Archie Moore preferred chicken, and he too was on the hunt.

Wade and Moore were living parallel lives. Both were born in the South in 1916 and were relocated to northern cities during the Great Migration when they were small children. Archie’s first professional fight, as far as he could recall with certainty, was against Murray Allen in a six-rounder at Quincy, Illinois in 1936 (“I received the amazing sum of $8 for that fight,” he said.) Wade’s first known professional fight was against the same opponent in the same place, in 1935. Had Moore heard Chuck Vickers bragging before fighting Wade that he had “never been beaten by a Negro” in 1939, he would have called him a liar; Moore had knocked him cold two years and a round earlier than Wade.

By 1943, Moore’s reputation for spoiling records was working against him. He was lured into wars with Murderers’ Row and was neck-deep in no time; though he held his own. He fought two draws against Eddie Booker, with two wins and a loss against Jack Chase. The loss to Chase on August 2 was a sore spot. Moore had no alibis, but Muller didn’t believe he needed any. “He is a fighter who seldom clinches,” he wrote. “He doesn’t maul and haul at close range. Instead he lets his punches go when he finds an opening and those blows carry force.” Moore, a proud man unpopular with fellow fighters because of his aristocratic airs, was hell-bent on redeeming himself. His motivation was further boosted by talk of an opportunity to appear on the undercard of the Sugar Ray Robinson-Henry Armstrong fight at Madison Square Garden. That was scheduled for August 27.

In the meantime, he planned to return to his winning ways on the 16^th against “the little man with a big wallop.”

Muller didn’t like Wade’s chances against an elite-level middleweight, though he liked them a little more when he remembered that big fists do better in small rings. “The fellow with the old sockeroo prefers the smaller ring, a sixteen or an eighteen footer,” Muller wrote. “He doesn’t have to travel too far to catch his adversary.” The ring at National Hall, where Wade sent Ray Campo into resin-specked tranquility, was sixteen-feet square. The ring at the Coliseum Bowl, where R.J. Lewis never saw round two and where Harvey Massey was stopped twice, was also sixteen-feet square.

At just under six-feet tall, Moore had to drop his chin to his chest to look at Wade. He had a wingspan of 76 inches and hit like Babe Ruth, but he wasn’t the puncher in this match-up. He was something of a mobile boxer when he was in his twenties, and mobile boxers prefer big rings. Sugar Ray Leonard, for example, insisted on a twenty-foot ring when he faced Marvelous Marvin Hagler in 1987; and that’s just one reason why Moore’s greatness exceeds Leonard’s.

Moore would face Wade at Coliseum Bowl in a puncher’s ring.

He emerged from the dressing room in what he called a “bad frame of mind.” Despite the high praise by Eddie Muller, Moore’s confidence may have been shaken by the loss to Jack Chase. Alternatively, he may have been overconfident; after all, Chase tamed Wade only two months earlier. In fact, Chase did it with relative ease after being wobbled twice early. “We’ve seen Wade in a number of fights,” Muller wrote after Chase took a ten-round decision. “It’s doubtful if he took as many punches in any other fight as he did when Chase started to pour the leather.” Moore was almost certainly at ringside that night, watching carefully.

However Moore felt going in to fight Wade, he felt worse coming out. Muller’s surprisingly brief fight report reads like he lost his shirt betting on Moore:

Aaron “Little Tiger” Wade scored a stunning upset in Coliseum Bowl last night when he scored a decisive victory over Archie Moore of San Diego in the ten round main event. Wade won all the way. Moore was a 2 to 1 favorite. They are colored middleweights .

Moore had misread the situation. While it was true that Wade had lost two of his previous fifteen bouts, the names that beat him were on the roll call of Murderers’ Row. Worse still, after he “won all the way” against the fifth-rated middleweight in the world, no one seemed to notice. In the September 14 issue of The Ring, Moore was dropped from fifth to eighth in the ratings, presumably as a result of the upset; yet his conqueror is nowhere to be found in the top-ten. It’s puzzling. Had Moore fought again and won; or had Wade lost during the time between their bout and the next issue of The Ring, it would have explained the omission. But neither had.

I contacted boxing historian Alister Scott Ottesen to ask if the editors may have somehow missed the Wade-Moore bout. He sent along a fight report from the same September issue. He also mentioned that the ratings at the time seemed to emphasize a contender’s ‘body of work’ while discounting fluke losses. Given the accelerated rate of fighting during an era far more competitive than today, this would make some sense. To that point, the fight report does acknowledge that “Wade-Moore was an upset” and that Moore “did not perform at his best.” However, the report also acknowledged “the fact that Wade rates up there with the good ones,” which means that Wade’s victory was not considered a fluke —an upset, yes, though not a fluke.

A closer look at the issue raises another problem. Rated tenth since August 10 was a black fighter named Frankie Nelson. What had he done to earn that spot? Not much. He won two bouts in two days against never-weres with non-winning records.

In the end, The Ring’s omission of Wade looks like yet another example of the hard luck on Murderers’ Row.

Charley Burley’s hard luck is well-documented. Widely considered to be the greatest uncrowned champion since Sam Langford, Burley was just as broke as Wade and Moore.

“Fighting Charley Burley was almost inhuman,” Moore said years after they fought in April 1944. Knocked down three times when Burley slung rights off his jaw, Moore went down for a fourth time when Burley hit him with a jab that came up like a steam shovel from the hip. The Los Angeles Times reported that Moore, a master boxer, “was in sorry condition” at the finish. The left side of his face was disfigured and swollen and his pride was somewhere under the ring.

Burley was rated by The Ring as the number-one middleweight contender when he signed to fight the Little Tiger. Wade, no respecter of reputations or ratings, went at him with both fists. Burley was able to absorb what his serpentine style didn’t ride out or roll under, but Wade was forcing the action. Burley fought the first five rounds as he usually did, off the back foot. In round six, he sprang off that back foot and landed a surprise right to the chin that sagged Wade’s knees. Wade clinched to clear his head and Burley kept his distance over the remaining rounds to escape with a decision.

Alan Ward of the Oakland Tribune, Will Connolly of the San Francisco Chronicle, and most ringsidersthought Wade deserved the nod.

The next two matches followed the pattern established in the first, and Burley won those too. It seemed that once both punchers had gauged the other’s power, they decided against valor. The rematch, said The Bend Bulletin, was “dull” with many clinches and the Pittsburgh Press reported Burley-Wade III as “listless” with both keeping “a safe distance from each other at all times.”

In the summer of 1945, Burley was back in the East hoping for big money fights that would never materialize. The Pittsburgh Press tells history how bad he had it:“Every good middleweight around has been offered a fat purse to step into the ring with Burley,and each one in turn has nixed the proposition.” Among them was Sugar Ray Robinson. Burley was willing to fight him for nothing. “They can give him my purse too,” he said. Robinson, said the Press, “prefers to keep his reputation and let Burley and the local promoters keep the $20,000 they offered for the night’s work.”

Moore had the same high hopes as Burley and left San Diego for New York. “I figured that I could get in on some of that big money that was floating around,” he said. On his way, his car broke down in Bedford, Pennsylvania. When he found out it would cost $400 for repairs, he left it there and took a bus to the Big Apple. He borrowed $25 for expenses, took a room at the YMCA, and began training at Stillman’s Gym. His new manager got him fights, and, said Moore, “I was moving along pretty good, but pretty soon I found that I was up against the same old bugaboo.” In other words, he was looking too good. When Moore knocked out a 6’4 heavyweight in Boston, fight managers went fishing in their pockets for a ‘stay-away’ tag.

……

Thirty years after Wade, Moore, and Burley were forced to fight each other to make a living, Wade was back in San Francisco and sitting with Eddie Muller, who was still covering boxing for the Examiner. He told Muller about a phone call he had recently received at home. The caller didn’t give his name at first but sounded vaguely familiar.

“He asked if I was an old-time boxer,” Wade told Muller.

“I told him I was. He said, ‘Did you fight Eddie Booker?’ I said, no. ‘Did you fight a guy named Charley Burley?’ I told him I had. ‘How about Archie Moore?’ I told him I beat Moore.

“Then he asked, ‘Who was the better fighter, Burley or Moore?’ I said, ‘Why of course, Burley.’

“Then he laughed and said, ‘This is Archie Moore talking.’”

The photograph (Archie Moore, 1940s) appears courtesy of Boxrec.com. Information regarding Archie Moore found in Any Boy Can by Archie Moore, p. 207, 208-209, (on Burley, 187); Moore-Allen recalled in The Ring (September 1955), San Francisco Examiner 8/12/43, and “Archie Moore, The Master Technician” in The Ring 9/45; Information regarding Charley Burley found in San Francisco Examiner 3/4/43, 6/21/43, 7/16/43; Los Angeles Times, 4/22/44, Oakland Tribune, 3/4/43, Pittsburgh Press 8/17/45.

Special thanks to Alister Scott Ottesen.

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

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Springs Toledo

Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

24 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to the liver from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round nine. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

3 days 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

5 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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