I've read McClean's book and I've seen that fight between McClean and the dude who nuts him during the refs instructions.
I enjoyed the book but did he mention the fact that he'd been KO'd twice by ex-pro Johnny Waldron?
No, Waldron knocked out Lenny McLean twice in the 1st round. He never fought Bartley Gorman. Evidentially Roy Shaw noted Waldron as one of his two favorite boxers. You can argue that had Shaw been younger when he met The Guvnor, he would have came out on top in their series, rather than McLean. Gorman challenged both Shaw and McLean, but the fights never came off, it was reported that neither of the two wanted anything of Gorman.
Gorman, in fact, never lost the crown, though he "sem-retired" in 1992, but kept fighting here and there until 1997, only five years later at the age of 57 would he die from liver cancer.
Robinson dismisses John L as a low browed brawling drunk sans skills, intelligence, or redeeming purpose, but I would point him to the NY Times series he crafted for the Jeffries/Johnson fight. I'm sure he used a secretary for transcription purpose and surely the editor's edited for content and grammar, but the pieces are finely nuanced critical analysis of the fighters and the sport and a nice snapshot into the social climate of the era. He was not some simple brute.
Amen. I'll get more on this later, because Robinson keeps asking what was John L's training habits, when really the question that needs to be asked is what skills he had. I'll try and scoop up both.
And that dude who calls himself Charles Bronson has been in nick almost all his life hasn't he so not sure how he manages to get many fights unless whacking a guy in the exercise yard counts.
That bloke Savage with his 40 wins all by KO had no fekkin chance and no right to be in the ring with a solid pro.
Like Kym has mentioned several times, the stories around these guys are entertaining but I'd take them all with a grain of salt.
I have a link to Charles Bronson fighting an amateur boxer, under amateur rules, and he beat the man pillar to post before getting DQ'd. Evidentially Bronson was a protege of Lenny McLean, but his career is quite unknown and short lived. As for his prison exploits, the majority of these fights were while guards were trying to take him down during either hostage situations or when Bronson was in the mental ward of the prison. Either case, the mans pushing well over 60 and is built like a body builder still to this day.
Do I think Bronson was a good fighter or could have become a good pro? I doubt it. He was of the ilk, much like McLean or Shaw, who didn't believe in rules, imo, and was all about who was the toughest, strongest, most brutal, rather than the most skilled. With that being said....here's my rankings of the men so far mentioned in this thread:
1. Bartley Gorman
2. Roy Shaw
3. Macale Merton*
4. Lenny McLean
5. Joe Savage
6. Charles Bronson
*Dont know enough about Macale Merton to really give him a real solid ranking, but if a man can be champion of bare knuckle fights for over 30 years, I have to figure him in somewhere, as McLean and Gorman all had reigns 20+ years, though McLean fibbed about his record saying he never lost, which is bullshit.
