Meet ‘Old-Timer’ Tod Morgan, a New Addition to the Boxing Hall of Fame

Published

3 years ago

December 8, 2021

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On Aug. 3, 1953, Tod Morgan died a pauper in his home state of Washington. He was 50 years old.

After more than 200 pro fights, Morgan had nothing to show for it. A former world junior lightweight champion and the former lightweight champion of Australia, Morgan the ex-boxer worked as a bellman in Seattle hotels until he became incapacitated. But he wouldn’t be completely forgotten. This coming June, nearly 69 years after he drew his last breath, Tod Morgan will be formally inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

The second fighter from the Apple State to be accorded this honor (Tacoma’s Freddie Steele was enshrined in 1999), Morgan was born Albert Pilkington in Sequim, a town on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Taking the surname of his stepfather, Frank Morgan, he made his pro debut at age 17 at a vaudeville house in Concrete, Washington, a town whose major employer was, you guessed it, a cement company.

Morgan was just a few fights into his pro career when he shifted his tack to the town of Vallejo near Oakland on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay. Between October of 1920 and May of 1923, he fought exclusively in California, 50 fights in all. These were all 4-rounders. In November of 1913, the voters in California approved a measure that restricted all fights, amateur and pro, to four rounds. The law remained in effect for 10 years.

After a short stint in Seattle, Morgan returned to California. On Dec. 2, 1925, he made the national news wire when he stopped New Jersey’s Mike Ballerino at LA’s Olympic Auditorium. The match was billed for the world junior lightweight title. Ballerino took all the worst of it until his corner tossed in the towel in the 10^th and final round.

His bout with Ballerino would be the first of 15 fights denominated as world title fights in the 130-pound weight class. Morgan’s record in these encounters was 12-2-1.

Six of the title fights were at the Mecca of Boxing, Madison Square Garden.

In his first Madison Square Garden exposure, Martin successfully defended his belt with a lopsided decision over Brooklyn’s Joe Glick. They would fight again in this same ring, a match in which Glick was disqualified for low blows. (The wags would saddle Joe Glick with boxing’s oddest nickname. A tailor by trade, he was dubbed the Brownsville Buttonhole Maker.)

Another Brooklynite, Eddie “Cannonball” Martin, gave Morgan one of his toughest fights when they met at Madison Square Garden on May 24, 1928. The referee and both judges gave the bout to Morgan, but there were dissenters among the ringside press.

Cannonball Martin, who previously had a tenuous hold on the world bantamweight title, was very good, but Morgan left no doubt that he was the better man when they hooked up again. After 15 gory rounds, the decision favoring the West Coast invader was so clear-cut that it was cheered by the pro-Martin crowd. The match was held on a hot and muggy July evening before 20,000 at Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn baseball team that had taken the name Dodgers.

Tod Morgan’s lone setbacks in those 15 title fights came at the hands of Joey Sangor and Benny Bass. Tod didn’t bring his “A” game when he fought Sangor in a 10-round bout at Milwaukee on New Year’s Day, 1929. The newspaper writers were in general agreement that Sangor, a local man, edged it. But Wisconsin was then a no-decision state which meant that Morgan kept his title as it could only change hands in the event of a knockout. His defeat at the hands of Benny Bass at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 20, 1929, was a horse of a different color. The fight had a bad odor about it.

After winning the first round convincingly, Morgan was knocked out in the second. The knockout punch was a clean right hand to the jaw, but the outcome supported the whispers that the fix was in. All of the late money was on Philadelphia’s “Little Fish,” which made no sense as Morgan was far cleverer. In the lobby at Madison Square Garden, the odds favoring Bass soared as high as 6/1.

The New York Athletic Commission withheld the fighters’ purses. They were unable to prove any wrongdoing, but got a measure of satisfaction by abolishing the junior lightweight class – and for good measure, the other junior divisions as well. Other jurisdictions continued to recognize a 130-pound class and New York eventually relented, restoring the weight division in 1949.

Morgan wore out his welcome in the Big Apple with that suspicious performance and would never fight in New York again. He returned to Washington and fought up and down the West Coast before trundling off to Sydney, Australia in the late summer of 1933.

Morgan spent the last nine years of his boxing career in the Land Down Under. He had 62 fights in Australian rings, the vast majority slated for 15 rounds, and promoted a few fights on the side before returning to the United States shortly after the end of World War II.

When he was young, Morgan was known for his fast footwork. “His boxing was a pleasure to the eye,” wrote UPI sports editor Frank Getty, who added that when the occasion warranted, Morgan could out-slug the roughest and toughest. As he grew older, what stood out was his cageyness. “He could punch from any angle or position,” reminisced Sydney southpaw Vic Patrick who won three out of four from Tod Morgan at the tail end of Morgan’s career. “He had a favorite punch that seemed to hit right on the spot, where the liver is, without being an illegal punch.”

Back in the States, Morgan told an Associated Press reporter that he planned to enlist the aid of other Pacific Northwest fighters from his era in the formation of a non-profit “to take care of indigent and/or punchy fighters who have passed their prime.” He had a name for it: the American Professional Boxing Association.

Morgan would need to find a sugar daddy to pull this off as he had virtually no resources of his own. When he left the Antipodes with his Australian wife, he didn’t have the funds to pay his way home for the both of them and hired on as a messman in the ship’s cafeteria.

How can a boxer with that many fights under his belt, and a former long-reigning world champion to boot, leave the sport with only his scrapbook? Keep in mind that the 130-pound division was new and had very little cachet. Also, the last half of Morgan’s career overlapped with the period when most of the world, and especially the U.S. and Australia, were in the grips of the Great Depression. Purses were miniscule.

During Morgan’s day, to steal a line from the great sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, professional prizefighters in the main were paid with what amounted to moving-around-money. It cost money to go places to ply one’s trade, even if one doesn’t go first-class. The expenses — transportation, lodging, meals, etc. — can eat a hole in one’s pocket in a hurry.

In July of 1951, Morgan suffered a stroke while staying in the home of his mother in Reno. Two months later, on Sept. 22, this disheartening item appeared in the Los Angeles Times: “[Tod Morgan] underwent an unsuccessful brain operation in Reno recently…He’s now in a State hospital in his home state of Washington…and without funds.”

According to BoxRec, Morgan finished 133-42-33 with 29 KOs in a career during which he answered the bell for 1664 rounds. When he fell ill, a reporter made this observation: “Tod never turned down an opponent, no matter how tough or famous, and was fighting long years after everyone thought him washed up.”

He’s been dead more years than he lived, but this week he was resuscitated, in a fashion, with the news that he has been named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. If you happen to visit the Shrine in Canastota, be certain to check his plaque on the wall. It would bring a smile to his face, and he had precious few reasons to smile after he hung up his gloves.

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Arne K. Lang

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The International Boxing Hall of Fame Announces the Class of 2022

Thomas Hauser’s Literary Notes: Johnny Greaves Tells a Sad Tale

Published

23 hours ago

May 11, 2025

Thomas Hauser

Johnny Greaves was a professional loser. He had one hundred professional fights between 2007 and 2013, lost 96 of them, scored one knockout, and was stopped short of the distance twelve times. There was no subtlety in how his role was explained to him: “Look, Johnny; professional boxing works two ways. You’re either a ticket-seller and make money for the promoter, in which case you get to win fights. If you don’t sell tickets but can look after yourself a bit, you become an opponent and you fight to lose.”

By losing, he could make upwards of one thousand pounds for a night‘s work.

Greaves grew up with an alcoholic father who beat his children and wife. Johnny learned how to survive the beatings, which is what his career as a fighter would become. He was a scared, angry, often violent child who was expelled from school and found solace in alcohol and drugs.

The fighters Greaves lost to in the pros ran the gamut from inept local favorites to future champions Liam Walsh, Anthony Crolla, Lee Selby, Gavin Rees, and Jack Catterall. Alcohol and drugs remained constants in his life. He fought after drinking, smoking weed, and snorting cocaine on the night before – and sometimes on the day of – a fight. On multiple occasions, he came close to committing suicide. His goal in boxing ultimately became to have one hundred professional fights.

On rare occasions, two professional losers – “journeymen,” they’re called in The UK – are matched against each other. That was how Greaves got three of the four wins on his ledger. On September 29, 2013, he fought the one hundredth and final fight of his career against Dan Carr in London’s famed York Hall. Carr had a 2-42-2 ring record and would finish his career with three wins in ninety outings. Greaves-Carr was a fight that Johnny could win. He emerged triumphant on a four-round decision.

The Johnny Greaves Story, told by Greaves with the help of Adam Darke (Pitch Publishing) tells the whole sordid tale. Some of Greaves’s thoughts follow:

* “We all knew why we were there, and it wasn’t to win. The home fighters were the guys who had sold all the tickets and were deemed to have some talent. We were the scum. We knew our role. Give some young prospect a bit of a workout, keep out of the way of any big shots, lose on points but take home a wedge of cash, and fight again next week.”

* “If you fought too hard and won, then you wouldn’t get booked for any more shows. If you swung for the trees and got cut or knocked out, then you couldn’t fight for another 28 days. So what were you supposed to do? The answer was to LOOK like you were trying to win but be clever in the process. Slip and move, feint, throw little shots that were rangefinders, hold on, waste time. There was an art to this game, and I was quickly learning what a cynical business it was.”

* “The unknown for the journeyman was always how good your opponent might be. He could be a future world champion. Or he might be some hyped-up nightclub bouncer with a big following who was making lots of money for the promoter.”

* “No matter how well I fought, I wasn’t going to be getting any decisions. These fights weren’t scored fairly. The referees and judges understood who the paymasters were and they played the game. What was the point of having a go and being the best version of you if nobody was going to recognize or reward it?”

* “When I first stepped into the professional arena, I believed I was tough. believed that nobody could stop me. But fight by fight, those ideas were being challenged and broken down. Once you know that you can be hurt, dropped and knocked out, you’re never quite the same fighter.”

* “I had started off with a dream, an idea of what boxing was and what it would do for me. It was going to be a place where I could prove my toughness. A place that I could escape to and be someone else for a while. For a while, boxing was that place. But it wore me down to the point that I stopped caring. I’d grown sick and tired of it all. I wished that I could feel pride at what I’d achieved. But most of the time, I just felt like a loser.”

* “The fights were getting much more difficult, the damage to my body and my psyche taking longer and longer to repair after each defeat. I was putting myself in more and more danger with each passing fight. I was getting hurt more often and stopped more regularly. Even with the 28-day [suspensions], I didn’t have time to heal. I was staggering from one fight to the next and picking up more injuries along the way.”

* “I was losing my toughness and resilience. When that’s all you’ve ever had, it’s a hard thing to accept. Drink and drugs had always been present in my life. But now they became a regular part of my pre-fight preparation. It helped to shut out the fear and quieted the thoughts and worries that I shouldn’t be doing this anymore.”

* “My body was broken. My hands were constantly sore with blisters and cuts. I had early arthritis in my hip and my teeth were a mess. I looked an absolute state and inside I felt worse. But I couldn’t stop fighting yet. Not before the 100.”

* “I had abused myself time after time and stood in front of better men, taking a beating when I could have been sensible and covered up. At the start, I was rarely dropped or stopped. Now it was becoming a regular part of the game. Most of the guys I was facing were a lot better than me. This was mainly about survival.”

* “Was my brain f***ed from taking too many punches? I knew it was, to be honest. I could feel my speech changing and memory going. I was mentally unwell and shouldn’t have been fighting but the promoters didn’t care. Johnny Greaves was still a good booking. Maybe an even better one now that he might get knocked out.”

* “Nobody gave a f*** about me and whether I lived or died. I didn’t care about that much either. But the thought of being humiliated, knocked out in front of all those people; that was worse than the thought of dying. The idea of being exposed for what I was – a nobody.”

* “I was a miserable bastard in real life. A depressive downbeat mouthy little f***er. Everything I’ve done has been to mask the feeling that I’m worthless. That I have no value. The drinks and the drugs just helped me to forget that for a while. I still frighten myself a lot. My thoughts scare me. Do I really want to be here for the next thirty or forty years? I don’t know. If suicide wasn’t so impactful on people around you, I would have taken that leap. I don’t enjoy life and never have.”

So . . . Any questions?

****

Steve Albert was Showtime’s blow-by-blow commentator for two decades. But his reach extended far beyond boxing.

Albert’s sojourn through professional sports began in high school when he was a ball boy for the New York Knicks. Over the years, he was behind the microphone for more than a dozen teams in eleven leagues including four NBA franchises.

Putting the length of that trajectory in perspective . . . As a ballboy, Steve handed bottles of water and towels to a Knicks back-up forward named Phil Jackson. Later, they worked together as commentators for the New Jersey Nets. Then Steve provided the soundtrack for some of Jackson’s triumphs when he won eleven NBA championships as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers.

It’s also a matter of record that Steve’s oldest brother, Marv, was arguably the greatest play-by-play announcer in NBA history. And brother Al enjoyed a successful career behind the microphone after playing professional hockey.

Now Steve has written a memoir titled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Broadcast Booth. Those who know him know that Steve doesn’t like to say bad things about people. And he doesn’t here. Nor does he delve into the inner workings of sports media or the sports dream machine. The book is largely a collection of lighthearted personal recollections, although there are times when the gravity of boxing forces reflection.

“Fighters were unlike any other professional athletes I had ever encountered,” Albert writes. “Many were products of incomprehensible backgrounds, fiercely tough neighborhoods, ghettos and, in some cases, jungles. Some got into the sport because they were bullied as children. For others, boxing was a means of survival. In many cases, it was an escape from a way of life that most people couldn’t even fathom.”

At one point, Steve recounts a ringside ritual that he followed when he was behind the microphone for Showtime Boxing: “I would precisely line up my trio of beverages – coffee, water, soda – on the far edge of the table closest to the ring apron. Perhaps the best advice I ever received from Ferdie [broadcast partner Ferdie Pacheco] was early on in my blow-by-blow career – ‘Always cover your coffee at ringside with an index card unless you like your coffee with cream, sugar, and blood.’”

Writing about the prelude to the infamous Holyfield-Tyson “bite fight,” Albert recalls, “I remember thinking that Tyson was going to do something unusual that night. I had this sinking feeling in my gut that he was going to pull something exceedingly out of the ordinary. His grousing about Holyfield’s head butts in the first fight added to my concern. [But] nobody could have foreseen what actually happened. Had I opened that broadcast with, ‘Folks, tonight I predict that Mike Tyson will bite off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear,’ some fellas in white coats might have approached me and said, ‘Uh, Steve, could you come with us.'”

And then there’s my favorite line in the book: “I once asked a fighter if he was happily married,” Albert recounts. “He said, ‘Yes, but my wife’s not.'”

“All I ever wanted was to be a sportscaster,” Albert says in closing. “I didn’t always get it right, but I tried to do my job with honesty and integrity. For forty-five years, calling games was my life. I think it all worked out.”

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book – The Most Honest Sport: Two More Years Inside Boxing – will be published this month and is available for preorder at:

https://www.amazon.com/Most-Honest-Sport-Inside-Boxing/dp/1955836329

In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Argentina’s Fernando Martinez Wins His Rematch with Kazuto Ioka

Published

1 day ago

May 11, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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In an excellent fight climaxed by a furious 12^th round, Argentina’s Fernando Daniel Martinez came off the deck to win his rematch with Kazuto Ioka and retain his piece of the world 115-pound title. The match was staged at Ioka’s familiar stomping grounds, the Ota-City General Gymnasium in Tokyo.

In their first meeting on July 7 of last year in Tokyo, Martinez was returned the winner on scores of 117-111, 116-112, and a bizarre 120-108. The rematch was slated for late December, but Martinez took ill a few hours before the weigh-in and the bout was postponed.

The 33-year-old Martinez, who came in sporting a 17-0 (9) record, was a 7-2 favorite to win the sequel, but there were plenty of reasons to favor Ioka, 36, aside from his home field advantage. The first Japanese male fighter to win world titles in four weight classes, Ioka was 3-0 in rematches and his long-time trainer Ismael Salas was on a nice roll. Salas was 2-0 last weekend in Times Square, having handled upset-maker Rolly Romero and Reito Tsutsumi who was making his pro debut.

But the fourth time was not a charm for Ioka (31-4-1) who seemingly pulled the fight out of the fire in round 10 when he pitched the Argentine to the canvas with a pair of left hooks, but then wasn’t able to capitalize on the momentum swing.

Martinez set a fast pace and had Ioka fighting off his back foot for much of the fight. Beginning in round seven, Martinez looked fatigued, but the Argentine was conserving his energy for the championship rounds. In the end, he won the bout on all three cards: 114-113, 116-112, 117-110.

Up next for Fernando Martinez may be a date with fellow unbeaten Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, the lineal champion at 115. San Antonio’s Rodriguez is a huge favorite to keep his title when he defends against South Africa’s obscure Phumelela Cafu on July 19 in Frisco, Texas.

As for Ioka, had he won today’s rematch, that may have gotten him over the hump in so far as making it into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. True, winning titles in four weight classes is no great shakes when the bookends are only 10 pounds apart, but Ioka is still a worthy candidate.

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Emanuel Navarrete Survives a Bloody Battle with Charly Suarez in San Diego

Published

1 day ago

May 11, 2025

David A. Avila

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In a torrid battle Mexico’s Emanuel “Vaquero” Navarrete and his staccato attack staved off the herky-jerky non-stop assaults of Philippine’s Charly Suarez to win by technical decision and retain the WBO super feather world title on Saturday.

What do they feed these guys?

Navarrete (40-2-1, 32 KOs) and his elongated arms managed to connect enough to compensate against the surprising Suarez (18-1, 10 KOs) who wowed the crowd at Pechanga Arena in San Diego.

An accidental clash of heads opened a cut on the side of Navarrete’s left eye and forced a stoppage midway through the fight.

From the opening round Navarrete used his windmill style of attack with punches from different angles that caught Suarez multiple times early. It did not matter. Suarez fired back with impunity and was just as hungry to punch it out with the Mexican fighter.

It was savage.

Every time Navarrete connected solidly, he seemed to pause and check out the damage. Bad idea. Suarez would immediately counter with bombs of his own and surprise the champion with his resilience and tenacity.

Wherever they found Suarez they should look for more, because the Filipino fighter from Manila was ferocious and never out of his depth.

Around the sixth round the Mexican fighter seemed a little drained and puzzled at the tireless attacks coming from Suarez. During an exchange of blows a cut opened up on Navarrete and it was ruled an accidental clash of heads by the referee. Blood streamed down the side of Navarrete’s face and it was cleared by the ringside physician.

But at the opening of the eighth round, the fight was stopped and the ringside physician ruled the cut was too bad to continue. The California State Athletic Commission looked at tape of the round when the cut opened to decipher if it was an accidental butt or a punch that caused the cut. It was unclear so the referee’s call of accidental clash of heads stood as the final ruling.

Score cards from the judges saw Navarrete the winner by scores of 78-75, 77-76 twice. He retains the WBO title.

Interim IBF Lightweight Title

The sharp-shooting Raymond “Danger” Muratalla (23-0, 17 KOs) maneuvered past Russia’s Zaur Abdullaev (20-2, 12 KOs) by unanimous decision to win the interim IBF lightweight title after 12 rounds.

Both fighters were strategic in their approach with Muratalla switching from orthodox to southpaw at various times of the fight. Neither fighter was ever able to dominant any round.

Defense proved the difference between the two lightweights. Muratalla was able to slip more blows than Abdullaev and that proved the difference. The fighter from Fontana, California was able to pierce Abdullaev’s guard more often than not, especially with counter punches.

Abdullaev was never out of the fight. The Russian fighter was able to change tactics and counter the counters midway through the fight. It proved effective especially to the body. But it was not enough to offset Muratalla’s accuracy.

There were no knockdowns and after 12 rounds the judges scored it 118-110, 119-109 twice for Muratalla who now becomes the mandatory for the IBF lightweight title should Vasyl Lomachenko return to defend it.

Muratalla was brief.

“He was a tough fighter,” said Muratalla. “My defense is something I work on a lot.”

Perla Wins

Super flyweight Perla Bazaldua (2-0) eased past Mona Ward (0-2) with a polished display of fighting at length and inside.

Combination punching and defense allowed Bazaldua to punch in-between Ward’s attacks and force the St. Louis fighter to clinch repeatedly. But Ward hung in there despite taking a lot of blows. After four rounds the Los Angeles-based Bazaldua was scored the winner 40-36 on all three cards. Bazaldua signed a long term contract with Top Rank in March.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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