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Is Otto Wallin the next Ingemar Johansson or the next Olle Tandberg?
Back in March of this year, there was a collective groan when it was announced that Germany’s Tom Schwarz would be Tyson Fury’s next foe. Fury’s U.S. promoter, Bob Arum, had already announced that the rematch with Deontay Wilder had been placed on the backburner, but yet there had remained a glimmer of hope that public opinion would force Fury to proceed directly to a rematch with Wilder rather than let it “marinate” and potentially dissolve.
When the Fury-Schwarz fight was made, Tom Schwarz, although undefeated, was ranked by BoxRec as the world’s 41st best heavyweight. To put that in perspective, he ranked 31 places below Dominic Breazeale.
To create more interest in Fury vs. Schwarz, by all indications an egregious mismatch, the promoters conjured up the name of Germany’s most famous boxer, Max Schmeling. Back in 1936, Schmeling upset the previously undefeated Joe Louis and there was nothing fluky about it. Schmeling chewed up the Brown Bomber before stopping him in the 12th round. But for publicity purposes, the Schwarz-Schmeling comparison wasn’t a good one as Schmeling fought Joe Louis again and was so thoroughly drubbed in a fight that lasted only 124 seconds that it almost blotted out what Schmeling had accomplished in their first meeting.
Fortunately for the promoters, there was a more helpful comparison right at their fingertips in the form of Axel Schulz who would attend the fight as part of the German broadcasting team. Schulz, a virtual unknown when he was pitted against George Foreman at the MGM Grand in April of 1995, was the anti-Tom Schwarz, the counter-point to the argument that Tyson Fury’s hand-picked opponent was a no-hoper.
Foreman was long in the tooth in 1995, but Axel Schulz, raised in East Germany, was yet considered easy meat. “Ring experts,” said Alan Goldstein in the Baltimore Sun, “classify Schulz as a harmless piece of strudel.” But those experts were wrong. Big George escaped with a majority decision that many considered a gift.
“I would never fight that kid again. Forget it. Wherever he came from, let him go right back. He was like a Tasmanian devil or something,” said Foreman after the fight. True to his word, he spurned a rematch, leading the IBF to strip him of his title.
Could Tom Schwarz be the next Axel Schulz? We know the answer. That’s yesterday’s news.
And now, after this meandering preamble, let’s move on to Otto Wallin who will fight Tyson Fury on Sept. 14 at the MGM Grand.
Wallin hails from Sweden. He stands six-foot-five, similar to Tom Schwarz, but is somewhat leaner and unlike Schwarz he’s a southpaw. He’s undefeated as a pro (20-0, 13 KOs), but has fought only once in the United States. His bout with journeyman Nick Kisner, a puffed-up cruiserweight, ended after one round when Kisner suffered a bad cut over his right eye from an accidental head butt and would not come out for the second round, claiming that the cut had blurred his vision. It was ruled a no-contest. A second U.S. fight fell out at the 11th hour when shopworn B.J. Flores failed his pre-fight medical exam.
As for good boxers from Sweden, it’s a very short list, understandably so as professional boxing was banned in Sweden from 1970 until 2007. The most famous Swedish boxer, needless to say, is the late Ingemar Johansson.
Sixty years ago, Johansson was accorded scant chance of taking the heavyweight title from Floyd Patterson. But Ingemar not only did it, he did it in a spectacular way, knocking Patterson to the canvas seven times in less than three full rounds of fighting before referee Ruby Goldstein halted the slaughter. The stunning upset was the lead story on the front page of dozens of newspapers including the New York Times. (They fought twice more with Patterson winning both inside the distance, but it is their first fight that everyone remembers.)
As the Fury-Wallin fight draws closer, the name of Ingemar Johansson will be bandied about in many pre-fight reports: Can Otto Wallin accomplish what Ingemar did on that balmy night in Yankee Stadium?
For the sake of ballast, writers that invoke the name of Johansson ought to leaven their copy with a reference to Olle Tandberg.
Tandberg, from Stockholm, was 18-4-1 but riding a 12-fight winning streak when he made his U.S. debut on Jan. 9, 1948 in a 10-round contest at Madison Square Garden. In the opposite corner was Joey Maxim.
Joe Louis was nearing the end of his title reign. The previous month, in the same Madison Square Garden ring, he had been fortunate to turn away Jersey Joe Walcott, winning a split decision that was widely viewed as a gift. It was obvious that a shake-up in the heavyweight division was imminent and those with a vested interest hoped that Olle Tandberg would add his name to the mix.
Joey Maxim was a solid technician who would go on to win the light heavyweight title, but at this juncture of his career he was regarded as nothing more than a high-class journeyman. He wasn’t a hard-hitter. He had knocked out only 13 of his 69 opponents. Tandberg would out-weigh him 208-179.
Tandberg was the “A” side, but Joey Maxim took him to school. “Maxim gave a thorough lacing to the Swedish giant,” said New York Times ringside reporter James P. Dawson. “He exposed Tandberg as a cumbersome novice, little more than an amateur.” Incredibly, one of the judges actually favored Tandberg (5-4-1) but his score was myopic, to say the least.
Tandberg never fought for the title, but his managers succeeded in luring future title-holder Jersey Joe Walcott to Stockholm in the summer of 1949. Jersey Joe knocked him out in the 5th before an announced crowd of 43,000 at a soccer stadium and that was all she wrote for Olle Tandberg who promptly retired.
Fury
Early in his career, Tyson Fury attracted notoriety for off-the-cuff remarks that were flat-out ignorant and were hurtful to certain segments of the population, but of late he has been on his best behavior, mending fences, as it were. In Las Vegas in the days before his bout with Tom Schwarz, he was the opposite of reclusive, chatting and posing for pictures with strangers, basking in their adulation and winning legions of new fans with his charismatic personality. A prizefighter with the soul of a troubadour, the big galoot is larger than life, a cartoon character, a promoter’s dream. Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in his second act were cartoon characters too.
Oh, and the self-styled Gypsy King can fight more than a little. He’s very fluid for a man his size and can deliver punches that sting with either hand. He thoroughly dismantled the seemingly rugged Schwarz who was a bloody mess when the fight was stopped late in the second round.
Returning to the question that was the title of this story, we ask whether Otto Wallin, the Swede, is the next Ingemar Johansson or next Olle Tandberg.
That’s a rhetorical question, folks. If you foresee Wallin winning this fight, we know a bookmaker who will give you juicy odds and take all that you can beg, borrow, and steal.
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Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Among other things, Las Vegas in “olden days” was noted for its lounge shows. Circa 1970, for the price of two drinks, one could have caught the Ike and Tina Turner Review at the International. They performed three shows nightly, the last at 3:15 am, and they blew the doors off the joint.
The weirdest “lounge show” in Las Vegas wasn’t a late-night offering, but an impromptu duet performed in the mid-afternoon for a select standing-room audience in the lounge at the Tropicana. Sharing the piano in the Blue Room in a concert that could not have lasted much more than a minute were Muhammad Ali and world light heavyweight champion Bob Foster. The date was June 25, 1972, a Sunday.
What brought about this odd collaboration was a weigh-in, not the official weigh-in, which would happen the next day, but a dress rehearsal conducted for the benefit of news reporters and photographers and a few invited guests such as the actor Jack Palance who would serve as the color commentator alongside the legendary Mel Allen on the closed-circuit telecast. On June 27, Ali and Foster would appear in separate bouts at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Ali was pit against Jerry Quarry in a rematch of their 1970 tilt in Atlanta; Foster would be defending his title against Jerry’s younger brother, Mike Quarry.
In those days, whenever Las Vegas hosted a prizefight that was a major news story, it was customary for the contestants to arrive in town about three weeks before their fight. They held public workouts, perhaps for a nominal fee, at the hotel-casino where they were lodged.
Muhammad Ali and Bob Foster were sequestered and trained at Caesars Palace. The Quarry brothers were domiciled a few blocks away at the Tropicana.
The Trop, as the locals called it, was the last major hotel-casino on the south end of the Strip, a stretch of road, officially Highway 91, the ran for 2.2 miles. When the resort opened in 1957, it had three hundred rooms. Like similar properties along the famous Strip, it would eventually go vertical, maturing into a high-rise.
In 1959, entertainment director Lou Walters (father of Barbara) imported a lavish musical revue from Paris, the Folies Bergere. The extravaganza with its topless showgirls became embedded in the Las Vegas mystique. The show, which gave the Tropicana its identity, ran for almost 50 full years, becoming the longest-running show in Las Vegas history.
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Although the Quarry brothers were on the premises, Ali and Foster arrived at the Blue Room first. After Dr. Donald Romeo performed his perfunctory examinations, there was nothing to do but stand around and wait from the brothers to show up. It was then that Foster spied a grand piano in the corner of the room.
Taking a seat at the bench, he tinkled the keys, producing something soft and bluesy. “Move over man,” said Ali, not the sort of person to be upstaged at anything. Taking a seat alongside Foster at the piano, he banged out something that struck the untrained ear of veteran New York scribe Dick Young as boogie-woogie.
When the Quarry brothers arrived, Ali went through his usual antics, shouting epithets at Jerry Quarry as Jerry was having his blood pressure taken. “These make the best fights, when you get some white hopes and some spooks,…er, I mean some colored folks,” Young quoted Ali as saying.
This comment was greeted with a big laugh, but Jerry Quarry, renowned for his fearsome left hook, delivered a better line after Ali had stormed out. Surveying the room, he noticed several attractive young ladies, dressed provocatively. “I can see I ain’t the only hooker in here,” he said.
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The doubleheader needed good advance pub because both bouts were considered mismatches. In the first Ali-Quarry fight, Quarry suffered a terrible gash above his left eye before his corner pulled him out after three rounds. Ali was a 5/1 favorite in the rematch. Bob Foster, who would be making his tenth title defense, was an 8/1 favorite over Mike Quarry who was undefeated (35-0) but had been brought along very carefully and was still only 21 years old. (In his syndicated newspaper column, oddsmaker Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder said the odds were 200/1 against both fights going the distance, but there wasn’t a bookie in the country that would take that bet.)
The Fights
There were no surprises. It was a sad night for the Quarry clan at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Muhammad Ali, clowning in the early rounds, took charge in the fifth and Jerry Quarry was in bad shape when the referee waived it off 19 seconds into the seventh round. In the semi-wind-up, Bob Foster retained his title in a more brutal fashion. He knocked the younger Quarry brother into dreamland with a thunderous left hook just as the fourth round was about to end. Mike Quarry lay on the canvas for a good three minutes before his handlers were able to revive him.
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In the ensuing years, the Tropicana was far less invested in boxing than many of its rivals on the Strip, but there was a wisp of activity in the mid-1980s. A noteworthy card, on June 30, 1985, saw Jimmy Paul successfully defend his world lightweight title with a 14th-round stoppage of Robin Blake. Freddie Roach, a featherweight with a big local following and former U.S. Olympic gold medalist Henry Tillman appeared on the undercard. The lead promoter of this show, which aired on a Sunday afternoon on CBS (with Southern Nevada blacked out) was the indefatigable Bob Arum who seemingly has no intention of leaving this mortal coil until he has out-lived every Las Vegas casino-resort born in the twentieth century.
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I may drive past the Tropicana in the next few hours and give it a last look, mindful that Muhammad Ali once frolicked here, however briefly. But I won’t be there for the implosion.
On Wednesday morning, Oct. 9, shortly after 2 a.m., the Tropicana, shuttered since April, will be reduced to rubble. On its grounds will rise a stadium for the soon-to-be-former Oakland A’s baseball team.
A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.
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WBA Feather Champ Nick Ball Chops Down Rugged Ronny Rios in Liverpool
In his first fight in his native Liverpool since February of 2020, Nick Ball successfully defended his WBA title with a 10th-round stoppage of SoCal veteran Ronny Rios. The five-foot-two “Wrecking Ball” was making the first defense of a world featherweight strap he won in his second stab at it, taking the belt from Raymond Ford on a split decision after previously fighting Rey Vargas to a draw in a match that many thought Ball had won.
This fight looked like it was going to be over early. Ball strafed Rios with an assortment of punches in the first two rounds, and likely came within a punch or two of ending the match in the third when he put Rios on the canvas with a short left hook and then tore after him relentlessly. But Rios, a glutton for punishment, weathered the storm and actually had some good moments in round four and five.
The brother of welterweight contender Alexis Rocha and a two-time world title challenger at 122 pounds, Rios returned to the ring in April on a ProBox card in Florida and this was his second start after being out of the ring for 28 months. He would be on the canvas twice more before the bout was halted. The punch that knocked him off his pins in round seven wasn’t a clean shot, but he would be in dire straits three rounds later when he was hammered onto the ring apron with a barrage of punches. He managed to maneuver his way back into the ring, but his corner sensibly threw in the towel when it seemed as if referee Bob Williams would let the match continue.
The official time was 2:06 of round ten. Ball improved to 21-0-1 (12 KOs). Rios, 34, declined to 34-5.
Semi-wind-up
A bout contested for a multiplicity of regional 140-pound titles produced a mild upset when Jack Rafferty wore down and eventually stopped Henry Turner whose corner pulled him out after the ninth frame.
Both fighters were undefeated coming in. Turner, now 13-1, was the better boxer and had the best of the early rounds. However, he used up a lot of energy moving side-to-side as he fought off his back foot, and Rafferty, who improved to 24-0 (15 KOs), never wavered as he continued to press forward.
The tide turned dramatically in round eight. One could see Turner’s legs getting loggy and the confidence draining from his face. The ninth round was all Rafferty. Turner was a cooked goose when Rafferty collapsed him with four unanswered body punches, but he made it to the final bell before his corner wisely pulled him out. Through the completed rounds, two of the judges had it even and the third had the vanquished Turner up by 4 points.
Other Bouts of Note
In a lightweight affair, Jadier Herrera, a highly-touted 22-year-old Cuban who had been campaigning in Dubai, advanced to 16-0 (14 KOs) with a third-round stoppage of Oliver Flores (31-6-2) a Nicaraguan southpaw making his UK debut. After two even rounds, Herrera put Flores on the deck with a left to the solar plexus. Flores spit out his mouthpiece as he lay there in obvious distress and referee Steve Gray waived the fight off as he was attempting to rise. The end came 30 seconds into round three.
In a bantamweight contest slated for 10, Liverpool’s Andrew Cain (13-1, 12 KOs) dismissed Colombia’s Lazaro Casseres at the 1:48 mark of the second round.
A stablemate and sparring partner of Nick Ball, Cain knocked Casseres to the canvas in the second round with a short uppercut and forced the stoppage later in the round when he knocked the Colombian into the ropes with a double left hook. Casseres. 27, brought an 11-1 record but had defeated only two opponents with winning records.
In a contest between super welterweights, Walter Fury pitched a 4-round shutout over Dale Arrowsmith. This was the second pro fight for the 27-year-old Fury who had his famous cousin Tyson Fury rooting him on from ringside. Stylistically, Walter resembles Tyson, but his defense is hardly as tight; he was clipped a few times.
Arrowsmith is a weekend warrior and a professional loser, a species indigenous to the British Isles. This was his twenty-fourth fight this year and his 186th pro fight overall! His record is “illuminated” by nine wins and 10 draws.
A Queensberry Promotion, the Ball vs Rios card aired in the UK on TNT Sports and in the US on ESPN+.
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Alimkhanuly TKOs Mikhailovich and Motu TKOs O’Connell in Sydney
IBF/WBO world middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly, generally regarded as the best of the current crop of middleweights, retained his IBF title today in Sydney, Australia, with a ninth-round stoppage of game but overmatched Andrei Mikhailovich. The end came at the 2:45 mark of round nine.
Favored in the 8/1 range although he was in a hostile environment, Alimkhanuly (16-0, 11 KOs) beat Mikhailovich to a pulp in the second round and knocked him down with one second remaining in the frame, but Mikhailovich survived the onslaught and had several good moments in the ensuing rounds as he pressed the action. However, Alimkhanuly’s punches were cleaner and one could sense that it was only a matter of time before the referee would rescue Mikhailovich from further punishment. When a short left deposited Mikhailovich on the seat of his pants on the lower strand of rope, the ref had seen enough.
Alimkhanuly, a 2016 Olympian for Kazakhstan, was making his first start since October of last year. He and Mikhailovich were slated to fight in Las Vegas in July, but the bout fell apart after the weigh-in when the Kazakh fainted from dehydration.
Owing to a technicality, Alimkhanuly’s WBO belt wasn’t at stake today. Although he has expressed an interest in unifying the title –Eislandy Lara (WBA) and Carlos Adames (WBC) are the other middleweight belt-holders — Alimkhanuly is big for the weight class and it’s a fair assumption that this was his final fight at 160.
The brave Mikhailovich, who was born in Russia but grew up in New Zealand after he and his twin brother were adopted, suffered his first pro loss, declining to 21-1.
Semi-wind-up
Topping the flimsy undercard was a scheduled 8-rounder between Mikhailovich’s stablemate Mea Motu, a 34-year-old Maori, and veteran Australian campaigner Shannon O’Connell, 41. The ladies share eight children between them (Motu, trained by her mother in her amateur days, has five).
A clash of heads in the opening round left O’Connell with a bad gash on her forehead. She had a big lump developing over her right eye when her corner threw in the towel at the 1:06 mark of round four.
Motu (20-0, 8 KOs) was set to challenge IBF/WBO world featherweight champion Ellie Scotney later this month in Manchester, England, underneath Catterall-Prograis, but that match was postponed when Scotney suffered an injury in training. Motu took this fight, which was contested at the catchweight of 125 pounds, to stay busy. O’Connell, 29-8-1, previously had a cup of coffee as a WBA world champion (haven’t we all).
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