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Percy Pugh, Gone at 81, Deserved More Acclaim in His New Orleans Hometown

Maybe former welterweight contender Percy Pugh would have gotten his chance to deliver the acceptance speech he had rehearsed who knows how many times in his mind had he had a better campaign manager than me making his case for induction into the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame.
Maybe Pugh (pictured on the right with Joe Frazier and opponent Adrian Davis) would have gotten the call to his hometown’s hall had he been a much-harder-hitting puncher instead of a pugilistic Fred Astaire, winning only five of his 47 professional victories by knockout.
Maybe he would have become more of an enduring local hero had he fought for and won the world championship he was denied for years because the powers-that-be who could have made it happen treated him as if he was the spreader of a communicable disease.
And maybe he’d now have a plaque hanging in the Caesars Superdome had more members of the GNOSHOF selection committee actually seen him fight during his 1960s prime, or did enough research to realize that his not terribly impressive 47-30 career record and low KO percentage did not come close to telling the entire story of someone whose bouts regularly sold-out Municipal Auditorium and whose skill set, even without a power component, dazzled audiences around the country.
That’s a slew of maybes, and even if at some future point the electorate that has rejected his candidacy on an annual basis does an about-face and inducts him posthumously, it will be a hollow victory for his diminishing number of contemporaries who still cling to the hope that he eventually will get his due. Percy’s friends and relatives are aging fast or already gone, and the reality of any Hall of Fame is that all potential inductees would much prefer to enjoy the moment while they’re still breathing and on this side of the grass.
In a story authored by John Reid that appeared in the July 13, 2000, issues of The Times-Picayune, the headline read that Percy Pugh, who once was boxing’s No. 1-ranked welterweight, was “…one of the best boxers the world never saw.”
There is so much going on in today’s world, what with the pandemic that is now in its third year, skyrocketing inflation, political turmoil and international intrigue, that the death of an 81-year-old fighter whose ring career as an active participant ended on May 18, 1974, with the last of 10 consecutive defeats, does not rate much, if any, attention. But maybe it shouldn’t be totally overlooked, either.
As a native New Orleanian who saw Percy Pugh fight live and in person on several occasions, making for some indelible memories, I felt compelled to make his case for induction into the GNOSHOF, as I had successfully done for three other athletes who I thought merited such recognition (a basketball player, tennis player and football player). It wasn’t as if I thought Percy deserved inclusion in the International Boxing Hall of Fame; I acknowledge his career had little to no chance of clearing the extremely high bar for admission to that exclusive club in Canastota, N.Y. But in New Orleans, which once had been a hotbed of boxing, his prime years as a popular and accomplished main-event attraction seemed to me worthy of serious consideration.
The boxing contingent in the GNOSHOF includes former world champions Pete Herman (inducted in 1971), Willie Pastrano (1973), Joe Brown (1977), Ralph Dupas (1978) and Tony Canzoneri (1984), as well as non-champions Bernard Docusen (1976), Marty Burke (1978) and Jimmy Perrin (1979). Dr. Eddie Flynn (1981) was never a pro, but he was honored for being an NCAA boxing champion as well as a member of the 1932 U.S. Olympic boxing team. Other inductees affiliated with boxing include trainer Whitey Esneault (2006), referee Elmo Adolph (2000) and promoter/manager Les Bonano (2021).
Where Philadelphia is renowned for its assembly line of left-hooking knockout artists, New Orleans was better known as the birthing place of slick boxers with fancy footwork, active jabs and negligible pop. That subset includes Herman, Dupas, Pastrano (some of whose moves were copied by the young Cassius Clay) and, for a heady time in the ’60s, Pugh.
Les Bonano, whose half-century in boxing was rewarded with his 2021 induction into the GNOSHOF, recalled happy times when he was involved with Pugh in various capacities. “Percy and I traveled the world together,” Bonano told writer Ted Lewis for the obituary of Pugh that appeared in the The New Orleans Advocate/Times-Picayune. “And everywhere we went, we ran into people who knew Percy. He loved to make people laugh when he was in the ring, and he loved to tell boxing stories. How could you not love a guy like that?”
But time passes and memories fade, and by and by those who appreciated Pugh as a stick-and-move escape artist who could make opponents look foolish either took their own eternal 10-count or moved on to other objects of fascination.
Two-time former heavyweight champion Chris Byrd once explained why his mobile, quick-hitting style, which might be described as a larger, left-handed version of Pugh’s, so infuriated opponents. “Nobody likes getting clowned,” he said, “clowning” being the ability to frustrate even good opponents who’d prefer that the other guy stay put and linger in the hitting zone.
“Tat-tat-tat, that’s how fast I was,” Pugh said in the 2000 story written by Reid. “I could bounce, move and stick my punches. A lot of people didn’t see them coming.”
Possibly one of the people who didn’t want to get hit with something he didn’t see, or miss with something he was trying to hit himself, was welterweight champion Curtis Cokes. Although Cokes dropped more than a few hints that he would eventually get around to sharing a ring with Pugh, the fight never happened. Nor would it, once Pugh suffered a couple of close losses that dropped him from his No. 1 ranking.
“I know I should have gotten my shot,” Pugh, still displeased decades after being passed over, recalled in 2000. “Everybody knows it.”
Minus the title bout he never got to appear in, the career high points for Pugh were his two showdowns with Jerry Pellegrini, a fellow main-eventer in New Orleans who was everything Pugh wasn’t: white, a big puncher and not nearly as fleet-footed and fast-handed. Pugh won both bouts by unanimous decision, the first a 10-rounder and the second a 15-rounder in which he annexed Pellegrini’s Southern 147-pound title. Each fight drew a sellout crowd of 5,000-plus in Municipal Auditorium, with segregated seating.
“The first fight should have been called a draw, but the second one he outscored me over 15 rounds,” Pellegrini recalled. “Percy was a good fighter. He was No. 1 in the world.
“But you know, Percy had white supporters and I had black supporters. I think people rooted for me because I got a lot of knockouts and they rooted for Percy because of the way he could move. But we both filled up the auditorium.”
One of my most lasting memories of Percy Pugh came on Feb. 24, 1989. I was in Las Vegas to cover Mike Tyson’s first of two fights with England’s Frank Bruno which would take place the following night at the Las Vegas Hilton. A large tent with a big-screen TV had been set up in the hotel’s parking lot so media members could watch the fight in snowy Atlantic City in which Roberto Duran again defied Father Time to dethrone WBC middleweight champion Iran Barkley by split decision.
I was talking outside the tent with Les Bonano, whom I had known for many years, when Percy Pugh, who was training one of Bonano’s fighters who would appear on the Tyson-Bruno undercard, dropped by. “Percy, I want to introduce you to Bernard Fernandez, the boxing writer for the Philadelphia Daily News,” Les said. I stuck out my hand to shake Percy’s, which he did with a limp grip and no enthusiasm for having just made my acquaintance.
“But you don’t understand,” Les told him. “Bernard is from New Orleans. He saw you fight several times.”
“Including both times you beat Jerry Pellegrini in Municipal Auditorium,” I told Percy, who perked up immediately. We spent the next 15 minutes discussing those fights (full disclosure: Jerry Pellegrini is a friend of mine) at some length, and I could sense that his being remembered, maybe particularly for those two fights, had the effect of making him feel that his past had not completely faded away, that there were still people who appreciated who and what he had been when he was at his best.
I can only speculate as to how fulfilling it would have been for Percy Pugh to have been accorded the recognition from the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame that Les Bonano and I believed then, and still do, he deserved.
Image: 1970 NOLA file photo
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“Breadman” Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards’ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.
It’s true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian “J Rock” Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurd’s hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.
In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.
Edwards’ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at “Boxing Scene” in a column where he answers questions from readers.
It’s an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isn’t to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.
“Fighters are constantly mislabled,” he says. “Everyone talks about Joe Louis’s right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and it’s more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.”
Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.
Edwards’ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.
Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didn’t stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.
Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.
We are all a product of our times, so it’s no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadman’s estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the “Four Kings” with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.
Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonard’s three-time rival Roberto Duran. “I once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duran’s title defenses on it,” says Edwards. “This was a back before the days of YouTube.”
But Edwards’ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the “Pittsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.
“Greb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,” says Breadman, “but there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?”
Edwards notes that in Harry Greb’s heyday, he wasn’t talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.
Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. “Body punching is a lost art,” he once wrote. “[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.”
If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesn’t seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.
Breadman discounts those variables. “Terence is older,” he says, “but has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.” That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Canelo’s performance against William Scull: “Canelo’s legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.”
Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plant’s last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.
Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, he’s at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, he’s back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.
On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. That’s assuming he can stay awake.
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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More
It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.
In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.
Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.
CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.
****
Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.
Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”
And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.
Joey Archer
Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer
Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.
Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.
Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.
In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.
When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.
Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.
May he rest in peace.
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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.
Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.
“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.
Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.
After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.
Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.
One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”
Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.
“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”
Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.
A real fight was happening.
Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.
Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.
In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.
“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”
Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.
In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.
“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”
Espinoza Wins
WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.
“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.
Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.
Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.
It was Espinoza’s third title defense.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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