Springs Toledo’s “The Ringside Belle,” Part 3

Published

10 years ago

February 12, 2015

Jungle Fever

In 1927, William “Gorilla” Jones, 20, was invited to fight in Akron, Ohio by promoter Suey Welch. Jones accepted the offer, toyed with his more experienced opponent, collected his purse, and then went and blew every dime in a dice game. He approached Welch, hat in hand, and asked for an advance on his next purse. He took that and the fever took him. Off he went looking for “dem bones,” expecting to double back and square up early. Needless to say, he doubled back with his hat in his hand again. It became a routine until Welch let the dice fly himself and signed him. Jones became as much an indentured servant as a fighter under the new banner. During daylight hours, he was at the Welch Athletic Club on South Main Street; by night he was whooping it up in the red-light district. Welch’s father, Akron’s police chief, lent a hand and put out an APB to the gambling dens in the city—“Don’t let Gorilla Jones through the door!”

Jones spent a few years fighting in and around Ohio. He was a defensive specialist who often loafed his way to a decision win but was more than able to send the crowd home early. It depended on the other guy’s ambitions; if those ambitions were too aggressive, Jones would knock him silly. It also depended on Jones’s social calendar; if Jones happened to have an engagement to attend, he would plant his feet, so to speak, to get to the dance on time. Late one night before a fight, Welch heard unfamiliar snoring coming from Jones’s room and opened the door to find a double in Jones’s bed. Jones was you-know-where doing you-know-what.

Late in 1928, Mae West accompanied gangster Owney Madden to the fights at Madison Square Garden. Jones was on the undercard and doing all right. Later, the fighter spotted the movie star and her well-tailored escort in a bar and sent over a round of drinks. West liked his moxie and invited him to see her at the theatre. After the show, West found that she liked his heroic musculature too and invited him to her dressing room.

Maybe the walls caved in. Whatever happened, it must have been stupendous because West began bankrolling Jones’s career and his luck turned for keeps. He filed taxes on his 1929 earnings totaling $85,000 (that’d be $1,158,430 in 2014), drove a shiny new Lincoln Coupe, sported over 90 suits with sharp cuts and side vents, and developed a taste for diamonds that matched that of his new patroness.

By the time West was writing her lines for her Hollywood debut in Night After Night, the man winked at in one of those lines (“Hey Ga-rilla! C’mere!”) —was middleweight champion of the world.

It was 1932. Jones made one defense before losing his crown later that year to a Frenchman who looked like something from The Hills Have Eyes. He soon followed the woman he affectionately called “The Lady” to Los Angeles. Manager Suey Welch went with him and both were put on salary. By 1934, Welch was supervising fight scenes in a Mae West movie and Jones was earning $750 a week. Welch got out of the fight racket for a while and bought a string of theatres. Jones retired in 1940, and as far as the mainstream press knew, got hired as West’s chauffeur, though a chauffeur wasn’t often seen walking a diamond-collared lion on a leash along Central Avenue or fondling his blonde employer in after-hours joints near the Dunbar Hotel. Central Avenue was then predominantly a black community and the residents there knew what blue-eyed gossip columnists could only guess—Jones and Mae West were lovers.

Sometimes word leaked out. There’s a story where some bum made a rude comment about the star and Jones decked him but good. West scolded him for it. “Let ‘em talk,” she said. “I made four million because people were saying nasty things about me and you shouldn’t get in a fight to change that opinion.” There’s another story where the manager of the Ravenswood wouldn’t allow Jones past the lobby to visit West and it was West’s turn to fume —She bought the building.

West’s generosity to Jones was extended to his mother. Daisy Jones, a retired Memphis school principal, was hired on as a wardrobe assistant and travelling companion and stayed on for eighteen years. She adored West. “She is very kind and I like working for her very much,” she told the New York Age.

In the Fifties, Jones taught boxing classes at the Boys’ Club in Watts until his vision began to fail as a result of adult diabetes. In 1957, his almond eyes were obscured behind horn-rimmed glasses and his total annual income was “zero” according to Jet magazine. But West wouldn’t let him live any less than comfortably. She had wisely invested much of his ring earnings into a trust fund, purchased property for him, and paid his bills.

He loved her right back. When a motion-picture company offered him a quarter-million dollars for his story, he turned them down flat because they tried to make him admit he was one of West’s lovers. The Lady always insisted on keeping her private life private and lying to those outside her world was considered loyalty. Jones’s loyalty had no price. “All the money in the world would be no good without friends,” he said in 1974. “I would never betray a friend who has done everything to keep me on top and let me live the life I wanted to live.”

Lowell Darling is a conceptual artist, two-time gubernatorial candidate in California, and president in perpetuity of the Society for the Preservation of Lowell Darling. In the Seventies, he “fell in with hams and muscle heads” at the Cauliflower Alley Club in Hollywood where, he said, old fighters “regrouped en masse to form a constellation of faint stars.” Gorilla Jones was among them. He was damn-near blind by then and wore a wig that might have been found at the end of a push broom at dd’s Discounts the day after Halloween. Jones’s friends at the club knew the truth about the ageless star and the champ, but weren’t broadcasting it. “Let’s just say,” said one of them, “that Mae always had a soft spot in her heart for Gorilla.”

Jones was doing all right. He was living rent-free in a small white frame house in Echo Park, the one with the little figurine of a gorilla straddling the lattice fence at the front. His neighbors knew him as a “gentlemanly fellow who would hastily button his shirt if a lady approached the porch where he sat on warm days.” Inside the house was a makeshift shrine to his glory years. Darling was one of the few invited inside to see it. One day the phone rang. “That must be The Lady,” said Jones as he groped for the receiver.

“Hello Ga-rilla?”

“I have a present I want to give you,” Jones told her.

“How much will it cost me, Ga-rilla?”

“—I want to give you a telephone for your car so we can talk anytime, 24-hours a day.”

They spoke to each other, said Darling, “like lovesick kids.” Sometimes she sent a car to bring him to the Ravenswood for more than talk. By then, Jones (and millions more) had been in love with the star for over half-a-century.

In 1980, 86-year-old Mae West suffered a stroke and that purring lilt went silent. When she was brought home from the hospital, she would lie in bed watching her old movies, transfixed by a character as fascinating to her as it is to us.

Early on the morning of November 22, 1980 she went to sleep, peacefully, and took her last breath. I imagine a shimmer of sunlight reaching into her bedroom like a finger to touch her cheek.

The African-American press remembered her as a friend and a heroine. Headlines trumpeted her disregard of contrived color lines. “Mae West: Snow White Sex Queen Who Drifted” read Jet. “Mae West Had Her Black Friends” read the Call and Post. Columnist Bill Lane wrote that she had “something within that transcended clear skin and sexy hips. She had a humanness that broad-jumped unpretentiously over whiteness and blackness.”

Her funeral service in the Hollywood Hills wasn’t big and flamboyant like she was when the cameras rolled, like we thought she was. It was an intimate gathering of trusted friends, which is what she cherished most in this world. Gorilla Jones, 74, stood weeping without shame by the casket. Every now and then he’d honk his nose and the wig perched on his head would slip.

West’s body was transported back home to Brooklyn to be buried alongside her mother and Battlin’ Jack.

Jones was left behind.

He stopped going to boxing shows and the Braille Institute. He stopped going to the store. “After she passed on,” said a next-door neighbor, “he just went down.” He began passing-up rides to the Cauliflower Alley Club; and eventually wouldn’t leave the house, wouldn’t eat. His once-heroic musculature wasted away to 102 lbs.

On January 4, 1982 they found his body surrounded by his boxing memorabilia, old newspaper clippings, and framed images of The Lady, her bedroom eyes locked on him.

Her bedroom eyes

…spotting someone in the distance, she puts the brakes on her strut and a hand on her hip— “Hey Ga-rilla!” she calls out. “C’mere!”

Special thanks to Lowell Darling, Bruce Kielty, Alice Martin, and Alister Scott Ottesen.

Mae West: Goodness Had Nothing to Do With it (1959); Life (4/18/69); Henry Armstrong’s interviewinPeterHeller’s In This Corner…! 42 World Champions Tell Their Stories (DeCapo, 1973); Mae West: The Lies, the Legend, The Truth by George Eells and Stanley Musgrove (1984), p. 143; Jet “Snow White Sex Queen Who Drifted by Robert E. Johnson (7/25/1974); Private detective’s statements in Mae West: Empress of Sex (HarperCollins 1991); Milton Berle: B.S. I Love You (McGraw-Hill, 1987); UP (Jack Cuddy, 6/4/1937 and 9/27/1944); INS 12/6/1933, Los Angeles Herald and Express (1/16/1934); Jim Murray’s opinion in Los Angeles Times (4/25/1961); AP 8/21/1957. Details regarding Chalky Wright found in Baltimore Afro-American (12/24/1960), Milwaukee Sentinel (12/2/1946); UP 8/24/1957, Los Angeles Sentinel (8/15/1957), Baltimore Afro-American (8/31/1957), and Los Angeles Times (August 1957); Mickey Cohen, in My Own Words: The Autobiography of Michael Mickey Cohen As Told to John Peer Nugent (Prentice-Hall, 1975); Alice Martin told this writer that she believed that West paid for Chalky’s funeral. Archived autopsy report performed by Dr. Gerald K. Ridge, M.D., Deputy Medical Examiner on Albert G. Wright, August 13, 1957 at 1:45pm (rec’d 10/2/2014 from Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner, County of Los Angeles). Details regarding Gorilla Jones found in “Local History: Akron’s King of Rings” by Mark J. Price (Beacon Journal, 6/8/2009); “Lady Luck’s Frown Starts Jones Upward” by Carl Crammer, AP 2/26/1932; MilwaukeeSentinel, (11/22/1931); Jet (7/16/1953, 4/3/1958 and 1/28/1982); Pittsburgh Press (6/13/1934); Lowell Darling (unpublished manuscript; emails to author); Los Angeles Times, 1/6/1982.

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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