R.I.P. Jerry Pellegrini, Last Vestige of a Golden Era of Boxing in New Orleans

Published

2 years ago

July 14, 2022

R.I.P. Jerry Pellegrini, Last Vestige of a Golden Era of Boxing in New Orleans

The showdown that the boxing world is most anxious to see, Errol Spence Jr. vs. Terence “Bud” Crawford for the fully unified dominion over the 147-pound weight class, remains stuck in bickering hell, with no signed contracts. That dream bout is an updated version of the better-late-than-never (maybe) pairing of superstar welterweights Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao in 2015, which most now can agree would have been more competitive and consequential had it occurred five years earlier.

In boxing, as in life, timing is everything.

But sometimes what the far-flung global masses want, or think they want, is best illustrated when restricted to a particular city and a particular moment, with little more than neighborhood bragging rights at stake. As author Thomas Hauser once said of the rubber match pitting Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the “Thrilla in Manila,” so much more was at stake for the heavyweight legends than the championship of the whole wide world. Ali and Frazier, he noted, were fighting for an even grander prize — the championship of each other.

One of the most important time-and-place fighters of my adolescence and young adulthood, former welterweight contender Jerry “The Boxing Barber” Pellegrini, was 78 when he passed away on July 12 in the New Orleans suburb of Chalmette, La. Although his wife of nearly 60 years, Helen, told me she had not seen a death certificate listing her husband’s cause of death, she believes it was from complications of pulmonary fibrosis, which for several years had slowly been draining Jerry of his former vitality.

Millions of fight fans mourned when Ali, 74, finally was outpointed on June 3, 2016, by the opponent against whom we all are destined to lose. It was much the same when Smokin’ Joe, 67, threw a last left hook at that unconquerable foe and he, too, took his eternal 10-count on Nov. 7, 2011. But while it can be presumed that far fewer followers of the sweet science will take note of the earthly exit of a fighter of more modest accomplishment, Jerry Pellegrini leaves behind not only Helen, but four children, eight grandchildren, three great grandchildren (with another one coming) and a diminishing number of devotees who still fondly remember what he had been as a must-see attraction on New Orleans’ semi-bustling fight scene of the mid-to-late 1960s. I was one of those fans of the “Boxing Barber,” whose big overhand right always seemed more potent than his modest 28-12-1 record, with 12 knockouts, might now suggest.

As a native New Orleanian and the son of a onetime welterweight who once appeared in the main lead-in bout of a card headlined by the great Archie Moore, I was drawn to boxing as a child, watching the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports Friday night fights with my father. And when flickering, black-and-white images on our old Philco TV set proved insufficient to satisfy my boxing jones, Dad took me to amateur shows at St. Mary’s Italian Gym in the French Quarter, where the venerable Whitey Esneault tutored, among others, future world champions Willie Pastrano and Ralph Dupas before turning them over to Angelo Dundee. Other building blocks in my boxing education came at the Municipal Auditorium, where I could study the starkly contrasting styles of welterweight main-eventers Pellegrini. who would rise to a No. 3 world ranking, and Percy Pugh, a shifty technician who made it all the way to No. 1, only to be denied a shot at then-champion Curtis Cokes.

New Orleans, which once had been a hotbed of boxing, had lost at least some of its allure as a pugilistic destination in the ‘60s, so much so that Waddell Summers, then the boxing writer for The Times-Picayune, wrote that “When Whitey Esneault died (at the age of 76, on Jan. 20, 1968), the Golden Age of boxing in New Orleans was laid to rest in St. Roch No. 2 Cemetery.”

But Mr. Summers was a bit premature in shoveling dirt on the fight game’s grave in the Crescent City. New Orleans fighters who would go on to fight for world titles included light heavyweight Jerry Celestine, lightweight Melvin Paul and super lightweight John “Super D” Duplessis, and another native, Regis “Rougarou” Duplessis, would win the WBA and IBF super lightweight belts, along with the WBC Diamond 140-pound crown, although he and his family had relocated to Houston in escaping Hurricane Katrina, so perhaps the city of his birth can only partially claim dibs on his accomplishments.

It was Pellegrini and Pugh, however, who regularly filled the 5,000-seat Municipal Auditorium in those unenlightened times, with black fans sitting on one side of the ring and white fans on the other. It was inevitable that the two would square off, which they did twice, Pugh winning a close 10-round unanimous decision on Sept. 21, 1967 (my 20^th birthday) and then lifting Pellegrini’s Southern welterweight title on a 15-round UD on March 3, 1968.

“The first fight should have been called a draw, but the second one he outscored me after 15 rounds,” Pellegrini told me for a story I authored in 2014. “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.”

Pellegrini (pictured below in a recent photo with his wife Helen) was paid a career-high $8,700 for the Pugh rematch, which wouldn’t even qualify as pocket money to someone like Mayweather, and even that got thinned by what went to his trainer and manager, not to mention the tax man.

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“That was a lot of money back then,” said local promoter Les Bonano. “But imagine if those guys were fighting today. A fight like that might have wound up in the Superdome or New Orleans Arena (now Smoothie King Center) and televised by HBO or Showtime.”

Unfortunately for both Pellegrini and Pugh, neither the Superdome nor the Smoothie King Center existed then. Neither, for that matter, did HBO or Showtime. And the window of opportunity for both fighters – who had come to respect one another professionally and like one another personally – would soon close.

Pellegrini would go just 9-7 after the Pugh rematch. He might have soldiered on, but his power hand, his right, was worsened to a point where an operation might soon have been necessary, a prospect that the barber side of him was disinclined to risk.

“I stopped fighting in 1971 because I had busted my hand all up,” he told me in 2014. “The doctor wanted to operate on it, but I was a barber by trade and I didn’t want nobody cutting on my hand. I might not be able to use my shears or a straight razor. So I retired.

“But 10 years in that ring … I thank God I came out in pretty good shape. Not everybody does. They stay too long because they can’t let it go.”

Pugh – whom I once described as “maybe the best pure boxer to come out of New Orleans” – couldn’t let it go. His blinding hand and foot speed incrementally diminished, he lost his last 10 bouts and 13 of his last 16 to finish with a 47-30 record and just five wins inside the distance. My arguments to get him elected to the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame unfortunately have fallen on deaf ears, members of the selection committee who never saw him box looking only at that less-than-impressive record, paucity of knockouts and concluding that his numbers just didn’t qualify for a plaque to be hung in the Caesars Superdome.

“Tat-tat-tat, that’s how fast I was,” Pugh, a product of New Orleans’ impoverished Lower Ninth Ward, told John Reid of the Times-Picayune for a story that appeared in 2000. “I could bounce, move and stick my punches. A lot of people didn’t see them coming.”

They say bad things come in threes, and maybe they do. Percy Pugh was 81 when he passed away on Jan. 20 of this year, and Les Bonano, who did make the GNOSHOF cut in 2021 after swimming against the current for a half-century, was 79 when he took his departure from this this mortal coil on May 22, also this year. Now Jerry Pellegrini, whose own boxing journey so notably intersected with those of Pugh and Bonano, also is gone.

Perhaps Waddell Summers’ pronouncement of 54 years ago, premature then, applies now: “When Jerry Pellegrini died, at 78, on July 12, 2022, following Percy Pugh and Les Bonano, the Golden Age of boxing in New Orleans was laid to rest.”

One of the best things about going onto the boxing beat at the Philadelphia Daily News was to become immersed in the city’s rich boxing history and heritage. How could one city have four of the world’s top 10 middleweights at the same time? That I wasn’t there for the glorious primes of Bennie Briscoe, Eugene “Cyclone” Hart, Bobby “Boogaloo” Watts and Willie “The Worm” Monroe is something I will always regret. If I had a time machine to transport me back to that golden – no, diamond – era, I’d visit it often.

Not being so fortunate, I had to satisfy myself for being there when Jerry Pellegrini and Percy Pugh did their down-home replication of such welterweight extravaganzas as Leonard-Hearns I, Trinidad-De La Hoya and Mayweather-Pacquiao. History might not long remember Pugh-Pellegrini, but I was there and it was enough to make an indelible mark in that part of my mind that has been cordoned off for favorite boxing memories.

RIP, Jerry. Thank you for being my friend, and for providing me with some of the incentive to go the distance.

Bernard Fernandez, named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category with the Class of 2020, was the recipient of numerous awards for writing excellence during his 28-year career as a sports writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. Fernandez’s first book, “Championship Rounds,” a compendium of previously published material, was released in May of last year. The sequel, “Championship Rounds, Round 2,” with a foreword by Jim Lampley, is currently out. The anthology can be ordered through Amazon.com and other book-selling websites and outlets.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 194: Garcia-Fortuna, Barboza-Zorrilla and More

Avila Perspective, Chap. 303: Spotlights on Lightweights and More

Published

20 hours ago

November 1, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-303-Spotlights-on-Lightweights-and-More

Those lightweights.

Whether junior lights, super lights or lightweights, it’s the 130-140 divisions where most of boxing’s young stars are found now or in the past.

Think Oscar De La Hoya, Sugar Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather.

Floyd Schofield (17-0, 12 KOs) a Texas product, hungers to be a star and takes on Mexico’s Rene Tellez Giron (20-3, 13 KOs) in a 12-round lightweight bout on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.

DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotion card that includes a female undisputed flyweight championship match pitting Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz and Gabriela Fundora.

Like a young lion looking to flex, Schofield (pictured on the left) is eager to meet all the other young lions and prove they’re not equal.

“I’ve been in the room with Shakur, Tank. I want to give everyone a good fight. I feel like my preparation is getting better, I work hard, I’ve dedicated my whole life to this sport,” said Schofield naming fellow lightweights Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta “Tank” Davis.

Now he meets Mexico’s Tellez who has never been stopped.

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes,” said Tellez.

Even in Las Vegas.

Verona, New York

Meanwhile, in upstate New York, a WBC junior lightweight title rematch finds Robson Conceicao (19-2-1, 9 KOs) looking to prove superior to former titlist O’Shaquie Foster (22-3, 12 KOs) on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, N.Y. ESPN+ will stream the Top Rank fight card.

Last July, Conceicao and Foster clashed and after 12 rounds the title changed hands from Foster to the Brazilian by split decision.

“I feel that a champion is a fighter who goes out there and doesn’t run around, who looks for the fight, who tries to win, and doesn’t just throw one or two punches and then moves away,” said Conceicao.

Foster disagrees.

“I hope he knows the name of the game is to hit and not get hit. That’s the name of the game,” said Foster.

Also on the same card is lightweight contender Raymond Muratalla (21-0, 16 KOs) who fights Mexico’s Jesus Perez Campos (25-5, 18 KOs).

Perez recently defeated former world champion Jojo Diaz last February in California.

“We’re made for challenges. I like challenges,” said Perez.

Muratalla likes challenges too.

“I think these fights are the types of fights I need to show my skills and to prove I deserve those title fights,” said Fontana’s Muratalla.

Female Undisputed Flyweight Championship

WBA, WBC and WBO flyweight titlist Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz (15-1, 6 KOs meets IBF titlist Gabriela Fundora (14-0, 6 KOs) on Saturday Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada. DAZN will stream the clash for the undisputed flyweight championship.

Argentina’s Alaniz clashed twice against former WBA, WBC champ Marlen Esparza with their first encounter ending in a dubious win for the Texas fighter. In fact, three of Esparza’s last title fights were scored controversially.

But against Alaniz, though they fought on equal terms, Esparza was given a 99-91 score by one of the judges though the world saw a much closer contest. So, they fought again, but the rematch took place in California. Two judges deemed Alaniz the winner and one Esparza for a split-decision win.

“I’m really happy to be here representing Argentina. We are ready to fight. Nothing about this fight has to do with Marlen. So, I hope she (Fundora) is ready. I am ready to prepare myself for the great fight of my life,” said Alaniz.

In the case of Fundora, the extremely tall American fighter at 5’9” in height defeated decent competition including Maria Santizo. She was awarded a match with IBF flyweight titlist Arely Mucino who opted for the tall youngster over the dangerous Kenia Enriquez of Mexico.

Bad choice for Mucino.

Fundora pummeled the champion incessantly for five rounds at the Inglewood Forum a year ago. Twice she battered her down and the fight was mercifully stopped. Fundora’s arm was raised as the new champion.

Since that win Fundora has defeated Christina Cruz and Chile’s Daniela Asenjo in defense of the IBF title. In an interesting side bit: Asenjo was ranked as a flyweight contender though she had not fought in that weight class for seven years.

Still, Fundora used her reach and power to easily handle the rugged fighter from Chile.

Immediately after the fight she clamored for a chance to become undisputed.

“It doesn’t get better than this, especially being in Las Vegas. This is the greatest opportunity that we can have,” said Fundora.

It should be exciting.

Fights to Watch

Sat. ESPN+ 2:50 p.m. Robson Conceicao (19-2-1) vs O’Shaquie Foster (22-3).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Floyd Schofield (17-0) vs Rene Tellez Giron (20-3); Gabriela Alaniz (15-1) vs Gabriela Fundora (14-0).

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy

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Bakhram Murtalaziev was the Fighter of the Month in October

Published

2 days ago

October 31, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Bakhram-Murtalaziev-was-the-Fighter-of-the-Month-in-October

As we close the book on October, let’s look back at the month’s stellar performances. Kenshiro Teraji added another exclamation point to his brilliant career with an 11^th-round stoppage of Cristofer Rosales. England’s Jack Catterall, considered no more than a decent domestic-level talent for most of his career, showed that he had been underrated with a comprehensive 12-round decision over declining Regis Prograis. But the top performance, by a landslide, was delivered by Bakhram Murtalaziev who annihilated Tim Tszyu on Oct. 19 in Orlando, Florida.

Murtalaziev was undefeated (22-0, 16 KOs) and the reigning IBF junior middleweight champion, but he was the underdog and the “B” side. As champions go, and there are roughly five dozen across the 17 weight divisions, the California-based Russian ranked among the least well-known. He had won his title in Berlin with an 11^th-round stoppage of an unexceptional 38-year-old German-Ecuadorian campaigner, Jack Culcay, and he would be making his first defense.

Managed by Egis Klimas who also handles Oleksandr Usyk and Vasiliy Lomachenko, among others, Bakhram Murtalaziev came from a good barn in the vernacular of a horseplayer, but on paper that alone was insufficient to get him over the hump against Tim Tszyu who a few short months earlier was widely considered the best 154-pound boxer in the world.

That was before he met up with Sebastian Fundora who blemished his record, but that setback could have been written off as a fluke.

As we recall, Tszyu was scheduled to fight Keith Thurman in the initial PBC offering on Amazon Prime Video, but Thurman suffered a biceps injury in training and Fundora was bumped up from the undercard to fill the breach. With only 12 days’ notice, Tim Tszyu went from fighting a five-foot-seven fighter who fights out of an orthodox stance to fighting a southpaw who stood almost a full foot taller. The “Towering Inferno” has his limitations, but poses a special problem to anyone, let alone an opponent with little time to formulate a good game plan.

Tszyu was hampered in the Fundora fight by a gash on his hairline that hampered his vision. The injury happened in the second round when he ducked under Fundora and walked into an elbow. The gash bled copiously throughout the fight and yet the best that Fundora could do was win a split (albeit fair) decision.

To say that Tszyu failed to rebound from the Fundora misadventure would be putting it mildly. Murtalaziev steamrolled him, knocking him to the canvas four times in all before Tszyu’s corner tossed in the towel at the 1:55 mark of the third stanza. It was painful to watch. Referee Chris Young was faulted for allowing the match to continue as long as it did. Compounding Tszyu’s misery, his celebrated father, a first ballot Hall of Famer, was ringside. Kostya Tszyu hadn’t seen his oldest son fight in the flesh since Tim’s pro debut in 2016.

Although the dichotomy is imperfect, Tim Tszyu, who turns 30 on Saturday, is more of a puncher than a boxer. That may work against him so far as clawing his way back to a position of prominence. The noted boxing coach Stephen “Breadman” Edwards, a keen student of the history of boxing in the modern era, expressed this sentiment in a Q and A story for Boxing Scene. “Destructive fighters usually don’t come back to full capacity after bad KO losses,” he said, citing John Mugabi, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Sonny Liston, and Naseem Hamed to illustrate his point. Moreover, added Edwards, “No one will ever be afraid of him again.”

But there were two stories that emerged from the Murtalaziev-Tszyu fight. Tim Tszyu crashed, but Bakhram Murtalaziev emerged from obscurity, announcing his presence (pardon the cliché) as a force to be reckoned with. As for his next assignment, the best guess is that it will come against Sebastian Fundora or Errol Spence Jr. who are expected to meet early next year. And based on Murtalaziev’s stunning performance in Orlando, it will be impossible to bet against him.

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Foreman-Moorer: 30 Years Later

Published

3 days ago

October 30, 2024

The Sweet Science

Foreman-Moorer: 30 Years Later

By TSS SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT JAMIE REBNER — In sports, middle-aged athletes are not supposed to beat opponents who are half their age and in their athletic primes. Only the greatest ones can use guile, technique, and experience to compensate for the dulling of speed, reflexes, and athleticism that have unavoidably eroded with time.

That is why George Foreman’s feat of reclaiming the heavyweight title at 45 is so impressive. It was thirty years ago this coming Tuesday, Nov 5, 1994, that Foreman scored a monumental upset in knocking out Michael Moorer to win back the title he had lost twenty years prior against Muhammad Ali in The Rumble in the Jungle. In doing so, Big George became the oldest heavyweight champion, breaking the record previously held by Jersey Joe Walcott, who had won the title at 38.

When Foreman beat Moorer, he was in the twilight of his second career, a comeback that began in 1987. George had retired in 1977 after losing to Jimmy Young and experiencing a spiritual awakening in his locker room. That led him to become a minister and devote himself to his family and congregation. During his retirement, he opened a youth center in Houston, which required much financial support, prompting him to return to the ring.

After winning 24 straight fights from 1987-1990, Foreman lost his first title shot by decision to Evander Holyfield in 1991. He rebounded from that loss with three more wins before getting a crack at the WBO title against Tommy Morrison in 1993. But his performance against Morrison was disappointing and he lost another decision. After that, Foreman was out of the ring for 17 months before he was gifted another title shot against Moorer.

Foreman got that gift because Moorer, due to his sullen demeanor and curtness with the media, was not a draw with the fans. He was also an unproven champion, having beaten Holyfield for two belts only seven months prior. So. Moorer needed a name opponent who could bring in the crowds for his first title defense. And the other top heavyweights like Oliver McCall (WBC champ), Lennox Lewis, and Riddick Bowe didn’t have close to Foreman’s drawing power. So. deserving or not, Foreman was chosen as the challenger to make a fight that would be worth the public’s attention and pockets.

Even Foreman was surprised by getting selected to fight Moorer. “I never in my wildest imagination thought I’d get a title shot again,” he told Associated Press sports columnist Tim Dahlberg. Still, George was determined to make his third time a charm.

But as motivated as George was, there was an irrefutable gap in speed between himself and the much younger champion. From the opening bell, Moorer used his superior quickness and reflexes to make Foreman look stiff and slow. And although George landed punches early on, he fired them one at a time while Moorer countered with multiple shots. But despite Moorer’s advantage in connects, his trainer Teddy Atlas advised him from the get-go not to stand in front of Foreman and make himself a stationary target for a right-hand bomb.

But Moorer failed to heed that advice as he continued to outwork Foreman in the middle rounds. Although he was winning, Moorer’s overconfidence kept him at close quarters, and he continued to circle unwisely to his left and into Foreman’s dangerous right hand. And despite absorbing many quality shots, Foreman never appeared hurt or discouraged thanks to his granite chin and unyielding resolve. He was determined to win and he was willing to walk through as many flush shots as he needed to do so.

With Moorer content to stay in range, Foreman gladly returned his firepower and he landed some telling right crosses, uppercuts, and plenty of thudding body blows during the battle. And while Moorer continued to pile up points and rounds, as long as George was marching forward and throwing shots, he had a puncher’s chance.

And with a minute to go in round ten, that punch came. After missing a three-punch combination, Foreman scored with a one-two, with the right hand landing on the forehead. He immediately repeated that combination but this time aimed the right hand lower on Moorer’s jaw. That slight adjustment caused his bulldozer right to collide perfectly with Moorer’s chin, sending the champion crashing to the canvas and sprawled onto his back. The champion couldn’t beat the count, and just like that, the fight was over, Moorer’s short-lived title run ending before it ever truly began.

With a single, shattering blow, Foreman etched his name into boxing history. Wearing the same trunks from Zaire 20 years before, he was now heavyweight champion of the world once again. It was a shocking result that defied conventional wisdom since seldom do 45-year-old boxers score knockouts over champions in their athletic primes. But Foreman reminded us that he was anything but your typical quadragenarian. He was special, and he had two distinct heavyweight championship reigns to prove it.

—

About the author:

Jamie Rebner lives in Toronto, Canada. He has been a freelance boxing writer since 2016 and his writing has appeared in The Fight City, Boxing News Online, The Ring, and Ringside Seat magazine. His Substack blog is Fight Fundamental, and he is currently writing a book about George Foreman’s comeback. He is also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Follow him on Twitter @J_NReb.

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