I am curious to know more about this old journeyman.
I have seen film of him vs Liston (YouTube) and Frazier.
I have also read that he has helped train fighters like Pinklon Thomas as well as act as a masseuse and assistant to other trainers.
Is there much more footage available of this compact lil fighter, any one here met or know him ?
He seems like an interesting fighter
Thanks again.
George Scrap Iron Johnson
What do you want to know? 
I never met him, but knew some folks who were acqainted with him, and I knew one gent who trained him early in his career when he fought out of Oklahoma City.
The story I heard was that Scrap was a fighter of average ability, and got by on his endurance and toughness. He got a tremendous boost of self-confidence after going the distance with Frazier, and was a much better fighter post-Frazier than before.
I never met him, but knew some folks who were acqainted with him, and I knew one gent who trained him early in his career when he fought out of Oklahoma City.
The story I heard was that Scrap was a fighter of average ability, and got by on his endurance and toughness. He got a tremendous boost of self-confidence after going the distance with Frazier, and was a much better fighter post-Frazier than before.
Tom,raylawpc wrote:Frank, I bet you saw Scrapiron fight a few times. What did you think of him?
Yeah, I seen Scrapiron a few times, against A. Lincoln, J. Harryman, M. Ramos, C. Leslie, Two . J. Quarry fights, J. Frazier amd M. Franklin.
I miss the Foreman fight at the Forum.
I'll tell you, Scrapiron was as tough as his nickname, one tough guy, tough as nails and to beat him, you had to work because it wasn't going to be easy, limited boxing skills but again tough as hell.
With Scrapiron you always knew he wasn't just going in for a payday, he was there to fight and fight he did.
I've always had a bit of a fascination for this guy & his career as well.
Fact is, I've often found the stories about the journeyman/trialhorse fighters ( especially the heavies ) to be more interesting than those of many of the champions & contenders. There's just something remarkable & honorable about these men who spend their careers mixing with the best & giving their best, fight after fight ( occasionally even pulling the upset ).
I never get tired of looking over the records of guys like "Scrapiron" Johnson, "Cookie" Wallace, Leroy Caldwell & many, many others.
Fact is, I've often found the stories about the journeyman/trialhorse fighters ( especially the heavies ) to be more interesting than those of many of the champions & contenders. There's just something remarkable & honorable about these men who spend their careers mixing with the best & giving their best, fight after fight ( occasionally even pulling the upset ).
I never get tired of looking over the records of guys like "Scrapiron" Johnson, "Cookie" Wallace, Leroy Caldwell & many, many others.
I agree with you Joe.joe kurtz wrote:I've always had a bit of a fascination for this guy & his career as well.
Fact is, I've often found the stories about the journeyman/trialhorse fighters ( especially the heavies ) to be more interesting than those of many of the champions & contenders. There's just something remarkable & honorable about these men who spend their careers mixing with the best & giving their best, fight after fight ( occasionally even pulling the upset ).
I never get tired of looking over the records of guys like "Scrapiron" Johnson, "Cookie" Wallace, Leroy Caldwell & many, many others.
These types of guys that you mentioned make the sport interesting to me.
These guys are always the ones who keep things fun and interesting in the gym too.
There usally a little more relaxed , less uptight than some of the bigger name guys.
Fun to be around,
Lot of laughs in boxing when ya check under the hood.
I am desperate to find a biography on some of these guys. The journeymen of each era, even if it was in one book.
That is why in a way I like to read the 'Facing Tyson', 'Facing Ali' and 'The Final Round' type of books..."Rokcy Lives" is another good one.
I think a guy like Johnson or Jesse Fergusson would make a good movie, trouble is the story would get dumbed down, simplified and in the end only the name of people remains as truth.
That is why in a way I like to read the 'Facing Tyson', 'Facing Ali' and 'The Final Round' type of books..."Rokcy Lives" is another good one.
I think a guy like Johnson or Jesse Fergusson would make a good movie, trouble is the story would get dumbed down, simplified and in the end only the name of people remains as truth.
The books that could be written about some fighters would be fascinating.
Take a look at the record of Angel Robinson Garcia for example.
He fought on short notice against everyone in so many different countries, could you imagine the stories he could tell?
He lived a colorful life too.
There are many others.
Hank Kaplan wrote a little book called "Boxing this is it".
He has some good tales about Robinson Garcia and a few others in it.
Take a look at the record of Angel Robinson Garcia for example.
He fought on short notice against everyone in so many different countries, could you imagine the stories he could tell?
He lived a colorful life too.
There are many others.
Hank Kaplan wrote a little book called "Boxing this is it".
He has some good tales about Robinson Garcia and a few others in it.
I shall hunt it down.
Would be good if you could get a book that looked at each top contender from each era, and then those journeymen that met champs on there way to the belt.
In a way its sad when you watch some of these guys, at what point did they accept there place in the scheme of things. Obviously most started of with aspirations at being the best...then time and loss after loss sets in a sense of just is I guess.
Like when did say a Jesse Fergusson decide he would be a sparring partner and journeyman trial horse ?
Would be good if you could get a book that looked at each top contender from each era, and then those journeymen that met champs on there way to the belt.
In a way its sad when you watch some of these guys, at what point did they accept there place in the scheme of things. Obviously most started of with aspirations at being the best...then time and loss after loss sets in a sense of just is I guess.
Like when did say a Jesse Fergusson decide he would be a sparring partner and journeyman trial horse ?
In some cases, a guy will do ok for awhile in his area, hometown maybe build a nice little record.
Then he will take a fight out of town.
If he drops a decisision to a prospect, but looks decent doing it , he may find himself now in the role of not really being a prospect anymore but now hes a guy who a promoter can bring into town to fight his prospect and he will give him a good fight but not win.
Sometimes the fighter will get the shaft in the other guys hometown and a sense of resignation can set in.
Suddenly after a few losses on the road, the fighter aint that popular at home anymore.
Now, almost all his fights are on the road and when your always in the other guys hometown , anything can happen.
They are probably gonna start calling you a "journeyman after a little while.
This might not happen with the pretty boy former Olynpians etc. like folks see on Wide World of Sports but it does happen to the average Joe sometimes.
Tough Sport, tougher buisness.
Boxing aint no Maypole dance thats for sure.
Then he will take a fight out of town.
If he drops a decisision to a prospect, but looks decent doing it , he may find himself now in the role of not really being a prospect anymore but now hes a guy who a promoter can bring into town to fight his prospect and he will give him a good fight but not win.
Sometimes the fighter will get the shaft in the other guys hometown and a sense of resignation can set in.
Suddenly after a few losses on the road, the fighter aint that popular at home anymore.
Now, almost all his fights are on the road and when your always in the other guys hometown , anything can happen.
They are probably gonna start calling you a "journeyman after a little while.
This might not happen with the pretty boy former Olynpians etc. like folks see on Wide World of Sports but it does happen to the average Joe sometimes.
Tough Sport, tougher buisness.
Boxing aint no Maypole dance thats for sure.
WORTH REPEATING.
FILLED with truth.
Thank you for that, Expug..
FILLED with truth.
Thank you for that, Expug..
Expug wrote:
In some cases, a guy will do ok for awhile in his area, hometown maybe build a nice little record.
Then he will take a fight out of town.
If he drops a decision to a prospect, but looks decent doing it , he may find himself now in the role of not really being a prospect anymore but now he's a guy who a promoter can bring into town to fight his prospect and he will give him a good fight but not win.
Sometimes the fighter will get the shaft in the other guys hometown and a sense of resignation can set in.
Suddenly after a few losses on the road, the fighter aint that popular at home anymore.
Now, almost all his fights are on the road and when your always in the other guys hometown , anything can happen.
They are probably gonna start calling you a "journeyman" after a little while.
This might not happen with the pretty boy former Olympians etc. like folks see on Wide World of Sports but it does happen to the average Joe sometimes.
Tough Sport, tougher business.
Boxing aint no Maypole dance thats for sure.
I co wrote the book with Hank Kaplan and if you can get it it's a collector's item. Hank was important in boxing and there was only one edition printed.
Meanwhile, here's a piece I wrote on Angel Robinson Garcia.
=========================================.
The Great Globetrotter: The Life And Times Of Angel Robinson Garcia
By Enrique Encinosa
The news came down through the Little Havana grapevine that Angel Robinson Garcia died in Cuba.
He was a flawed diamond, a Renaissance oil masterpiece with chili stains. Angel was a fighter of tremendous ability but his lifestyle, which eventually destroyed his liver and kidneys, was what kept him from gaining belts and fame.
Still, even pickled on booze or stoned on weed, in a career that spawned three decades, Angel Robinson Garcia was a ranked contender in two divisions, fighting at least 225 fights in twenty-one countries and four continents. He was the supreme globetrotter in boxing history. Despite his wild lifestyle the Cuban fighter was never late, nor did he ever cancel a fight.
In 1955, at the age of eighteen, Angel Garcia turned pro, after winning a Cuban national amateur championship. The young lightweight patterned his boxing style after his idol, Sugar Ray Robinson. Thus the handsome young fighter adopted the ring name of Angel Robinson Garcia.
With his flashy moves, Garcia reeled off twenty-four wins out of twenty-six fights. They were hard fights for small purses. Richie Riesgo, a veteran trainer who worked with Angel Robinson related a memorable anecdote.
"Angel was booked to fight Chico Morales," Riesgo said, "In Santiago de Cuba, and the trip by bus took fourteen hours. When we arrived they had a carnival that had brought thousands of tourists into the city and there were no hotel rooms. So, we went to an all night movie theatre and sat through several showings of the same film, taking little naps but waking up all the time. After that we went to a park bench and that was worse. In the morning we went to the weigh-in, had breakfast and sat through more showings of the same movie. We were exhausted, but Angel Robinson looked very good in the ring that night. He won on points against Morales who was a good prospect."
The fight with Morales in Santiago de Cuba is not listed in the record books, being among those bouts that slipped away from record keepers.
Between 1955 and 1961, Garcia resided in Cuba, but began his travels by fighting main events in Mexico, Venezuela, Panama and the United States.
"He did not care who he fought," Riesgo said, "all he wanted was to have a good time. Sometimes he trained hard and other times he didn't but he drank and chased women every day. In Cuba the boxing commission for a while suspended him. He was on a winning streak but his adventures became public gossip and the boxing authorities enacted a moral clause. Did he change? No way. He would have sex the night before a big fight, after the weigh-in, anytime and all the time. Money went through his fingers, never in the pockets. He borrowed so many advances from a promoter that after a fight he was still two hundred in the hole. Angel Robinson had a lot of ability and heart but his reason for living was to have a good time."
Young and quick, Angel Robinson fought anybody anywhere. In Venezuela he drew and lost to future junior welter king Carlos Hernandez, a hard slugger. In Havana rings he defeated rated lightweight Alfredo Urbina, split two with future welterweight contender Jose Stable, and drew and lost to another brilliant prospect, Douglas Valliant, who would eventually fight Carlos Ortiz for the lightweight crown. By 1961, Angel Robinson was a fringe contender in the lightweight division with a respectable 42-14-2 record.
Politics intervened. Fidel Castro was on its way to establish a dictatorship in Cuba. Professional boxing was about to be banned. Angel Robinson Garcia did not like communism and an altercation with a Cuban soldier landed him in a prison cell for several days. As soon as he could, the gifted lightweight headed for Miami Beach.
The Fifth Street Gym was in its glory days. A young heavyweight named Cassius Clay and newly crowned light-heavyweight champion Willie Pastrano were two of the stars of the Dundee brothers. Chris and Angelo scooped almost all the Cuban fighters leaving the island.
"Chris had worked with all the Cuban promoters," boxing historian Hank Kaplan said, "and Angelo went to Havana constantly, taking fighters over there and even picking up Spanish. So when these fighters showed up in Miami they would look for Angelo and Chris to train, manage and promote them and it was a hell of a group. Luis Rodriguez, Jose Napoles and Jose Legra became champions. Florentino Fernandez and Douglas Valliant were top rated contenders and both had title shots and Angel Robinson Garcia was rated as a lightweight and junior welter."
"The first time I saw Angel Robinson," Kaplan said, "he came into the gym dressed in an expensive suit and puffing on a cigar. He was a unique character, always smiling and joking around, a very likable man who could have matched Lew Jenkins at a bar stool."
Angelo Dundee lined up fights geared to take Garcia to a world title. Angel outscored Hilton Smith, a fighter who held a win over Napoles, and beat Jimmy Mackey, a fair Florida lightweight.
"He looked sharp," Angelo said, "and then I get an offer to put Angel in against Rafiu King, a European contender, in Paris. It was one of the big mistakes of my career. I sent Angel over for one fight and he stayed for ten years."
"I could have promoted him to a championship," the late Chris Dundee once remarked, "but he was unpredictable. He had a couple of good wins with us and we were guiding him, making the right matches, keeping him in shape and suddenly he's in France."
Paris was made for Angel Robinson Garcia. Wine was cheap and the nightlife was excellent. Garcia was in his prime, his face slightly marked but still handsome, and French girls loved his happy-go-lucky charm. Angel Robinson stayed in Paris, somehow obtaining a temporary residence permit.
French promoters loved his smooth style, which drew crowds that included famous actors like Alain Delon and Jean Paul Belmondo. Garcia was willing to fight anyone on the planet and he fought the best, losing to junior welter champ Eddie Perkins and to the lightning quick Ismael Laguna, but knocking out the highly regarded Ray Adigun in six and defeating Rafiu King in a rematch.
In Paris he married the daughter of a shopkeeper, which meant that for however many days the honeymoon lasted Angel did not go off night clubbing with his new found French buddies, an oversight he remedied quickly.
After his marriage collapsed, the Cuban fighter drifted to Spain where he linked up with a fellow countryman, Evelio Mustelier, known in boxing circles as Kid Tunero. A soft spoken, well mannered, middle-age man, Tunero was the antithesis of Garcia, the wild child of boxing.
In his youth, Tunero had been a ranked contender, an excellent orthodox boxer. He was so good that as a middleweight, he outscored a young light heavyweight named Ezzard Charles. Tunero had settled in Madrid where he was a highly regarded boxing trainer, owned a gym and managed some very good fighters, including another fellow Cuban, the mini-Ali featherweight Jose Legra.
Spain also suited Garcia. He knew the language and wine was cheap. He fought main events but did not mind filling in a prelim to help out a promoter or make enough to cover party expenses. Rolando Fernandez, a young Cuban exile was part of the Tunero team.
"I drove them around," Fernandez, a Miami businessman related years later, "and I worked buckets, whatever. I was young and it was a fun time. Tunero was always booking Legra in cities and towns all over Spain, fighting club fighters and local heroes at very little risk. Angel would ride along even if he did not have a fight booked. We would pull into a town and Angel Robinson would weigh in 'just in case' and inquire where the tavern was located. Twenty minutes in town and he was sitting in a Spanish tavern, puffing on a smoke and polishing off a bottle of wine. Tunero would show up and say something like –there's a fallout but they need a middleweight for an eight and he's fifteen pounds heavier than you are- and Angel would say –I'll take it. I'll be in the dressing room on time.- And after Tunero went back to the arena or bullring, Angel would smile and say –Well, now that I have another payday coming we can order another bottle before the fight.-A couple of hours later with a good wine buzz, he would take out the middleweight. He was unique."
Angel Robinson trained and partied, looking to fight anywhere there was a peseta, lira or guinea to be made. He fought in England, visiting pubs before and after weigh-ins, also traveling to Switzerland for a ten-round draw and a couple of one night stands with easy women. Angel drank good wine before trading leather in Italy, then went to war in Belgium, Tunis, Algiers and Finland, where he lost to Olli Maki.
After five years in Spain he became restless. Ever since leaving Cuba he had wandered like a gypsy. Packing his bags Angel Robinson moved to Italy, where he found passionate women and good Chianti. He was no longer young; he had become a mature veteran. His handsome face was slowly flattening and his once smooth eyebrows showed thin lines of scar tissue.
In Rome Robinson Garcia became a local favorite. He won, lost and drew with world rated lightweight Paul Armstead and knocked out L.C. Morgan, a dangerous puncher who held a win over Napoles. Angel lost to world champs Bruno Arcari and Carmelo Bossi.
Growing homesick for his Cuban buddies, Garcia rejoined Tunero and Legra in Spain, where he spent another three years trading leather. He was fading, losing more frequently, but Angel Robinson was by this time a very seasoned, tricky fighter. He was seldom hurt even in defeat. Most of his losses were to top European fighters like Roger Menetrey and Cemal Kamaci.
Deciding to change continents, Angel Robinson Garcia headed back to the Americas. He was in his mid-thirties, no longer rated and showing the wear and tear of his turbulent life. He was offered a fight in Panama against an undefeated young prospect with 21 knockouts in his 25 victories. Garcia hopped on a plane and fought Roberto Duran in the stone man's backyard.
"He was dangerous," Garcia said in an interview years later, "but I knew how to work the ring. I shuffled back and forth and worked angles and kept him out of range, confusing him...I caught him with some good shots but he was too young and strong. He won the decision but after the fight he looked at me and said –Cuban, you know a lot!"
A few months later Angel went the distance with Esteban De Jesus, Duran's nemesis.
Returning to Miami after his ten-year tour of Europe, Garcia contacted Angelo and Chris Dundee once again. In Miami he defeated club fighters Jimmy Hamm and J.T. Dowe before losing in a marihuana haze to Saoul Mamby and Sugar Ray Seales.
Frankie Otero was a world rated lightweight working out at the Fifth Street Gym when Robinson returned to Miami.
"At the time he fought Hamm and Dowe," Frankie remembers, "Robinson was a shot fighter but he was very clever. Even out of condition he knew how to pace the fight, resting in the clinches and with his ass on the ropes, bobbing around and making the other guy miss. He knew every move and trick in the trade and he took advantage of every opportunity you gave him. He was very good and he had a chin like granite. I think he was only stopped a couple of times in over two hundred fights."
Robinson Garcia continued to fight top men. At thirty-nine Angel lost a decision to Wilfredo Benitez, the teenager who was destined to win three belts.
His last moment of glory came in 1976, when a Philadelphia promoter was looking for an opponent to fatten the record of junior middleweight prospect Perry Abney, a seasoned veteran with a good left hook and nine wins in his last ten bouts. The purse was insignificant, only seven hundred dollars, but when no one accepted the grizzled Angel Robinson stepped up to the plate. With a mellow buzz the ancient warrior gave Abney a boxing lesson, stopping the local hero in nine rounds.
In his last years of campaigning, Angel Robinson lost to former welterweight champion Billy Backus and to Clyde Gray, a rated Canadian fighter. His career ended in New York with a loss by KO to Willie "The Worm" Monroe.
Garcia's record is incomplete as his travels took him to far corners of the planet and although he claimed about 300 fights, the accounting so far is 225. His record as far as can be determined was 129-76-20. Of his 124 victories, 49 were knockouts.
Banned from fighting in the U.S. by commissions who rightly argued he was too old and worn out, Angel returned to France. His application for a boxing license was rejected. The man who had fought main events in twenty-one countries had finally lost his trade.
Robinson Garcia was in his forties, but the years of substance abuse, hard fights and daily binges had destroyed his health. His eyebrows were crisscrossed with scar tissue and his face was reshaped from the handsome youth he had once been; his liver and kidneys were failing him, the end result of decades of alcoholic abuse. He could not work.
In France he became a "clocharde," which is an elegant sounding word to describe a homeless panhandler residing in the bowels of the Paris subway. A friend in France wrote to tell me that Jean Paul Belmondo, the great actor recognized the beggar as one of his favorite fighters, interceding on his behalf.
Although the Cuban government did not like professional fighters, Castro has always attempted to maintain a political relationship with European artists and intellectuals. When Belmondo made a request the Castro government allowed the old globetrotter to return home to die. Frail and sick, the nomad fighter returned home to die.
He is gone now, the way of all flesh. Angel was the untamed party animal who self-destructed with gusto, yet I feel no anguish at his demise. He chose his road and traveled the highway without the twisted rage of a Tyson or the psychological angst of a Golota. Robinson Garcia enjoyed his smoke, wine and women without regret and did it all with a certain style, with a happy buzz smile and a wink of complicity, always on time, never complaining, always in the fray.
Adios, old warrior.
Meanwhile, here's a piece I wrote on Angel Robinson Garcia.
=========================================.
The Great Globetrotter: The Life And Times Of Angel Robinson Garcia
By Enrique Encinosa
The news came down through the Little Havana grapevine that Angel Robinson Garcia died in Cuba.
He was a flawed diamond, a Renaissance oil masterpiece with chili stains. Angel was a fighter of tremendous ability but his lifestyle, which eventually destroyed his liver and kidneys, was what kept him from gaining belts and fame.
Still, even pickled on booze or stoned on weed, in a career that spawned three decades, Angel Robinson Garcia was a ranked contender in two divisions, fighting at least 225 fights in twenty-one countries and four continents. He was the supreme globetrotter in boxing history. Despite his wild lifestyle the Cuban fighter was never late, nor did he ever cancel a fight.
In 1955, at the age of eighteen, Angel Garcia turned pro, after winning a Cuban national amateur championship. The young lightweight patterned his boxing style after his idol, Sugar Ray Robinson. Thus the handsome young fighter adopted the ring name of Angel Robinson Garcia.
With his flashy moves, Garcia reeled off twenty-four wins out of twenty-six fights. They were hard fights for small purses. Richie Riesgo, a veteran trainer who worked with Angel Robinson related a memorable anecdote.
"Angel was booked to fight Chico Morales," Riesgo said, "In Santiago de Cuba, and the trip by bus took fourteen hours. When we arrived they had a carnival that had brought thousands of tourists into the city and there were no hotel rooms. So, we went to an all night movie theatre and sat through several showings of the same film, taking little naps but waking up all the time. After that we went to a park bench and that was worse. In the morning we went to the weigh-in, had breakfast and sat through more showings of the same movie. We were exhausted, but Angel Robinson looked very good in the ring that night. He won on points against Morales who was a good prospect."
The fight with Morales in Santiago de Cuba is not listed in the record books, being among those bouts that slipped away from record keepers.
Between 1955 and 1961, Garcia resided in Cuba, but began his travels by fighting main events in Mexico, Venezuela, Panama and the United States.
"He did not care who he fought," Riesgo said, "all he wanted was to have a good time. Sometimes he trained hard and other times he didn't but he drank and chased women every day. In Cuba the boxing commission for a while suspended him. He was on a winning streak but his adventures became public gossip and the boxing authorities enacted a moral clause. Did he change? No way. He would have sex the night before a big fight, after the weigh-in, anytime and all the time. Money went through his fingers, never in the pockets. He borrowed so many advances from a promoter that after a fight he was still two hundred in the hole. Angel Robinson had a lot of ability and heart but his reason for living was to have a good time."
Young and quick, Angel Robinson fought anybody anywhere. In Venezuela he drew and lost to future junior welter king Carlos Hernandez, a hard slugger. In Havana rings he defeated rated lightweight Alfredo Urbina, split two with future welterweight contender Jose Stable, and drew and lost to another brilliant prospect, Douglas Valliant, who would eventually fight Carlos Ortiz for the lightweight crown. By 1961, Angel Robinson was a fringe contender in the lightweight division with a respectable 42-14-2 record.
Politics intervened. Fidel Castro was on its way to establish a dictatorship in Cuba. Professional boxing was about to be banned. Angel Robinson Garcia did not like communism and an altercation with a Cuban soldier landed him in a prison cell for several days. As soon as he could, the gifted lightweight headed for Miami Beach.
The Fifth Street Gym was in its glory days. A young heavyweight named Cassius Clay and newly crowned light-heavyweight champion Willie Pastrano were two of the stars of the Dundee brothers. Chris and Angelo scooped almost all the Cuban fighters leaving the island.
"Chris had worked with all the Cuban promoters," boxing historian Hank Kaplan said, "and Angelo went to Havana constantly, taking fighters over there and even picking up Spanish. So when these fighters showed up in Miami they would look for Angelo and Chris to train, manage and promote them and it was a hell of a group. Luis Rodriguez, Jose Napoles and Jose Legra became champions. Florentino Fernandez and Douglas Valliant were top rated contenders and both had title shots and Angel Robinson Garcia was rated as a lightweight and junior welter."
"The first time I saw Angel Robinson," Kaplan said, "he came into the gym dressed in an expensive suit and puffing on a cigar. He was a unique character, always smiling and joking around, a very likable man who could have matched Lew Jenkins at a bar stool."
Angelo Dundee lined up fights geared to take Garcia to a world title. Angel outscored Hilton Smith, a fighter who held a win over Napoles, and beat Jimmy Mackey, a fair Florida lightweight.
"He looked sharp," Angelo said, "and then I get an offer to put Angel in against Rafiu King, a European contender, in Paris. It was one of the big mistakes of my career. I sent Angel over for one fight and he stayed for ten years."
"I could have promoted him to a championship," the late Chris Dundee once remarked, "but he was unpredictable. He had a couple of good wins with us and we were guiding him, making the right matches, keeping him in shape and suddenly he's in France."
Paris was made for Angel Robinson Garcia. Wine was cheap and the nightlife was excellent. Garcia was in his prime, his face slightly marked but still handsome, and French girls loved his happy-go-lucky charm. Angel Robinson stayed in Paris, somehow obtaining a temporary residence permit.
French promoters loved his smooth style, which drew crowds that included famous actors like Alain Delon and Jean Paul Belmondo. Garcia was willing to fight anyone on the planet and he fought the best, losing to junior welter champ Eddie Perkins and to the lightning quick Ismael Laguna, but knocking out the highly regarded Ray Adigun in six and defeating Rafiu King in a rematch.
In Paris he married the daughter of a shopkeeper, which meant that for however many days the honeymoon lasted Angel did not go off night clubbing with his new found French buddies, an oversight he remedied quickly.
After his marriage collapsed, the Cuban fighter drifted to Spain where he linked up with a fellow countryman, Evelio Mustelier, known in boxing circles as Kid Tunero. A soft spoken, well mannered, middle-age man, Tunero was the antithesis of Garcia, the wild child of boxing.
In his youth, Tunero had been a ranked contender, an excellent orthodox boxer. He was so good that as a middleweight, he outscored a young light heavyweight named Ezzard Charles. Tunero had settled in Madrid where he was a highly regarded boxing trainer, owned a gym and managed some very good fighters, including another fellow Cuban, the mini-Ali featherweight Jose Legra.
Spain also suited Garcia. He knew the language and wine was cheap. He fought main events but did not mind filling in a prelim to help out a promoter or make enough to cover party expenses. Rolando Fernandez, a young Cuban exile was part of the Tunero team.
"I drove them around," Fernandez, a Miami businessman related years later, "and I worked buckets, whatever. I was young and it was a fun time. Tunero was always booking Legra in cities and towns all over Spain, fighting club fighters and local heroes at very little risk. Angel would ride along even if he did not have a fight booked. We would pull into a town and Angel Robinson would weigh in 'just in case' and inquire where the tavern was located. Twenty minutes in town and he was sitting in a Spanish tavern, puffing on a smoke and polishing off a bottle of wine. Tunero would show up and say something like –there's a fallout but they need a middleweight for an eight and he's fifteen pounds heavier than you are- and Angel would say –I'll take it. I'll be in the dressing room on time.- And after Tunero went back to the arena or bullring, Angel would smile and say –Well, now that I have another payday coming we can order another bottle before the fight.-A couple of hours later with a good wine buzz, he would take out the middleweight. He was unique."
Angel Robinson trained and partied, looking to fight anywhere there was a peseta, lira or guinea to be made. He fought in England, visiting pubs before and after weigh-ins, also traveling to Switzerland for a ten-round draw and a couple of one night stands with easy women. Angel drank good wine before trading leather in Italy, then went to war in Belgium, Tunis, Algiers and Finland, where he lost to Olli Maki.
After five years in Spain he became restless. Ever since leaving Cuba he had wandered like a gypsy. Packing his bags Angel Robinson moved to Italy, where he found passionate women and good Chianti. He was no longer young; he had become a mature veteran. His handsome face was slowly flattening and his once smooth eyebrows showed thin lines of scar tissue.
In Rome Robinson Garcia became a local favorite. He won, lost and drew with world rated lightweight Paul Armstead and knocked out L.C. Morgan, a dangerous puncher who held a win over Napoles. Angel lost to world champs Bruno Arcari and Carmelo Bossi.
Growing homesick for his Cuban buddies, Garcia rejoined Tunero and Legra in Spain, where he spent another three years trading leather. He was fading, losing more frequently, but Angel Robinson was by this time a very seasoned, tricky fighter. He was seldom hurt even in defeat. Most of his losses were to top European fighters like Roger Menetrey and Cemal Kamaci.
Deciding to change continents, Angel Robinson Garcia headed back to the Americas. He was in his mid-thirties, no longer rated and showing the wear and tear of his turbulent life. He was offered a fight in Panama against an undefeated young prospect with 21 knockouts in his 25 victories. Garcia hopped on a plane and fought Roberto Duran in the stone man's backyard.
"He was dangerous," Garcia said in an interview years later, "but I knew how to work the ring. I shuffled back and forth and worked angles and kept him out of range, confusing him...I caught him with some good shots but he was too young and strong. He won the decision but after the fight he looked at me and said –Cuban, you know a lot!"
A few months later Angel went the distance with Esteban De Jesus, Duran's nemesis.
Returning to Miami after his ten-year tour of Europe, Garcia contacted Angelo and Chris Dundee once again. In Miami he defeated club fighters Jimmy Hamm and J.T. Dowe before losing in a marihuana haze to Saoul Mamby and Sugar Ray Seales.
Frankie Otero was a world rated lightweight working out at the Fifth Street Gym when Robinson returned to Miami.
"At the time he fought Hamm and Dowe," Frankie remembers, "Robinson was a shot fighter but he was very clever. Even out of condition he knew how to pace the fight, resting in the clinches and with his ass on the ropes, bobbing around and making the other guy miss. He knew every move and trick in the trade and he took advantage of every opportunity you gave him. He was very good and he had a chin like granite. I think he was only stopped a couple of times in over two hundred fights."
Robinson Garcia continued to fight top men. At thirty-nine Angel lost a decision to Wilfredo Benitez, the teenager who was destined to win three belts.
His last moment of glory came in 1976, when a Philadelphia promoter was looking for an opponent to fatten the record of junior middleweight prospect Perry Abney, a seasoned veteran with a good left hook and nine wins in his last ten bouts. The purse was insignificant, only seven hundred dollars, but when no one accepted the grizzled Angel Robinson stepped up to the plate. With a mellow buzz the ancient warrior gave Abney a boxing lesson, stopping the local hero in nine rounds.
In his last years of campaigning, Angel Robinson lost to former welterweight champion Billy Backus and to Clyde Gray, a rated Canadian fighter. His career ended in New York with a loss by KO to Willie "The Worm" Monroe.
Garcia's record is incomplete as his travels took him to far corners of the planet and although he claimed about 300 fights, the accounting so far is 225. His record as far as can be determined was 129-76-20. Of his 124 victories, 49 were knockouts.
Banned from fighting in the U.S. by commissions who rightly argued he was too old and worn out, Angel returned to France. His application for a boxing license was rejected. The man who had fought main events in twenty-one countries had finally lost his trade.
Robinson Garcia was in his forties, but the years of substance abuse, hard fights and daily binges had destroyed his health. His eyebrows were crisscrossed with scar tissue and his face was reshaped from the handsome youth he had once been; his liver and kidneys were failing him, the end result of decades of alcoholic abuse. He could not work.
In France he became a "clocharde," which is an elegant sounding word to describe a homeless panhandler residing in the bowels of the Paris subway. A friend in France wrote to tell me that Jean Paul Belmondo, the great actor recognized the beggar as one of his favorite fighters, interceding on his behalf.
Although the Cuban government did not like professional fighters, Castro has always attempted to maintain a political relationship with European artists and intellectuals. When Belmondo made a request the Castro government allowed the old globetrotter to return home to die. Frail and sick, the nomad fighter returned home to die.
He is gone now, the way of all flesh. Angel was the untamed party animal who self-destructed with gusto, yet I feel no anguish at his demise. He chose his road and traveled the highway without the twisted rage of a Tyson or the psychological angst of a Golota. Robinson Garcia enjoyed his smoke, wine and women without regret and did it all with a certain style, with a happy buzz smile and a wink of complicity, always on time, never complaining, always in the fray.
Adios, old warrior.
For the record, if the book you are referring to was "Boxing This Is It!" Hank hated that he was involved in that book. I personally like it and have a copy in my library but Hank spent a good fifteen minutes telling me once how it turned out nothing like what he wanted and how he wished he had never done it.
Hank did not like the book because he did not like the marketing aspect of anything... he never mentioned it on the million radio shows he did... did not like to do book signings because he found them boring and hated to edit the book to a smaller size by publisher's request..... I ended up writing most of the chapters with his resource materials because he was always doing ten other things at the same time.... If you have the book you can tell which one of us wrote what -compare the Arguello chapter (mine) to Les Darcy (Hank) as we had very different styles... also, since he refused to do book signings and sell the book, we did not make more than a few hundred bucks apiece after all that work ,,, but most of all he freaked out when we did the copyright because he had to put down his birth date and that was his Achilles heel.... the old boy was vain when it came to that and he eventually lied, shaving ten years off, but it still burned him to have people try to figure his age.... but it was his personality.
Hank was not really a writer, he could do very good magazine articles but long projects took too long and exasperated him... what he was was an archivist and historian. Any time you walked into his house he would have old newspaper clippings, photos, posters all over chairs, tables and it would all be meticulouslly filed into envelopes and boxes. He was the world's best researcher and had a great memory. he could spend hours talking to an old pug and jotting down details, hours filing and cataloguing and he would be interrupted constantly by phone calls that would set him off looking for a file to provide info for a documentary or a question by a reporter.... you get the picture.
I really miss him.
Hank was not really a writer, he could do very good magazine articles but long projects took too long and exasperated him... what he was was an archivist and historian. Any time you walked into his house he would have old newspaper clippings, photos, posters all over chairs, tables and it would all be meticulouslly filed into envelopes and boxes. He was the world's best researcher and had a great memory. he could spend hours talking to an old pug and jotting down details, hours filing and cataloguing and he would be interrupted constantly by phone calls that would set him off looking for a file to provide info for a documentary or a question by a reporter.... you get the picture.
I really miss him.
Spencer,Ramos,QuarryX2,Machen,Frazier,Liston,Foreman,Bugner,Lyle....all on his resume.....
What's was his driving record like? Did he ALWAYS drive directly into oncoming traffic? Scrap Iron is so appropriate. This guy had no quit in him and obviously operated in a fear free zone.
No School like the old school.
What's was his driving record like? Did he ALWAYS drive directly into oncoming traffic? Scrap Iron is so appropriate. This guy had no quit in him and obviously operated in a fear free zone.
No School like the old school.
Hank blamed the editor because the editor insisted on some chapters we did not want - such as Howard Cosell (whom we both considered an idiot)- and Curtis Cokes (whom we liked but the editor had also published his book and wanted us to put Cokes in anyway to boost sales, even if he did not really belong in the outline of our original intention). Also the editor asked us to cut some chapters short. And then neither one of us liked the cover but I was more philosophical than Hank.klompton wrote:If I remember right (its been about five years since we had that conversation) he complained mostly about the editorial decisions coming from the publisher that ruined it.
I have six published books - of which three were regional bestsellers- and four documentary scripts and it is never easy dealing with a publisher even the ones you like and get along with. In Hank's case the frustration translated into not doing book signings and not marketing the book and then he was pissed off that we only made a few hundred dollars.
You see, Hank was a good magazine editor, in which the product is packaged together in a month, while a book is a process that takes months to prepare and more months to market. Even as a magazine editor he was very easy going. I wrote many articles for him but it was always what I wanted to write and Hank always gave me and the others carte blanche. I would say -Hank I'd like to do a piece on Mickey Walker and he'd nod his head suck on his pipe and say -Go for it.
So he could not quite understand the control of the publisher in adding, deleting etc. It frustrated him that we knew boxing and the publisher did not and we were told what to do.
But I believe the book is pretty good. It has some interesting chapters and is an excellent primer for the beginning fan.
If you speak Spanish you can buy "Azucar y Chocolate" -Sugar and Chocolate a History of Cuban boxing- on the internet.
Since you probably don't Boxing This is It! you might get through Amazon. It has been out of print for years but there's a few copies popping here and there.
My other stuff is non boxing, dealing with CIA covert operations, Cuban guerrillas and cloak and dagger stuff. Besides being a journalist and writer and boxing all around guy I have been involved in many interesting adventures.... at the age of 58 I am a leftover fossil from the Cold War. The Castro government considers me a terrorist.
By next year I will have an English book on Cuban boxing that will cover the history and champions and contenders -I'm about one third finished (about 30,000 words) - and I might also publish a bio on Jose Ribalta -I have about 20,000 words already written but still needs a lot of work.
Since you probably don't Boxing This is It! you might get through Amazon. It has been out of print for years but there's a few copies popping here and there.
My other stuff is non boxing, dealing with CIA covert operations, Cuban guerrillas and cloak and dagger stuff. Besides being a journalist and writer and boxing all around guy I have been involved in many interesting adventures.... at the age of 58 I am a leftover fossil from the Cold War. The Castro government considers me a terrorist.
By next year I will have an English book on Cuban boxing that will cover the history and champions and contenders -I'm about one third finished (about 30,000 words) - and I might also publish a bio on Jose Ribalta -I have about 20,000 words already written but still needs a lot of work.