Battle Hymn – Part 5: Blind Tiger

Published

10 years ago

April 3, 2014

Until the middle of World War II, San Francisco was among the most integrated cities in the United States. Unlike Chicago and other big cities, there were no ghettoes; no plans to stack black people on top of each other to keep them at a distance and conserve space. Sociologists believe this was because they had not yet arrived en masse to threaten the status quo.

Aaron Wade was one of thousands of single African American men trickling into San Francisco before World War II. He and they mixed in with other groups emigrating from outside the United States to create a truly cosmopolitan city where cultural traits from cuisine to speech patterns were regularly exchanged. This was especially so in the Fillmore section of the city: “Day or night,” said the WPA’s guide to the city in 1940, “pass laughing Negroes, dapper Filipino boys, pious old Jews on their way to schule, sturdy-legged Japanese high school girls, husky American longshoremen out for a quiet stroll with the wife and kids.”

This idyllic multiculturalism was put to the wind like pixie dust after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. To the dismay of many then and now, President Franklin Roosevelt proved to be no friend to Japanese citizens. He signed an executive order authorizing the physical removal of all of them from the West Coast. Signs were posted around San Francisco setting the deadline for April 7. On the foggy morning of April 8, the area between Geary and Pine Streets known as “Little Osaka” and “Japantown” looked like the Rapture. Japanese businesses were boarded up and empty houses loomed on empty streets. The residents were bussed to “war relocation centers” in Topaz, Utah.

In 1940, Wade was one of only 4,846 African Americans living in San Francisco. After Roosevelt gave Japanese Americans the federal boot, throngs in the old slave states packed their things and headed west. They were encouraged by a surplus of freed-up real estate and the bright prospect of finding work in wartime industry. By 1950 there were 43,460 blacks in the city, an increase of nearly 800%.

Wade was still renting his room on McAllister Street in the Fillmore in the early forties. Then known as “second-hand row,” McAllister Street was “spicy with the odors of delicatessen shops, bakeries, and restaurants,” according to the WPA, and merchants and customers parleyed in any number of languages all day. It was “a gourmet’s paradise” which proved to be one reason why the Little Tiger got “roly-poly.” He married Gertrude “Jenny” Johnson and a son, Harvey Dexter Wade, was born in September. Wade soon moved his new family into larger quarters a few blocks closer to Fillmore Street. He should have went in the other direction. Fillmore Street was where the action was —and where a family man shouldn’t be.

When the sun went down, old gospel songs would drift out of church windows and Wade, passing merrily by, might have had his conscience poked. But probably not. Despite the fact that he was only two generations removed from slavery, he hadn’t a care in the world or concern about the next. He was headed toward the entertainment scene, where Jazz Clubs like Jimbo’s Bop City had jam sessions that lasted into the wee hours and featured guests like Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald. His hang-outs were creep joints that catered to carousers with too much time on their hands and no reason to get up early.

It wasn’t always fun.

A little before midnight on December 26, 1943, a gunshot sent patrons at an all-night café on Fillmore Street scrambling for the door. Wade stepped out of a booth gripping his left shoulder, which was bleeding. Jack Chase had shot him. The police arrived to the café to find Chase swearing it was accidental; he said his gun discharged when he reached into his coat for cigarettes. His live-in girlfriend and Wade both supported the story, but Chase was arrested and held at city prison for assault with intent to commit murder, possession of a deadly weapon, and filing the serial numbers off his .32 caliber pistol. Wade went to the hospital.

Six months later the two drinking buddies were in opposite corners of an Oakland ring. “Chase elected to stand and slug it out with Wade for eight rounds,” said the Oakland Tribune. “It was a mistake.” He was thrashed like a rag doll until the last round when he landed a punch to Wade’s eye and Wade, temporarily blinded, twisted and began pawing at it. Surrender came in the last round. The ringside physician later said that his optic nerve had been paralyzed. Chase had either landed a lucky punch or “heeled” him, that is, rubbed the laces of his glove on Wade’s eyes. Wade’s sight returned after a little while, though the damage proved permanent.

Chase did not emerge unscathed; Muller said he “wasn’t right” for weeks afterward. Chase seldom said much about his opponents, but Wade’s power astonished him. He would say that no one ever hit him harder. “That boy can really punch,” Chase said. “No one can take chances with him. If they do, they may regret it.”

Wade found himself neck-deep in Murderers’ Row over the next four months. He broke even; but before anyone would think his partying days were over, he took his purse money and opened a night club. Located at 1640 Post Street, the “Gay Paree” was on the site of the now-vacant Fuji Transfer Company and featured an orchestra and plenty of booze. It opened in October 1944—on Friday the 13^th. Three days later it was raided by the police for operating without a liquor license. Wade appeared in court and paid a fine; then the real trouble began.

Word on the street said that gamblers had been approaching main event fighters with bribes to fix fights. Wade was subpoenaed.

On April 11, 1945, he appeared before the grand jury to testify about what he knew. The following day he showed up at the district attorney’s office unannounced. It wasn’t the first time.

District Attorney Edmund “Pat” Brown had an office at the Hall of Justice on Kearney Street. Alan Wade told me that Brown was a boxing fan who went to the fights at the Winterland and the Bucket of Blood and had a soft spot for the Little Tiger. When Wade ran out of money, which was often, he would head over to Brown’s office for a loan. Eventually, Brown had to shut him off for nonpayment.

When Wade showed up at Brown’s office on April 12, it wasn’t for a handout. He had a proposition that was, said Brown, “the most remarkable one I have received since I have been district attorney.”Wade said that “if the investigation of the crooked fights was dropped,” he would “guarantee there would be no more ‘fixed fights’ on this side of the bay.” Brown turned it down cold and informed the fighter that the investigation would continue. He might have also told him to walk it off.

“He was always a drinker, but it got worse around mid-career,” Alan told me. He’d go on binges, sometimes when he should have been training. In a sport that attracted gamblers with bank rolls and every other kind of shark and hustler—in a racket where you had to be sharp to protect your money, reputation, and future, Wade’s judgment was regularly impaired. Given that he had a family to support, co-owned a club that was springing leaks, and had a tough time getting enough fights to support his night life, he was an easy mark to begin with. Whether Wade was directly involved in fixing fights is unknown. Was his proposition to the district attorney made on behalf of a third party? Was it a booze-induced delusion? The record is as hazy as the fighter on a Saturday night.

We know that others beside him were summoned to appear before the grand jury. One witness, also a boxer, admitted that he had received threatening phone calls. “They tell me I had better get out of town,” he said under oath, “or change my testimony.” A main-eventer like Wade certainly knew what was going on behind the scenes. He also knew the risks of singing about it. When he testified under oath, he said nothing worth reporting, but then he went to Brown’s office and said too much. When it hit the papers, he may have panicked.

On April 17, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wade as “missing from his usual haunts.”

In May, a black trainer and the white owner of the Brown Bomber Dance Hall in the Fillmore District were indicted. Brown had evidence that they had acted on behalf of shadowy figures from Brooklyn who had come to San Francisco to put fights in the bag.

Soon after those indictments were announced, Wade left his family behind and hightailed it east.

Pioneer Urbanites: A Social and Cultural History of Black San Francisco by Douglas Henry Daniels (Univ. of CA Press, 1990), pp. 98-99, 100 and San Francisco in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to The City by the Bay (1940), pp. 282-285;Wade’s build and avoidance issue in San Francisco Examiner 6/29/40 and 6/20/43; Chase-Wade bouts found in San Francisco Chronicle 6/28/44, Los Angeles Times 12/28/43; San Francisco Examiner 12/27/43, 7/1, 4, 18, 19/44; 8/10/44; UP 6/29/44; Gay Paree in San Francisco Examiner, 10/13/44 and 3/3/45; Chase’s warning in Oakland Tribune 10/9/44; Edmund “Pat” Brown’s investigation of fixed fights covered in San Francisco Examiner from March through May 1945; Oakland Tribune, 4/15/45.

Special thanks to Alan Roy Wade.

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

2 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 liver the 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 time. 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

2 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

4 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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