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Jeff “Candy Slim” Merritt: A Fighter’s Life (Part Two of a Three-Part Series)

NOTE: When we left Jeff Merritt, he had just advanced his record to 11-1 with an 8-round unanimous decision over Henry Clark, his most seasoned opponent. The match played out at Madison Square Garden on a show headlined by George Foreman vs. Chuck Wepner. It was Merritt’s fourth appearance at the Garden under the aegis of his sponsor, the National Maritime Union.
Merritt was quickly matched for another bout in the Garden’s Felt Forum but the fight never came off. Within a few months Merritt’s contract had been purchased from the Union by a ten man syndicate calling itself U.S. Championships, Inc. which included Bob Arum, Joe Louis, Norman King, Henny Youngman, William B. Williams, David Popsfsky, and William Walters. Muhammad Ali’s former court jester Drew ‘Bundini’ Brown was in town for the Joe Frazier-Jimmy Ellis heavyweight unification and looking to attach himself to a new fighter on the upswing with his former meal ticket in exile. He was given managerial and training duties over Merritt with Angelo Dundee.
Merritt’s new agreement gave him a $150 a week salary, living expenses, a car, and 50% of his purses. The syndicate would also pay for his training expenses, management fees, and transportation out of their share. In order to manufacture some cheap publicity they carted Merritt to the New York State Athletic Commission offices to file the contract. Accompanying the group was a belly dancer named Leila Sohl who they announced would be Merritt’s trainer. They invited a bevy of photographers who popped flashbulbs as Merritt and his “trainer” danced and gyrated to the horror of the commission members. The photos and Merritt’s story appeared in newspapers across the country. Bundini then rebranded Merritt “Candy Slim” because he was slim and had the sweetest left hook since Sugar Ray. It was a name that stayed with Merritt the rest of his life.
The syndicate immediately made the decision to send Merritt south to Miami where Angelo and Bundini would polish their new diamond in the rough at Chris Dundee’s 5th Street Gym (Chris was Angelo’s brother). Just over a month after arriving at Miami Merritt headlined his first card with a devastating two round knockout over Johnny Hudgins. Candy Slim pounded Hudgins mercilessly before finally lifting him off the canvas with an uppercut that left him glassy eyed and confused on the canvas for well over the ten seconds required to end the contest.
One day in April or May of 1970 while Merritt trained at Dundee’s Fifth St. Gym, Muhammad Ali, still in exile due to his stance over the Vietnam War, decided to test himself against one of the young guns in the gym. He selected Jeff Merritt as his foil. Accounts differ as to the outcome (Ali said by the end of the session he was able to figure out Merritt; Merritt claimed he hit Ali so hard he knocked his headgear off, forcing Dundee to call a halt to the session). Whatever the outcome, Ali and Merritt struck up an association that would last several years.
Over May and June of 1970 Merritt reeled off two more impressive victories over Eddie Vick and Charlie Polite but a series of opportunities at wider exposure failed to materialize. Merritt was scheduled to appear against Sylvester Dullaire but begged out of the contest when he was offered the opportunity to appear on the undercard of the Emile Griffith-Dick Tiger fight at Madison Square Garden. Merritt was also scheduled to appear in an exhibition bout with Muhammad Ali in Charleston, South Carolina which would be Ali’s first public appearance in a boxing ring since his exile began three years earlier. However, the day before the Ali exhibition opposition to Ali’s stance proved so great that promoters were forced to cancel the bout. Two days later Merritt was injured in training forcing him to pull out of his bout with Al ‘Blue’ Lewis on the Griffith-Tiger card. It would be nearly a year before Merritt would reappear in a boxing ring.
Jeff returned home to Kansas City for an extended stay where he capped off 1970 by marrying Bernice Cox just before Christmas. The following spring he returned to Miami with his new bride and her young son to resume training. He opened his campaign stating that he intended to fight every three weeks until the end of the year in order to crack the top ten but his ambition was short lived. He bowled over two cannon fodder opponents, George Dulaire and Willie McMillan, in the span of three weeks (a fight against Stamford Harris that appears on his record sandwiched between these two never took place) but Merritt pulled out of his next bout citing food poisoning despite going through with an exhibition bout against Muhammad Ali the following day.
At the end of July Merritt travelled to Houston with Jimmy Ellis to serve as sparring partner while Ellis trained for his upcoming bout with Muhammad Ali (a fight against Ollie Wilson that appears on Merritt’s record at this time never took place). Bob Arum, who was a part of the syndicate that owned Merritt’s contract and was promoting the Ali-Ellis card, found room for Merritt on the undercard. Chris Dundee offered Olympic heavyweight champion George Foreman $50,000 to fight Merritt on the card but Foreman’s manager Dick Sadler declined. Instead Merritt faced Al Banks who he stopped in two rounds.
Merritt returned to Miami for a scheduled 10 rounder against Leroy Caldwell, who was a late substitute for Wendell Newton. The night of the fight Jeff Merritt was nowhere to be found. As Angelo Dundee grew frantic he sent another of his fighters, Vern McIntosh, to the hotel where Merritt was living only to find that Bernice had no idea where Jeff was. In order to save the show Dundee put McIntosh in Merritt’s place and Vern proceeded to knock out Caldwell in six exciting rounds. The following day the Miami boxing commission suspended Merritt’s license. The fans were told that Merritt had refused to fight because he “felt weak.” What the fans weren’t told, and what wasn’t revealed until later, was that Merritt was now in the throes of heroin addiction. It was a struggle which would send his once promising career into a tailspin and ultimately consume his life.
It was more than three months before Merritt would emerge again. He appeared on a short exhibition tour during the winter months of 1971/72 with Muhammad Ali. In between exhibition bouts with Ali he lived in a rundown hotel in South Beach. He had sent his family home because he couldn’t afford to support them. He complained that the syndicate which controlled his contract had devolved into infighting and lost interest in his career while Chris Dundee was struggling to keep his lease on the Miami Convention Center. All of this made it nearly impossible for him to get fights even though his suspension was up. The only thing that kept him struggling along were the handouts that Angelo Dundee would give him whenever Merritt showed up to half heartedly train.
In March he joined the training camp of Vicente Rondon who was training for his light heavyweight unification bout with Bob Foster. He gave Rondon such a battering in sparring that when Foster stopped him easily in two rounds Rondon’s promoter Mickey Duff, seated ringside, remarked “How they hell do they expect him to have any confidence after Jeff Merritt killed him for two weeks?”
The following month Merritt had his first bout in nearly a year, knocking out Junior Grant but months of on and off drug abuse had left him at the lowest weight of his career and he admitted that his timing was off. Despite this, his performance was good enough to interest a wealthy local businessman, Jules Freeman, to take over his management. Merritt expressed optimism and high hopes for the future but three months later, with no fights under his belt, Merritt was described by the Miami News as in poor shape physically and emotionally “and probably through” as a fighter.
In the fall of 1972 Paul Mitrano, a successful Boston car dealer and fight bug, took over Merritt’s management. His first order of business was to move Merritt back to New York and place him under the guidance of Sugar Ray Robinson’s former trainer George Gainford. Any hope that a change of scenery and management would get Merritt’s career back on track was misplaced. He begged out of a late January fight in Las Vegas and a month later was arrested in New York for burglary. It had been a year since Jeff had been in the ring and not just his career but his entire life seemed in free fall.
Still believing in Merritt’s potential Bundini put him in contact with a man he’d met through Muhammad Ali. Don King was an emerging player in boxing. He had recently purchased the contracts of light heavyweight Ray Anderson and heavyweight power puncher Earnie Shavers, both based in King’s native Ohio. King had heard all about Merritt’s potential and all about his problems. He spoke to Jeff and despite all of Merritt’s baggage he convinced himself that this was a fighter he could work with. King, a product of Cleveland’s streets and a former felon himself could understand and communicate with Merritt in a way that none of the businessmen who had managed him in the past could. He decided to take a gamble on the wayward fighter. While in New York for Earnie Shavers’ fight with Jimmy Ellis King filed managerial contracts with the New York State Athletic Commission. It was the beginning of the most vibrant year of Merritt’s career.
King immediately went to work rebuilding Merritt’s confidence and body. He talked to him on a philosophical level about where he’d come from, how he got where he found himself, and what he wanted for his future. Merritt responded to King’s Svengali charms and rededicated himself to training. He was sent to Earnie Shavers’ training camp at Grossinger’s where Shavers was preparing for the biggest test of his career, a showdown with Irish Jerry Quarry. Merritt quickly found that he had a lot of work to do in order to get back into fighting form. Shavers, who was never one to pull his punches in sparring, battered Merritt. Merritt resented this treatment and as he rounded back to form their sparring sessions became hellacious.
According to Larry Holmes, Jeff quickly developed resentment toward Shavers born out of jealousy. He resented the attention Don King paid Earnie. Those tensions flared in mid-July when, with King away from camp, Archie Moore, who had been hired to train Shavers, let a sparring session with Merritt and Shavers get out of hand. During one heated exchange Shavers, who had been warned several times against keeping his mouth open, was caught with a combination by Merritt that broke his jaw in two places and forced a cancellation of the Quarry fight. King was furious. He immediately fired Moore and, making lemonade out of lemons, used the publicity to get Merritt a marquee fight at Madison Square Garden against former WBA heavyweight champion Ernie Terrell. Merritt was immediately back in the limelight.
When Merritt signed with King he weighed 200 pounds, had visible needle tracks on his arms, and was a physical wreck. When he stepped into the ring with Terrell he was a muscular and healthy 221¼ pounds and a force to be reckoned with. The fight would serve as a live undercard to the closed circuit telecast being beamed into the garden of the Muhammad Ali-Ken Norton rematch. Terrell, who eight years earlier had been dubbed ‘the octopus’ by Muhammad Ali, rushed out and grabbed Merritt in a vice like bear hug. After the referee broke them several more waltzes followed before Merritt landed a dynamite left hook that sent Terrell spinning. Candy Slim pounced on his dazed opponent and chased him around the ring with a torrent of punches. Arthur Mercante tried to jump between the fighters but Merritt continued his assault, forcing the stoppage. The official time was two minutes and forty-two seconds of the first round and Merritt was back to being a sensation.
The win over Terrell was the most publicized win of Merritt’s career to date. Forgotten was the fact that Terrell’s performance had been so bad that the New York State Athletic Commission had revoked his license and forcibly retired him due to the deterioration in his skills over the previous two years. After the success of the Terrell fight Don King moved Merritt back to Cleveland with him and for a time allowed Jeff to stay at his home. King provided Merritt a car and even purchased a home in Kansas City for Jeff’s mother on Woodland Avenue. It was the first home she had ever owned. For the first time in a long time, maybe in his entire life, everything seemed to be coming together for Merritt.
In order to keep Jeff out of trouble you had to keep him busy. To that end, one month after the Terrell fight, Merritt was matched with Ron Stander. Like Terrell, Stander was in a different class from Merritt’s previous opponents. Stander was a short, squat heavyweight. What he lacked in skill he made up for in heart and durability. In the first year of his career he had stopped Merritt’s stablemate Earnie Shavers and only a year and a half earlier he had challenged Joe Frazier for the heavyweight championship and despite losing in four one-sided rounds he gave a great showing of determination and grit. Yet by Stander’s own admission he had dissipated after the loss to Frazier. Drunk on the career high purse he received and copious amounts of beer and wine, his weight had steadily climbed. Never svelte at an advertised height of five foot eleven (but closer to five foot nine), Stander was now a blob of a man, in no condition for a serious contest against a man knocking on the door of the contender class.
When Stander arrived in Cleveland his weight was announced as 233 lbs but reporters made note of his heft, his unwillingness to train, and his prodigious appetite. One paper stated that in the days before the fight he dined on steak and wine and gained a remarkable 13 pounds the day before the fight to come in at a career high 245 pounds. Regardless of when or how Stander gained the weight he was a jiggling mass of flesh when he came to meet Merritt ring center and had no business anywhere near a boxing ring.
Merritt approached his quarry like a butcher approaches a fatted calf. Stander feigned confidence and bravado but he would later admit he took the fight just for the payday. Merritt was confident as well and went right after Stander. In the early moments of the contest Stander landed a glancing right that sent Merritt into a clinch. Merritt’s tendency to give up his height advantage allowed Stander to land the occasional punch but Merritt answered back, eventually finding his range with hard jabs and driving hooks deep into Stander’s soft midsection. In close Merritt, angered by Stander’s trash talking, began raking him with lefts to the head and body, reddening Stander’s face. As the round drew to a close Merritt landed a hard hook to Stander’s face causing Stander to dramatically shake his head in the fashion of Ali, denying he was hurt but it was evident that he was tiring rapidly. The round ended with the fighters trading punches after the bell and Stander dismissively waving Merritt off.
As the second round opened Stander tried for a Hail Mary right hand that missed wildly. Merritt quickly took over and before the round was a minute old he snapped Standers head back violently with a powerful left hook. Both fighters traded low blows and then Merritt shoved Stander into his own corner and began to cannonade his pudgy adversary. A left sent Stander down for what was reported to be the first time in his career. Stander argued angrily with referee Lew Eskin that he had slipped on the wet canvas but moments later a series of punches sent Stander down again and this time when he tried to rise he fell flat on his face. There was no denying that he had been hurt. Merritt went back to chopping Stander down and violent spun him into the ropes. With the audience screaming wildly a series of unanswered blows sent his defenseless opponent down. Eskin rushed in to stop the fight and Merritt raised his hands in victory, spit his mouthpiece out, and marched around the ring to soak up the adulation of the crowd as seconds and officials filled the ring.
As Bundini Brown, Don King, and co-trainer Richie Giachetti embraced their victorious charge referee Eskin approached and notified them that the round had ended before he had stopped the contest. The fight would continue. It was academic. When the third round belatedly began Merritt resumed his slaughter and quickly sent Stander, bleeding and mouth agape, reeling into the ropes. Eskin jumped in once again and rescued him on his feet.
Jeff was joined by Don King and Earnie Shavers at King’s Sheraton Inn headquarters. Merritt looked pleased with himself as he spoke to a small gathering of reporters from the podium. Dressed in an imperial purple jump suit and wearing a shy smile on his face he remarked simply that “I trained to fight the guy and that’s what I did.”
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Spared Prison by a Lenient Judge, Chordale Booker Pursues a World Boxing Title

Spared Prison by a Lenient Judge, Chordale Booker Pursues a World Boxing Title
“I always wanted to be great. Not great like Muhammad Ali; just great in my community. If little kids followed behind me every time I went out running, that would be the summit.”
The speaker is Chordale Booker and when he talks about his community, one gets the sense that he is talking about the entire city of Stamford, Connecticut, the city that hued him.
Chordale (pronounced Cor-dell) dreams about returning to Stamford next week laureled as a world boxing champion. Standing in his way is Sebastian Fundora who holds the WBC and WBO belts in the 154-pound weight class. Booker, 33, and Fundora, 27, will lock horns Saturday night at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas in the main event of a PBC show that will air on Amazon Prime Video.
Historically, boxing and poverty have gone hand-in-hand. Chordale Booker spent his formative years on the west side of Stamford, home to one of America’s most notorious public housing projects. Like many of his peers, he seemed destined to spend a portion of his adult life in prison.
Booker, by his own admission, was selling weed when still in middle school and picking up some extra pocket change while serving as a lookout for dealers higher-up in the food chain. He was in his late teens when police intercepted a potential gang fight and found drugs and a handgun in his car. “Some of the drugs were mine,” Booker acknowledges, “but not all of them. I was the only one arrested, but I couldn’t snitch on my friends.”
He could have been sent to prison for 13 years if District Superior Court judge Gary White adhered to mandatory sentencing guidelines, but White was lenient and let him off with three-years’ probation.
Given a reprieve, as it were, Booker reassessed his life and decided to dedicate himself to the sport of boxing and to healing some of the divisions in his community. The nickname that he wears on his boxing shorts, “The Gift,” honors Judge White’s benevolence.
Booker was living with an aunt and uncle in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn during the bulk of his amateur career. A frequent sparring partner who became one of his best friends was Patrick Day. Chordale spent many hours at the PAL gym in Freeport, Long Island, where Day trained under the tutelage of his Freeport neighbor Joe Higgins, a retired Brooklyn firefighter.
On Oct. 16, 2019, Patrick Day died at Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital from a traumatic brain injury four days after being knocked out by former U.S. Olympian Charles Conwell.
Conwell, overcome with grief, nearly quit boxing, but was encouraged to keep fighting and soldiered on. Undefeated (21-0) as a pro, he’s ranked #3 by the WBC and #2 by the WBO at 154 which puts him near the top of the queue in the race to fight the winner of Fundora-Booker.
At the elite level, amateur boxing is a small world. Chordale Booker lost two decisions to Charles Conwell in 2015, the second a razor-thin decision in late December at the Olympic Trials in Reno. But as to meeting up with Conwell again down the road, Booker is understandably conflicted. “I would love to win back that loss to him in the Trials, but emotionally it would be tough because I can’t think about him without also thinking of Patrick. Of course, this is nothing personal.”
Chordale Booker is the subject of a prize-winning 16-minute documentary by Craig Cutler that was released in 2016 shortly after the boxer turned pro. In the film, which can be found online, Chordale talks about how boxing and the sacrifices it commands gave purpose to his life. He also waxes poetically on boxing as an art form: “The magnificent boxers are the ones that see the art. They know how to move and flow with the rhythm of a fight. When I am fighting, my goal is to disrupt [my opponent’s] rhythm. It sounds simple, but it takes hours of practice to perfect that.”
Booker won his first 17 pro fights preceding his date with Austin “Ammo” Williams on the undercard of the historic first fight between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano at Madison Square Garden. “I don’t want to make excuses, but he caught me at the right time in my career. I had a lot of issues in my life and I couldn’t turn down the money.”
That was a humbling experience made more demoralizing by the venue. As an amateur, Chordale thirsted to fight at Madison Square Garden but never did get to fight at the storied sock palace despite winning a slew of local tourneys – a highlight was winning the Sugar Ray Robinson Trophy as the best open division boxer at the 2015 Golden Gloves tournament – but by then the sponsor of the longstanding annual event, the New York Daily News, had shifted the tourney from the Garden to Barclays Center.
Booker has won six fights since that mishap at MSG, five on cards with modest purses in his home state at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, elevating his record to 23-1 (11 KOs).
Sebastian Fundora, one-half of the first brother-sister combination to hold world titles simultaneously, is a puzzle for any opponent. At six-foot-six, he is the tallest title-holder ever in his weight class. Per boxrec, he will have a nine-inch height and 10-inch reach advantage. It’s a pairing that would lead an old-time scribe to dust off the adjective “Mutt-and-Jeff.”
In the online marketplace, the odds favoring Fundora (21-1-1, 15 KOs) are as high as 14/1. While one can see the logic, it’s a physical mismatch, one can reasonably question whether the “Towering Inferno” should be a 14/1 favorite over anyone. He’s led a rather charmed life since getting bombed out in the seventh round by Brian Mendoza in a fight that he, Fundora, was winning handily.
Fundora’s next and most recent fight, against Tim Tszyu, came about when Tszyu’s original opponent Keith Thurman was a late scratch with a biceps injury. Fundora, who was already on the card, paired against Serhii Bohackuk, was bumped into the main event and rose to the occasion, upsetting the Australian by a split, but fair, decision. There was, however, an extenuating circumstance. In round two, Tszyu ducked low and ran into Fundora’s bony elbow which opened a deep cut on his hairline that bled copiously throughout the bout.
Considering how Tim Tszyu was manhandled by Bakhram Murtazaliev, one could argue that Thurman’s injury, and the rejiggering it provoked, was fortuitous for Sebastian Fundora who found himself thrust against a less formidable opponent.
Regardless of whether Booker returns to Stamford as a world title-holder or a former world title challenger, he will always be a champion at the Revolution Training fitness center on Elmcroft Road where Chordale hangs his hat, practicing his craft and mentoring at-risk youth 8-to-18 in his “Go The Distance” program. Judge Gary White’s instincts were pretty good. Spared from prison, Chordale Booker has become a rock of the community.
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Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser: Callum Walsh Returns to Madison Square Garden

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

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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