REMINISCENCES OF A FRUSTRATED FIGHTER
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I discovered boxing in June, 1941 when I was 10 years old.
Joe Louis and Billy Conn were getting ready to fight for the heavyweight
championship of the whole wide world and the publicity was intense.
The movie-star-handsome 24 year old Irish-American ex lightheavyweight
champion would spot over 25 lbs to the great Brown Bomber.
I didn't care about Joe. What I knew was Billy was Irish and I was
Irish-Canadian, so we had something in common.
To give you an idea how a 10 year old boy thinks, when I heard Billy
was to be married after the fight, I thought "If he loses, will she
still want to marry him?" That's ONE 10 year old boy, anyway.
That turned out to be the greatest heavyweight fight to that time and the
second greatest ever, in my opinion. For me, the best was Frazier-Ali I.
I was hooked on boxing forever.
In my first boxing lesson at the Toronto West End Y.M.C.A. I learned NOT
to do something that Muhammad Ali did successfuly his whole career: pull
away from a jab. The second (immediate) jab sat me, embarassed, on my ass!
Ali would pull away from TRIPLE jabs!
Starting in high school, I began to spar in various clubs around
Toronto. Over the years I developed a good jab, a fair hook and a
terrible (lousy not potent) right hand. I was agressive, the opposite of
my demeanour outside the ring, and a good body puncher.
I had a real advantage in the ring because I lifted weights. A
middleweight, I could "military press" 215 lbs overhead. I couldn't
"jerk" the weight overhead, my curvature of the spine wouldn't tolerate
sudden pressure. I tried 220 lbs many times but just couldn't do it.
I was stronger than my spar mates. Boxers just didn't DO weights back
then. They feared it would make them muscle bound.
Boxing clubs I frequented included one on the north side of Queen, west
of Dufferin, and a few others I've forgotten. At one of those others
I was chasing a clever amateur, Willie Barboise*, around the ring.
Mostly chasing, not catching him much. Between rounds I was leaning on
the ropes gasping for breath, when a little corpulent bald man in a vest,
I think he was from central casting, poked his cigar up at me and
hollered. "You! Tuesday! Kitchener!". That was his quaint way of inviting
me to participate in a contest at a later time and place. Then I did
something I regret to this day. I gave him hell for inviting such an
out-of-shape slob, and declined. If only I'd done it I'd be able to brag
ever after, "Oh, yeah, I useta fight a little ...". Nobody'd have to
know HOW little!
The one club I do remember is the Earscourt A.C. on the west side of
Dufferin below St.Clair. The top Canadian amateur heavyweight George
Chuvalo was training there. Like me, he was also a former student at
St. Michael's College School.
That's where my connection with John L. Sullivan comes in.
We were born 63 years apart, but are separated by only 10 punches in
the nose.
In the best boxing book I've read The Sweet Science, the great
boxing writer A.J. Liebling explained that his connection to Jem Mace,
bare-knucke champion extraordinary, was through a series of punches in
the nose. He commented that The Sweet Science is joined onto the past like a
man's arm to his shoulder.
(1)1955: I sparred with lightheavyweight Bruce Steen** at Earlsourt A.C.
(2) Bruce Steen often sparred with George Chuvalo at the same club.
(3)1966 & 1972: Chuvalo fought Muhammad Ali.
(4)1969: Ali and Rocky Marciano exchanged real blows in their movie.
(5)1951: Rocky koed Joe Louis.
(6)1936: Louis koed Jack Sharkey.
(7)1927: Jack Dempsey koed Sharkey.
(8)1926 & 1927: Gene Tunney whupped Dempsey.
(9)1925: Tunney sparred with Jim Corbett on the roof of the Woolworth
building (I think it was the Woolworth building)in Manhatan.
(10)1892: Corbett koed the great John L. Sullivan, himself!
* Willie Barboise turned pro in 1956. His record is in BOXREC.COM.
In 1959 He was koed by DON PROUT who is REGISTERED IN MY SYSTEM!
** Bruce Steen turned pro in 1955. His record is in BOXREC.COM.
Mike Paul, March 31, 2004
