Every Joe Gans Lightweight Title Fight – Part 9: Jimmy Britt

Published

4 years ago

August 6, 2021

Every Joe Gans Lightweight Title Fight – Part 9: Jimmy Britt

There is no difference between a white man and a colored man when they are in a ring. If a man acts wrongfully his color will not prejudice me in his favor. – Referee Eddie Graney, Nov. 1, 1904.

On October the sixth, 1904, on the back page of the San Francisco Chronicle, an article appeared regarding the next lightweight world championship title fight to be contested by reigning world champion Joe Gans that to modern eyes seems strange.

“Unless Al Herford balks at the terms demanded by the Britts, there is now every prospect of a fight between Joe Gans and Jimmy Britt within the next thirty days. Last night Manager Willie Britt gave Herford his ultimatum in the matter of terms, and to-night the two will meet in the office of the Yosemite club to make further negotiations.”

It is hard, first, to imagine two superstars of the modern fight game agreeing to fight and then doing so within the month, but more than that, the arrangement seems backwards. It is Jimmy Britt, the challenger, who makes demands of the champion’s manager; it is Gans, not Britt, who is expected to accept these edicts.

Uncomfortably we know that this is because Gans was black and Britt, who had sworn never to cross the colour-line but nevertheless began to name himself “champion”, was white. This also made him the draw.

“[Britt] demands that the purse be split as follows,” continued the Chronicle. “75 percent to Britt if he wins…50 percent if he loses. The weight stipulated is 133lbs.”

Herford’s statement the following day was short: “The terms proposed by Britt are acceptable. I am ready to sign the articles.”

“He is willing to get the fight on almost any terms,” said one San Francisco newspaper of Herford. They may as well have been speaking of Gans.

Gans had wanted Britt for his entire reign, but it is notable that he became much more insistent after Britt began calling himself the “white champion.” Herford may have known what that meant for his bottom line, but for all that Gans conducted himself as a gentleman in public, he must have felt the bristle of the true king suffering another champion in his division. Seen properly, Britt at the very least represented the clear number one contender to Joe’s title and so Joe was determined to meet him. That he was on the short end of the money boxing in San Francisco, his challenger’s hometown, and had to make weight ten minutes before the gong seemed small matters by comparison.

“If this pair get into the ring,” as the San Francisco Examiner put it, “one of the greatest ring battles the world has ever seen will surely come to pass…the fistic world is agog…for two years the followers of the game have been waiting for the two men to come together and now their wishes to see the white man and [Gans] in the same ring are to be gratified.”

Thoughts turned now to how the technical matters of the affair might play.

“Britt has a wicked left to the body that has won for him all of his fights. No one has ever been able to block it. Gans is a great fighter on the defensive and the way he handled Walcott’s swings to the body in their fight opened the eyes of Britt as well as those who follow the game closely.”

Yes, Walcott.

Barbados Joe Walcott, “The Barbados Demon” remains one of the greatest fighters ever to have laced on a pair of boots. Whether he was cutting weight to the absolute limit of what was possible for the late 19^th century to match the era’s best lightweights, or eating his way to within spitting distance of the middleweight limit to fight the 6’3” 215lb heavyweight Sandy Ferguson, Walcott was a fighter who sought the company of the most difficult challenges boxing could provide. Joe Gans was one of them.

As we saw in Parts Seven and Eight, a certain restlessness at the 135lb limit seemed to plague Gans and it was perhaps no coincidence that his performances at the weight were beginning to suffer. When he was matched in September of 1904 with Walcott, Gans, perhaps, had reason to focus.

It is rare that two of the greatest fighters in divisional history meet and rarer still that two of the very greatest fighters in history meet. Walcott and Gans absolutely qualify and in stepping up to welterweight to match the great man, Gans was responsible for staging a legitimate superfight. For all that Walcott was no longer the machine of 1902 he was a terrifying opponent for a smaller man, especially one with a fight as big as Gans-Britt on the horizon. Nevertheless, four weeks before the bell for one of the biggest fights in lightweight history, the gong sounded for an even bigger fight.

The fight was a strange mix of thrills and disappointments. Gans was clearly the better man; Walcott hurt his wrist on Joe’s elbow in the third perhaps detaching or tearing a ligament, a debilitating injury for a prize-fighter. Named “spectacular” and including “cleverness of the highest order,” Walcott boring in, Gans tattooing him with punches that had dispatched a slew of lightweights but made little impression upon what remains one of the sport’s great chins.

In the sixteenth, Gans drove home a sizzling right-hand just as the referee stepped in to separate the two and absorbed a serious punch; Gans was mortified and spent much of the minute between rounds apologising to the referee. There were those present who believed the punch may have been the key in deciding the outcome.

“My decision was a just one,” referee and sole judge Jack Welch said of his drawn verdict. “Gans had a shade the better of the fight, but Walcott made up for it by his aggressive tactics…both men were on their feet and fighting hard at the end of the twentieth round…I know many people believe I gave a bad decision, but my conscience does not trouble me, as I am sure I acted properly. Gans may have shown greater cleverness than Walcott but his lead was not sufficient to earn him the decision…Walcott led as much as Gans.”

Gans did not agree.

“I don’t like to criticise the referee’s decision but I think I should have had it…there is now only one man in the world I want to fight and that is Jimmy Britt.”

Ten days later, twenty days before that fight, betting began in earnest at even money. Gans set up training camp at San Rafael, early for him, and on the same day Britt set up at Seal Rock on the west side of San Francisco. As the two entered training in earnest a hint as to the source of Britt’s reluctance to cross the colour-line emerged when comments his father made to a Chicago newspaperman began to emerge in the local press. Britt Senior had reportedly said that he would prefer to see his son dead than “to see him fight Gans or any other colored man.” Such was Britt Senior’s influence that there was some speculation as to whether the fight would go ahead. Upon his return to San Francisco though, he once again expressed his disgust but insisted he would not interfere. “Gans,” noted the Oakland Tribute, “is certainly the equal of any white fighter as a gentleman.”

Now two weeks from bell, the fight was being balanced as the champion’s generalship versus Britt’s left hand to the body and his relative comfort at 133lbs. Less discussed: as well as selecting the fight site, the poundage, that the fight should begin ten minutes after the weights were taken, and the purse split, the challenger had also insisted upon a local referee. This was to be a matter of some import. Eddie Graney, a San Francisco man, was the choice.

“There are no ethics in the prize-fighting business,” was a quote attributed to Britt on an unrelated matter, but certainly these words were fit to describe his conduct in dictating terms. Graney felt differently, as shall be seen.

Gans, meanwhile, seemed relaxed about the weight. He observed the Lord’s Day on the sixteenth and wrote his wife, who “had to have a letter every day.” He also chatted with newspapermen, something of a rarity for Joe.

“I never aim to hurt a man more than I have to,” offered Gans, a shocking admission for one of the most successful fighters in history, among the hardest hitting punchers of his generation, by now one of the best finishers of any. “I feel around for two or three rounds, size up the enemy and when I have the problem figured out I say to myself, ‘I’ll let this last eight or ten rounds to give the public an exhibition and then I’ll get this fellow.’ I have made mistakes. I have miscalculated and some times a fight has gone twenty rounds with the decision a draw when I have had it all figured out that I was the winner.”

Asked if he had the Walcott fight in mind with this last, Gans demurred. “I ain’t specifying.”

Hearing an elite fighter talk so openly and honestly about himself and his strategies and his shortfalls and his terrifying confidence in his abilities is quite something. It was abnormal for this era and it has remained so for the next 117 years.

Britt agreed with him on the point of weight.

“I am satisfied that Gans will be as strong at the weight as he is at any other, only he will not weigh a pond more than I do…I realize that in Gans I am meeting the hardest man of my career. He is a wonderfully stiff puncher and is an artist at the game, but I figure that by carrying the fight to him I can beat him down.”

Those words are prevalent, “I can beat him down.”

Joe Gans, meanwhile, had adopted “the sandman” from the James Jeffries camp to augment his indoor work. Vaguely manlike in appearance this sparring partner filled with sand allowed Gans to shift any stubborn weight while strengthening his stance and grappling skills, and is arguably a key point in his training methods. Britt worked more traditionally, running, walking, swimming in the sea before boxing and working with weights. Special emphasis was placed upon strengthening the wrist. Eleven days out Britt weighed just over 135lbs and claimed he had “never felt stronger.” Gans did twelve miles on the road that same day and ten the next, top end of what was normal for him but on the twentieth, Gans weighed 136lbs, well in sight of the weight. The next day, he weighed in just under 135lbs and took a day off roadwork, a little too near to be happy.

On the twenty-third both men sparred publicly. Britt appeared in glorious shape and his fast workout was called early after a sluicing left cut his opponent’s right eye. Gans, too, impressed, most of all with the news that he was within “a few ounces” of the required poundage. Still pressmen seemed obsessed with the question for it seemed to many the one that would decide the fight: what would Gans have left at 133lbs?

“There is nothing more to be stripped from his frame,” wrote WW Naughton for the Examiner on the twenty-sixth. “When I saw him yesterday after an interval of a few days the change in his appearance was striking. His features sharpened…his face seemed to have narrowed…his body looks as though the low water mark has been reached.”

There was a two-column piece on the front of the Chronicle’s sports pages the following day reporting that Joe Gans had eaten a chicken. Related or not, his weight reached over 136lbs the following day.

Britt stopped boxing on the twenty-seventh with three days remaining before the gong. “No more,” he told reporters, “I don’t need it. I am thoroughly loosened up and haven’t a stiff joint or sore spot about me. My hands are in particularly fine shape and it would be foolish to take risks.”

Superficially, the two camps were relaxed, but on the twenty-ninth with mere hours to go, tempers spilled over at a meeting between the two management teams and the press, the subject, once again, the champion’s weight. Rumours had been swirling that Britt would withdraw if Gans was overweight and Al Herford stoked these fires in a face-to-face meeting with Willie Britt where he claimed that the challenger wanted to “wriggle out” of the fight and would walk away “if Joe were half a pound over.” This was loose talk on the part of Herford, talk that could hurt the gate and was considered then, even more than now, bad form. The language with which Willie exploded in turn though was something, Gans once again labelled a “coon” by a man named Britt. He then demanded that the forfeit for making weight – already colossal at $2500 – be doubled. Then trebled.

“The sentiment from both sides,” noted The Chronicle, “was significant.”

Battling Nelson arrived in town with money to wager on Britt. “He’s struggling to make weight,” was his opinion, one that seemed to be found on every street corner and in every newspaper. Herford seethed. In nothing less than a decree he informed press that “From now until the time Joe Gans steps on the scales at the ringside Monday night his weight must remain a mystery to all save himself, his trainer and his manager.”

“Britt is the man I’ve always wanted to fight,” said Gans the day before the contest. A claim made by many pugilists on the eve of many fights across the century, it is nothing but the truth when spoken by Joe. This was so often the case. “Now that the chance has come my way I’m not going to kick because I have to work pretty hard to make the weight. I don’t’ want to run Britt down but I can’t see how he figures on winning…I’ll be able to knock him down in ten rounds. It may go longer but that’s the way it’ll end.”

“I never was in better shape in my life,” claimed Britt. “I am stronger and bigger and know more about fighting than I ever did. I expect to win…I intend to fight no waiting battle. I will rough it with Gans and will try to knock him out early – perhaps about the seventh or eighth round. He will have to do some talk footwork to get out of my way.”

Gans could not get out of Britt’s way, and he placed the blame squarely upon the weight.

“I was too weak to do myself justice,” he said immediately after the fight. “After I went to my corner in the second round I knew it. I would like to fight Britt again but I would not do it at 133lbs ringside. It is the first time I did it in my life. I will fight Britt at 133 pounds weigh in at 3 o’clock or 135 ringside.”

Nevertheless, Gans remained the champion, though few title fights have been decided amid such total chaos.

Gans boxed his typical first, the first he described to pressmen two Sunday’s prior, watching, learning and measuring while Britt forced the fight. In the second, matters revealed themselves and the two went to war, slugging “like tigers” although already, according to the San Francisco Call, Gans seemed unlike himself. Slugging continued through the third and Britt began to find Gans to the body, shots that seemingly troubled him; in the fourth we have our first major divergence of accounts.

According to the Call, Gans took a knee in the fourth to escape punishment, clearly troubled by bodyshots but not so troubled as to go down involuntary. Britt himself agreed; Gans was falling “without a glove” being laid upon him. Gans, contrarily, stated that he was hit and hurt by bodyshots throughout and especially in the fourth. The Chronicle, meanwhile, states the first fall was a clear slip, but the second, third and fourth were dishonest, an escape of pressure, the Chronicle politely referring to as “generalship.” The Examiner has Gans being hit with a right hand to the heart for the first knockdown, and taking the second, third and fourth as rest.

The third and fourth of these though must be framed through what happened after the second. Britt blasted Gans with a right hand as he kneeled upon the canvas. Referee Graney at this point was clear, and according to the Examiner reporter, who was in earshot, he told Britt: “If you do that once more, I will disqualify you.” That rejoinder “once more” may lend credence to the Examiner’s report that Britt struck Gans while down not once but twice.

The fourth then, ended in uproar, but things got significantly worse in the fifth.

According to the Call, Britt “sailed into Gans,” throwing caution to the wind and many punches with it. Gans was bowled to the canvas once more. The Call did not like it and makes a point of framing Gans as stalling once more; the Chronicle describes a right hand to the heart as the direct cause of knockdown and the Examiner saw the same punch: “a right-hand blow…caught [Gans] on the left side.”

Britt then attacked Gans once more as he kneeled, striking him at least twice with left then right and possibly three times. Immediately Referee Graney followed through on his promise from the fourth round and waved the contest off, signalling Gans the winner by disqualification. Immediately, Britt drew back his right and smashed the referee in the face. Britt and Graney fell to the canvas, wrestling. The police stormed the ring and separated the two. Graney tore his tuxedo jacket from his frame as he was lifted and tried once again to attack Britt while gamblers rushed the ring demanding that all bets be cancelled – or honoured, depending upon where they had their money.

It was a weary, weary Gans that watched all this from his corner. There is no way to know for sure but based upon his own testimony of his weakened state and the bloodlust that was upon Britt, it seems that only one winner was possible. Either way, even as he watched Britt wrestle with the referee, Gans must have known that this fight would have consequences and he would be proven right – consequences for his reputation; for his grasp upon the lightweight title; even for his tomb.

Next time we will look in detail at the fallout from the Britt fiasco and at the long cold winter of the Joe Gans title reign, 1905.

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Spared Prison by a Lenient Judge, Chordale Booker Pursues a World Boxing Title

Published

3 hours ago

March 20, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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. The 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

Published

3 days ago

March 17, 2025

Thomas Hauser

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

Published

4 days ago

March 16, 2025

David A. Avila

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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