U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist Fidel La Barba Was a Phenom After a Rocky Start

Published

7 months ago

June 30, 2024

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In just a few weeks, the 2024 Summer Olympics will commence in Paris. One hundred years ago, also in Paris, two American boxers – Fidel La Barba and Jackie Fields — captured Olympic gold medals. In an earlier story, we profiled Fields. Now it’s La Barba’s turn.

The fifth of seven children born to Italian immigrants, Fidel La Barba turned pro in his hometown of Los Angeles three months after returning from Paris where he won the flyweight competition. As a pro, he would carve out a Hall of Fame career, but it sure didn’t start out that way. After five pro bouts, his record stood 2-2-1.

There was an extenuating circumstance. Both losses and the draw came at the hands of Jimmy McLarnin. The baby-faced McLarnin was actually younger than La Barba, but he was more experienced and history would show that he was much more than a formidable foe; he can be fairly numbered among the all-time greats.

La Barba had to settle for another draw in his eighth pro fight, but this redounded well to him. Newsboy Brown, undefeated and with 36 pro fights under his belt, was thought to be too good for Fidel, but La Barba was every bit his equal in their 10-rounder at Hollywood’s Legion Stadium. Most of the newspapermen shaded the match to him. ”Fidel’s rounds were more decisive and he scored [the only] knockdown. On points he was clearly ahead,” wrote Sid Ziff in the Los Angeles Evening Express.

Three fights later, La Barba was thrust against Frankie Genaro in what was believed to be the first pro fight between former Olympic gold medalists. Genaro, a New Yorker, had won his diadem in Antwerp in 1920.

As a pro, La Barba was 6-2-2. Frankie Genaro, per boxrec, brought a professional record of 52-3-4.

Genaro was recognized as the American Flyweight Champion. As was common in those days, the champion was accorded the right to bring his own referee when he fought in his opponent’s backyard. Genaro picked New Jersey’s Harry Ertle, best known for being the third man in the ring for Dempsey-Carpentier.

La Barba vs Genaro was contested before an estimated 18,000 at LA’s Ascot Park where the usual bill of fare was motorcycle racing. At the end of 10 lusty rounds, the honorable Ertle raised La Barba’s hand without a moment’s hesitation. According to the correspondent for the San Francisco Examiner, a phalanx of 25 policemen were needed to keep well-wishers at bay as La Barba was being herded back to his dressing room.

This fight had taken on a much brighter tint the previous month when the great Filipino boxer Pancho Villa, recognized as the world flyweight champion, passed away at age 23 following surgery for an ulcerated tooth. With the title vacant, La Barba vs Genaro was elevated into a world title fight although not recognized as such in every jurisdiction.

At this juncture, Fidel La Barba was 19 years old and had been a pro for less than a year. Writing in 2019, the prominent boxing historian Matt McGrain mused that La Barba’s conquest of Genaro just may be the best win ever recorded by a teenager in all of boxing history.

La Barba stayed busy after this fight with 14 bouts in the next 17 months. Most were no-decision affairs meaning that La Barba would get to keep his title unless he got knocked out. On Jan. 21, 1927, he was matched against Scotland’s Elky Clark in a 12-rounder at Madison Square Garden.

The New York boxing commission, at odds with the National Boxing Association (NBA), had never formally recognized the Californian as the world flyweight champion. If Fidel were able to get past Clark, the undisputed European champion, he would receive their blessing and unify the title.

Clark, 29, had fought a slew of 20-round fights. As manifested in his cauliflower ears, he had a lot of mileage on him. The Scotsman lasted the distance, but Fidel had him on the canvas five times and won every round.

La Barba, who had reportedly been the president of his senior class at LA’s Lincoln High School, had always aspired to attend Stanford and in the fall of 1927 he did just that, turning his back on boxing to enter the prestigious university where he lived in the freshman dorm and helped-out with the school’s boxing team. But he left Stanford after one year and returned to the ring.

When he returned to boxing, he was no longer a champion, having outgrown the division, and a married man, having wed the ex-wife of prominent newspaper cartoonist Billy DeBeck (the first of Fidel’s three wives). Four fights in LA and one in San Francisco prefaced a belated honeymoon in Australia where La Barba had four fights in seven weeks, all scheduled for 15 rounds. He won them all.

The Trilogy

The highlight of La Barba’s post-college boxing career was his three-fight series with Kid Chocolate, one of the best trilogies in boxing history. They first met on May 22, 1929 at the New York Coliseum in the Bronx on a show promoted by Jess McMahon (the grandfather of WWE magnate Vince McMahon).

According to a story in a Brooklyn paper, Chocolate, born Eligio Sardinas, was unbeaten in 146 fights which included his amateur bouts in Cuba. There was no way to verify that record but the Havana Bon Bon was undefeated in bouts on American soil and was looked upon as a future world champion.

At five-foot-six, Chocolate was the taller man by three inches and he had a substantial edge in reach, but Fidel was able to smother his punches and after five rounds, said a reporter for a Pennsylvania paper, La Barba “was so far out in front that Chocolate wouldn’t be able to catch him with a deputy sheriff.”

But Chocolate did catch him and won the 10-round fight on a majority decision. “[Fidel] flouted one of the major tenets of gaming,” he wrote. “This merely demands that when you have the pot won, keep it won.”

The verdict was unpopular and it was inevitable that La Barba and Kid Chocolate would meet up again. The sequel was staged at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 3, 1930.

This would be La Barba’s finest hour since his conquest of Frankie Genaro back when he was just starting out. He took the fight to the Cuban right from the opening bell and at the end of the 10-round contest there was no doubt that his hand would be raised. “At the end,” wrote the ringside reporter for the Buffalo News, “the usually dancing, darting Cuban was flat-footed, leg-weary and swinging wildly.” (The decision was unanimous; the scores were not announced.)

Twenty-five months would elapse before the rubber match. In the interim, Kid Chocolate suffered three defeats, but against top-tier opponents — Battling Battalino, Tony Canzoneri, and Jack “Kid” Berg – in bouts so closely contested they could have gone either way. LaBarba also lost to Battalino, failing to capture Bat’s featherweight strap in a dull 15-round fight, but La Barba-Chocolate III had a patina that was lacking in the first two encounters. In New York and a few other places, Chocolate had come to be recognized as a two-division champion, having laid claim to the featherweight and (lightly regarded) junior lightweight belts.

After 14 rounds, in the estimation of the New York Daily News man, the rubber match was deadlocked 7-7. But Fidel had run out of bullets and Chocolate out-slugged him in the final stanza.

La Barba emerged from this bout with a torn retina in his left eye, but would have three more fights before his career was finished. He lost a 10-round decision to four-time rival Tommy Paul, a first-rate fighter from Buffalo, lost a 12-round decision to British featherweight champion Seaman Tommy Watson, and ended his career on a winning note with a 10-round decision over a Pittsburgh club fighter in Pittsburgh. His final record was 69-15-7 and he was never stopped.

In Retirement

Although La Barba went to Stanford to study finance, in retirement he discovered he had a knack for writing. Two of his stories, one of which was published in Collier’s, were adapted into screenplays: “Savannah of the Mounties,” a 1939 western starring Shirley Temple and Randolph Scott, and “Footlight Serenade,” a 1942 musical wherein Victor Mature plays a former boxing champion turned Broadway stage actor. Both films were produced by Twentieth-Century Fox. Studio head Darryl F. Zanuck was a close friend.

During World War II, La Barba enlisted in the Army. Having only one good eye precluded him from combat duty. Discovered by a reporter in Naples, Italy, he defined his role as comforting old ladies in air raid shelters who were traumatized by the bombing. During the Korean conflict, he served as a physical fitness instructor at Southern California’s March Air Force Base.

La Barba was also a sportswriter for two short-lived newspapers, the Wilmington (CA) Daily Press Journal and the Santa Monica Evening Outlook where he was named Sports Editor. In the mid-1950s, he served on the California Athletic Commission, coached a paraplegic wheelchair basketball team, and attracted notice as the manager of promising heavyweight Elmer Willhoite, a former All American football lineman at USC who aborted his boxing career after only four pro fights because of brittle hands.

Fidel La Barba passed away on Oct. 2, 1981 at age 76 at a VA hospital in Los Angeles where he was being treated for a heart condition. He was inducted posthumously into the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 1996.

—-

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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Ringside at the Cosmo: Pacheco Outpoints Nelson plus Undercard Results

Published

6 hours ago

January 25, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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LAS VEGAS, NV – Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Promotions was at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas tonight for the second half of a DAZN doubleheader that began in Nottingham, England. In the main event, Diego Pacheco, ranked #1 by the WBO at super middleweight, continued his ascent toward a world title with a unanimous decision over Steven Nelson.

Pacheco glides round the ring smoothly whereas Nelson wastes a lot energy with something of a herky-jerky style. However, although Nelson figured to slow down as the fight progressed, he did some of his best work in rounds 11 and 12. Fighting with a cut over his left eye from round four, a cut that periodically reopened, the gritty Nelson fulfilled his promise that he would a fight as if he had everything to lose if he failed to win, but it just wasn’t enough, even after his Omaha homie Terence “Bud” Crawford entered his corner before the last round to give him a pep talk (back home in North Omaha, Nelson runs the B&B (Bud and Bomac) Sports Academy.

All three judges had it 117-111 for Pacheco who mostly fought off his back foot but landed the cleaner punches throughout. A stablemate of David Benavidez and trained by David’s father Jose Benevidez Sr, Pacheco improved to 23-0 (18). It was the first pro loss for the 36-year-old Nelson (20-1).

Semi wind-up

Olympic gold medalist Andy Cruz, who as a pro has never fought a match slated for fewer than 10 rounds, had too much class for Hermosillo, Mexico’s rugged Omar Salcido who returned to his corner with a puffy face after the fourth stanza, but won the next round and never stopped trying. The outcome was inevitable even before the final round when Salcido barely made it to the final gun, but the Mexican was far more competitive than many expected.

The Cuban, who was 4-0 vs. Keyshawn Davis in closely-contested bouts as an amateur, advanced his pro record to 5-0 (2), winning by scores by 99-91 and 98-92 twice. Salido, coming off his career-best win, a 9^th-round stoppage of former WBA super featherweight title-holder Chris Colbert, falls to 20-2.

Other TV bouts

Ernesto “Tito” Mercado, a 23-year-old super lightweight, aims to become the next world champion from Pomona, California, following in the footsteps of the late Richie Sandoval and Sugar Shane Mosely, and based on his showing tonight against former Beijing Olympian and former two-division title-holder Jose Pedraza, he is well on his way.

After three rounds after what had been a technical fight, Mercado (17-0, 16 KOs) knocked Pedraza off his pins with an overhand right followed by short left hand. Pedraza bounced back and fell on his backside. When he rose on unsteady legs, the bout was waived off. The official time was 2:08 of round four and the fading, 25-year-old Pedraza (29-7-1) was saddled with his third loss in his last four outings.

The 8-round super lightweight clash between Israel Mercado (no relation to “Tito”) and Leonardo Rubalcava was fan-friendly skirmish with many robust exchanges. When the smoke cleared, the verdict was a majority draw. Mercado got the nod on one card (76-74), but was overruled by a pair of 75-75 scores.

Mercado came out strong in the opening round, but suffered a flash knockdown before the round ended. The referee ruled it a slip but was overruled by replay operator Jay Nady and what would have been a 10-9 round for Mercado became a 10-8 round for Rubalcava. Mercado lost another point in round seven when he was penalized for low blows.

The scores were 76-74 for Mercado (11-1-2) and 75-75 twice. The verdict was mildly unpopular with most thinking that Mercado deserved the nod. Reportedly a four-time Mexican amateur champion, Rubalcava (9-0-1) is trained by Robert Garcia.

Also

New Matchroom signee Nishant Dev, a 24-year-old southpaw from India, had an auspicious pro debut (pardon the cliché). Before a beaming Eddie Hearn, Dev stopped Oakland’s Alton Wiggins (1-1-1) in the opening round. The referee waived it off after the second knockdown.

Boxers from India have made large gains at the amateur level in recent years and Matchroom honcho Eddie Hearn anticipates that Dev, a Paris Olympian, will be the first fighter from India to make his mark as a pro.

Undefeated Brooklyn lightweight Harley Mederos, managed by the influential Keith Connolly, scored his seventh knockout in eight tries with a brutal third-round KO of Mexico’s Arturo de Isla.

A left-right combination knocked de Isla (5-3-1) flat on his back. Referee Raul Caiz did not bother to count and several minutes elapsed before the stricken fighter was fit to leave the ring. The official time was 1:27 of round three.

In the opener, Newark junior lightweight Zaquin Moses, a cousin of Shakur Stevenson, improved to 2-0 when his opponent retired on his stool after the opening round.

Photo credit: Melina Pizano / Matchroom

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

Published

1 day 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 last 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, applied the exclamation point, 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

2 days 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 Brandon Figueroa should he defeat former Inoue foe Stephen Fulton next weekend. In “olden days,” this notion would have been dismissed as the Japanese superstar and Figueroa 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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