Springs Toledo’s “The Ringside Belle,” Part 2

Published

10 years ago

February 8, 2015

“Is That a Pistol in Your Pocket?”

Rubbing shoulders and who knows what else with Mae West at ringside was a rogues gallery of gangsters; many of whom branched out from Brooklyn like she did or left on the lam. There was Mickey Cohen in Los Angeles, Al Capone in Chicago, and Owney Madden. She was closest to Madden, a gangland murderer and bootlegger who became the underworld king of New York in the late 1920s. He was chief proprietor of the Cotton Club in Harlem and had interests in boxing —and Mae West. He bankrolled her career and was, for a time, her lover.

She wasn’t shy about asking for favors. When she heard that a Joe Louis-Maxie Rosenbloom bout was being negotiated for the Hollywood Legion in 1937, she called Madden and persuaded him to get Louis a title shot instead. That June, Louis knocked the crown off the head of Jim Braddock and became the first black heavyweight king since Jack Johnson. West was there, ringside.

She said that the guys who talked out of the sides of their mouths were perfect gentleman, but learned the hard way that they weren’t exactly pals. Three of them, one an ex-member of the Capone gang who used to work for her, held her up while she sat in her limousine in 1933. “Throw out your poke and let’s have the rocks,” she was told, and off into the night went $17,000 in diamonds and cash. She testified at the trial, despite receiving phone calls of the “or else” type. She knew where to turn for protection. Prospective chauffeurs were asked about their ability to bust heads, not brake safely. A parade of professional boxers were hired, among them a future world champion named Albert “Chalky” Wright. Chalky was a frustrated featherweight who needed a weekly paycheck to keep what little he had. West reportedly did better than that; handing him the down payment for a house he wanted to buy for his mother and paying for his divorce. He would drive her to the fights at the Olympic Auditorium on Tuesday and Friday nights in a chocolate-colored Rolls Royce; she would slip him a C-note and away he went.

Chalky, no stranger to vice, preferred bourbon to horses and horses to home life. If the word of a private investigator is to be believed, he preferred Miss West to everything else. “I am not the chauffer,” Chalky supposedly told an acquaintance when asked why he didn’t always wear a uniform, “—I am The Man.” Moreover, he admitted he was in love with her.

She loved him right back. When she heard that his boxing career had stalled out because of mismanagement, she sponsored his comeback and applied pressure behind the scenes to get him a title shot. She even hired his brother to take his place as her driver, to “keep it in the family.” When Lee Wright, a welterweight, got himself arrested for shooting light heavyweight Cannonball Green while Green was in a phone booth on Sunset Boulevard, she pulled strings and he walked. After all, said an eye-rolling reporter, it was “an accident.”

It wasn’t the last time she helped a fighter beat the rap. Filipino bantamweight Speedy Dado followed the Wrights into West’s front seat and was arrested for waving a gun at three motorists in a traffic incident. The hot-headed Dado might have been better off cooling his heels in the clink because he was losing more fights than he won.

Perhaps (pardon me) his legs were weak.

In the early Fifties, Chalky was retired and greasing pans in a bakery for a living. Mae West was, well, back on top in Vegas with a bevy of beefcakes on stage at the Sahara. In 1955, her private life was thrust into public view. Investigators for what she called an “under-the-rock” magazine were making the rounds at boxing arenas in California where, they said, “the name Mae West is as well-known as Spalding.” The name Chalky Wright kept coming up. They tracked him to a bar. Chalky, thinking they were producers interested in making a movie about West, took $200 to talk about his months in her employment. “Mae West’s Open-Door Policy” appeared in the November 1955 edition of Confidential Magazine. It became part of a lawsuit filed by Hollywood against the magazine, though there wasn’t much more than a tickle or two among mundane facts about West’s cleanliness and generosity.

Her lawyer drew up an affidavit denying any hanky-panky and the ex-featherweight champ signed it, or so the lawyer said. In 1957, Chalky was subpoenaed to court, but he never showed up. He died thirteen days before the court date.

It was an odd death. Recently separated from his second wife, he had moved in with his mother on South Main Street in Los Angeles. On August 12, she returned home from shopping and heard water running in the bathroom. She called Chalky’s name and when he didn’t answer she unlocked the door to find his body slumped in the bathtub. His head was under the water and the tap was running. At first, police suspected foul play —a towel rack had been torn from the wall, which suggested a struggle, and they thought they saw a contusion on Chalky’s head.

Whatever the cause, the caseagainst Confidential Magazine went forward and Chalky’s ex-wife’s subpoena was in the mail practically before the mourners had left Lincoln Memorial Park. It was still on her kitchen table when the phone rang. “You’d better clam up,” she was warned, “if you know what’s good for you.” She made it clear to the Baltimore Afro-American that the caller did not represent the magazine. She said “[t]hose people have too much money and too much power” but would not say who “those people” were and that invites speculation that West’s underworld friends were behind it. On the other hand, another witness was told to slant testimony in favor of the magazine, and a third, scheduled to testify against the magazine, died from a drug overdose that was no less suspicious than Chalky’s death.

Chalky was no stranger to vice lords. Word on the street was that gangster Frankie Carbo owned him during the latter days of his career, and no one doubted that he had a story to tell. It turns out that he told it, three years before his death, to a young black pulp writer by the name of Jay Thomas Caldwell. Me an’ You was published by Lion Books in 1954 and was dedicated to “Chalky, the gentle Hedonist.” Names were changed to protect the not-so innocent: “Turkey Jones,” the main character, is Chalky. “One Gun Laws” is “One Shot” Wirt Ross, Chalky’s manager early in his career, and “Al Smith” is Eddie Mead, his last manager.

The story unloads like a death-bed confession. Laws/Wirt, said the Chalky Wright character, routinely “invented fiction for the newspapers,” including one that said the fighter was born in Mexico. Chalky had a good laugh at that one: “Ain’t that a pip?” his character says.

There are more serious revelations that, if true, cast a shadow on his career. For example, the record tells us Eddie Shea knocked out Chalky Wright in the first round in 1933. In the book, a fight manager (who happens to share a first name with notorious West Coast gangster Mickey Cohen) meets Turkey Jones at the Main Street Gym in Los Angeles and hands him $300 to take a dive against “Bobby Shay” in the first round. “That bum didn’t knock me out,” Chalky’s character says afterward. “I dumped.” It wasn’t the only time he did.

The character of “Tommy White,” a short, God-fearing whirlwind from St. Louis who became a double champion, is Henry Armstrong. Chalky’s character is offered a fight against the Armstrong character to set up the book’s most startling mea culpa. It’s found in a scene on page 55:

“Only one thing,” his manager told him. “We gotta do a little business.”

“Whatever’s best,” the fighter replied.

“Okay. They want a good guy, somebody with a reputation and you’re the only one who fills the bill. But they know they can’t take any chances with you. You might beat him.”

The record tells us Chalky Wright was knocked out by Henry Armstrong in three rounds in 1938. It is no longer certain that he did. Armstrong’s manager, Eddie Mead, is fingered in the book as the man behind the fix. Three pages later we read that the manager was satisfied enough with the performance to invite the main character to New York. It’s a matter of record that Eddie Mead became Chalky’s manager after Armstrong-Wright and that Wright’s next fight was his first at Madison Square Garden, where the spotlight was brighter and the purses were bigger.

It’s also a matter of record that Mead was all tangled up with gangsters on both coasts. One afternoon in 1942, he dropped dead in front of the Park Central Hotel. According to gangster Mickey Cohen, Meade was fencing diamonds back east and they were stashed in his coat. Cohen couldn’t believe it. He died “with all the f*ckin’ stuff on him!” (The police report left that out.) “Boxing and the racket world were almost one and the same,” opined Cohen as if we didn’t know. “Most boxers were owned by racket people and at one time, six of the boxing titles belonged to guys in the so-called racket world.”

Chalky’s affinity for white women is also dramatized in the pages of Me an’ You, including his marriages to two of them, but it stops there. His affair with Mae West is conspicuously absent. There is only a hint, at once suggestive and poignant, that appears near the end of the book as the main character walks toward the ring at Yankee Stadium: “He smelled a woman’s perfume from among ringsiders. It was a white woman’s perfume and no matter what he ever did he would never know what to do about it.”

In the end, Chalky’s death mirrored his affair with West. Despite the controversy swirling around it, his death was natural as his love. His autopsy report, dated September 3, 1957 ends the mystery. The Los Angeles County Coroner examined the body and found nothing that would make a mob hit likely. “No evidences of bony injury, either old or recent are demonstrated,” it reads. “The scalp is free of any evidences of injury.” Nor was he drowned. Tests conducted on his lungs, liver, and heart could not support that diagnosis. The coroner’s conclusion was as anticlimactic as a marriage: “aortic stenosis due to old rheumatic valvulitis, inactive.” It was heart failure that did Chalky in.

Mae West was present at his funeral.

According to at least one family member, she paid for it as well.

THEY SAY MAE WEST HAD A SOFT SPOT FOR GORILLA JONES —THEY DON’T KNOW THE HALF OF IT. DON’T MISS THE VALENTINE-WORTHY CONCLUSION TO “THE RINGSIDE BELLE” ….

TELL YOUR SWEETHEART! READ IT BEFORE BED!

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

Bivol Evens the Score with Beterbiev; Parker and Stevenson Win Handily

Published

2 hours ago

February 22, 2025

David A. Avila

Bivol-Evens-the-Score-with-Beterbiev-Parker-and-Stevenson-Win-Handily

It was labeled the best boxing card in history.

That’s up for debate.

And there was some debate as Dmitry Bivol avenged his loss to Artur Beterbiev to become the new undisputed light heavyweight world champion on Saturday by majority decision in a tactical battle.

“He gave me this chance and I appreciate it,” said Bivol of Beterbiev.

Bivol (24-1, 12 KOs) rallied from behind to give Beterbiev (21-1, 20 KOs) his first pro loss in their rematch at a sold out crowd in the Venue Riyadh Season in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Like their first encounter the rematch was also very close.

Four months ago, these two faced each other as undefeated light heavyweights. Now, after two furious engagements, both have losses.

Beterbiev was making his first defense as undisputed light heavyweight champion and made adjustments from their first match. This time the Russian fighter who trains in Canada concentrated on a body attack and immediately saw dividends.

For most of the first six rounds it seemed Beterbiev would slowly grind down Bivol until he reached an unsurmountable lead. But despite the momentum he never could truly hurt Bivol or gain separation.

Things turned around in the seventh round as Bivol opened up with combinations to the head and body while slipping Beterbiev’s blows. It was a sudden swing of momentum. But how long could it last?

“It was hard to keep him at the distance. I had to be smarter and punch more clean punches,” said Bivol.

Beterbiev attempted to regain the momentum but Bivol was not allowing it to happen. In the final 10 seconds he opened up with a machine gun combination. Though few of the punches connected it became clear he was not going to allow unclarity.

Using strategic movement Bivol laced quick combinations and immediately departed. Betebiev seemed determined to counter the fleet fighter but was unsuccessful for much of the second half of the fight.

Around the 10^th round Beterbiev stepped on the gas with the same formula of working the body and head. It gave Bivol pause but he still unleashed quick combos to keep from being overrun.

Bivol connected with combinations and Beterbiev connected with single body and head shots. It was going to be tough for the referees to decide which attack they preferred. After 12 rounds with no knockdowns one judge saw it a draw at 114-114. But two others saw Bivol the winner 116-112, 115-113.

“I was better. I was pushing myself more, I was lighter. I just wanted to win so much today,” said Bivol.

Beterbiev was gracious in defeat.

“Congratulations to Bivol’s team” said Beterbiev. “I think this fight was better than the first fight.”

After the match it was discussed that an effort to make a third fight is a strong possibility.

Heavyweight KO by Parker

Joseph Parker (36-3, 24 KOs) once again proved he could be the best heavyweight without a world title in knocking out the feared Martin Bakole (21-2, 16 KOs) to retain his WBO interim title. It was quick and decisive.

“Catch him when he is coming in,” said Parker, 33, about his plan.

After original foe IBF heavyweight titlist Daniel Dubois was forced to withdraw due to illness, Bakole willingly accepted the match with only two days’ notice. Many experts and fans around the world were surprised and excited Parker accepted the match.

Ever since Parker lost to Joe Joyce in 2022, the New Zealander has proven to be vastly improved with wins over Deontay Wilder and Zhilei Zhang. Now you can add Bakole to the list of conquests.

Bakole, 33, was coming off an impressive knockout win last July and posed a serious threat if he connected with a punch. The quick-handed Bakole at 310 pounds and a two-inch height advantage is always dangerous.

In the first round Parker was wary of the fighter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He kept his range and moved around the ring looking to poke a jab and move. Bakole caught him twice with blows and Parker retaliated.

It proved to be a very important test.

Parker refrained from moving and instead moved inside range of the big African fighter. Both exchanged liberally with Bakole connecting with an uppercut and Parker an overhand right.

Bakole shook his head at the blow he absorbed.

Both re-engaged and fired simultaneously. Parker’s right connected to the top of the head of Bakole who shuddered and stumbled and down he went and could not beat the count. The referee stopped the heavyweight fight at 2:17 of the second round. Parker retains his interim title by knockout.

“I’m strong, I’m healthy, I’m sharp,” said Parker. “I had to be patient.”

Shakur Wins

Despite an injured left hand southpaw WBC lightweight titlist Shakur Stevenson (23-0, 11 KOs) won by stoppage over late replacement Josh Padley (15-1, 6 KOs). It was an impressive accomplishment.

Often criticized for his lack of action and safety-first style, Stevenson was supposed to fight undefeated Floyd Schofield who pulled out due to illness. In stepped British lightweight Padley who had nothing to lose.

Padley was never hesitant to engage with the super-quick Stevenson and despite the lightning-quick combos by the champion, the British challenger exchanged liberally. It just wasn’t enough.

Even when Stevenson injured his left hand during an exchange in the sixth round, Padley just couldn’t take advantage. The speedy southpaw kept shooting the right jabs and ripping off right hooks. At the end of the sixth Stevenson briefly switched to a right-handed fighting style.

Stevenson used his right jabs and hooks to perfection. Double right hooks to the head and body seemed to affect the British challenger. A clean left to the body of Padley sent him to the floor for the count in the ninth round. It was a surprising knockdown due to his injured left. Padley got up and the fight resumed. Stevenson unloaded with right hooks to the body and down went the British fighter once again. He got up and tried to fight his way out but was met with another left to the body and down he went a third time. Padley’s corner tossed in a white towel to signify surrender. The referee stopped the fight at the end of the round. Stevenson scored his 11^th knockout win.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

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Early Results from Riyadh where Hamzah Sheeraz was Awarded a Gift Draw

Published

5 hours ago

February 22, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Early-Results-from-Riyadh-where-Hamza-Sheeraz-was-Awarded-a-Gift-Draw

After two 6-round appetizers, British light heavyweights Joshua Buatsi and Callum Smith got the show rolling with a lusty 12-round skirmish. Things went south in the middle of the seven-fight main card when WBC middleweight champion Carlos Adames locked horns with challenger Hamzah Sheeraz. This was a drab fight owing to a milquetoast performance by the favored Sheeraz.

Heading in, the lanky six-foot-three Sheeraz, whose physique is mindful of a young Thomas Hearns, was undefeated in 21 fights. Having stopped five of his last six opponents in two rounds or less, the 25-year-old Englishman was touted as the next big thing in the middleweight division. However, he fought off his back foot the entire contest, reluctant to let his hands go, and Adames kept his title when the bout was scored a draw.

Sheeraz had the crowd in his corner and two of the judges scored the match with their ears. Their tallies were 115-114 for Sheeraz and 114-114. The third judge had it 118-110 for Adames, the 30-year old Dominican, now 24-1-1, who had Ismael Salas in his corner.

Ortiz-Madrimov

Super welterweight Vergil Ortiz Jr, knocked out his first 21 opponents, begging the question of how he would react when he finally faced adversity. He showed his mettle in August of last year when he went a sizzling 12 rounds with fellow knockout artist Serhii Bohachuk, winning a hard-fought decision. Tonight he added another feather in his cap with a 12-round unanimous decision over Ismail Madrimov, prevailing on scores of 117-111 and 115-113 twice.

Ortiz won by adhering tight to Robert Garcia’s game plan. The elusive Madrimov, who bounces around the ring like the energizer bunny, won the early rounds. But eventually Ortiz was able to cut the ring off and turned the tide in his favor by landing the harder punches. It was the second straight loss for Madrimov (10-2-1), a decorated amateur who had lost a close but unanimous decision to Terence Crawford in his previous bout.

Kabayel-Zhang

No heavyweight has made greater gains in the last 15 months than Agit Kabayel. The German of Kurdish descent, whose specialty is body punching, made his third straight appearance in Riyadh tonight and, like in the previous two, fashioned a knockout. Today, although out-weighed by more than 40 pounds, he did away with Zhilei “Big Bang” Zhang in the sixth round.

It didn’t start out well for Kabayel. The New Jersey-based, six-foot-six Zhang, a two-time Olympian for China, started fast and plainly won the opening round. Kabayel beat him to the punch from that point on, save for one moment when Zhang put him on the canvas with a straight left hand.

That happened in the fifth round, but by the end of the frame, the 41-year-old Zhang was conspicuously gassed. The end for the big fellow came at the 2:29 mark of round six when he couldn’t beat the count after crumbling to the canvas in a delayed reaction after taking a hard punch to his flabby midsection.

Kabayel remains undefeated at 26-0 (18 KOs). Zhang (27-3-1) hadn’t previously been stopped.

Smith-Buatsi

The all-British showdown between light heavyweights Joshua Buatsi and Callum Smith was a grueling, fan-friendly affair. A former 168-pound world title-holder, Smith, 34, won hard-earned unanimous decision, prevailing on scores of 115-113, 116-112, and a ludicrous 119-110.

There were no knockdowns, but Liverpool’s Smith, who advanced to 31-2 (22) finished the contest with a bad gash in the corner of his right eye. It was the first pro loss for Buatsi (19-1), an Olympic bronze medalist who entered the contest a small favorite and was the defending “interim” title-holder.

This contest was also a battle of wits between two of America’s most prominent trainers, Buddy McGirt (Smith) and Virgil Hunter (Buatsi).

Check back shortly for David Avila’s wrap-up of the last three fights.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

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Cain Sandoval KOs Mark Bernaldez in the Featured Bout at Santa Ynez

Published

21 hours ago

February 21, 2025

David A. Avila

Cain-Sandoval-KOs-Mark-Bernaldez-in-the-Featured-Bout-at-Santa-Ynez

Northern California’s Cain Sandoval remained undefeated with a knockout win over Mark Bernaldez in a super lightweight battle on Friday on a 360 Promotions card.

Sandoval (15-0, 13 KOs) of Sacramento needed four rounds to figure out tough Filipino fighter Bernaldez (25-7, 14 KOs) in front of a packed crowd at Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez.

Bernaldez had gone eight rounds against Mexico’s very tough Oscar Duarte. He showed no fear for Sandoval’s reputed power and both fired bombs at each other from the second round on.

Things turned in favor of Sandoval when he targeted the body and soon had Bernaldez in retreat. It was apparent Sandoval had discovered a weakness.

In the beginning of the fourth Sandoval fired a stiff jab to the body that buckled Bernaldez but he did not go down. And when both resumed in firing position Sandoval connected with an overhand right and down went the Filipino fighter. He was counted out by referee Rudy Barragan at 34 seconds of the round.

“I’m surprised he took my jab to the body. I respect that. I have a knockout and I’m happy about that,” Sandoval said.

Other Bouts

Popular female fighter Lupe Medina (9-0) remained undefeated with a solid victory over the determined Agustina Vazquez (4-3-2) by unanimous decision after eight rounds in a minimumweight fight between Southern Californians.

Early on Vazquez gave Medina trouble disrupting her patter with solid jabs. And when Medina overloaded with combination punches, she was laced with counters from Vazquez during the first four rounds.

Things turned around in the fifth round as Medina used a jab to keep Vazquez at a preferred distance. And when she attacked it was no more than two-punch combination and maintaining a distance.

Vazquez proved determined but discovered clinching was not a good idea as Medina took advantage and overran her with blows. Still, Vazquez looked solid. All three judges saw it 79-73 for Medina.

A battle between Southern Californian’s saw Compton’s Christopher Rios (11-2) put on the pressure all eight rounds against Eastvale’s Daniel Barrera (8-1-1) and emerged the winner by majority decision in a flyweight battle.

It was Barrera’s first loss as a pro. He never could discover how to stay off the ropes and that proved his downfall. Neither fighter was knocked down but one judge saw it 76-76, and two others 79-73 for Rios.

In a welterweight fight Gor Yeritsyan (20-1,16 KOs) scorched Luis Ramos (23-7) with a 12-punch combination the sent him to the mat in the second round. After Ramos beat the count he was met with an eight punch volley and the fight was stopped at 2:11 of the second round by knockout.

Super feather prospect Abel Mejia (7-0, 5 KOs) floored Alfredo Diaz (9-12) in the fifth round but found the Mexican fighter to be very durable in their six-round fight. Mejia caught Diaz with a left hook in the fifth round for a knockdown. But the fight resumed with all three judges scoring it 60-53 for Mejia who fights out of El Modena, Calif.

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