Remembering Roy Harris, the Boxer from Cut and Shoot Who Fought Floyd Patterson

Published

1 year ago

August 15, 2023

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Former world heavyweight title challenger Roy Harris passed away last week at the age of 90. This coming Friday, August 18, marks the sixty-fifth anniversary of the fight between Harris and the incumbent champion, Floyd Patterson, one of the quirkiest promotions in the history of fistiana.

Patterson vs Harris was a great triumph for the vendors of hucksterism. It was plain to anyone with a discerning eye that Roy Harris had no business in the same ring with Floyd Patterson — when the match was terminated, Patterson was ahead by 20 points (!) on one of the scorecards – but the promotion yet turned a handsome profit.

Roy Harris hailed from Cut and Shoot, a hamlet in southeast Texas on the edge of the Big Thicket. That imbued him with a ready-made hook. A publicist could concoct a heady brew from that place name alone and Roy “Cut and Shoot” Harris was fermented into a backwoods hillbilly in the mold of the comic book character L’il Abner. There was a fly in the ointment, however. Harris was an elementary school teacher with a college degree, but this fact seldom crept into stories about him as it animated the spoilsports. (The sports editor of an Indiana paper opined that Harris would have a better chance of overcoming Patterson “if he were, say, an unemployed artichoke picker who never finished the eighth grade.”)

As part of the pre-fight hoopla, Harris appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Shirtless and barefoot, holding an old hunting rifle, he is flanked by his hound dogs. Back in those days, getting one’s face on the cover of Sports Illustrated, which sold for 25 cents on newsstands (remember newsstands?), was the crème-de-la-crème of pre-fight hype.

The accompanying story by Joe David Brown was full of fanciful fluff. It was actually true that Roy Harris practiced his craft in his backyard in a makeshift ring with barbed wire on one side and an occasional feral pig wandering about, but one must take with a grain of salt the assertion that whenever he ran out of sparring partners, his brothers would go out and shanghai barflys from local honky-tonks.

To be certain, the legend of Roy “Cut and Shoot” Harris was growing before he made the cover of S.I. As an amateur, he often fought barefoot. His father, Henry Harris – Big Henry to the locals – worked his corner wearing a coonskin hat.

Big Henry was no slouch when things got feisty. According to author Brown, he once ax-handled 16 people to the hospital during a disagreement at a local dance hall. Talking to a UPI reporter, one of Roy Harris’s brothers asserted that his uncle Bob, Big Henry’s sibling, once cut off a fellow’s head with a pocket knife. “In self-defense, of course,” he added, lest anyone get the wrong idea.

Down in southeast Texas, one didn’t mess with the Harris clan, but Roy Harris’s press clippings were of no use to him when he locked horns with Floyd Patterson on a Monday evening on a balmy 1958 night in Los Angeles. He had a moment of glory in the second round when he caught Patterson off-balance and scored a flash knockdown, but otherwise it was all Patterson who knocked Harris to the canvas in the seventh round and twice in the eighth and once more in the 12th before Harris’s cornermen insisted that Roy call it a night. At the finish, Floyd was unmarked and Roy was a bloody mess.

The “10-point-must” system was then fairly new in California and there was no consensus as to how to score a lopsided round. Referee Mushy Callahan scored round seven 10-6 and round eight 10-5. His scorecard favoring Patterson heading into the aborted rounds was the widest, but not by much. The judges had it 117-98 and 116-102.

The fight drew an announced crowd of 21,680 including many out-of-towners wearing 10-gallon hats. Perhaps another 200,000 witnessed the mismatch on a big screen. Patterson vs Harris was beamed to 151 closed-circuit outlets in 133 cities in the United States and Canada including eight locations in Texas. The tub-thumpers did their job well. Everyone made money.

In defense of Roy Harris, although he lacked a big punch, he could fight more than a little. His breakout year came in 1957 when he advanced his record to 22-0 with narrow decisions over Bob Baker and Willie Pastrano and a one-sided decision over journeyman Willi Besmanoff. Roy Harris was only a cruiserweight by today’s standards and Baker, a rugged campaigner from Pittsburgh, out-weighed him by 26 pounds.

His win over Willie Pastrano would take on a brighter tint when Pastrano wrested the light heavyweight title from Harold Johnson (a gift decision, but that’s a story for another day). The Harris-Pastrano fight had a rematch clause that stipulated that if Pastrano lost, Harris was obligated to fight him again within 60 days in Miami Beach where Pastrano, an Angelo Dundee disciple, then hung his hat. The rematch was postponed twice before dying on the vine. Harris had never fought outside Texas before meeting Floyd Patterson.

Whatever his limitations, Harris had a bottomless well of courage as he showed when he stayed 12 rounds with Patterson and again when he accepted a match with petrifying Sonny Liston who blasted him out in the opening round.

In retirement, Roy Harris quit school teaching after earning a law degree from the University of Arkansas. He sold real estate on the side and reportedly cashed in big as Cut and Shoot and neighboring, oil-rich Conroe grew in leaps and bounds. In 1966, he was elected County Clerk and served for 28 years. For someone painted as a backwoods hillbilly, he had quite a life.

Harris passed away peacefully on Aug. 8. A widower for the last 15 years of his life, he is survived by six children, nine grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. We here at TSS send our condolences to his loved ones.

—

Note: Joe David Brown’s Sports Illustrated cover story on Roy Harris is a real hoot. For some unfathomable reason, it was expunged from the Sports Illustrated vault. Brown, who passed away at age 60 at his home in rural Georgia, is best known for his novel “Addie Pray” which was fashioned into the 1973 blockbuster “Paper Moon,” a comedy starring Ryan O’Neal and his real-life daughter Tatum O’Neal, an Oscar winner at the age of 10.

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Arne K. Lang

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Najee Lopez Steps up in Class and Wins Impressively at Plant City

Published

9 hours ago

January 24, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Garry Jonas’ ProBox series returned to its regular home in Plant City, Florida, tonight with a card topped by a 10-round light heavyweight match between fast-rising Najee Lopez and former world title challenger Lenin Castillo. This was considered a step-up fight for the 25-year-old Lopez, an Atlanta-born-fighter of Puerto Rican heritage. Although the 36-year-old Castillo had lost two of his least three heading in, he had gone the distance with Dimitry Bivol and Marcus Browne and been stopped only once (by Callum Smith).

Lopez landed the cleaner punches throughout. Although Castillo seemed unfazed during the first half of the fight, he returned to his corner at the end of round five exhibiting signs of a fractured jaw.

In the next round, Lopez cornered him against the ropes and knocked him through the ropes with a left-right combination. Referee Emil Lombardo could have stopped the fight right there, but he allowed the courageous Castillo to carry on for a bit longer, finally stopping the fight as Castillo’s corner and a Florida commissioner were signaling that it was over.

The official time was 2:36 of round six. Bigger fights await the talented Lopez who improved to 13-0 with his tenth win inside the distance. Castillo declined to 25-7-1.

Co-Feature

In a stinker of a heavyweight fight, Stanley Wright, a paunchy, 34-year-old North Carolina journeyman, scored a big upset with a 10-round unanimous decision over previously unbeaten Jeremiah Milton.

Wright carried 280 pounds, 100 pounds more than in his pro debut 11 years ago. Although he was undefeated (13-0, 11 KOs), he had never defeated an opponent with a winning record and his last four opponents were a miserable 19-48-2. Moreover, he took the fight on short notice.

What Wright had going for him was fast hands and, in the opening round, he put Milton on the canvas with a straight right hand. From that point, Milton fought tentatively and Wright, looking fatigued as early as the fourth round, fought only in spurts. It seemed doubtful that he could last the distance, but Milton, the subject of a 2021 profile in these pages, was wary of Wright’s power and unable to capitalize. “It’s almost as if Milton is afraid to win,” said ringside commentator Chris Algieri during the ninth stanza when the bout had devolved into a hugfest.

The judges had it 96-93 and 97-92 twice for the victorious Wright who boosted his record to 14-0 without improving his stature.

Also

In the TV opener, a 10-round contest in the junior middleweight division, Najee Lopez stablemate Darrelle Valsaint (12-0, 10 KOs) scored his career-best win with a second-round knockout of 35-year-old Dutch globetrotter Stephen Danyo (23-7-3).

A native Floridian of Haitian descent, the 22-year-old Valsaint was making his eighth start in Plant City. He rocked Danyo with a chopping right hand high on the temple and then, as Danyo slumped forward, delivered the coup-de-gras, a short left uppercut. The official time was 2:17 of round two.

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Japanese Superstar Naoya Inoue is Headed to Vegas after KOing Ye Joon Kim

Published

19 hours ago

January 24, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Japan’s magnificent Naoya Inoue, appearing in his twenty-fourth title fight, scored his 11^th straight stoppage tonight while successfully defending his unified super bantamweight title, advancing his record to 29-0 (26 KOs) at the expense of Ye Joon Kim. The match at Tokyo’s Ariake Arena came to an end at the 2:25 mark of round four when U.S. referee Mark Nelson tolled “10” over the brave but overmatched Korean.

Kim, raised in a Seoul orphanage, had a few good moments, but the “Monster” found his rhythm in the third round, leaving Kim with a purplish welt under his left eye. In the next frame, he brought the match to a conclusion, staggering the Korean with a left and then finishing matters with an overhand right that put Kim on the seat of his pants, dazed and wincing in pain.

Kim, who brought a 21-2-2 record, took the fight on 10 days’ notice, replacing Australia’s Sam Goodman who suffered an eye injury in sparring that never healed properly, forcing him to withdraw twice.

Co-promoter Bob Arum, who was in the building, announced that Inoue’s next fight would happen in Las Vegas in the Spring. Speculation centers on Mexico City’s Alan Picasso (31-0-1, 17 KOs) who is ranked #1 by the WBC. However, there’s also speculation that the 31-year-old Inoue may move up to featherweight and seek to win a title in a fifth weight class, in which case a potential opponent is the winner of the Feb. 2 match between Brandon Figueroa and Stephen Fulton. In “olden days,” this notion would have been dismissed as the Japanese superstar and Figueroa/Fulton have different promoters, but the arrival of Turki Alalshikh, the sport’s Daddy Warbucks, has changed the dynamic. Tonight, Naoya Inoue made his first start as a brand ambassador for Riyadh Season.

Simmering on the backburner is a megafight with countryman Junto Nakatani, an easy fight to make as Arum has ties to both. However, the powers-that-be would prefer more “marination.”

Inoue has appeared twice in Las Vegas, scoring a seventh-round stoppage of Jason Moloney in October of 2020 at the MGM Bubble and a third-round stoppage of Michael Dasmarinas at the Virgin Hotels in June of 2021.

Semi-wind-up

In a 12-round bout for a regional welterweight title, Jin Sasaki improved to 19-1-1 (17) with a unanimous decision over Shoki Sakai (29-15-3). The scores were 118-110, 117-111, and 116-112.

Also

In a bout in which both contestants were on the canvas, Toshiki Shimomachi (20-1-3) edged out Misaki Hirano (11-2), winning a majority decision. A 28-year-old Osaka southpaw with a fan-friendly style, the lanky Shimomachi, unbeaten in his last 22 starts, competes as a super bantamweight. A match with Inoue may be in his future.

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Eric Priest Wins Handily on Thursday’s Golden Boy card at the Commerce Casino

Published

1 day ago

January 24, 2025

David A. Avila

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Model turned fighter Eric Priest jabbed and jolted his way into the super middleweight rankings with a shutout decision win over veteran Tyler Howard on Thursday.

In his first main event Priest (15-0, 8 KOs) proved ready for contender status by defusing every attack Tennessee’s Howard (20-3, 11 KOs) could muster at Commerce Casino, the second fight in six days at the LA County venue.

All ticket monies collected on the Folden Boy Promotions card were contributed to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation as they battle wildfires sprouting all over Los Angeles County due to high winds.

Priest, 26, had never fought anyone near Howard’s caliber but used a ramrod jab to keep the veteran off-balance and unable to muster a forceful counter-attack. Round after round the Korean-American fighter pumped left jabs while circling his opposition.

Though hit with power shots, none seemed to faze Howard but his own blows were unable to put a dent in Priest. After 10 rounds of the same repetitive action all three judges scored the fight 100-90 for Priest who now wins a regional super middleweight title.

Priest also joins the top 15 rankings of the WBA organization.

In a fight between evenly matched middleweights, Jordan Panthen (11-0, 9 KOs) remained undefeated after 10 rounds versus DeAundre Pettus (12-4, 7 KOs). Though equally skilled, Panthen simply out-worked the South Caroliina fighter to win by unanimous decision. No knockdowns were scored.

Other Bouts

Grant Flores (8-0, 6 KOs) knocked out Costa Rica’s David Lobo Ramirez (17-4, 12 KOs) with two successive right uppercuts at 2:59 of the second round of the super welterweight fight.

Cayden Griffith (3-0, 3 KOs) used a left hook to the body to stop Mark Misiura at 1:43 of the second round in a super welterweight bout.

Jordan Fuentes (3-0) floored Brandon Badillo (0-3-1) in the third round and proceeded to win by decision after four rounds in a super bantamweight fight.

A super featherweight match saw Leonardo Sanchez (8-0) win by decision over Joseph Cruz Brown (10-12) after six rounds.

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy

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