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

Published

6 years ago

November 7, 2018

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 5^th 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.”

Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing Channel

To comment on this article at The Fight Forum, CLICK HERE.

Post Views: 3,138

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Steve Compton

Up Next

The Avila Perspective Chap. 20: Neeco Macias, Gamboa, Braekhus and More

Don't Miss

Deontay Wilder Taking Giant Steps

Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More

Published

16 hours ago

March 28, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-319-Rematches-in-Las-Vegas-Cancun-and-More

Rematches are the bedrock for prizefighting.

Return battles between rival boxers always means their first encounter was riveting and successful at the box office.

Six months after their first brutal battle Mikaela Mayer (20-2, 5 KOs) and Sandy Ryan (7-2-1, 3 KOs) will slug it out again for the WBO welterweight world title this time on Saturday, March 29, at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.

ESPN will show the Top Rank card live.

“It’s important for women’s boxing to have these rivalries and this is definitely up there as one of the top ones,” Mayer told the BBC.

If you follow Mayer’s career you know that somehow drama follows. Whether its back-and-forth beefs with fellow American fighters or controversial judging due to nationalism in countries abroad. The Southern California native who now trains in Las Vegas knows how to create the drama.

For female fighters self-promotion is a necessity.

Most boxing promoters refuse to step out of the usual process set for male boxers, not for female boxers. Things remain the same and have been for the last 70 years. Social media has brought changes but that has made promoters do even less.

No longer are there press conferences, instead announcements are made on social media to be drowned among the billions of other posts. It is not killing but diluting interest in the sport.

Women innately present a different advantage that few if any promoters are recognizing. So far in the past 25 years I have only seen two or three promoters actually ignite interest in female fighters. They saw the advantages and properly boosted interest in the women.

The fight breakdown

Mayer has won world titles in the super featherweight and now the welterweight division. Those are two vastly different weight classes and prove her fighting abilities are based on skill not power or size.

Coaching Mayer since amateurs remains Al Mitchell and now Kofi Jantuah who replaced Kay Koroma the current trainer for Sandy Ryan.

That was the reason drama ignited during their first battle. Then came someone tossing paint at Ryan the day of their first fight.

More drama.

During their first fight both battled to control the initiative with Mayer out-punching the British fighter by a slender margin. It was a back-and-forth struggle with each absorbing blows and retaliating immediately.

New York City got its money’s worth.

Ryan had risen to the elite level rapidly since losing to Erica Farias three years ago. Though she was physically bigger and younger, she was out-maneuvered and defeated by the wily veteran from Argentina. In the rematch, however, Ryan made adjustments and won convincingly.

Can she make adjustments from her defeat to Mayer?

“I wanted the rematch straight away,” said Ryan on social media. “I’ve come to America again.”

Both fighters have size and reach. In their first clash it was evident that conditioning was not a concern as blows were fired nonstop in bunches. Mayer had the number of punches landed advantage and it unfolded with the judges giving her a majority decision win.

That was six months ago. Can she repeat the outcome?

Mayer has always had boiler-oven intensity. It’s not fake. Since her amateur days the slender Southern California blonde changes disposition all the way to red when lacing up the gloves. It’s something that can’t be taught.

Can she draw enough of that fire out again?

“I didn’t have to give her this rematch. I could have just sat it out, waited for Lauren Price to unify and fought for undisputed or faced someone else,” said Mayer to BBC. “That’s not the fighter I am though.”

Co-Main in Las Vegas

The co-main event pits Brian Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs) facing Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1, 19 KOs) in a contest for the WBO welterweight title.

Norman, 24, was last seen a year ago dissecting a very good welterweight in Giovani Santillan for a knockout win in San Diego. He showed speed, skill and power in defeating Santillan in his hometown.

Cuevas has beaten some solid veteran talent but this will be his big test against Norman and his first attempt at winning a world title.

Also on the Top Rank card will be Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington and Emiliano Vargas, the son of Fernando Vargas, in separate bouts.

Golden Boy in Cancun

A rematch between undefeated William “Camaron” Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) and ex-champ Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) headlines the lightweight match on Saturday March 29, at Cancun, Mexico.

In their first encounter Zepeda was knocked down in the fourth round but rallied to win a split-decision over Farmer. It showed the flaws in Zepeda’s tornado style.

DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also includes a clash between Yokasta Valle the WBC minimumweight world titlist who is moving up to flyweight to face former flyweight champion Marlen Esparza.

Both Valle and Esparza have fast hands.

Valle is excellent darting in and out while Esparza has learned how to fight inside. It’s a toss-up fight.

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 12 p.m. Cameron Vuong (7-0) vs Jordan Flynn (11-0-1); Pat Brown (0-0) vs Federico Grandone (7-4-2).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. William Zepeda (32-0) vs Tevin Farmer (33-7-1); Yokasta Valle (32-3) vs Marlen Esparza (15-2).

Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Mikaela Mayer (20-2) vs Sandy Ryan (7-2-1); Brian Norman Jr. (26-0) vs Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1).

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 653

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Boxing Odds and Ends: The Wacky and Sad World of Livingstone Bramble and More

Published

2 days ago

March 27, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Boxing-Odds-and-Ends-The-Wacky-and-Sad-World-of-Livingstone-Bramble-and-More

One couldn’t write a book about prizefighting’s most eccentric characters without including former lightweight champion Livingstone Bramble who passed away last Saturday (March 22) at age 64 in Las Vegas. The Bramble chapter might well be the longest chapter in the book.

Born on the island of St. Kitt’s and raised in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, Bramble had his first 22 pro fights in New Jersey, nine at Ice World where he made his pro debut. A 3,000-seat hockey rink in Totowa, a community in Northern New Jersey roughly equidistant between Newark and the state capitol of Paterson, Ice World was the stomping ground of Main Events, a family-run enterprise founded by former labor lawyer Dan Duva, the oldest son of colorful boxing trainer Lou Duva who was effectively the face of the operation.

Bramble burst into prominence on June 1, 1984, when, in his twenty-third pro fight, he upset Ray “Boom” Mancini at Buffalo’s War Memorial Auditorium, taking away Mancini’s WBA world lightweight title.

Referee Marty Denkin stopped the fight in the 14^th stanza with Boom Boom on his feet but in very bad shape. Bramble dominated the second half of the fight but was yet trailing on two of the scorecards, a potential scandal that was averted when he took the fight out of the judges’ hands. They fought again 11 months later in Reno and Bramble won a narrow but fair 15-round decision, out-pointing Mancini by 1 point on all three cards.

Bramble’s eccentricities overshadowed his feats in the ring. He owned a boa constrictor named Dog and a pit bull terrier named Snake. A Rastafarian, he trained with reggae music in the background, braided his hair before it was fashionable, and began his public workouts by having his trainer blow soap bubbles which he popped with his fists. Prior to both Mancini fights, he had a voodoo witch doctor place a hex on Boom Boom (the man was exposed as Bramble’s former middle school basketball coach).

After the second Mancini fight, Bramble successfully defended his title with a 13^th-round stoppage of Tyrone “Butterfly” Crawley, but he was then shocked by Edwin Rosario who became a lightweight champion for the second time when he knocked out Bramble in the second round at an outdoor stadium in Miami Beach. Rosario’s upset spoiled a lucrative unification fight between Bramble and Hector Camacho.

Attempting to fight his way back into title contention, Bramble never did get over the hump. His best win as a former champion was a second-round knockout of junior welterweight Harold Brazier, a boxer who would be stopped only one other time, that coming late in a 124-fight career. Bramble took that fight on nine days’ notice, subbing for Micky Ward who pulled out with a hand injury.

Bramble eventually devolved into a gatekeeper, a diplomatic term for a professional loser. He won only three of his last 16 fights to finish 40-26-3.

Late in his career, Bramble settled in Las Vegas. He was 41 years old when he made his first and only ring appearance in his adopted hometown. It came at the Orleans, an off-Strip property where he was paired against Guadalajara journeyman Juan Carlos Rodriguez who had lost seven of his previous nine heading in. At the time, Bramble was preparing for his life after boxing by taking a class for aspiring slot machine technicians.

Bramble lost a wide 10-round decision. “[He] couldn’t get his jab working or put his punches together in a disappointing performance,” wrote Review-Journal ringside reporter Royce Feour. The bout’s matchmaker Brad Goodman was more scathing in his assessment. “Bramble should retire,” said Goodman. “He can’t pull the trigger. His mind was telling him to do something, but his body was not reacting.”

Bramble had four more fights, the last two 6-rounders on small cards in Idaho and Utah. All told, he answered the bell as a pro for 498 rounds.

Jacob “Stitch” Duran, boxing’s most prominent cutman, was new in town and scrounging for work when he first met Livingstone Bramble. They met at the long-shuttered Golden Gloves gym.

“I approached him and asked ‘when is your next fight?’” recalled Duran. “He looked me in the eye and said, ‘right now if you don’t shut up.’”

Duran was taken aback, but then Bramble smiled his radiant smile and Duran knew he was being spoofed. He would eventually work the pads for Bramble and the two became fast friends.

Livingstone Bramble spent his final years in an assisted living facility in Las Vegas, the cost of which, notes Duran, was born by the World Boxing Council which has a fund set aside to assist former professional boxers who have fallen on hard times.

Duran had a habit of visiting Bramble every week but stopped when the boxer could no longer recognize him. “I told his son that I just couldn’t do it anymore, it was too heartbreaking, and that I wanted to remember his dad the way that he was,” Duran told this reporter. “His son was very understanding.”

Stitch Duran remembers the exact time when he was informed that his friend had died. The call from Bramble’s son came at 3:44 in the morning.

News travels fast in the digital age and after Las Vegas fight writer Kevin Iole shared the news of Bramble’s departure on his website, other news outlets quickly latched hold of the info. What’s missing is a formal obituary and funeral arrangements. As yet, there are none.

Bobby Czyz

Livingstone Bramble and Bobby Czyz were stablemates whose careers ran on parallel paths and sometimes intersected. Both earned their spurs on Main Events promotions at Ice World.

The headline attraction on the card where Livingstone Bramble made his pro debut was a match between Bobby Czyz and Tommy Merola, young middleweight prospects. He and Bramble were on the same bill again the following year. The May 21, 1981 event was reportedly the first advance sellout of a boxing card in Totowa.

The brainy Czyz, who finished sixth of 365 in his high school graduation class according to a story in the New York Times, went on to win world titles as a light heavyweight and a cruiserweight. He had a promising career as a Showtime boxing commentator when he hung up his gloves.

Czyz lost that gig (we won’t elaborate) and things went downhill from there. In the summer of 2018, he was discovered working as a cashier in a New Jersey grocery store by a reporter for the Newark Star Ledger.

In December of last year, Bobby Czyz, now 63 years old, was diagnosed with brain cancer. And that brings us to this Sunday (March 30) when a benefit will be held for Czyz at the Elks Lodge located at 242 Chestnut Street in Nutley, New Jersey. A number of boxing luminaries of yesteryear will be in attendance at the event which commences at 1 pm. Tickets to the fundraiser, which are tax-deductible, start at $100.

At last look, the event was a near-sellout. Those interested in attending or just supporting Bobby in this battle should go to this website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/battle-for-bobby-czyz-tickets-1243505882569

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 981

Share The Sweet Science experience!

A Paean to George Foreman (1949-2025), Architect of an Amazing Second Act

Published

5 days ago

March 24, 2025

Arne K. Lang

A-Paean-to-George-Foreman-1949-2025-Architect-of-an-Amazing-Second-Act

George Foreman had two careers as a prizefighter. He finished his first career with a record of 45-2 and his second career with a record of 31-3.

The two careers were interrupted by a 10-year intermission. During the lacuna, George morphed seamlessly into a different person. The first George Foreman was menacing and the second George Foreman was cuddly. But in both incarnations, Foreman was larger than life. It seemed as if he would be with us forever.

George Foreman, born in 1949 in Marshall, Texas, a suburb of Houston, learned to box in the Job Corps, a federally-funded vocational training program central to President Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty initiative. He was already well-known when he made his pro debut in 1969 on a card at Madison Square Garden topped by an alluring contest between Joe Frazier and Jerry Quarry.

The previous year, at the Olympic Summer Games in Mexico City, George endeared himself to the vast majority of white Americans (and many African-Americans too) by parading around the ring clutching a tiny American flag in his right hand after winning his gold medal match with a second-round stoppage of his Russian opponent. The scene was viewed by millions on television and the picture of it graced the front page of many large-circulation American papers.

The image would not have resonated as strongly if not for the actions of medal-winning American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos. Ten days earlier, at the same Summer Games, Smith and Carlos stood on the podium with their black-gloved fists clenched high in a black power salute during the playing of the National Anthem. Big George, although only 19 years old, was hailed as a patriot, an antidote to those that would tear apart (or further rent) the fabric of American society.

Foreman squandered the admiration that flowed his way with his disposition. He didn’t handle the demands of celebrityhood very well. Reporters found him stand-offish if not downright surly. But he kept winning.

Foreman was never better than on the night of Jan. 22, 1973, when he conquered defending heavyweight champion Joe Frazier in less than two rounds at Kingston, Jamaica. Frazier, like Foreman, unbeaten and a former Olympic gold medalist, was as high as a 5/1 favorite in U.S. precincts, but George demolished him. Frazier was up and down like a yo-yo, six times in all, during the brief encounter.

In his next two fights, Foreman knocked out veteran Puerto Rican campaigner Joe Roman in the opening round and took out Ken Norton in the second frame, the same Ken Norton who had fought 24 rounds with Muhammad Ali, winning and losing split decisions.

Then came the iconic Rumble in the Jungle and we know what happened there. Riding a skein of 24 wins inside the distance, Foreman entered that contest with a record of 40-0 and the prevailing sentiment among the cognoscenti was that he would horizontalize Muhammad Ali in the same fashion as he had starched most of his other victims.

Following this setback, Foreman sat out all of 1976. He would have six more fights before his goodbye starting with a bout at Caesars Palace with Ron Lyle.

Foreman bombed out Lyle in the fifth frame of a back-and-forth slugfest that would be named The Ring magazine Fight of the Year. Four more knockouts would follow beginning with a fifth-round stoppage of Joe Frazier in their second and final meeting and then came a date in San Juan with Jimmy Young, a cutie from Philadelphia.

Foreman and Young met on a sultry afternoon in March of 1977 at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum, a building with no air-conditioning. Foreman nearly took Young out in the seventh round of the 12-round contest but ran out of gas and lost a unanimous decision.

In his dressing room after the fight, Foreman experienced an epiphany and became a born-again Christian. His trainer Gil Glancy rationalized the voices that Foreman heard in his head as a hallucination born of heat prostration, but George was having none of it. He returned to Houston where he could be found evangelizing on street corners or preaching as a guest pastor in storefront churches. His Rolls Royce was gone, replaced by a Volkswagen, and he found coveralls more to his liking than the fancy silk suits he had once purchased in bulk. He eventually established his own church, the Church of Lord Jesus Christ, and became an ordained minister.

ACT TWO

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “There are no second acts in American lives,” but Fitzgerald never met Reverend George Foreman.

Foreman’s second act began on March 9, 1987, before an announced crowd of 5,555 at Arco Arena in Sacramento with a fourth-round stoppage of journeyman Steve Zouski. He told reporters in attendance that he would use his purse, reportedly $24,000, to build a youth center but the cynics were of the opinion that every penny would go into his coffers as expensive divorces and other burdens had exhausted his savings. When George passed the collection plate at his church, wisecracked the wiseguys, all that came back was lint.

Although Foreman had been out of action for a decade, it seemed much longer. By then, Muhammad Ali had fallen into decrepitude, dating an entire generation of heavyweights as relics. In appearance and in fighting style, Foreman scarcely resembled his former self which had the sensory effect of elongating the gap in his timeline. The new George Foreman shaved his head bald and his torso was more massive. When he sallied out of his dressing room, Hall of Fame boxing writer Graham Houston likened the impression to that of an ancient battleship coming out of the mist.

This reporter was ringside for Foreman’s second comeback fight at the Oakland Coliseum where he was paired against Charles Hostetter, a smallish heavyweight packaged as the heavyweight champion of Texas. Hostetter folded his tent in the third round, taking a knee like a quarterback running out the clock at the end of a football game. Foreman carried 247 pounds, 20 pounds less than what he had carried for Zouski but nearly 30 pounds more than what he had carried in his first meeting with Joe Frazier.

The Hostetter fight was a set-up, as were many of Foreman’s fights in the first two years of his comeback, but Big George never cheated himself. Away from the probing eye of reporters, he always went the extra mile in his workouts.

Foreman stayed busy, but his comeback proceeded in fits and starts. In his eighth comeback fight, he stopped Dwight Muhammad Qawi in the seventh round (more exactly, Qawi quit, turning his back on the referee to signal that he was finished) at Caesars Palace, but it was a lackluster performance by George whose punches were slow and often missed the mark. This was the same Dwight Muhammad Qawi who had given Evander Holyfield a tough tussle in a 15-round barnburner when both were cruiserweights, but against Foreman the “Camden Buzzsaw” was a bloated butterball, carrying 222 pounds on his five-foot-seven frame.

The bout’s promoter, Bob Arum, exhorted Foreman go back to the bushes to freshen-up and when George returned to the ring nine weeks later it was in Alaska in an off-TV fight against an opponent with a losing record.

But Foreman’s confidence never wavered and when he finally lured a big-name opponent into the ring, Gerry Cooney, he was more than ready. They met on Jan. 16, 1990, at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.

At age 33, Cooney was also on the comeback trail. He hadn’t fought in two-and-half years, not since being stopped in the fifth round by Michael Spinks in this same ring. Since his mega-fight with Larry Holmes in mid-1982, he had answered the bell for only 12 rounds. But, rusty or not, Cooney still possessed a sledgehammer of a left hook.

Cooney landed the harder punches in the first round and won the round on all three cards, but Big George was just warming up. In the second stanza, he decked Cooney twice. The second knockdown was so harsh that referee Joe Cortez waived the fight off without starting a count.

“He smote him,” wrote Phil Berger for his story in the New York Times. “The Punching Preacher gained a flock of converts,” said Bernard Fernandez in the Philadelphia Daily News.

Foreman called out Mike Tyson after the fight. The wheels were set in motion when they shared top billing on a card at Caesars Palace in June of 1990 (Tyson knocked out former amateur rival Henry Tillman in the opening round; Foreman dismissed the Brazilian, Adilson Rodrigues, in round two), but the match never did come to fruition and Foreman, tired of waiting, set his sights on Evander Holyfield who owned two of the three meaningful pieces of the world heavyweight title.

An Adonis-physiqued gladiator renowned for his vitality, Holyfield, 28, figured to be too good and too fast for Foreman. If Evander set a fast pace, Foreman, it seemed, would eventually crumble from exhaustion. “Hopefully Holyfield will take it easy on him,” wrote the sports editor of the Tennessean. “There’s no glory to be gained in mugging a senior citizen.”

Holyfield won the fight, but Foreman – the oldest man to challenge for a world title in any weight division to that point in time — won the hearts of America with his buoyant performance. On several occasions Holyfield rattled him, but Big George kept coming back for more and at the finish it was he, improbably, who seemed to have more fuel in his tank. After trouncing Gerry Cooney, casual fans, at least most of them, finally took him seriously and with his gallant performance against Holyfield, he graduated into a full-fledged American folk hero. One would be hard-pressed to find an example of a boxer elevating his stature to such an extent in a match that he lost.

There was more to George Foreman’s growing popularity. He proved to be a great salesman, leavening his fistic fearsomeness with self-effacing humor. He developed an amusing shtick that played off his fondness for cheeseburgers and he became a popular guest on the talk show circuit. “Is this Adilson Rodrigues a good fighter?” inquired Johnny Carson. “I sure hope not,” deadpanned Foreman.

History would show that Big George wasn’t done making miracles, but there were potholes in his path. He had ended the Holyfield fight with a puffy face and with swelling around both of his eyes, but he looked a lot worse following his 10-round match with Alex Stewart in April of 1992. At the final bell, his face was a bloody mess and both of his eyes were swollen nearly shut. Fortunately, he scored two knockdowns in the second stanza, without which he would have been on the wrong side of a split decision.

Two fights later, he was out-pointed by Tommy Morrison in a bout sanctioned as a world title fight by the fledgling and lightly-regarded World Boxing Organization (WBO). Purportedly a distant relative of John Wayne, “Tommy the Duke” had the equalizer, a Cooney-ish left hook, but there were holes in his defense. A slugfest on paper, this bout played out like a chess match. Go figure.

Eighteen months after his lackluster showing against Morrison, Foreman got another shot at the world heavyweight title, thrust against Michael Moorer who had upset Holyfield to win the WBA and IBF (and lineal) titles. (The WBC version was held by Lennox Lewis; Mike Tyson was in prison.) A former light heavyweight champion who had successfully defended that diadem nine times, Moorer, not quite 27 years old, was undefeated in 35 fights with 30 knockouts.

The match-up was widely disparaged because of the alphabet soup nonsense and because Foreman was coming off a loss. “Big George has been good for the game, but has outstayed his welcome,” wrote Harry Mullen. The noted British scribe, who had been ringside for Larry Holmes’ beatdown of Muhammad Ali, told his readers that he wouldn’t be going to Las Vegas to see the fight because he just couldn’t stomach yet another dispiriting spectacle. “The most likely outcome,” he said, “is a prolonged and painful beating.”

At this juncture of his life, Foreman didn’t need the money. Although his TV sitcom “George” had been cancelled after only eight episodes (George played a retired boxer who starts an after-school program for inner-city kids), he had money rolling in from a slew of endorsements. McDonald’s, KFC, Frito-Lay, Oscar Meyer – you name it – and Big George was a “brand ambassador.” With his purse of no great importance in the big picture, George’s only incentive for defeating Moorer was his pride.

Through nine rounds, Moorer vs. Foreman was a tedious affair. Moorer was ahead by a commanding 5 points on two of the scorecards while the third judge had Moorer ahead by only 1. Foreman, who scored 68 knockouts over the course of his pro career, always had a puncher’s chance, no matter the opponent, but there was no inkling of the thunderclap that would come. This was shaping up as the sort of fight that would have the patrons streaming to the exits before the final bell.

The thunderclap arrived in the final minute of the 10^th frame. It was a classic British punch in execution, a stiff right hand delivered straight from the shoulder. The punch didn’t travel far, but landed smack on Moorer’s jaw. His face went blank and he fell to the canvas where he lay prone as the referee counted him out. Before the stupefied crowd had a chance to soak it all in, Foreman dropped to his knees in prayer. Many were misty-eyed as ring announcer Michael Buffer made it formal, orating the particulars.

Six days after the 20^th anniversary of the Rumble in the Jungle, Big George Foreman had rolled back the clock, recapturing the world heavyweight title, or at least pieces of it, capping the most astonishing comeback in the history of human endurance sports.

Foreman would have four more fights before leaving the sport for good two months shy of his 49^th birthday. We won’t delve into those bouts other than noting that he was fortunate to get the nod over Axel Schulz and unfortunate to lose to Shannon Briggs in his farewell fight, a narrow decision widely assailed as a heist.

And the money kept rolling in. In 1994, the year that Foreman conquered Michael Moorer, a portable indoor grill that came to be called the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine was introduced to the public. The contraption proved so popular that Foreman, the TV pitchman and the face of it, reaped a reported $200 million in royalties, more money than he had earned in all of his prizefights combined.

They say you can never go home again, to which Big George replied , “bah, humbug.”

Foreman’s heroics during his Second Act put a spring my step and had the same effect on many others. In the words of the inimitable Jim Murray, he was a hero to every middle-aged man and older who looked in the mirror and saw some stranger looking back at him.

Thank you, George, thanks for the memories. Rest in peace

***

Note: TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2016 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020. Several of the passages in this story were extracted from that book.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 1,716

Share The Sweet Science experience!