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The Hauser Report: Vitali Klitschko and More

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On August 9, I listened in on the recording of an interview with Vitali Klitschko that will air on August 19 and August 20 on the nationally syndicated television show GameTime.

Boxing fans know Klitschko as an elite heavyweight who reigned as WBC and WBO heavyweight champion during a storied ring career. More significantly from a global perspective, Vitali has been active in Ukrainian politics for two decades. In 2010, he helped found an opposition political party called the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform. Two years later, he was elected to parliament. Since then, he has been elected twice as mayor of Kyiv. Other than president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Klitschko is his country’s most visible symbol of resistance against Vladimir Putin’s brutal war of aggression.

As a general rule, GameTime is devoted to sports. Its host, Boomer Esiason, played in the National Football League for fourteen seasons and was honored in 1988 as the league’s Most Valuable Player. This interview was about a subject more serious than boxing.

Klitschko was wearing a grey T-shirt under a gray pullover jacket. He cuts an imposing and heroic figure.

The conversation was conducted entirely in English and focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Klitschko appealed for continued support from the United States and the rest of the world. He voiced the view that Putin is mentally ill and talked about the horrors of the war, including the destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure and people being killed by Russian missiles while they were asleep in their beds.

Some of the other thoughts that Vitali expressed follow:

*          “Normal life has been destroyed . . . We are talking about the genocide of the Ukrainian people . . .  Without help, we can’t survive.”

*          “We don’t want to be part of Russia . . . Our prayer is to stop this senseless war, to win this war, and be part of the democratic world. We are fighting for that.”

*          “Russia destroyed the rules of the world . . . The future of Europe, the future of the world, is being decided now in Ukraine.”

*          *          *

In today’s digital age, self-published books about boxing arrive in the mail on a regular basis. Some are written by accomplished journalists. Others are by neophyte authors. When the Sunlight Goes Dark – a novel by Oliver W. Tuthill Jr (Austin Macauley Publishers) – is a recent self-published offering.

Tuthill spent a year trying without success to find a traditional publisher or literary agent who would contact publishers on his behalf. Finally, he concluded that, if he wanted to see his book in print, he should self-publish.

Packages vary from publisher to publisher. Tuthill paid $3,300 to Austin Macauley and $800 to a copy editor. He was dissatisfied with the cover design that the publisher prepared and hired a graphic designer to create a new one. He also paid $130 for his share of a small ad that Austin Macauley placed in Publishers Weekly. In exchange, he received twenty copies of the book, thirty flyers, and ten posters. If he wants more books, he has to buy them.

When the Sunlight Goes Dark is listed on Amazon.com in paperback for $18.95 and in a Kindle edition for $4.50. Tuthill is pleased with the book itself but disappointed by the lack of marketing support from the publisher. He tried to get himself booked on podcasts and radio shows but, in his words, was “amazed to learn almost all of them want to be paid. It is a learning experience,” he adds. “I’m not very good with the social media thing.”

The book’s plot revolves around Bobby Clantinani (a young 154-pound boxer), his older brother, Ted (a heavyweight contender) and their brutal father. Other characters include the beautiful Judith Tesch (who’s involved in a love triangle with Bobby and Ted), Robert Rios (a rapacious promoter who’s also a stripclub owner), and Benny Bear (a former fighter who trains heavyweight contender Tyler Murphy). Murphy is a psycho who beats up strippers.

There are the usual world sanctioning body shenanigans perpetrated by the corrupt Global Boxing Association, International Boxing Group, and World Boxing Guild. Home Viewer is a stand-in for HBO. Caesars Palace is reimagined as Constantine’s Colosseum. There are murders, fixed fights, and a long-count controversy.

On the positive side, When the Sunlight Goes Dark is a smooth read. And there are some nice touches. For example, an old trainer sitting in an empty arena tells Bobby that sitting there is “like being in church to me.”

But the plot is predictable. When a last-minute substitute results in a mysterious second appearing in Tyler Murphy’s corner on fight night, a reader doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Murphy’s water bottle will be spiked. And little is gained by Tuthill’s nod to The Godfather in the form of a severed hand being sent through the mail.

The characters tend to be stereotypes. That might pass muster in a 1940s boxing movie. But it’s out of place in a 21st-century novel where readers expect characters, not caricatures. Bobby Clantinani is heroic. Ted Clantinani is a cad. Their father (the brutal Oran Clantinani) punches his long-suffering wife in the face with regularity (knocking her unconscious and breaking bones in the process). Oran also smothers a cute little puppy to death in the manner of Tony Soprano murdering Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos.

And there are times when the writing is a bit much . . . “If Greyhound bus seats could talk, they could tell a thousand tales that would break a strong man’s heart” . . . “She smelled divine, a feminine prototype of desire and lust passed down through English genes over the course of hundreds of centuries.”

But I’ll close on a positive note by saying that, as I read When the Sunlight Goes Dark, I was curious to know how things would turn out. And Tuthill is happy with the end result. “I would self-publish again if it was the only option I had,” he says. “I feel good about writing the novel, and I am pleased with the printing job the publisher did.”

*          *          *

Yory Boy Campas fought in Tijuana on July 29 (the same night that Terence Crawford devastated Errol Spence). Campas is 52 years old with 128 fights on his ring resume. There was a time when he was good enough to beat faded versions of Raul Marquez and Tony Ayala Jr. But he came up short in his biggest fights and, before Saturday night, had last fought five years ago.

Campas’s opponent on July 29 – 43-year-old Juan Carlos Parra Rodriguez – had an 8-26-2 (19 KOs by) ring ledger. Parra last beat a fighter with a winning record in 2003. That fighter’s record was 1-and-0 at the time and he ended his career at 1-and-1.

Campas knocked Parra out in the eighth round.

I could say that this won’t end well for Campas. But it already hasn’t.

*          *          *

With the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup nearing an end, it’s worth revisiting the experience that one of boxing’s great middleweight champions had with soccer.

When Sergio Martinez was seventeen years old, he played forward in the #7 slot for a team called Defensoris in a junior amateur football (soccer) league in the province of Buenos Aires.

“We were playing against a team called Sportman,” Martinez told me years ago. “It was a tournament that was important for me to play well in. There were a lot of professional scouts in the stands. If I did well, it could take me places.”

“I was very inspired that day,” Sergio reminisced. “We won 4-to-0, and I scored three goals. On the first goal, there was a free throw from one of my teammates and I lifted it in an arc with my right foot over the goalie. That put us ahead in the score. The next goal was my best of the game. I stopped the ball with my chest, dribbled it past four defenders, and scored on a finesse kick with my right foot. The third goal was at the end of the game. Their goalie was at midfield. I got the ball, dribbled all the way in, and scored on an empty net. After each goal, everyone was celebrating and hugging. It was an incredible feeling.”

“I wasn’t born with the instincts that a great football player has,” Martinez continued. “My technique wasn’t good, but I was fast and strong. My emotions were my Achilles heel. I was very emotional when I played football. The next game was for the championship. There was a tie and the game went to penalty kicks. If I make my kick, we play on. If I miss it, we lose.”

“I placed the ball down in front of the goal,” Sergio recalled. “Then I got nervous. The goalie got bigger and bigger in my mind and the goal got smaller and smaller. I kicked the ball and it went slowly to the goalie, right to his hands. He didn’t even have to move to field it. I was humiliated and embarrassed. It was one of the worst moments of my life. Because of my failure, we lost the championship game. I was so devastated that I quit the team.”

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – The Universal Sport: Two Years Inside Boxing – was just published by the University of Arkansas Press. https://www.uapress.com/product/the-universal-sport/ 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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Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.

Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.

Hopefully the worst is over.

Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.

Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.

“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.

He knows talent.

Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.

Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.

Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.

Can Trinidad reach world title status?

Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.

It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.

Mizukii Hiruta

Mizukii Hiruta

Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.

Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

Boxing and the Media

The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.

Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.

Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.

Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.

MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.

Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.

Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.

It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.

Photos credit: Lina Baker

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Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards

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Bob Santos, the 2022 Sports Illustrated and The Ring magazine Trainer of the Year, is a busy fellow. On Feb. 1, fighters under his tutelage will open and close the show on the four-bout main portion of the Prime Video PPV event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Jeison Rosario continues his comeback in the lid-lifter, opposing Jesus Ramos. In the finale, former Cuban amateur standout David Morrell will attempt to saddle David Benavidez with his first defeat. Both combatants in the main event have been chasing 168-pound kingpin Canelo Alvarez, but this bout will be contested for a piece of the light heavyweight title.

When the show is over, Santos will barely have time to exhale. Before the month is over, one will likely find him working the corner of Dainier Pero, Brian Mendoza, Elijah Garcia, and perhaps others.

Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) turned 28 last month. He is in the prime of his career. However, a lot of folk rate Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) a very live dog. At last look, Benavidez was a consensus 7/4 (minus-175) favorite, a price that betokens a very competitive fight.

Bob Santos, needless to say, is confident that his guy can upset the odds. “I have worked with both,” he says. “It’s a tough fight for David Morrell, but he has more ways to victory because he’s less one-dimensional. He can go forward or fight going back and his foot speed is superior.”

Benavidez’s big edge, in the eyes of many, is his greater experience. He captured the vacant WBC 168-pound title at age 20, becoming the youngest super middleweight champion in history. As a pro, Benavidez has answered the bell for 148 rounds compared with only 54 for Morrell, but Bob Santos thinks this angle is largely irrelevant.

“Sure, I’d rather have pro experience than amateur experience,” he says, “but if you look at Benavidez’s record, he fought a lot of soft opponents when he was climbing the ladder.”

True. Benavidez, who turned pro at age 16, had his first seven fights in Mexico against a motley assortment of opponents. His first bout on U.S. soil occurred in his native Pheonix against an opponent with a 1-6-2 record.

While it’s certainly true that Morrell, 26, has yet to fight an opponent the caliber of Caleb Plant, he took up boxing at roughly the same tender age as Benavidez and earned his spurs in the vaunted Cuban amateur system, eventually defeating elite amateurs in international tournaments.

“If you look at his [pro] record, you will notice that [Morrell] has hardly lost a round,” says Santos of the fighter who captured an interim title in only his third professional bout with a 12-round decision over Guyanese veteran Lennox Allen.

Bob Santos is something of a late bloomer. He was around boxing for a long time, assisting such notables as Joe Goossen, Emanuel Steward, and Ronnie Shields before becoming recognized as one of the sport’s top trainers.

A native of San Jose, he grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood but not in a household where Spanish was spoken. “I know enough now to get by,” he says modestly. He attended James Lick High School whose most famous alumnus is Heisman winning and Super Bowl winning quarterback Jim Plunkett. “We worked in the same apricot orchard when we were kids,” says Santos. “Not at the same time, but in the same field.”

After graduation, he followed his father’s footsteps into construction work, but boxing was always beckoning. A cousin, the late Luis Molina, represented the U.S. as a lightweight in the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, and was good enough as a pro to appear in a main event at Madison Square Garden where he lost a narrow decision to the notorious Puerto Rican hothead Frankie Narvaez, a future world title challenger.

Santos’ cousin was a big draw in San Jose in an era when the San Jose / Sacramento territory was the bailiwick of Don Chargin. “Don was a beautiful man and his wife Lorraine was even nicer,” says Santos of the husband/wife promotion team who are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Don Chargin was inducted in 2001 and Lorraine posthumously in 2018.

Chargin promoted Fresno-based featherweight Hector Lizarraga who captured the IBF title in 1997. Lizarraga turned his career around after a 5-7-3 start when he hooked up with San Jose gym operator Miguel Jara. It was one of the most successful reclamation projects in boxing history and Bob Santos played a part in it.

Bob hopes to accomplish the same turnaround with Jeison Rosario whose career was on the skids when Santos got involved. In his most recent start, Rosario held heavily favored Jarrett Hurd to a draw in a battle between former IBF 154-pound champions on a ProBox card in Florida.

“I consider that one of my greatest achievements,” says Santos, noting that Rosario was stopped four times and effectively out of action for two years before resuming his career and is now on the cusp of earning another title shot.

The boxer with whom Santos is most closely identified is former four-division world title-holder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. The slick southpaw, the pride of Gilroy, California, the self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World,” retired following a bad loss to Omar Figueroa Jr, but had second thoughts and is currently riding a six-fight winning streak. “I’ve known him since he was 15 years old,” notes Santos.

Years from now, Santos may be more closely identified with the Pero brothers, Dainier and Lenier, who aspire to be the Cuban-American version of the Klitschko brothers.

Santos describes Dainier, one of the youngest members of Cuba’s Olympic Team in Tokyo, as a bigger version of Oleksandr Usyk. That may be stretching it, but Dainier (10-0, 8 KOs as a pro), certainly hits harder.

Dainier Pero

Dainier Pero

This reporter was a fly on the wall as Santos put Dainier Pero through his paces on Tuesday (Jan. 14) at Bones Adams gym in Las Vegas. Santos held tight to a punch shield, in the boxing vernacular a donut, as the Cuban practiced his punches. On several occasions the trainer was knocked off-balance and the expression on his face as his body absorbed some of the after-shocks, plainly said, “My goodness, what the hell am I doing here? There has to be an easier way to make a living.” It was an assignment that Santos would have undoubtedly preferred handing off to his young assistant, his son Joe Santos, but Joe was preoccupied coordinating David Morrell’s camp.

Dainer’s brother Lenier is also an ex-Olympian, and like Dainier was a super heavyweight by trade as an amateur. With an 11-0 (8 KOs) record, Lenier Pero’s pro career was on a parallel path until stalled by a managerial dispute. Lenier last fought in March of last year and Santos says he will soon join his brother in Las Vegas.

There’s little to choose between the Pero brothers, but Dainier is considered to have the bigger upside because at age 25 he is the younger sibling by seven years.

Bob Santos was in the running again this year for The Ring magazine’s Trainer of the Year, one of six nominees for the honor that was bestowed upon his good friend Robert Garcia. Considering the way that Santos’ career is going, it’s a safe bet that he will be showered with many more accolades in the years to come.

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Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong

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Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong

There’s not much happening on the boxing front this month. That’s consistent with the historical pattern.

Fight promoters of yesteryear tended to pull back after the Christmas and New Year holidays on the assumption that fight fans had less discretionary income at their disposal. Weather was a contributing factor. In olden days, more boxing cards were staged outdoors and the most attractive match-ups tended to be summertime events.

There were exceptions, of course. On Jan. 17, 1941, an SRO crowd of 23,180 filled Madison Square Garden to the rafters to witness the welterweight title fight between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. (This was the third Madison Square Garden, situated at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue, roughly 17 blocks north of the current Garden which sits atop Pennsylvania Station. The first two arenas to take this name were situated farther south adjacent to Madison Square Park).

This was a rematch. They had fought here in October of the previous year. In a shocker, Zivic won a 15-round decision. The fight was close on the scorecards. Referee Arthur Donovan and one of the judges had it even after 14 rounds, but Zivic had won his rounds more decisively and he punctuated his well-earned triumph by knocking Armstrong face-first to the canvas as the final bell sounded.

This was a huge upset.

Armstrong had a rocky beginning to his pro career, but he came on like gangbusters after trainer/manager Eddie Mead acquired his contract with backing from Broadway and Hollywood star Al Jolson. Heading into his first match with Zivic – the nineteenth defense of the title he won from Barney Ross – Hammerin’ Henry had suffered only one defeat in his previous 60 fights, that coming in his second meeting with Lou Ambers, a controversial decision.

Shirley Povich, the nationally-known sports columnist for the Washington Post, conducted an informal survey of boxing insiders and found only person who gave Zivic a chance. The dissident was Chris Dundee (then far more well-known than his younger brother Angelo). “Zivic knows all the tricks,” said Dundee. “He’ll butt Armstrong with his head, gouge him with his thumbs and hit him just as low as Armstrong [who had five points deducted for low blows in his bout with Ambers].”

Indeed, Pittsburgh’s Ferdinand “Fritzie” Zivic, the youngest and best of five fighting sons of a Croatian immigrant steelworker (Fritzie’s two oldest brothers represented the U.S. at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics) would attract a cult following because of his facility for bending the rules. It would be said that no one was more adept at using his thumbs to blind an opponent or using the laces of his gloves as an anti-coagulant, undoing the work of a fighter’s cut man.

Although it was generally understood that at age 28 his best days were behind him, Henry Armstrong was chalked the favorite in the rematch (albeit a very short favorite) a tribute to his body of work. Although he had mastered Armstrong in their first encounter, most boxing insiders considered Fritzie little more than a high-class journeyman and he hadn’t looked sharp in his most recent fight, a 10-round non-title affair with lightweight champion Lew Jenkins who had the best of it in the eyes of most observers although the match was declared a draw.

The Jan. 17 rematch was a one-sided affair. Veteran New York Times scribe James P. Dawson gave Armstrong only two rounds before referee Donovan pulled the plug at the 52-second mark of the twelfth round. Armstrong, boxing’s great perpetual motion machine, a world title-holder in three weight classes, repaired to his dressing room bleeding from his nose and his mouth and with both eyes swollen nearly shut. But his effort could not have been more courageous.

At the conclusion of the 10th frame, Donovan went to Armstrong’s corner and said something to the effect, “you will have to show me something, Henry, or I will have to stop it.” What followed was Armstrong’s best round.

“[Armstrong] pulled the crowd to its feet in as glorious a rally as this observer has seen in twenty-five years of attendance at these ring battles,” wrote Dawson. But Armstrong, who had been stopped only once previously, that coming in his pro debut, had punched himself out and had nothing left.

Armstrong retired after this fight, siting his worsening eyesight, but he returned in the summer of the following year, soldiering on for 46 more fights, winning 37 to finish 149-21-10. During this run, he was reacquainted with Fritzie Zivic. Their third encounter was fought in San Francisco before a near-capacity crowd of 8,000 at the Civic Auditorium and Armstrong got his revenge, setting the pace and working the body effectively to win a 10-round decision. By then the welterweight title had passed into the hands of Freddie Cochran.

Hammerin’ Henry (aka Homicide Hank) Armstrong was named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990. Fritzie Zivic followed him into the Hall three years later.

Active from 1931 to 1949, Zivic lost 65 of his 231 fights – the most of anyone in the Hall of Fame, a dubious distinction – but there was yet little controversy when he was named to the Canastota shrine because one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who had fought a tougher schedule. Aside from Armstrong and Jenkins, he had four fights with Jake LaMotta, four with Kid Azteca, three with Charley Burley, two with Sugar Ray Robinson, two with Beau Jack, and singles with the likes of Billy Conn, Lou Ambers, and Bob Montgomery. Of the aforementioned, only Azteca, in their final meeting in Mexico City, and Sugar Ray, in their second encounter, were able to win inside the distance.

By the way, it has been written that no event of any kind at any of the four Madison Square Gardens ever drew a larger crowd than the crowd that turned out on Jan. 17, 1941, to see the rematch between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. Needless to say, prizefighting was big in those days.

A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.

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