Springs Toledo’s “The Ringside Belle,” Part 1

Published

10 years ago

February 6, 2015

Mae West Weakens Legs

Mae West burst onto the Hollywood screen like it was hers the whole time. She was fashionably late— Night After Night (1932) was half-over when she appeared outside a speakeasy surrounded by leering men. Audiences heard her before they saw her; they heard Brooklyn, with a purring lilt all her own: “Aww why don’t you boys be good and go home to ya wives.”

Behind her a peek-hole opened, then a voice. “Who is it?”

“It’s the fairy godmother ya mug!”

West received fourth billing for her film debut but was happy to work alongside George Raft, an old Gotham beau. Raft, an ex-fighter with underworld ties, starred as an ex-fighter with underworld ties. It was he who insisted that she join the cast. “Mae,” he said, “stole everything but the cameras.”

The moment she walked into the club, the white-bread background music switched to raunchy jazz—the music of Harlem. And she didn’t walk in so much as bump-and-grind past the doorman for the benefit of him and the rest of what was, but had yet to be recognized as, the weaker sex. “Don’t let those guys in,” she said with a toss of her head. “They’ll wreck the joint.”

West wrote her own lines and they sizzled like a New York sirloin. Sometimes they sizzled like forbidden love. Spotting someone in the distance, she put the brakes on her strut and a hand on her hip.

“Hey ga-rilla!” she called out. “C’mere—”

Foreplay
Mae West sprang from the loins of a cigar-chomping, bareknuckle brawler from Brooklyn called “Battlin’ Jack.” In her autobiography, she described her father as something of a free spirit with a penchant for “banging physical action” (not unlike how many described her). “My earliest memory,” she told a reporter, “was of dad coming home from making a couple of bucks —with a battered physog— and of mother flying around the kitchen with towels, hot water, and funny-smelling lotions.” Battlin’ Jack taught her how to box and before he knew it his daughter had, pardon me, fully developed. When asked whether his being a prizefighter influenced her career, she said, “Yes. It made me. You see, dad was always shadow boxing in front of the mirror at home. He wanted to be a crowd pleaser. Well, I got to using that mirror myself… I wanted to be a crowd pleaser too.”

When his prizefighting days were behind him, Battlin’ Jack drifted into other rackets. Biographers usually say he became a private detective, but it would be more apt to call him what he was—a leg-breaker in the New York underworld. West recalled his reputation for cruelty and how frequently those he confronted ended up in the hospital. “All his fighting was done doing other people’s fighting for them,” she hinted. At once attracted to and repelled by violence, her taste in men never went far from the familiar. Her second boyfriend was a young boxer with the same penchant for solving social disputes with a punch on the sniffer as her father. When a rival made a pass at her during a date, a gang fight ensued, and Battlin’ Jack appeared, escorted her out of harm’s way, and dove into the melee. “I watched it from a porch,” she said, “politely—not cheering.”

She was still close to the action after she became a Hollywood star. On Friday nights, she was found ringside at Olympic Stadium, sitting politely, not cheering. She was at Madison Square Garden when a teenage Sugar Ray Robinson won the Golden Gloves just before turning professional. She saw Henry Armstrong fighting as an amateur bantamweight in San Francisco. He saw her too. “She was there with her manager in all that beautiful white like she used to wear, stunning as ever,” he recalled. “She was sitting right in my corner.”

Gossip columnists said she was close enough to the action to touch it, and often did.

Her bedroom eyes were looking for “a guy with a nice build,” one of those guys said. “He didn’t have to be too handsome. And this is something very few people know—what excited her was a fellow with a busted nose or a cauliflower ear. She liked to fondle it, nuzzle it, kiss it.”

Mae West has been linked with more fighters than Al Haymon.

“Gentleman Jim” Corbett once left his overcoat and derby hat in her dressing room. She gave Jack Dempsey a lesson or two in the fine art of embracing like you mean it. When she quipped “C’m up an’ see me sometime” in 1933, a Hall of Fame ensemble thought she was talking to them. Jack Johnson came up to see her, she said, “several times.” Max Baer was reportedly invited to her bedroom and, well, afterward, went to the window and waved. He admitted that it was a signal to a friend that he had won their bet. West laughed. The parade continued. Jim Braddock took one look at Cinderella pure-as-New York-snow and moved faster than he ever did in the ring. (She recalled a conversation with him about, pardon me, “uppercuts and grips.”) In his autobiography, Joe Louis told a curious story about “a real good-looking white woman with blonde hair” who bought him a brand new Buick he was admiring in a showroom in Detroit and who would buy him one every Christmas between 1935 and 1940. The generous “lady” was never named, though he let on that she was a movie star with whom he had several one-night stands.

With neither altars nor apple-eyed apron-clingers slowing her momentum, success came early and through unexpected channels. A child-prodigy, ragtime singer, and queen of vaudeville, she was playing the Chicago circuit in 1917 when the first waves of African-American migrants arrived up from the South. They brought jazz and the blues with them and West became a fan enthralled. It was at a café in the South Side that she first saw the shimmy-shawobble. “They got out to the dance floor, and stood in one spot with hardly any movement of the feet,” she recalled, “and just shook their shoulders, torsos, breasts and pelvises.” West introduced the risqué dance to white audiences and had her first swig of infamy.

Much of what she saw and experienced found its way into the plays and novels she wrote. Her first play was called “SEX.” It went to stage in April 1926. She went to jail over it in April 1927, serving ten days at Roosevelt Island for obscenity (minus one or two days for good behavior) and charming the warden into letting her wear silk panties instead of state-rationed burlap. She didn’t learn her lesson. In 1930, she published a steamy novel called Babe Gordon that flaunted her preference for prizefighters and shined a spotlight on taboo topics such as black/white love affairs and nymphomania. “Babe was the type that thrived on men,” West wrote like one who knows. “She needed them. She enjoyed them and she had to have them.”

In the early Thirties, she and her black chauffer were spied climbing out of a limousine and walking arm-in-arm across Central Avenue in Los Angeles. They went to an after-hours joint near the Dunbar Hotel where they were seen all tangled up at a table. A gumshoe took notes. Around the same time pulp writer Raymond Chandler was writing “Nevada Gas,” which featured a rich and “sex-hungry looker” who got a new chauffeur every three months. Chandler was then living on Hartzell Street, a half-hour from West’s Ravenswood apartment on Rossmore Avenue.

The Hollywood social scene knew the score but kept it on the hush; after all, they all had secrets.

—West had more than most.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF FEATHERWEIGHT LEGEND CHALKY WRIGHT IS REVEALED IN “THE RINGSIDE BELLE” …PART 2.

CHECK BACK IN A FEW DAYS!

Springs Toledo is the author of The Gods of War: Boxing Essays (Tora, 2014, $25).He can be reached at scalinatella@hotmail.com

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Springs Toledo

Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser: Callum Walsh Returns to Madison Square Garden

Published

20 hours ago

March 17, 2025

Thomas Hauser

On Sunday, March 16 (the night before St. Patrick’s Day), Callum Walsh continued his move up the junior-middleweight ranks with a brutal first-round knockout of Dean Sutherland at the Hulu Theatre at Madison Square Garden. The seven-bout card promoted by Tom Loeffler featured seven Irish boxers. Walsh stole the show but two non-Irish fighters on the undercard caught the eye.

In the third fight of the evening, Cletus Seldin (known as “The Hebrew Hammer) took on Yeis Gabriel Solano. The last time Seldin fought at Madison Square Garden (March 15, 2024), he took the ring announcer’s microphone after a majority-decision win, dropped to one knee, held out a diamond engagement ring, and asked one Jessica Ostrowski to marry him. The future Mrs. Seldin (who was clad in black leather) said yes, and the happy couple paraded around the ring together. They were married on September 7.

“So I’ve got a ring now,” Seldin says. “And I love married life because I love Jessica.”

A cynic at ringside on Sunday night wondered if Jessica might serve Cletus with a summons and complaint for divorce in the ring after the fight. Not to worry. The couple seems happily married and, after Seldin eked out a majority decision over Solano (now winless in five fights dating back to 2019), Cletus and Jessica announced in the ring that they’re expecting the birth of their first child.

In the next fight of the evening, Irish heavyweight Thomas Carty (255 pounds) brought a 10-0 (9 KOs) record into the ring to face 409-pound Dajuan Calloway (10-3, 9 KOs, 1 KO by).

Carty-Calloway was a poor match for a prospect. A fighter gets relatively little credit for beating a 400-pound opponent. And the problems posed by a physical confrontation with a 400-pound mountain are considerable.

With fifty seconds left in round two, Carty collapsed to the canvas as Calloway spun him around on the inside. Thomas rose, limping badly on a clearly-injured left knee. And referee Jamil Antoine foolishly allowed the bout to continue.

Carty tried to circle away, fell again. And Antoine – more foolishly – instructed the fighters to fight on. There was a third fall that the referee ruled a knockdown. The bell rang. And then the fight was stopped. It goes in the record book as a knockout at 3:00 of the second round.

Worse for Carty, he now appears to be facing surgery followed by a long rehabilitation. There’s no way to know how much further damage was done to his knee in the forty seconds that he was clearly impaired and under assault by a 409-pound man who was trying to knock him unconscious.

But the night belonged to 23-year-old Callum Walsh.

Walsh is from Cork, Ireland, trains in California with Freddie Roach, and came into the ring with a 12-0 (10 KOs) record.

“He’s a pretty good fighter,” Roach says. “He’s getting better. And he works his ass off in the gym.”

Equally important in an age when social media and hype often supersede a fighter’s accomplishments in the ring as the key to marketability. Walsh has the enthusiastic backing of Dana White.

Callum seems more at ease with the media now than when he fought at Madison Square Garden a year ago. And he has a new look. His hair is shorter and no longer dyed blond.

“It’s a new year, so time for a new look,” Walsh explained. Later, he added, “I don’t want to be a prospect anymore. I want to be a contender. I expected the road to be tough. I’ve never had anything easy in my life. I’ve worked as a fisherman. I’ve worked on a cargo ship. I like this job a lot more. They have big plans for me. But I still have to do my job.”

Sutherland, age 26, was born in Scotland and has lived there his entire life. He came to New York with a 19-1 (7 KOs, 1 KO by) record and, prior to fighting Walsh, noted, “I’m under no illusions. Fighting an Irishman on St. Patrick’s Day in New York; it’s all being built up for him. If it goes to the scorecards, no matter how the fight goes, I’m unlikely to get the decision. But when the bell rings, it will be only me and Callum. I’ve watched his fights. I’ve studied his habits and rhythm. I’ve been through hard fights. He’s untested. This is my big opportunity. I’m not here to be part of Callum’s record.”

Talking is easier than fighting. When the hour of reckoning came, Walsh was faster, stronger, better-skilled, and hit harder than Sutherland. Indeed, Callum was so dominant in the early going that round one had the look of a 10-8 round without a knockdown. Then Sutherland was flattened by a right hook at the 2:45 mark and any thoughts as to scoring became irrelevant.

It was Walsh’s best showing to date, although it’s hard to know the degree to which Sutheralnd’s deficiencies contributed to that showing. What’s clear is that Callum is evolving as a fighter. And he’s the kind of fighter who fits nicely with the concept that Turki Alalshikh and Dana White have voiced for a new boxing promotional company. Whether they’ll be willing to put Walsh in tough is an open issue. UFC puts its fighters in tough.

****

There was a void at ringside on Sunday night. After more than four decades on the job, George Ward is no longer with the New York State Athletic Commission.

Ward was the model of what a commission inspector should be. I watched him in the corner and in dressing rooms countless times over the years. A handful of inspectors were as good as he was. Nobody was better. Later, as a deputy commissioner, he performed the thankless back-of-the-house administrative duties on fight night while other deputy commissioners were enjoying the scene at ringside.

George and Robert Orlando (who, like George, is a former New York City corrections officer) also normally presided over pre-fight weigh-ins. That’s worth mentioning here because it ties to one of the more unfortunate incidents that occurred during the tenure of former NYSAC executive director Kim Sumbler.

On November 1, 2019, Kelvin Gastelum weighed in for a UFC 244 match against Darren Till to be contested at Madison Square Garden. The contract weight for the fight was 186 pounds. It was known throughout the MMA community that Gastelum had been having trouble making weight. Before stepping on the scale, he stripped down completely naked and a towel was lifted in front of him to shield his genitals from public view. Then, to everyone’s surprise, his weight was announced as 184 pounds (two pounds under the contract weight).

How did Gastelum make weight? Video of the weigh-in showed him resting his elbow on his coach as he stood on the scale.

Why am I mentioning this now?

Ward and Orlando know all the tricks. While they were readying for the Gastelum-Till weigh-in, Sumbler told them that they were being replaced on the scales by two other commission employees who had been brought to New York City from upstate. They asked why and were told, “Because I said so.”

George Ward was one of the behind-the-scenes people who make boxing work. He’ll be missed.

****

Six years ago, Gene Pantalone wrote a traditional biography of former world lightweight champion Lew Jenkins. Now he has written – shall we say – a creative biography of lightweight great Freddie Welsh.

Welsh was born in Wales in 1886 but spent most of his ring career in the United States. He captured the lightweight crown by decision over Willie Ritchie in 1914 and relinquished it to Benny Leonard three years later. BocRec.com credits him with a 74-5-7 (34 KOs) ring record in bouts that are verified and were officially scored. If “newspaper decisions” are added to the mix, the numbers rise to 121 wins, 29 losses, and 17 draws. Many of the losses came when Welsh was long past his prime. He’s on the short list of boxing’s greatest fighters. The only knock out he suffered was when he lost the title to Leonard.

Chasing The Great Gatsby is styled as a biography of Welsh and also an advocacy brief in support of the proposition that Welsh was the inspiration and model for the title character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal novel The Great Gatsby. I’m unsure how factually accurate Pantalone’s work is in some places. Also, too often, he uses big words when small ones will suffice. For example:

“He was a pugilistic virtuoso, a pummeling poet with fists of fury and a keen intellect. His duality was evident in every aspect of his being, an amalgamation of the vicious and the benevolent.”

Over the course of 349 pages, that weighs a reader down.

Still, there are some interesting observations and nuggets of information to be mined in Chasing The Great Gatsby. Among my favorites are Pantalone’s description of Jack Dempsey training for his historic 1921 fight against George Carpentier at a “health farm” that Welsh owned in New Jersey; Pantelone’s description of how the stadium that hosted Dempsey-Carpentier was built; and Pantalone’s evaluation of the fight itself, which he calls “a spectacle of titanic proportions,” before adding,” The truth was inescapable. The fight had not lived up to its grandeur, but the event did.”

****

Several of the books that Robert Lipsyte has written during his storied career as a journalist focus on boxing; most notably, Free to Be Muhammad Ali and The Contender (a young adult novel). Lipsyte’s most recent book – Rhino’s Run (published by Harper) – is a young adult novel keyed to high school football, not the sweet science. But the opening sentence bears repeating:

“Punching Josh Kremens didn’t feel as good as I thought it would, and I’d been thinking about it for five years.”

Be honest! Don’t you want to read more?

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and ME is a personal memoir available at Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Ever-Improving Callum Walsh KOs Dean Sutherland at Madison Square Garden

Published

2 days ago

March 16, 2025

David A. Avila

Ever-Improving-Callum-Walsh-KOs-Dean-Sutherland-at-Madison-Square-Garden

Irish luck was not involved as Callum Walsh won the battle of hard-hitting southpaws over Dean Sutherland by knockout on Sunday.

One right hook was all it took.

“You’re never going to beat the Irish,” said Walsh.

In a contest between Celtic super welterweights Walsh (13-0, 11 KOs) retained the WBC Continental America’s title against Sutherland (19-2, 7 KOs) in quick fashion at the Madison Square Garden Theater in Manhattan.

Usually fights between southpaws can be confusing to both contestants. But Walsh had expressed a fondness for fighting lefthanders then vividly exhibited the reasons why.

Walsh, 24, a native of Cork, Ireland, now living and training in Los Angeles, quickly demonstrated why he likes fighting lefties with a steady flow of combinations from the opening bell.

He did not hesitate.

Sutherland, 26, had only lost once before and that was more than two years ago. Against Walsh the Scottish fighter was not hesitant to advance forward but was caught with lefts and right hooks.

After two minutes of scattered blows, Sutherland fought back valiantly and when cornered, Walsh tapped two jabs then unleashed a right hook through the Scottish fighter’s gloves that floored the Aberdeen fighter for the count at 2:45 of the first round.

“I’m feeling very good. Dean Sutherland is a very good opponent. I knew he was going to be dangerous. That was my best opponent,” said Walsh.

It was the fourth consecutive knockout win for Walsh who seems to improve with every single combat.

“I’m looking forward to the future. I’m getting stronger and stronger,” said Walsh who is trained by Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach. “Anyone that comes to me I will take him out.”

Other Bouts

Super featherweight Feargal McCrory (17-1, 9 KOs) survived a knockdown in the fourth to out-muscle Keenan Carbajal (25-5-1, 17 KOs) and batter down the Arizona fighter in the seventh and again in the eighth with volume punching.

Carbajal was deducted a point early for holding in round two, but regained that point when he floored the Irish southpaw during an exchange in the fourth.

Despite suffering a knockdown, McCrory continued stalking Carbajal and floored him in the seventh and eighth with battering blows. Referee Arthur Mercante Jr. stopped the fight without a count.

A rematch between two Irish super middleweights saw Emmet Brennan (6-0) remain undefeated by unanimous decision over Kevin Cronin (9-3-1).

Cronin started quickly with a pressure style and punches flowing against Brennan who resorted to covering and countering. Though it looked like Cronin was building up a lead with a busier style, the judges preferred Brennan’s judicious counters. No knockdowns were scored as all three judges saw Brennan the winner 98-92 after 10 rounds.

Dajuan Calloway (11-3, 9 KOs) emerged the winner by technical knockout over Thomas Carty (10-1) who was unable to continue after two rounds when his leg tangled and thereafter was unable to stand. Because he could not continue the fight was ruled a technical knockout win for Calloway in the heavyweight match.

Also

Cletus “Hebrew Hammer” Seldin (29-1, 23 Kos) defeated Yeis Solano (15-5) by majority decision after eight rounds in a super lightweight contest.

Donagh Keary (1-0) defeated Geral Alicea-Romero (0-1-1) by decision after four.

Light heavyweights Sean O’Bradaigh (0-0-1) and Jefferson Almeida (0-1-1) fought to a majority draw after four.

Photo credit: JP Yim

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Nick Ball Wears Down and Stops TJ Doheny Before the Home Folks in Liverpool

Published

3 days ago

March 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Nick-Ball-Wears-Down-and-Stops-TJ-Doheny-Before-the-Home-Folks-in-Liverpool

Fighting in his hometown, Liverpool’s five-foot-two fireplug Nick “The Wrecking” Ball stopped TJ Doheny after 10 progressively more one-sided rounds to retain his WBA belt in the second defense of the featherweight title he won with a hard-earned decision over Raymond Ford in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Referee Michael Alexander, with the assent of Doheny’s corner, waived it off following the bell ending Round 10, much to the chagrin of the brave but mildewed Doheny who burst into tears. But then, Doheny’s right eye was closed shut and he was plainly exhausted. This may be the end of the line for the 38-year-old campaigner from Perth, Australia via Portlaois, Ireland who was 26-5 heading in following his first loss inside the distance which came against pound-for-pound king Naoya Inoue.

There were no knockdowns, but Ball (22-0-1, 13 KOs) was docked a point in round nine for throwing Doheny to the canvas after having previously been warned for this infraction. Earlier, both he and Doheny were warned for an incident that could have ended the bout prematurely. At the end of the first round, Ball extricated himself from a headlock by kicking Doheny in the back of his knee. The challenger’s leg appeared to buckle as he returned to his stool.

Going forward, Ball has many options. The 28-year-old Liverpudlian purportedly relishes a unification fight with WBC belt-holder Stephen Fulton, but the decision ultimately rests with Ball’s promoter Frank Warren.

Other Bouts of Note

In a 12-round bantamweight contest that was close on the scorecards but yet a monotonous affair, Liverpool’s Andrew Cain won a split decision over former WBC flyweight title-holder Charlie Edwards. The scores were 116-112 and 115-114 favoring Cain with judge Steve Gray submitting a disreputable 115-113 tally for Edwards. At stake were a trio of regional titles.

The science of boxing, they say, is about hitting without getting hit. Charlie Edwards is adept at the latter but the hitting part is not in his DNA. He was on his bicycle from the get-go, a style that periodically brought forth a cascade of boos. Cain, who trains in the same gym with Nick Ball, was never able to corner him – Edwards was too elusive – but Cain, to his credit, never lost his composure.

In improving to 14-1 (12), Cain achieved a measure of revenge, in a sense. In his last documented amateur bout, in 2014, Cain was defeated by Charlie’s brother Sunny Edwards, also a former world title-holder at the professional level. Heading in, Charlie Edwards (20-2, 1 NC) was unbeaten in his last 13 which included a comfortable decision over Cristofer Rosales in his flyweight title fight. Charlie relinquished that belt when he could no longer make the weight.

Showboating Cuban lightweight Jadier Herrera, who fought 13 of his first 14 pro fights in his adopted home of Dubai, advanced to 17-0 (15 KOs) with a seventh-round stoppage of spunky but outclassed Mexican import Jose Macias (21-4-2). The official time was 2:31 of round seven.

An all-Liverpool affair between super flyweights Jack Turner (11-0, 10 KOs) and Ryan Farrag (23-6) was over in a jiff. The match, which went next-to-last in the bout order, ended at the 42-second mark of round two. A barrage of punches climaxed by a left hook sent Farrag down hard and the referee waived it off.

The noted spoiler Ionut Baluta, whose former victims include Andrew Cain, forged another upset with a 10-round split decision over local fan favorite Brad Strand. The judges favored Baluta 98-91 and 96-94, out-voting the Italian judge whose 97-93 tally for Strand was deemed the most accurate by the TV pundits.

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