The Sept. 11, 1964 fight between Dick Tiger and Don Fullmer marked the end of an era. The bout aired on ABC which had taken the reins from NBC four years earlier. This would be the final episode of the series informally known as the “Friday Night Fights” or the “Fight of the Week,” closing the door on a 20-year run. In the future, boxing on free home TV (non-cable) would be sporadic, airing mostly on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The days when boxing was a weekly staple on at least one major TV network were gone forever.

During the NBC years, the show ran on Friday in the 10:00-11-00 pm slot for viewers in the Eastern Time Zone and the “studio” was almost always Madison Square Garden. The sponsor from the very beginning was the Gillette razor company (during the ABC run, El Producto Cigars came on as a co-sponsor).

Gillette sponsored many sporting events – the Kentucky Derby, the World Series, the U.S. Open golf tournament and the Blue-Gray college football all-star game, to name just a few – all of which were bundled under the handle of the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. Every sports fan in America could identify the catchphrase that the company used to promote their disposable “Blue Blades” – “Look Sharp, Feel Sharp, Be Sharp!” — and the melody of the Gillette jingle would become the most-played tune by marching bands at high school and college football halftime shows (the precursor, one might say, of the Kingsmen’s “Louie, Louie”).

The Sept. 11 curtain-closer wasn’t staged at Madison Square Garden but in Cleveland with the local area blacked out.

Dick Tiger, born and raised in Nigeria, was making his second start since losing his world middleweight title on a 15-round points decision to Joey Giardello. Don Fullmer would be attempting to restore the family honor. Dick Tiger was 2-0-1 vs. Gene Fullmer, Don’s more celebrated brother. Their third encounter, which proved to be Gene Fullmer’s final fight, was historic. It was staged in Ibadan, Nigeria, the first world title fight ever potted on the continent of Africa.

In New York, the epitaph of free TV boxing was written three weeks earlier when veteran Henry Hank fought up-and-comer Johnny Persol to a draw in a 10-round light heavyweight contest at the Garden. This was the final Gillette fight from the place where it all started.

Some historians trace the advent of TV boxing in the United States to Sept. 29, 1944, when a 20-year-old boxer from Connecticut, Willie Pep, followed his manager’s game plan to perfection, sticking and moving for 15 rounds to become the youngest featherweight champion in history, winning the New York version of the title from West Coast veteran Albert “Chalky” Wright.

There weren’t many TVs in use in those days. As had been true when the telephone was brand new, most were found in hospitals, commercial establishments, and in the homes of the very wealthy. But within a few years, with mass production and tumbling prices, the gizmo became a living room staple and the TV repairman, who made house calls like the family doctor, had a shop on every Main Street.

Boxing was ideally suited to the infant medium of television because the action was confined to a small area that required no refurbishment other than brighter illumination, keeping production costs low. The one-minute interval between rounds served as a natural commercial break. The main drawback was that a fight could end early, meaning fewer commercials for the sponsor who paid a flat rate.

At its zenith, boxing in some locales aired five nights a week. And it came to be generally seen that this oversaturation killed the golden goose. One by one, the small fight clubs dried up as fight fans stayed home to watch the fights on TV. In the big arenas, attendance fell off drastically. Note the difference between Pep vs. Wright, the 1944 originator, and Hank vs. Persol, also at Madison Square Garden:

Willie Pep vs. Chalky Wright Sept. 29, 1944      attendance 19,521

Henry Hank vs. Johnny Persol Aug. 21, 1964    attendance 5,219

(True, Pep vs. Wright was a far more alluring fight, but this fact alone doesn’t explain the wide gap. Published attendance counts aren’t always trustworthy. In the eyes of the UPI reporter who covered the Hank-Persol match, the crowd looked smaller. He estimated the attendance at 3,000.)

Hank vs. Persol was an entertaining bout between evenly-matched combatants. The Tiger-Fullmer bout, which played out before a sea of empty seats, was a snoozer. Don Fullmer, a late sub for Rocky Rivero who got homesick and returned to Argentina, was there just for the paycheck. A Pittsburgh reporter wrote that the match was as dull as a race between two turtles. Scoring off the “5-point-must” system, the judges awarded the match to Dick Tiger by margins of 6, 6, and 7 points.

And that was that. Some of the most sensational fights in the annals of boxing aired free on a major TV network, but the last big bang of the golden era was hardly a bang, merely a whimper.

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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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The photo accompanying this article is from the 1962 fight at Madison Square Garden between Dick Tiger (on the right) and Henry Hank. To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser

Adam Pollack has written eleven books about boxing’s early gloved champions including a three-volume study of Jack Dempsey. Volume Three of the Dempsey trilogy (which covers The Manassa Mauler’s ring career subsequent to Dempsey-Firpo) has just been published by Win by KO Publications.

Pollack (a former prosecutor and now a practicing criminal defense attorney in Iowa) is also an accomplished boxing referee. That leads to the question: “Would he have handled matters differently had he been the third man in the ring for Demsey vs. Luis Firpo and Dempsey’s “long count” rematch against Gene Tunney?”

“Unless you’re actually in the moment,” Pollack answers, “it’s hard to know how you’d handle situations like that. And I prefer to let readers decide things on their own. I just lay out the evidence and let readers make their own judgments.”

But when pressed, Pollack offers some thoughts.

The referee for Dempsey-Firpo was Johnny Gallagher. Firpo was knocked down seven times in round one while dropping Dempsey on flash knockdowns twice. Then he knocked Dempsey through the ropes into the press secton with a hellacious righthand before being knocked out himself in the second round.

“The neutral corner rule was in existence at the time of Dempsey-Firpo,” Pollack recounts. “But it was rarely enforced at that time. There was a fair amount of criticism of Gallagher for not enforcing the rule to the extent that he allowed Dempsey to hit Firpo as soon as Firpo’s glove left the canvas rather than making Dempsey wait until Firpo was in an on-guard standing position and ready to defend himself. In fact, that criticism led directly to the rule being highlighted in the referees’ instructions before both Dempsey-Tunney fights. If I’d been the referee for Dempsey-Firpo, using the accepted 1923 standard, I would have made Dempsey take a few steps back after each knockdown and not allowed him to approach until Firpo was totally upright. But I would not have required him to go to a neutral corner.”

“As for Dempsey being knocked through the ropes,” Pollack continues, “back then, a fighter who was knocked out of the ring had ten seconds to get back in, not twenty seconds the way it is today. The consensus is that Dempsey beat the ten-count and didn’t get any help from the writers. Just because someone is pushing you off of them doesn’t mean they’re helping you.”

As for the long-count controversy in Tunney-Dempsey II, Pollack states, “There’s an argument that Dave Barry [the referee] should have picked up the count at four and not started at ‘one’ when Dempsey finally went to the far neutral corner. But Barry was within his rights to handle the situation the way he did. I could go either way on it. And people forget that Dempsey didn’t stay in the neutral corner. He was practically halfway across the ring, coming in for the kill at the count of nine, and Barry ignored it.”

Does Pollack think that Tunney would have beaten the count if he’d had only ten seconds to work with rather than fourteen?

“It’s speculation,” Adam answers. “Looking at the films, I think Tunney could have gotten up within the first ten seconds. But he probably would have been a bit dazed and more vulnerable to Dempsey’s punches.”

“Boxing is becoming a niche sport,” Pollack adds in closing. “So you have fewer and fewer people writing about boxing history today. But I love the research. I love the learning. There are always surprises. The surprises are part of the fun for me. And I love taking readers back in time so they can relive the eras I’m writing about. I put a lot of time and effort into these books. I know there are people who appreciate them, and that’s very gratifying to me. I’m not the one to judge, but I think my books will stand the test of time.”

Yes, they will.

***

SOME WORDS OF WISDOM FROM TRAINERS

Teddy Atlas: “Boxing has its share of beautiful stories. But it has sad ones too.”

Charlie Goldman: “I always say to my guys, ‘Don’t tell ’em. Show ’em.'”

Willie Ketchum (who trained world champions Jimmy Carter, Antonio Cervantes, Lou Salica, Davey Moore, and Lew Jenkins): “They always quit at the wrong time. When it’s too late, they see the light.”

Donald Turner: “There’s a lot of bad people in boxing. And those people should know what kind of person I am. I live an honorable life. When I’m wrong, I admit it and apologize for what I did. But I’ll get in your face if I think you’re wrong. And I’ll come at you with a baseball bat if you try to take what’s mine.”

And then there’s the standard reply that Hall of Fame trainer Ray Arcel gave whenever he was asked about boxing’s many ills: “It was ever thus.”

***

On August 24, a faded, stained, gray flannel shirt sold at auction at Heritage for $24,120,000.

Before you check your closet to see if you have any faded, stained, gray flannel shirts, keep in mind that we’re talking about the jersey Babe Ruth is believed to have worn when he hit his famed “called shot” home run off Chicago Cubs pitcher Charlie Root in the 1932 World Series.

I say “believed” because the jersey has been examined by several respected photomatching authenticators. One of them – Resolution Photomatching – examined the jersey on three separate occasions and each time declined to confirm a match. When Resolution Photomatching went public with its reservations, Chris Ivy (director of sports auctions for Heritage) declared it “unfortunate that a company like Resolution would want to come out and say something like that.”

In recent years, game-worn attire has become increasingly popular among collectors. In 2022, Sotheby’s sold the jersey that Michael Jordan wore in Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Championship Finals for $10.1 million. That same year, the jersey Diego Maradona wore when he scored his “Hand of God” goal in the 1986 World Cup brought in $9.3 million.

The Babe Ruth jersey in question was sold at auction in 1999 at a time when it was described simply as a game-worn Babe Ruth road uniform. The price was $284,000. Six years later – with the “called shot” designation added to the description – it sold at auction for $940,000. Now the same jersey has sold for twenty-five times its 2005 price.

How do boxing trunks and robes stand up against these numbers?

Far behind.

Craig Hamilton is the foremost boxing memorabilia dealer in the United States. Asked about robes and trunks. Hamilton says that the most valuable piece of fight-worn memorabilia known to exist is the robe that Muhammad Ali wore when he reclaimed the heavyweight throne from George Foreman in Zaire. It sold at auction for $157,000 in 1997 and, in Hamilton’s view, would bring several million dollars today.

“You have to remember;” Hamilton adds, “in 1997, sports memorabilia sales were fueled by collectors. Now the market is driven by investors. They might be fans too. But no matter how much they spend, the biggest spenders have their eye on the longterm bottom line.”

And by the way; Babe Ruth loved boxing. He was a regular at ringside for big fights. There are numerous photos of Ruth in boxing poses (sometimes with his hands gloved) and also photos of Ruth with Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis. When the Boxing Writers Association of America (then known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York) held its first annual dinner at the Hotel Astor on April 26, 1926, The Babe was there.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

          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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Undisputed super bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue, a massive favorite, improved his ledger to 28-0 (25 KOs) with a seventh-round stoppage of TJ Doheny tonight at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo. The match was terminated after only 16 seconds of the seventh round after Doheny twisted his ankle and seemingly hurt his back after absorbing several seemingly ineffectual body punches from the Japanese “Monster.”

Doheny (26-5) earned this assignment with three straight wins in Tokyo rings against opponents who were collectively 32-1-2. He won all three fights inside the distance. The 37-year-old Irish-Australian globetrotter was a former IBF super bantamweight title-holder, having stripped the belt from a Japanese title-holder at Tokyo’s venerable Korakuen Hall.

Inoue controlled the action but Doheny stayed out of harm’s way until the sixth frame when Inoue turned up the heat. When the round ended, one could see that Doheny had scant chance of lasting the distance. The circumstances of the stoppage, however, were bizarre. Although Doheny was on his feet when the fight ended, he was limping and would need to be assisted from the ring by his cornermen.

After the match, Inoue’s U.S. representative Bob Arum said that the pound-for-pound superstar would fight again in Tokyo in December (big boxing shows on New Year’s Eve have become a Japanese tradition) and then return to Las Vegas in 2025 where he is 2-0, stopping Jason Moloney in 2020 and demolishing the overmatched Filipino Michael Dasmarinas in 2021. Arum’s company also co-promotes Inoue’s countryman Junto Nakatani. An Inoue-Nakatani match would be a pay-per-view attraction no matter the locale.

Co-Feature

In an entertaining match, Yoshiki Takai started strong and finished with a flourish to nip Daigo Higa. The victorious Takai, a 28-year-old Yokohama southpaw, improved to 10-0 (8) in his first defense of the WBO world bantamweight title he won from Jason Moloney at the Tokyo Dome. The judges had it 115-112 and 114-113 twice.

Takai, a former champion kickboxer, was in serious jeopardy of losing his belt after Higa scored a controversial flash knockdown in the 11^th frame, a knockdown that could have easily been ruled a slip. But in the final round he battered Higa around the ring, nearly taking the fight out of the judges’ hands. Higa, considered the next superstar of Japanese boxing after beginning his career with 15 straight knockouts, declined to 21-3-1.

Also

In a battle of southpaws, Yokohama’s Andy Hiraoka (24-0, 19 KOs) dominated and stopped Ismael Barroso whose corner stopped the one-sided contest with two seconds remaining in the ninth round. Hiraoka, who is Ghanaian on his father’s side, was a 6/1 favorite over the Miami-based Venezuelan Methuselah (Barroso is listed at 41 but looks much older) who was coming off a shocking first-round stoppage of Ohara Davies in Las Vegas.

Hiraoka had Barroso (25-5-2) on the canvas in the sixth and twice more in the ninth before the match was halted.

With the victory, Hiraoka becomes the mandatory opponent for Jose Valenzuela who recently captured the WBA version of the 140-pound belt with a unanimous decision over Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz in one of the bigger upsets of 2024.

In a welterweight contest slated for 12, Jin Sasaki (18-1-1, 17 KOs) bloodied and stopped game but outclassed Qamil Balla who was rescued by the referee at the 52-second mark of round seven. A 35-year-old Australian of Albanian stock, Balla was 15-1-1 heading in with his lone setback coming at the hands of George Kambosos Jr.

Super bantamweight Tohiki Shimomachi won a 10-round unanimous decision over Ryuya Tsugama. Unbeaten in his last 20 fights, Shimomachi advanced to 19-1-3 over his 24-year-old opponent who had won nine straight heading in but was competing in his first 10-rounder. Both boxers hail from Osaka.

Photo credit: Naomi Fukuda

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