Rest in Peace, Harold “Hercules” Johnson

Published

10 years ago

February 24, 2015

“I didn’t want that fight. I didn’t want to fight Harold Johnson. They had to pay me a lot of money to fight that animal.” – Willie Pastrano

Harold Johnson was a licensed union drummer and as his astonishing fight career wound down he could be found in clubs with his band “Harold Johnson and the Contenders.” The story goes that when Johnson ran out of money, he would pawn his drums and then take a fight, explaining that spate of ten round decisions over the likes of John Alford (23-15-3) and Eddie Jones (7-5) in the late sixties. When he was paid, he would rescue his drums and return to the jazz circuit and bang out his second love on stage. Having never heard him play I’ll make a guess that he married a sizzling left to steady right.

I don’t know what he made of Johnson the musician but Philadelphia boxing scribe Jack McKinney compared the fighter to Bach. He was on to something, I think. French composer Charles Gounod regarded Mozart as the most beautiful composer and Bach as the “most comprehensive”, damning him, it might seem, with faint praise – but completeness is in many ways the highest praise a great artist can pay a peer. What Gounod is saying is that Bach does more perfectly than his fellow genius, for all that he is not quite so dazzling. Something similar can be said about Johnson.

Johnson’s Mozart was Archie Moore. It is hard, really, to exaggerate the atrocious luck he experienced in sharing an era with arguably the greatest light-heavyweight in history but nor can Johnson’s bravery in setting out to master this man be overstated. He first met Moore in April of 1949, two months after his impressive defeat of Chilean heavyweight Arturo Godoy. Godoy was almost a decade removed from his outstanding performance against the immortal Joe Louis but he still held a twenty-pound weight advantage over the smaller Johnson. The great Tommy Loughran was working closely with him at that time, and it showed. Harold reportedly boxed his way calmly and clearly to a unanimous decision. Unbeaten at 24-0 he was still an underdog against the vastly more experienced Moore in a fight that was laughably listed as an eliminator for the light-heavyweight title then held by Freddie Mills.

Moore would have to wait four years for his shot but he looked like a champion against Johnson that April evening in 1949. Johnson was never in the fight. Moore was aggressive from the first while Johnson banked upon his jab to keep Moore off. It didn’t work, and by the sixth he was bleeding from the nose and by the seventh he was hauling himself off the canvas.

“I knew I’d win,” Moore told the press. “But the tough ones are still ahead.”

Johnson took his defeat quietly, in keeping with his character. He had won no more than three rounds in the ten round contest and had been bullied and outclassed, but there is something dismissive in that line that bothers me a little – “the tough ones are still ahead” – and I suspect it bothered Johnson too. Moore was among the cleverest and most deadly of punchers in history but for whatever reason his name was never far from Johnson’s mouth. It is hard to think of a more difficult way to make a living in the 1950s than fighting Archie Moore, but that became Johnson’s job – he met him four times in that decade.

By the end of their first rematch Johnson was bleeding from his “nose, mouth and left eye” but on one card he won five of the ten rounds. He was gathering experience, closing in. Three months later in December of 1951, Harold Johnson defeated Archie Moore by unanimous decision 5-4, 5-4, 6-4. A low blow landed by Moore in the tied fifth round cost him a draw, but the most significant factor was Johnson’s left. It had developed into perhaps the most cultured appendage in the history of the glittering light-heavyweight division.

Precious footage of their fifth and final contest fought in August of 1954 for the world’s light-heavyweight championship survives until this day, and in it we see just what a punch Johnson’s left jab had become. Within seconds of the bell for the first round he threw a swift jab to Moore’s body while leaning away, a stiff jab to the head thrown from behind his high left-shoulder as Moore ducked and moved in, and three short-arm hooks, arm punches thrown as a reaction to the champion’s sudden presence within his sphere of action. Two different kind of attacking jabs and three different kinds of defensive hooks, Johnson shows a whole offence without once chancing the right hand. Often outreached even in the light-heavyweight division, Johnson developed a beautiful, baiting footwork mode, moving away from an opponent in tiny increments, moving even the genius Moore out of a crouch and slightly towards him – simply by moving his head backwards in a deep stance he puts Archie on the end of his jab. He was conservative with his balance and this sometimes cost him punching opportunities and led the ignorant to name him boring, but it bought him control of the range against a man who thought he had mastered that forever. By the fifth Moore is clearly playing Johnson’s game and losing.

In the tenth, Johnson dropped his man with a sneaky right behind the ear. If the fight had ended with that round like their previous contests, Johnson would have been victorious; if it had been fought over twelve, he would have been victorious – but it was a championship fight decided over fifteen rounds, a distance Johnson had never boxed before. By the thirteenth he was hanging on and in the fourteenth, still ahead on two of the cards, he was cruelly stopped by a resurgent Moore.

I think Johnson’s problem with his nemesis was a stylistic one. If he was classical, Moore was the jazz Johnson so loved, technically proficient but free-wheeling, as capable of the unexpected as the true. In the end, when Moore had to abandon himself to win, he knew where to find Johnson in a way that Johnson could never replicate with Moore. Willie Pastrano called him “a fighter’s fighter, a perfectionist” but his commitment to what was correct described his limitations, too.

Those limitations did not prevent him adding a second layer of astonishing success at heavyweight. Johnson is perhaps the most underrated heavyweight in history and few light-heavyweights come close to matching his overall resume in the unlimited class. In 1961 he put on a left-handed clinic against master-technician Eddie Machen, out-jabbing the man who was supposed to carry the best left in the division. Even more impressive was his narrow defeat of former heavyweight champion Ezzard Charles. A victory that came almost a decade before his defeat of Machen it means that Johnson proved himself the heavyweight division’s definitive technician in fights eight years apart against world-class opposition. Jimmy Bivins, Nino Valdes and Clarence Henry were the other major heavyweight scalps he carried, the last in particular regarded as an enormous shock against an overwhelming favourite.

Indeed, his only losses at heavyweight came in strange circumstances. In a 1950 fight with Jersey Joe Walcott he withdrew in the third with an injured lower back. He was also “stopped” without having been hit against Julio Mederos in the second, an apparent victim of a drugging by a “stranger” who presented him with a “bitter orange.” It should be enough to say that an African-American that turned professional in the 1940s walked a strange and difficult path.

Despite his glowing success above, light-heavy was where Johnson walked his true path. It had its valleys, not least his two rounds stoppage at the hands of puncher Billy Smith but eventually he took the long walk to a ring containing Doug Jones, the winner to be named the undisputed champion of the world. Jones, ten short months from extending a prospect soon to be known as Muhammad Ali, was embarrassed in a one-sided masterclass that to this day remains among the benchmarks for technical excellence in the field of boxing. Johnson looks old; he is balding, the severe crew-cut he wore from his navy days becoming redundant. But the younger Jones just isn’t allowed to hit him without suffering. He is smooth and Jones is fast, and this is not a contest.

Johnson, by his stage had mastered the control of his opponents trailing hand, with jab, with movement, with vision. Glimmers of what we see against Moore are concrete lightning now, he often ditches the Jones jab before he has really thrown it, a twitch of his head and then, boom, across comes the right hand, an uppercut, a straight, a feint and a jab. I managed to score the seventh and fourteenth for Jones; sympathy may have played a part.

In the aftermath, Johnson once again demanded Archie Moore, for what would have been a sixth time, but had to settle for Gustav Scholz in Berlin in front of forty-thousand Germans. He took the decision in what some regard as his finest hour. When he returned to America he was matched with defensive specialist Willie Pastrano after Henry Hank withdrew from a proposed title fight with a facial injury. Such was Pastrano’s respect for Johnson that they had to make him three different offers before they could come up with a payday he could not refuse. What appears on film to be another one-sided schooling followed, although Johnson’s rhythm was destroyed by Pastrano’s jittery up-jab and mobility. Somehow the decision went against Johnson and his short title run was over.

“Man, I just got lucky, that’s all,” Pastrano would say years later. “After each round I’d say ‘Well, I’m still here. Thank God.’”

Johnson was never particularly well managed. When he won the title he received a bonus of just $250. His fifth fight with Moore was the first time he received a purse larger than $6,000. He once claimed career earnings of just under $200,000 but spread over a twenty-three year career that represents just over $8,000 per annum. Soon, he was pawning that drum-kit. Then he made a desperate and failed comeback attempt. Finally he sold the trophies of his fistic greatness, transforming them from riches to memorabilia with each swift, sad transaction. Questioned about his excellent physical condition in later life he would say with a serious smile that he could not afford to gain weight because he could not afford to buy new clothes.

In the end he seems to have found a modicum of peace, living his last years “in quiet retirement in northeast Philadelphia” according to phillyboxinghistory.com. But no more writers will seek him out there to hear about those glory days that spanned four decades and two weight divisions. No young fighters will approach him, as Bernard Hopkins once did, and beg his wisdom or pay their respects. He died this week at the age of eighty-six. Watching him box in that timeless style in stark black and white all day today has made that fact unreal.

The great matchmaker Teddy Brenner once called Johnson the perfect fighter but added that “there is no room in boxing for perfection.”

And you know what he means.

But I’m not sure that Archie Moore would agree with him. Nor would Ezzard Charles. Or Jimmy Bivins. Or Arturo Godoy, or Bert Lytell, or Clarence Henry, Bob Satterfield, Nino Valdes, Eddie Machen, Eddie Cotton, Doug Jones, Gustav Sholz, Willie Pastrano, Henry Hank…

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Matt McGrain

Jorge Garcia is the TSS Fighter of the Month for April

Published

2 days ago

April 28, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Jorge-Garcia-is-the-TSS-Fighter-of-the-Month-for-April

Jorge Garcia has a lot in common with Mexican countrymen Emanuel Navarrete and Rafael Espinoza. In common with those two, both reigning world title-holders, Garcia is big for his weight class and bubbled out of obscurity with a triumph forged as a heavy underdog in a match contested on American soil.

Garcia had his “coming of age party” on April 19 in the first boxing event at the new Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California (roughly 35 miles north of San Diego), a 7,500-seat facility whose primary tenant is an indoor soccer team. It was a Golden Boy Promotions event and in the opposite corner was a Golden Boy fighter, Charles Conwell.

A former U.S. Olympian, Conwell was undefeated (21-0, 16 KOs) and had won three straight inside the distance since hooking up with Golden Boy whose PR department ballyhooed him as the most avoided fighter in the super welterweight division. At prominent betting sites, Conwell was as high as a 12/1 favorite.

The lanky Garcia was 32-4 (26 KOs) heading in, but it was easy to underestimate him as he had fought extensively in Tijuana where the boxing commission is notoriously docile and in his home state of Sinaloa. This would be only his second fight in the U.S. However, it was noteworthy in hindsight that three of his four losses were by split decision.

Garcia vs. Conwell was a robust affair. He and Conwell were credited with throwing 1451 punches combined. In terms of punches landed, there was little to choose between them but the CompuBox operator saw Garcia landing more power punches in eight of the 12 rounds. At the end, the verdict was split but there was no controversy.

An interested observer was Sebastian Fundora who was there to see his sister Gabriela defend her world flyweight titles. Sebastian owns two pieces of the 154-pound world title where the #1 contender per the WBO is Xander Zayas who keeps winning, but not with the verve of his earlier triumphs.

With his upset of Charles Conwell, Jorge Garcia has been bumped into the WBO’s #2 slot. Regardless of who he fights next, Garcia will earn the biggest payday of his career.

Honorable mention: Aaron McKenna

McKenna was favored to beat veteran campaigner Liam Smith in the co-feature to the Eubank-Benn battle this past Saturday in London, but he was stepping up in class against a former world title-holder who had competed against some of the top dogs in the middleweight division and who had famously stopped Chris Eubank Jr in the first of their two encounters. Moreover, the venue, Tottenham Hotspur, the third-largest soccer stadium in England, favored the 36-year-old Liverpudlian who was accustomed to a big fight atmosphere having fought Canelo Alvarez before 50,000-plus at Arlington Stadium in Texas.

McKenna, from the small town of Monaghan, Ireland, wasn’t overwhelmed by the occasion. With his dad Feargal in his corner and his fighting brother Stephen McKenna cheering him on from ringside, Aaron won a wide decision in his first 12-round fight, punctuating his victory by knocking Smith to his knees with a body punch in the 12^th round. In fact, if he hadn’t had a point deducted for using his elbow, the Irishman would have pitched a shutout on one of the scorecards.

“There might not be a more impressive example of a fighter moving up in class,” wrote Tris Dixon of the 25-year-old “Silencer” who improved his ledger to 20-0 (10).

Photo credits: Garcia/Conwell photo compliments of Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy; McKenna-Smith provided by Mark Robinson/Matchroom

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Chris Eubank Jr Outlasts Conor Benn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

Published

3 days ago

April 27, 2025

David A. Avila

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Feudal bragging rights belong to Chris Eubank Jr. who out-lasted Conor Benn to
emerge victorious by unanimous decision in a non-title middleweight match held in
London on Saturday.

Fighting for their family heritage Eubank (35-3, 26 KOs) and Benn (23-1, 14 KOs)
continued the battle between families started 35 years ago by their fathers at Tottenham
Hotspur Stadium.

More than 65,000 fans attended.

Though Eubank Jr. had a weight and height advantage and a record of smashing his
way to victory via knockout, he had problems hurting the quicker and more agile Benn.
And though Benn had the advantage of moving up two weight divisions and forcing
Eubank to fight under a catch weight, the move did not weaken him much.

Instead, British fans and boxing fans across the world saw the two family rivals pummel
each other for all 12 rounds. Neither was able to gain separation.

Eubank looked physically bigger and used a ramming left jab to connect early in the
fight. Benn immediately showed off his speed advantage and surprised many with his
ability to absorb a big blow.Chris Eubank Jr Outlasts Conor Benn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

Benn scrambled around with his quickness and agility and scored often with bigcounters.

It took him a few rounds to stop overextending himself while delivering power shots.

In the third round Benn staggered Eubank with a left hook but was unable to follow up
against the dangerous middleweight who roared back with flurries of blows.

Eubank was methodic in his approach always moving forward, always using his weight
advantage via the shoulder to force Benn backward. The smaller Benn rocketed
overhand rights and was partly successful but not enough to force Eubank to retreat.
In the seventh round a right uppercut snapped Benn’s head violently but he was
undeterred from firing back. Benn’s chin stood firm despite Eubank’s vaunted power and
size advantage.

“I didn’t know he had that in him,” Eubank said.

Benn opened strong in the eighth round with furious blows. And though he connected
he was unable to seriously hurt Eubank. And despite being drained by the weight loss,
the middleweight fighter remained strong all 12 rounds.

There were surprises from both fighters.

Benn was effective targeting the body. Perhaps if he had worked the body earlier he
would have found a better result.

With only two rounds remaining Eubank snapped off a right uppercut again and followed
up with body shots. In the final stanza Eubank pressed forward and exchanged with the
smaller Benn until the final bell. He simply out-landed the fighter and impressed all three
judges who scored it 116-112 for Eubank.

Eubank admitted he expected a knockout win but was satisfied with the victory.
“I under-estimated him,” Eubank said.

Benn was upset by the loss but recognized the reasons.

“He worked harder toward the end,” said Benn.

McKenna Wins

In his first test in the elite level Aaron McKenna (20-0, 10 KOs) showed his ability to fight
inside or out in soundly defeating former world champion Liam Smith (33-5-1, 20 KOs)
by unanimous decision to win a regional WBA middleweight title.

Smith has made a career out of upsetting young upstarts but discovered the Irish fighter
more than capable of mixing it up with the veteran. It was a rough fight throughout the
12 rounds but McKenna showed off his abilities to fight as a southpaw or right-hander
with nary a hiccup.

McKenna had trained in Southern California early in his career and since that time he’s
accrued a variety of ways to fight. He was smooth and relentless in using his longer
arms and agility against Smith on the outside or in close.

In the 12 th round, McKenna landed a perfectly timed left hook to the ribs and down went
Smith. The former champion got up and attempted to knock out the tall
Irish fighter but could not.

All three judges scored in favor of McKenna 119-108, 117-109, 118-108.

Other Bouts
Anthony Yarde (27-3) defeated Lyndon Arthur (24-3) by unanimous decision after 12 rounds. in a light heavyweight match. It was the third time they met. Yarde won the last two fights.

Chris Billam-Smith (21-2) defeated Brandon Glanton (20-3) by decision. It was his first
fight since losing the WBO cruiserweight world title to Gilberto Ramirez last November.

Viddal Riley (13-0) out-worked Cheavon Clarke (10-2) in a 12-round back-and-forth-contest to win a unanimous decision.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: Benn vs Eubank Family Feud and More

Published

5 days ago

April 24, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective,-Chap.-323:-Benn-vs-Eubank-Family-Feud-and-More.jpg

Next generation rivals Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. carry on the family legacy of feudal warring in the prize ring on Saturday.

This is huge in British boxing.

Eubank (34-3, 25 KOs) holds the fringe IBO middleweight title but won’t be defending it against the smaller welterweight Benn (23-0, 14 KOs) on Saturday, April 26, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.

This is about family pride.

The parents of Eubank and Benn actually began the feud in the 1990s.

Papa Nigel Benn fought Papa Chris Eubank twice. Losing as a middleweight in November 1990 at Birmingham, England, then fighting to a draw as a super middleweight in October 1993 in Manchester. Both were world title fights.

Eubank was undefeated and won the WBO middleweight world title in 1990 against Nigel Benn by knockout. He defended it three times before moving up and winning the vacant WBO super middleweight title in September 1991. He defended the super middleweight title 14 times before suffering his first pro defeat in March 1995 against Steve Collins.

Benn won the WBO middleweight title in April 1990 against Doug DeWitt and defended it once before losing to Eubank in November 1990. He moved up in weight and took the WBC super middleweight title from Mauro Galvano in Italy by technical knockout in October 1992. He defended the title nine times until losing in March 1996. His last fight was in November 1996, a loss to Steve Collins.

Animosity between the two families continues this weekend in the boxing ring.

Conor Benn, the son of Nigel, has fought mostly as a welterweight but lately has participated in the super welterweight division. He is several inches shorter in height than Eubank but has power and speed. Kind of a British version of Gervonta “Tank” Davis.

“It’s always personal, every opponent I fight is personal. People want to say it’s strictly business, but it’s never business. If someone is trying to put their hands on me, trying to render me unconscious, it’s never business,” said Benn.

This fight was scheduled twice before and cut short twice due to failed PED tests by Benn. The weight limit agreed upon is 160 pounds.

Eubank, a natural middleweight, has exchanged taunts with Benn for years. He recently avenged a loss to Liam Smith with a knockout victory in September 2023.

“This fight isn’t about size or weight. It’s about skill. It’s about dedication. It’s about expertise and all those areas in which I excel in,” said Eubank. “I have many, many more years of experience over Conor Benn, and that will be the deciding factor of the night.”

Because this fight was postponed twice, the animosity between the two feuding fighters has increased the attention of their fans. Both fighters are anxious to flatten each other.

“He’s another opponent in my way trying to crush my dreams. trying to take food off my plate and trying to render me unconscious. That’s how I look at him,” said Benn.

Eubank smiles.

“Whether it’s boxing, whether it’s a gun fight. Defense, offense, foot movement, speed, power. I am the superior boxer in each of those departments and so many more – which is why I’m so confident,” he said.

Supporting Bout

Former world champion Liam Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) tangles with Ireland’s Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) in a middleweight fight set for 12 rounds on the Benn-Eubank undercard in London.

“Beefy” Smith has long been known as one of the fighting Smith brothers and recently lost to Eubank a year and a half ago. It was only the second time in 38 bouts he had been stopped. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did it several years ago.

McKenna is a familiar name in Southern California. The Irish fighter fought numerous times on Golden Boy Promotion cards between 2017 and 2019 before returning to the United Kingdom and his assault on continuing the middleweight division. This is a big step for the tall Irish fighter.

It’s youth versus experience.

“I’ve been calling for big fights like this for the last two or three years, and it’s a fight I’m really excited for. I plan to make the most of it and make a statement win on Saturday night,” said McKenna, one of two fighting brothers.

Monster in L.A.

Japan’s super star Naoya “Monster” Inoue arrived in Los Angeles for last day workouts before his Las Vegas showdown against Ramon Cardenas on Sunday May 4, at T-Mobile Arena. ESPN will televise and stream the Top Rank card.

It’s been four years since the super bantamweight world champion performed in the US and during that time Naoya (29-0, 26 KOs) gathered world titles in different weight divisions. The Japanese slugger has also gained fame as perhaps the best fighter on the planet. Cardenas is 26-1 with 14 KOs.

Pomona Fights

Super featherweights Mathias Radcliffe (9-0-1) and Ezequiel Flores (6-4) lead a boxing card called “DMG Night of Champions” on Saturday April 26, at the historic Fox Theater in downtown Pomona, Calif.

Michaela Bracamontes (11-2-1) and Jesus Torres Beltran (8-4-1) will be fighting for a regional WBC super featherweight title. More than eight bouts are scheduled.

Doors open at 6 p.m. For ticket information go to: www.tix.com/dmgnightofchampions

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 9 a.m. Conor Benn (23-0) vs Chris Eubank Jr. (34-3); Liam Smith (33-4-1) vs Aaron McKenna (19-0).

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