Classic American West Coast Boxing

[Randyman]

Vail Elementary School, Simon, Ca. (Montebello, Ca.)

I went to the Simons Reunion today and I bought a book that had lots of old photos, found the picture above in the book.
Middle row, third from right, thats me, don't know what grade that was or what year, other then to say it was in the mid-late 1940's

Frank, thought you might like to see this one. It was 3rd grade. That's me next to the teacher.

[Expug]

Frank, you have a buddy named Newspaper because he told every body everything.
Its funny, I have a buddy who I call Michrophone for the same reason.
Everybody calls him "Rophone".

[kikibalt]

Vail Elementary School, Simon, Ca. (Montebello, Ca.)

I went to the Simons Reunion today and I bought a book that had lots of old photos, found the picture above in the book.
Middle row, third from right, thats me, don't know what grade that was or what year, other then to say it was in the mid-late 1940's

Frank, thought you might like to see this one. It was 3rd grade. That's me next to the teacher.

You still look the same Randy, just a bit heavier around the middle.....

[Expug]

Sparring With Mike Quarry

In an earlier post by Rick, he mentions that Jerry Quarry was hard on his younger brother Mike, bulling him and roughing him up when they sparred and more or less taking advantage of the size and weight difference.

In the above article about Jerry Quarry and Joey Orbillo by Pete Ehrmann, Ehrmann says this "In the last round, with the fight in hand, Quarry dropped his hands and did an imitation of ali dancing around the ring. the crowd loved it, but Quarry says he wasn't showing off."

Both the bulling and Ali shuffling clear up something, more or less, from 1976 when I sparred with Mike Quarry. I don't remember the date but it was sometime in the middle of the year. I had yet to have a fight.

Mike Quarry showed up at the Main Street Gym one day. This was the first time I had seen him at the gym since I had been training there and I had been there for at least a year and a half. Mike carried himself like a pro. His mannerisms, the way he walked and the way he dressed. He was wearing a light blue three piece suit that day. I was skipping rope when he came through the doors. From where I was standing, Mike cut a pretty imposing figure. I immediately recognized him.

No sooner did he come through the door then he and my trainer, Mel Epstein, had eye contact. They talked for a few minutes, then Mel walked over to me in that slightly bent and rapid pace way that he did whenever he felt rushed. "You're gonna spar with Mike Quarry today" he said to me. "He wants to work with someone smaller and faster than him-you okay with that?" Yeah, I'm okay with it" I said. "Okay, Keep warming up" and he walked away.

A few minutes later I was getting geared up for sparring, putting on the cup, head gear and wraps and gloves. Mel was putting Vaseline on my face and says to me "Don't try to slug with him, it's just a workout, and don't get nervous just because it's Quarry". I'm not nervous Mel" I said, and I wasn't.

As soon as I stepped in the ring, Mike started teeing off on me. He came at me as if I was someone that he hated. It took me a minute to realize that Mike was not playing around. I immediately had a bloody nose. I was doing my best to keep him off me and I never took a backward step. When the bell went off and I went to the corner, Mel was livid. "That f*cking bastid is cutting you with his laces". I hadn't noticed but I remember saying "Mel. He wouldn't do that". "F*ck it, I'm pulling you out-he can find someone else." "Mel. don't do it" I was serious. Normally I went along with whatever Mel wanted but I was firm on this. It was a matter of pride.

We sparred about four or five rounds that day and Mike was really laying it on thick. I was being pummeled. I got in a few licks though but for the most part I was just a punching bag.

When we were done sparring, Mike was back to his old self, smiling and joking. The picture of affability. I don't think I have ever seen Mel so angry. He used every curse word he could think of and probably created a few just for the occasion. After I was done getting dressed I walked back to the floor to wait for Mel. Mike walks up to me and says "tomorrow?" Yeah sure, no problem"

The next day my friend Ken Robledo came with me. I think he wanted to see Mike kick my ass. If so, he wasn't disappointed. It was a repeat of the first day only more so. Again Mel was pissed off. I know that Mel never really cared for the Quarrys. He always thought that they had a negative influence on middleweight Mike Nixon, at least that's what he told me. So for Mel, it was just one more thing to be angry about. When I was cleaned up and ready to go, my friend Ken walks up to me and said "Man, Quarry really kicked your ass" Yeah, well..." was all could muster. "You never took a backward step though, I'll give you that".

The third and last day was more of the same. Still I was looking for some payback, just a little bit. My chance came when Mike finished teeing off on my head. The funny thing is no matter how many times Mike landed, and he did land, he never really hurt me. He overwhelmed me at times but never hurt me. He dropped his hands to his sides and did the Ali shuffle and stuck out his chin. The guy was mocking me and was probably expecting me to be awed or intimidated, instead I threw the best right hand I have ever thrown or ever will. It landed flush on his chin. His eyes rolled up and flickered and he fell against the ropes. I know I hurt him. As I rushed him trying my best to at least end this sparring session with some dignity, the guy that was working his corner called an end to the sparring. Then Mike started acting funny. He started shaking his ass and laughing the way a fighter does when he wants to show the other guy he wasn't hurt. I hate to say it but he was acting like a jerk. I think he was embarrassed.

Mel walks up to me and said "You knocked that f*cking bastid out on his feet". "I don't think so Mel, I think he was kidding" "Bullshit, he was hurt.

Later after we showered Mike came up to me and said "Randy, thanks for the workout-I had a harder workout with you than most light heavyweights". "Thanks Mike, I had a harder workout with you than most welterweights!" Maybe Mike was just being polite, I don't know, but coming from him it was quite a compliment.

Evey word was true. It took me three f*cking days but I caught him and I know I hurt him, just a little. More importantly, at least to me, I never took a backward step.

Great story Randy. I love it.
You hit Mike with a shot.You showed heart and Balls.Im not surprised at all that you hung in there with a guy who fought the great Bob Foster.That is a fond memory for you Im sure.Not many folks can say the same.

[Randyman]

I ran across this great article on the Ring Magazine Blog and thought it was worth sharing-Randy


Classic Column: What makes a good fighter?
Posted May. 19, 2009 at 12:06pm
By W.C. Heinz

Classic Columns by magazine founder Nat Fleischer and other RING magazine writers over the past 86 years are posted Tuesdays. Today's column was selected because of all the talk about the best fighter pound-for-pound and the fighter of the decade. W.C. Heinz provided his thoughts on what makes a good fighter in the July 1951 issue.


Joey Maxim was in New York to fight Olle Tandberg, the heavyweight champion of Sweden. This was three years ago, and we were sitting in the dressing room he was using in Stillman’s and he was telling us about the time Curtis Sheppard caught him cold in the first round and pinned him in a corner and knocked him out.

“Believe me,” Joey said, “there’s no other feeling in the world like the feeling of being knocked out. You can’t imagine what it’s like.”

“I can’t,” Francis Albertanti said. “You tell me.”

“I come to in the dressing room,” Maxim said. “Everybody is standing around with long faces and tears in their eyes. It’s like I just died. I start crying myself, I’m saying: ‘I’ll go to work. I’ll dig ditches. I’ll do anything.’

“After a while I feel better. I have my shower and I get dressed and I go up to the office to get paid. Sheppard is up there, and he’s a real good guy. He knows he was lucky and he won’t catch me like that again, and he tells me he thinks I got a bad break and I’m entitled to a return.

“Three weeks later I go back with the guy and this time I win it in 10,” Maxim said, looking at us and nodding his head “How do you like that? The guy knocks me out and he’s willing to take me back.”
Francis and I were walking down Eighth Avenue about a half hour later. I was thinking about what Maxim had said.

“He sits there,” I said, “and he tells us what a great thing it is that Sheppard, who has just flattened him, is willing to take him back.”
“I know,” Francis said.

“While he’s talking,” I said, “I’m thinking what a hell of a thing it is that Maxim wants to go back.”
“I know,” Francis said. “I am thinking the same thing myself.”

Joey Maxim is a good fighter. He is good enough to be a champion of the world. His fights do not inspire enthusiasm and his style appears controlled by his caution, and yet if you ask me to enumerate the qualities that go into the making of a good fighter I must give you Maxim and the way he went back with Sheppard. More than that, I must give you his casual acceptance of his own act, his amazement that Sheppard would take him back.

We are thinking about good fighters, the ones of our time, and so Joe Louis belongs in this. The things that make any fighter good, or great, are many, and in the days when Louis was great they analyzed this great¬ness as deriving from fast reflexes, fast hands, and proper schooling in the use of these gifts.

There was nothing wrong with this definition, except that it left those who knew Louis only from a distance perplexed. The placid, unchanging expression of his face, his slow, uninspired manner of speech gave rise to the opinion that his was only an animal ability, and some, at least, concluded that boxing greatness does not require agility of mind.

That is where they were wrong, and Louis proved it on a number of occasions. He proved it on a day in Pompton Lakes in 1946. He was training to meet Billy Conn for the second time, and we were all standing around, crowded, in the dressing room watching Manny Seamon wrapping Joe’s hands.

We were not saying much. We never did say much around Joe, but it had been written many times that Conn looked fast and that his speed might befuddle Louis, and then, as we all stood there, somebody mentioned this.

When he did, Louis said something. He raised his eyes slowly, from watching Manny, and then he came out with the best line that was spoken or written about that fight. Then he went back to watching Manny.

“Billy can run,” Joe said, simply, “but he can’t hide.”

Lines are our stock in trade, not Joe’s, but he did not surprise those of us who knew him as much as it was ever possible for us to know Joe. He had given us one of those rare opportunities to look into that mind, the mind that could recognize an opening and use it. He had explained, without trying to do so, the ability to take the single opening that Paolino Uzcudun gave him in four rounds, and with one punch, probably the most devastating single punch Louis ever threw, flatten Uzcudun.

It is generally agreed that Joe’s greatest fight was his second fight against Max Schme¬ling. Goaded by hurt pride he angrily annihilated in less than a round a good fighter who had previously knocked him out. Emotional excitement inspired his most creative performance and made it his best. Thus it comes down that the good fighter is the creative fighter, the one who is able to rise above the mech¬anical limitations of the sport.

Such a one was the Rocky Graziano who, on July 12, 1947, won the middle¬weight championship of the world. Far from a master of the moves of the sport, the Graziano of that time was a fighter whose creative ability, coupled with his right hand, more than made up for his lack of technical talent.
It was a few minutes after Graziano had knocked out Tony Zale in the heat of the Chicago Stadium and in one of the most fierce fights of our era, that several of us were crowding him in the closeness of his dressing room. His one eye was closed and a clip held together the flesh above the other, and someone asked him to try to explain how he felt during the fury of that fight with Zale.

“I wanted to kill him,” Rocky said. “I don’t know why. I got nothing against him. I like him. He’s a nice guy, but I wanted to kill him. I don’t know why.”

The greatest fighter of his time and one of the greatest of all time is Ray Robinson, the middleweight champion of the world. It is probable that in him, more than in any other fighter of today, are combined more of the qualities that go into the making of a great fighter.
Among the fighters of the present there is, for example, no more avid student of the sport. Robinson has been thus since the days when he started to box. As a four-round preliminary boy he made it a practice to sit at ringside in his ring clothes, before and after his own fights in order to study the others on the card.

One day we were talking in the Uptown Gym in Harlem. He was explaining how he had learned to fight by watching others and fighting others, and I asked him from whom, among those he had fought, he had learned the most.

“Fritzie Zivic taught me a lot,” he said, speaking of the former welterweight champion. “He was about the smartest I ever fought. Why, he showed me how you can make a man butt open his own eye.”

“How?” I said.

“He’d slip my lead, like this,” Robin¬son said, demonstrating. “Then he’d put his hand behind my neck and he’d bring my eye down on his head. Fritzie was smart.”

We were sitting one day in Robinson’s office on Seventh Avenue, just south of 124th Street. He had fought Kid Gavilan twice. The first time they had fought Gavi¬lan had given him trouble. The second time, for the welterweight title in Phila¬delphia on July 11, 1949, he had handled the Cuban with ease, and I wanted him to tell me at least one of the things he had learned about Gavilan in their first fight.

“Well, I noticed one thing.” Robinson said. “I noticed that when he throws his hook he’s not in position, so he shifts his right shoulder forward maybe an inch or two. When he does that you know the right hand is dead, and you how the hook is coming.”
I was not amazed by this, because I had ex¬pected some such revelation. I was merely im¬pressed that of the many who have fought Gavilan and of the many more who have watched him closely, this is the only one to find this weakness.

I was not amazed, moreover, when Robin¬son told me that he knows fear. I have never known a really good creative artist, whether he be a writer, painter, or boxer, who has not confessed that he often doubts himself, experiences nervous¬ness when the big project is at hand.

“Accidents happen in a ring,” Robinson said. “You can never tell when you’re liable to be hit with a good punch.”

He remembered the night he fought Artie Levine in Cleveland in November of 1946. Levine had a dozen pounds on him and so Robinson was fighting it the way you should fight it, moving and throwing no more than combinations and piling up the points.

“In the ninth round,” he said, “he started a right hand and I reached over to catch it. When I opened my glove it wasn’t there and I heard the referee say: ‘Four.’ I thought to myself, Man, he’s startin’ awful high.”

Robinson got up at nine, and in the next round he knocked Levine out. He has never forgotten this, however, but the fear that Robinson knows is the limited fear that inspires a degree of caution and out of this gives birth to inspired performance.


http://www.ringtv.com/blog/685/classic_ ... d_fighter/

[Randyman]

Sparring With Mike Quarry

In an earlier post by Rick, he mentions that Jerry Quarry was hard on his younger brother Mike, bulling him and roughing him up when they sparred and more or less taking advantage of the size and weight difference.

In the above article about Jerry Quarry and Joey Orbillo by Pete Ehrmann, Ehrmann says this "In the last round, with the fight in hand, Quarry dropped his hands and did an imitation of ali dancing around the ring. the crowd loved it, but Quarry says he wasn't showing off."

Both the bulling and Ali shuffling clear up something, more or less, from 1976 when I sparred with Mike Quarry. I don't remember the date but it was sometime in the middle of the year. I had yet to have a fight.

Mike Quarry showed up at the Main Street Gym one day. This was the first time I had seen him at the gym since I had been training there and I had been there for at least a year and a half. Mike carried himself like a pro. His mannerisms, the way he walked and the way he dressed. He was wearing a light blue three piece suit that day. I was skipping rope when he came through the doors. From where I was standing, Mike cut a pretty imposing figure. I immediately recognized him.

No sooner did he come through the door then he and my trainer, Mel Epstein, had eye contact. They talked for a few minutes, then Mel walked over to me in that slightly bent and rapid pace way that he did whenever he felt rushed. "You're gonna spar with Mike Quarry today" he said to me. "He wants to work with someone smaller and faster than him-you okay with that?" Yeah, I'm okay with it" I said. "Okay, Keep warming up" and he walked away.

A few minutes later I was getting geared up for sparring, putting on the cup, head gear and wraps and gloves. Mel was putting Vaseline on my face and says to me "Don't try to slug with him, it's just a workout, and don't get nervous just because it's Quarry". I'm not nervous Mel" I said, and I wasn't.

As soon as I stepped in the ring, Mike started teeing off on me. He came at me as if I was someone that he hated. It took me a minute to realize that Mike was not playing around. I immediately had a bloody nose. I was doing my best to keep him off me and I never took a backward step. When the bell went off and I went to the corner, Mel was livid. "That f*cking bastid is cutting you with his laces". I hadn't noticed but I remember saying "Mel. He wouldn't do that". "F*ck it, I'm pulling you out-he can find someone else." "Mel. don't do it" I was serious. Normally I went along with whatever Mel wanted but I was firm on this. It was a matter of pride.

We sparred about four or five rounds that day and Mike was really laying it on thick. I was being pummeled. I got in a few licks though but for the most part I was just a punching bag.

When we were done sparring, Mike was back to his old self, smiling and joking. The picture of affability. I don't think I have ever seen Mel so angry. He used every curse word he could think of and probably created a few just for the occasion. After I was done getting dressed I walked back to the floor to wait for Mel. Mike walks up to me and says "tomorrow?" Yeah sure, no problem"

The next day my friend Ken Robledo came with me. I think he wanted to see Mike kick my ass. If so, he wasn't disappointed. It was a repeat of the first day only more so. Again Mel was pissed off. I know that Mel never really cared for the Quarrys. He always thought that they had a negative influence on middleweight Mike Nixon, at least that's what he told me. So for Mel, it was just one more thing to be angry about. When I was cleaned up and ready to go, my friend Ken walks up to me and said "Man, Quarry really kicked your ass" Yeah, well..." was all could muster. "You never took a backward step though, I'll give you that".

The third and last day was more of the same. Still I was looking for some payback, just a little bit. My chance came when Mike finished teeing off on my head. The funny thing is no matter how many times Mike landed, and he did land, he never really hurt me. He overwhelmed me at times but never hurt me. He dropped his hands to his sides and did the Ali shuffle and stuck out his chin. The guy was mocking me and was probably expecting me to be awed or intimidated, instead I threw the best right hand I have ever thrown or ever will. It landed flush on his chin. His eyes rolled up and flickered and he fell against the ropes. I know I hurt him. As I rushed him trying my best to at least end this sparring session with some dignity, the guy that was working his corner called an end to the sparring. Then Mike started acting funny. He started shaking his ass and laughing the way a fighter does when he wants to show the other guy he wasn't hurt. I hate to say it but he was acting like a jerk. I think he was embarrassed.

Mel walks up to me and said "You knocked that f*cking bastid out on his feet". "I don't think so Mel, I think he was kidding" "Bullshit, he was hurt.

Later after we showered Mike came up to me and said "Randy, thanks for the workout-I had a harder workout with you than most light heavyweights". "Thanks Mike, I had a harder workout with you than most welterweights!" Maybe Mike was just being polite, I don't know, but coming from him it was quite a compliment.

Evey word was true. It took me three f*cking days but I caught him and I know I hurt him, just a little. More importantly, at least to me, I never took a backward step.

Great story Randy. I love it.
You hit Mike with a shot.You showed heart and Balls.Im not surprised at all that you hung in there with a guy who fought the great Bob Foster.That is a fond memory for you Im sure.Not many folks can say the same.

Thanks Brian. It is a fond memory. So was fighting on the under card of Quarry and Tom Bethea.

Randy

[bennie]

Sparring With Mike Quarry

In an earlier post by Rick, he mentions that Jerry Quarry was hard on his younger brother Mike, bulling him and roughing him up when they sparred and more or less taking advantage of the size and weight difference.

In the above article about Jerry Quarry and Joey Orbillo by Pete Ehrmann, Ehrmann says this "In the last round, with the fight in hand, Quarry dropped his hands and did an imitation of ali dancing around the ring. the crowd loved it, but Quarry says he wasn't showing off."

Both the bulling and Ali shuffling clear up something, more or less, from 1976 when I sparred with Mike Quarry. I don't remember the date but it was sometime in the middle of the year. I had yet to have a fight.

Mike Quarry showed up at the Main Street Gym one day. This was the first time I had seen him at the gym since I had been training there and I had been there for at least a year and a half. Mike carried himself like a pro. His mannerisms, the way he walked and the way he dressed. He was wearing a light blue three piece suit that day. I was skipping rope when he came through the doors. From where I was standing, Mike cut a pretty imposing figure. I immediately recognized him.

No sooner did he come through the door then he and my trainer, Mel Epstein, had eye contact. They talked for a few minutes, then Mel walked over to me in that slightly bent and rapid pace way that he did whenever he felt rushed. "You're gonna spar with Mike Quarry today" he said to me. "He wants to work with someone smaller and faster than him-you okay with that?" Yeah, I'm okay with it" I said. "Okay, Keep warming up" and he walked away.

A few minutes later I was getting geared up for sparring, putting on the cup, head gear and wraps and gloves. Mel was putting Vaseline on my face and says to me "Don't try to slug with him, it's just a workout, and don't get nervous just because it's Quarry". I'm not nervous Mel" I said, and I wasn't.

As soon as I stepped in the ring, Mike started teeing off on me. He came at me as if I was someone that he hated. It took me a minute to realize that Mike was not playing around. I immediately had a bloody nose. I was doing my best to keep him off me and I never took a backward step. When the bell went off and I went to the corner, Mel was livid. "That f*cking bastid is cutting you with his laces". I hadn't noticed but I remember saying "Mel. He wouldn't do that". "F*ck it, I'm pulling you out-he can find someone else." "Mel. don't do it" I was serious. Normally I went along with whatever Mel wanted but I was firm on this. It was a matter of pride.

We sparred about four or five rounds that day and Mike was really laying it on thick. I was being pummeled. I got in a few licks though but for the most part I was just a punching bag.

When we were done sparring, Mike was back to his old self, smiling and joking. The picture of affability. I don't think I have ever seen Mel so angry. He used every curse word he could think of and probably created a few just for the occasion. After I was done getting dressed I walked back to the floor to wait for Mel. Mike walks up to me and says "tomorrow?" Yeah sure, no problem"

The next day my friend Ken Robledo came with me. I think he wanted to see Mike kick my ass. If so, he wasn't disappointed. It was a repeat of the first day only more so. Again Mel was pissed off. I know that Mel never really cared for the Quarrys. He always thought that they had a negative influence on middleweight Mike Nixon, at least that's what he told me. So for Mel, it was just one more thing to be angry about. When I was cleaned up and ready to go, my friend Ken walks up to me and said "Man, Quarry really kicked your ass" Yeah, well..." was all could muster. "You never took a backward step though, I'll give you that".

The third and last day was more of the same. Still I was looking for some payback, just a little bit. My chance came when Mike finished teeing off on my head. The funny thing is no matter how many times Mike landed, and he did land, he never really hurt me. He overwhelmed me at times but never hurt me. He dropped his hands to his sides and did the Ali shuffle and stuck out his chin. The guy was mocking me and was probably expecting me to be awed or intimidated, instead I threw the best right hand I have ever thrown or ever will. It landed flush on his chin. His eyes rolled up and flickered and he fell against the ropes. I know I hurt him. As I rushed him trying my best to at least end this sparring session with some dignity, the guy that was working his corner called an end to the sparring. Then Mike started acting funny. He started shaking his ass and laughing the way a fighter does when he wants to show the other guy he wasn't hurt. I hate to say it but he was acting like a jerk. I think he was embarrassed.

Mel walks up to me and said "You knocked that f*cking bastid out on his feet". "I don't think so Mel, I think he was kidding" "Bullshit, he was hurt.

Later after we showered Mike came up to me and said "Randy, thanks for the workout-I had a harder workout with you than most light heavyweights". "Thanks Mike, I had a harder workout with you than most welterweights!" Maybe Mike was just being polite, I don't know, but coming from him it was quite a compliment.

Evey word was true. It took me three f*cking days but I caught him and I know I hurt him, just a little. More importantly, at least to me, I never took a backward step.

A great story, if somewhat disappointing to read the antics of Mike. You got the last punch in, Randy. You gained his respect.

[dagosd2000]

IN SEARCH OF

So I went to Tijuana to the dentist to get some new teeth. While I was waiting for my porceline,I thought I'd try to locate where Antonio Margarito was training his young stable of fighters.

I asked the parking lot attendant if he knew the whereabouts of El Tony. To my surprise he told me that Margarito lifts weights at a gym between 1st and 2nd Streets on Calle Multilismo. Sure enough I found the gym ,but no Tony. The gym is a little hole in the wall called Hard Body. A few weights. Some machines and bicycles. Clean,but small. The fella' behind the counter told me Margarito would come in on Monday around 8 in the morning. I won't be there,but then I asked him about Colonia Francisco Villa. That's where Tony lives. The guy said that Tony's boxing gym is there. So back in the car and off to La Villa.

Colonia Villa is up the hill where I used to live,Canyon Jhonson. Canyon Jhonson is wedged down below between La Villa and Colonia Hidalgo. I asked around La Villa about Margarito's gym,but I must have asked people who were into bull fighting because no one knew what I was talking about.

I had some time to kill before I picked up my teeth so I walked around La Villa. It's not a bad little community. I say community because I could feel a sense of continuity. The plaza with the church. The main drag with its stores and restaurants. Schools and a park with people gathered enjoying a warm Saturday afternoon. It was alive.

I then walked to the edge of the colonia and looked down into where I used to live, in the canyon. It seems always that if you live down below the people on the hill have it better. It looked that way to me. Canyon Jhonson has no park nor play grounds. No stores. Can't eat anywhere. The street running through the ravine doesn't have a sidewalk. There's not even a church.

Sometimes I think the people that live in Canyon Jhonson are almost unable to climb out. In the bottom of that canyon, they seem forgotton.

Well after walking around La Villa for a while,I got in the car and headed downtown to pick up my pearly whites. I didn't drive through Canyon Jhonson on the way back.

[dagosd2000]

After a little league game in La Villa




Boys playing indoor soccer in La Villa




The local school in La Villa



The church in Colonia Francisco Villa




Canyon Jhonson. It has none of the above. And a lot more.

[bennie]

I ran across this great article on the Ring Magazine Blog and thought it was worth sharing-Randy


Classic Column: What makes a good fighter?
Posted May. 19, 2009 at 12:06pm
By W.C. Heinz

Classic Columns by magazine founder Nat Fleischer and other RING magazine writers over the past 86 years are posted Tuesdays. Today's column was selected because of all the talk about the best fighter pound-for-pound and the fighter of the decade. W.C. Heinz provided his thoughts on what makes a good fighter in the July 1951 issue.


Joey Maxim was in New York to fight Olle Tandberg, the heavyweight champion of Sweden. This was three years ago, and we were sitting in the dressing room he was using in Stillman’s and he was telling us about the time Curtis Sheppard caught him cold in the first round and pinned him in a corner and knocked him out.

“Believe me,” Joey said, “there’s no other feeling in the world like the feeling of being knocked out. You can’t imagine what it’s like.”

“I can’t,” Francis Albertanti said. “You tell me.”

“I come to in the dressing room,” Maxim said. “Everybody is standing around with long faces and tears in their eyes. It’s like I just died. I start crying myself, I’m saying: ‘I’ll go to work. I’ll dig ditches. I’ll do anything.’

“After a while I feel better. I have my shower and I get dressed and I go up to the office to get paid. Sheppard is up there, and he’s a real good guy. He knows he was lucky and he won’t catch me like that again, and he tells me he thinks I got a bad break and I’m entitled to a return.

“Three weeks later I go back with the guy and this time I win it in 10,” Maxim said, looking at us and nodding his head “How do you like that? The guy knocks me out and he’s willing to take me back.”
Francis and I were walking down Eighth Avenue about a half hour later. I was thinking about what Maxim had said.

“He sits there,” I said, “and he tells us what a great thing it is that Sheppard, who has just flattened him, is willing to take him back.”
“I know,” Francis said.

“While he’s talking,” I said, “I’m thinking what a hell of a thing it is that Maxim wants to go back.”
“I know,” Francis said. “I am thinking the same thing myself.”

Joey Maxim is a good fighter. He is good enough to be a champion of the world. His fights do not inspire enthusiasm and his style appears controlled by his caution, and yet if you ask me to enumerate the qualities that go into the making of a good fighter I must give you Maxim and the way he went back with Sheppard. More than that, I must give you his casual acceptance of his own act, his amazement that Sheppard would take him back.

We are thinking about good fighters, the ones of our time, and so Joe Louis belongs in this. The things that make any fighter good, or great, are many, and in the days when Louis was great they analyzed this great¬ness as deriving from fast reflexes, fast hands, and proper schooling in the use of these gifts.

There was nothing wrong with this definition, except that it left those who knew Louis only from a distance perplexed. The placid, unchanging expression of his face, his slow, uninspired manner of speech gave rise to the opinion that his was only an animal ability, and some, at least, concluded that boxing greatness does not require agility of mind.

That is where they were wrong, and Louis proved it on a number of occasions. He proved it on a day in Pompton Lakes in 1946. He was training to meet Billy Conn for the second time, and we were all standing around, crowded, in the dressing room watching Manny Seamon wrapping Joe’s hands.

We were not saying much. We never did say much around Joe, but it had been written many times that Conn looked fast and that his speed might befuddle Louis, and then, as we all stood there, somebody mentioned this.

When he did, Louis said something. He raised his eyes slowly, from watching Manny, and then he came out with the best line that was spoken or written about that fight. Then he went back to watching Manny.

“Billy can run,” Joe said, simply, “but he can’t hide.”

Lines are our stock in trade, not Joe’s, but he did not surprise those of us who knew him as much as it was ever possible for us to know Joe. He had given us one of those rare opportunities to look into that mind, the mind that could recognize an opening and use it. He had explained, without trying to do so, the ability to take the single opening that Paolino Uzcudun gave him in four rounds, and with one punch, probably the most devastating single punch Louis ever threw, flatten Uzcudun.

It is generally agreed that Joe’s greatest fight was his second fight against Max Schme¬ling. Goaded by hurt pride he angrily annihilated in less than a round a good fighter who had previously knocked him out. Emotional excitement inspired his most creative performance and made it his best. Thus it comes down that the good fighter is the creative fighter, the one who is able to rise above the mech¬anical limitations of the sport.

Such a one was the Rocky Graziano who, on July 12, 1947, won the middle¬weight championship of the world. Far from a master of the moves of the sport, the Graziano of that time was a fighter whose creative ability, coupled with his right hand, more than made up for his lack of technical talent.
It was a few minutes after Graziano had knocked out Tony Zale in the heat of the Chicago Stadium and in one of the most fierce fights of our era, that several of us were crowding him in the closeness of his dressing room. His one eye was closed and a clip held together the flesh above the other, and someone asked him to try to explain how he felt during the fury of that fight with Zale.

“I wanted to kill him,” Rocky said. “I don’t know why. I got nothing against him. I like him. He’s a nice guy, but I wanted to kill him. I don’t know why.”

The greatest fighter of his time and one of the greatest of all time is Ray Robinson, the middleweight champion of the world. It is probable that in him, more than in any other fighter of today, are combined more of the qualities that go into the making of a great fighter.
Among the fighters of the present there is, for example, no more avid student of the sport. Robinson has been thus since the days when he started to box. As a four-round preliminary boy he made it a practice to sit at ringside in his ring clothes, before and after his own fights in order to study the others on the card.

One day we were talking in the Uptown Gym in Harlem. He was explaining how he had learned to fight by watching others and fighting others, and I asked him from whom, among those he had fought, he had learned the most.

“Fritzie Zivic taught me a lot,” he said, speaking of the former welterweight champion. “He was about the smartest I ever fought. Why, he showed me how you can make a man butt open his own eye.”

“How?” I said.

“He’d slip my lead, like this,” Robin¬son said, demonstrating. “Then he’d put his hand behind my neck and he’d bring my eye down on his head. Fritzie was smart.”

We were sitting one day in Robinson’s office on Seventh Avenue, just south of 124th Street. He had fought Kid Gavilan twice. The first time they had fought Gavi¬lan had given him trouble. The second time, for the welterweight title in Phila¬delphia on July 11, 1949, he had handled the Cuban with ease, and I wanted him to tell me at least one of the things he had learned about Gavilan in their first fight.

“Well, I noticed one thing.” Robinson said. “I noticed that when he throws his hook he’s not in position, so he shifts his right shoulder forward maybe an inch or two. When he does that you know the right hand is dead, and you how the hook is coming.”
I was not amazed by this, because I had ex¬pected some such revelation. I was merely im¬pressed that of the many who have fought Gavilan and of the many more who have watched him closely, this is the only one to find this weakness.

I was not amazed, moreover, when Robin¬son told me that he knows fear. I have never known a really good creative artist, whether he be a writer, painter, or boxer, who has not confessed that he often doubts himself, experiences nervous¬ness when the big project is at hand.

“Accidents happen in a ring,” Robinson said. “You can never tell when you’re liable to be hit with a good punch.”

He remembered the night he fought Artie Levine in Cleveland in November of 1946. Levine had a dozen pounds on him and so Robinson was fighting it the way you should fight it, moving and throwing no more than combinations and piling up the points.

“In the ninth round,” he said, “he started a right hand and I reached over to catch it. When I opened my glove it wasn’t there and I heard the referee say: ‘Four.’ I thought to myself, Man, he’s startin’ awful high.”

Robinson got up at nine, and in the next round he knocked Levine out. He has never forgotten this, however, but the fear that Robinson knows is the limited fear that inspires a degree of caution and out of this gives birth to inspired performance.


http://www.ringtv.com/blog/685/classic_ ... d_fighter/

You're right, Randy, this is a great article.

[scartissue]

I ran across this great article on the Ring Magazine Blog and thought it was worth sharing-Randy


Classic Column: What makes a good fighter?
Posted May. 19, 2009 at 12:06pm
By W.C. Heinz

Classic Columns by magazine founder Nat Fleischer and other RING magazine writers over the past 86 years are posted Tuesdays. Today's column was selected because of all the talk about the best fighter pound-for-pound and the fighter of the decade. W.C. Heinz provided his thoughts on what makes a good fighter in the July 1951 issue.


Joey Maxim was in New York to fight Olle Tandberg, the heavyweight champion of Sweden. This was three years ago, and we were sitting in the dressing room he was using in Stillman’s and he was telling us about the time Curtis Sheppard caught him cold in the first round and pinned him in a corner and knocked him out.

“Believe me,” Joey said, “there’s no other feeling in the world like the feeling of being knocked out. You can’t imagine what it’s like.”

“I can’t,” Francis Albertanti said. “You tell me.”

“I come to in the dressing room,” Maxim said. “Everybody is standing around with long faces and tears in their eyes. It’s like I just died. I start crying myself, I’m saying: ‘I’ll go to work. I’ll dig ditches. I’ll do anything.’

“After a while I feel better. I have my shower and I get dressed and I go up to the office to get paid. Sheppard is up there, and he’s a real good guy. He knows he was lucky and he won’t catch me like that again, and he tells me he thinks I got a bad break and I’m entitled to a return.

“Three weeks later I go back with the guy and this time I win it in 10,” Maxim said, looking at us and nodding his head “How do you like that? The guy knocks me out and he’s willing to take me back.”
Francis and I were walking down Eighth Avenue about a half hour later. I was thinking about what Maxim had said.

“He sits there,” I said, “and he tells us what a great thing it is that Sheppard, who has just flattened him, is willing to take him back.”
“I know,” Francis said.

“While he’s talking,” I said, “I’m thinking what a hell of a thing it is that Maxim wants to go back.”
“I know,” Francis said. “I am thinking the same thing myself.”

Joey Maxim is a good fighter. He is good enough to be a champion of the world. His fights do not inspire enthusiasm and his style appears controlled by his caution, and yet if you ask me to enumerate the qualities that go into the making of a good fighter I must give you Maxim and the way he went back with Sheppard. More than that, I must give you his casual acceptance of his own act, his amazement that Sheppard would take him back.

We are thinking about good fighters, the ones of our time, and so Joe Louis belongs in this. The things that make any fighter good, or great, are many, and in the days when Louis was great they analyzed this great¬ness as deriving from fast reflexes, fast hands, and proper schooling in the use of these gifts.

There was nothing wrong with this definition, except that it left those who knew Louis only from a distance perplexed. The placid, unchanging expression of his face, his slow, uninspired manner of speech gave rise to the opinion that his was only an animal ability, and some, at least, concluded that boxing greatness does not require agility of mind.

That is where they were wrong, and Louis proved it on a number of occasions. He proved it on a day in Pompton Lakes in 1946. He was training to meet Billy Conn for the second time, and we were all standing around, crowded, in the dressing room watching Manny Seamon wrapping Joe’s hands.

We were not saying much. We never did say much around Joe, but it had been written many times that Conn looked fast and that his speed might befuddle Louis, and then, as we all stood there, somebody mentioned this.

When he did, Louis said something. He raised his eyes slowly, from watching Manny, and then he came out with the best line that was spoken or written about that fight. Then he went back to watching Manny.

“Billy can run,” Joe said, simply, “but he can’t hide.”

Lines are our stock in trade, not Joe’s, but he did not surprise those of us who knew him as much as it was ever possible for us to know Joe. He had given us one of those rare opportunities to look into that mind, the mind that could recognize an opening and use it. He had explained, without trying to do so, the ability to take the single opening that Paolino Uzcudun gave him in four rounds, and with one punch, probably the most devastating single punch Louis ever threw, flatten Uzcudun.

It is generally agreed that Joe’s greatest fight was his second fight against Max Schme¬ling. Goaded by hurt pride he angrily annihilated in less than a round a good fighter who had previously knocked him out. Emotional excitement inspired his most creative performance and made it his best. Thus it comes down that the good fighter is the creative fighter, the one who is able to rise above the mech¬anical limitations of the sport.

Such a one was the Rocky Graziano who, on July 12, 1947, won the middle¬weight championship of the world. Far from a master of the moves of the sport, the Graziano of that time was a fighter whose creative ability, coupled with his right hand, more than made up for his lack of technical talent.
It was a few minutes after Graziano had knocked out Tony Zale in the heat of the Chicago Stadium and in one of the most fierce fights of our era, that several of us were crowding him in the closeness of his dressing room. His one eye was closed and a clip held together the flesh above the other, and someone asked him to try to explain how he felt during the fury of that fight with Zale.

“I wanted to kill him,” Rocky said. “I don’t know why. I got nothing against him. I like him. He’s a nice guy, but I wanted to kill him. I don’t know why.”

The greatest fighter of his time and one of the greatest of all time is Ray Robinson, the middleweight champion of the world. It is probable that in him, more than in any other fighter of today, are combined more of the qualities that go into the making of a great fighter.
Among the fighters of the present there is, for example, no more avid student of the sport. Robinson has been thus since the days when he started to box. As a four-round preliminary boy he made it a practice to sit at ringside in his ring clothes, before and after his own fights in order to study the others on the card.

One day we were talking in the Uptown Gym in Harlem. He was explaining how he had learned to fight by watching others and fighting others, and I asked him from whom, among those he had fought, he had learned the most.

“Fritzie Zivic taught me a lot,” he said, speaking of the former welterweight champion. “He was about the smartest I ever fought. Why, he showed me how you can make a man butt open his own eye.”

“How?” I said.

“He’d slip my lead, like this,” Robin¬son said, demonstrating. “Then he’d put his hand behind my neck and he’d bring my eye down on his head. Fritzie was smart.”

We were sitting one day in Robinson’s office on Seventh Avenue, just south of 124th Street. He had fought Kid Gavilan twice. The first time they had fought Gavi¬lan had given him trouble. The second time, for the welterweight title in Phila¬delphia on July 11, 1949, he had handled the Cuban with ease, and I wanted him to tell me at least one of the things he had learned about Gavilan in their first fight.

“Well, I noticed one thing.” Robinson said. “I noticed that when he throws his hook he’s not in position, so he shifts his right shoulder forward maybe an inch or two. When he does that you know the right hand is dead, and you how the hook is coming.”
I was not amazed by this, because I had ex¬pected some such revelation. I was merely im¬pressed that of the many who have fought Gavilan and of the many more who have watched him closely, this is the only one to find this weakness.

I was not amazed, moreover, when Robin¬son told me that he knows fear. I have never known a really good creative artist, whether he be a writer, painter, or boxer, who has not confessed that he often doubts himself, experiences nervous¬ness when the big project is at hand.

“Accidents happen in a ring,” Robinson said. “You can never tell when you’re liable to be hit with a good punch.”

He remembered the night he fought Artie Levine in Cleveland in November of 1946. Levine had a dozen pounds on him and so Robinson was fighting it the way you should fight it, moving and throwing no more than combinations and piling up the points.

“In the ninth round,” he said, “he started a right hand and I reached over to catch it. When I opened my glove it wasn’t there and I heard the referee say: ‘Four.’ I thought to myself, Man, he’s startin’ awful high.”

Robinson got up at nine, and in the next round he knocked Levine out. He has never forgotten this, however, but the fear that Robinson knows is the limited fear that inspires a degree of caution and out of this gives birth to inspired performance.


http://www.ringtv.com/blog/685/classic_ ... d_fighter/

You're right, Randy, this is a great article.

Man, I hung on every word. An outstanding article. Alot of fighters today should read that quip by Maxim. I laughed at the awe of the writer over the fact that Maxim was humbled by Sheppard 'allowing' him a return. How protective fighters today are over perfect records and how back in the day all they could say was, "I'll get him in a rematch." How times have changed.

Scartissue

[scartissue]

Sparring With Mike Quarry

In an earlier post by Rick, he mentions that Jerry Quarry was hard on his younger brother Mike, bulling him and roughing him up when they sparred and more or less taking advantage of the size and weight difference.

In the above article about Jerry Quarry and Joey Orbillo by Pete Ehrmann, Ehrmann says this "In the last round, with the fight in hand, Quarry dropped his hands and did an imitation of ali dancing around the ring. the crowd loved it, but Quarry says he wasn't showing off."

Both the bulling and Ali shuffling clear up something, more or less, from 1976 when I sparred with Mike Quarry. I don't remember the date but it was sometime in the middle of the year. I had yet to have a fight.

Mike Quarry showed up at the Main Street Gym one day. This was the first time I had seen him at the gym since I had been training there and I had been there for at least a year and a half. Mike carried himself like a pro. His mannerisms, the way he walked and the way he dressed. He was wearing a light blue three piece suit that day. I was skipping rope when he came through the doors. From where I was standing, Mike cut a pretty imposing figure. I immediately recognized him.

No sooner did he come through the door then he and my trainer, Mel Epstein, had eye contact. They talked for a few minutes, then Mel walked over to me in that slightly bent and rapid pace way that he did whenever he felt rushed. "You're gonna spar with Mike Quarry today" he said to me. "He wants to work with someone smaller and faster than him-you okay with that?" Yeah, I'm okay with it" I said. "Okay, Keep warming up" and he walked away.

A few minutes later I was getting geared up for sparring, putting on the cup, head gear and wraps and gloves. Mel was putting Vaseline on my face and says to me "Don't try to slug with him, it's just a workout, and don't get nervous just because it's Quarry". I'm not nervous Mel" I said, and I wasn't.

As soon as I stepped in the ring, Mike started teeing off on me. He came at me as if I was someone that he hated. It took me a minute to realize that Mike was not playing around. I immediately had a bloody nose. I was doing my best to keep him off me and I never took a backward step. When the bell went off and I went to the corner, Mel was livid. "That f*cking bastid is cutting you with his laces". I hadn't noticed but I remember saying "Mel. He wouldn't do that". "F*ck it, I'm pulling you out-he can find someone else." "Mel. don't do it" I was serious. Normally I went along with whatever Mel wanted but I was firm on this. It was a matter of pride.

We sparred about four or five rounds that day and Mike was really laying it on thick. I was being pummeled. I got in a few licks though but for the most part I was just a punching bag.

When we were done sparring, Mike was back to his old self, smiling and joking. The picture of affability. I don't think I have ever seen Mel so angry. He used every curse word he could think of and probably created a few just for the occasion. After I was done getting dressed I walked back to the floor to wait for Mel. Mike walks up to me and says "tomorrow?" Yeah sure, no problem"

The next day my friend Ken Robledo came with me. I think he wanted to see Mike kick my ass. If so, he wasn't disappointed. It was a repeat of the first day only more so. Again Mel was pissed off. I know that Mel never really cared for the Quarrys. He always thought that they had a negative influence on middleweight Mike Nixon, at least that's what he told me. So for Mel, it was just one more thing to be angry about. When I was cleaned up and ready to go, my friend Ken walks up to me and said "Man, Quarry really kicked your ass" Yeah, well..." was all could muster. "You never took a backward step though, I'll give you that".

The third and last day was more of the same. Still I was looking for some payback, just a little bit. My chance came when Mike finished teeing off on my head. The funny thing is no matter how many times Mike landed, and he did land, he never really hurt me. He overwhelmed me at times but never hurt me. He dropped his hands to his sides and did the Ali shuffle and stuck out his chin. The guy was mocking me and was probably expecting me to be awed or intimidated, instead I threw the best right hand I have ever thrown or ever will. It landed flush on his chin. His eyes rolled up and flickered and he fell against the ropes. I know I hurt him. As I rushed him trying my best to at least end this sparring session with some dignity, the guy that was working his corner called an end to the sparring. Then Mike started acting funny. He started shaking his ass and laughing the way a fighter does when he wants to show the other guy he wasn't hurt. I hate to say it but he was acting like a jerk. I think he was embarrassed.

Mel walks up to me and said "You knocked that f*cking bastid out on his feet". "I don't think so Mel, I think he was kidding" "Bullshit, he was hurt.

Later after we showered Mike came up to me and said "Randy, thanks for the workout-I had a harder workout with you than most light heavyweights". "Thanks Mike, I had a harder workout with you than most welterweights!" Maybe Mike was just being polite, I don't know, but coming from him it was quite a compliment.

Evey word was true. It took me three f*cking days but I caught him and I know I hurt him, just a little. More importantly, at least to me, I never took a backward step.

Great story Randy. I love it.
You hit Mike with a shot.You showed heart and Balls.Im not surprised at all that you hung in there with a guy who fought the great Bob Foster.That is a fond memory for you Im sure.Not many folks can say the same.

Thanks Brian. It is a fond memory. So was fighting on the under card of Quarry and Tom Bethea.

Randy

Randy, thinking of the Quarry-Bethea fight makes me ponder how Mike Quarry's style changed so dramatically after the Foster KO. I recall how my Dad hated watching a Mike Quarry fight pre-Foster. He felt he was just a jab and run artist, and maybe he was but I did like his defensive moves. After Foster, whether something was missing or he changed to make a more entertaining fight, he suddenly began engaging in slugfests. Now, Mike had no punch but had a good jaw, which equates to 10 rounds of toe to toe, which may have exacerbated his final post boxing fate. An example I would bring up are his two fights with Andy Kendall. I saw his 1st fight with Kendall before the Foster fight and he did a nice job outboxing the Scapoose Express. I think it was in '73 they had a rematch, Mike fights Kendall's infighting type of fight and of course gets beat by a guy who was already on the downside of his career. Something tells me his change in style was purposelful and an attempt at making an exciting fight, which it did. Because twice I saw him revert to his smart style of boxing - against Mike Rossman and Tom Bethea - and he looked good in victory.

Scartissue

[kikibalt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e4oh9ZrBZo

Mando Ramos vs Yoshiaki Numata

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Qd3Ruhh9I

[dagosd2000]

Vail Elementary School, Simon, Ca. (Montebello, Ca.)

I went to the Simons Reunion today and I bought a book that had lots of old photos, found the picture above in the book.
Middle row, third from right, thats me, don't know what grade that was or what year, other then to say it was in the mid-late 1940's

Frank
Friday I was with a friend seeing some of the museums in L.A. Passed through Montebello. Seemed like nice peacefull Mexican /American community. Away from all the downtown riff raff.

BTW. That hair you got on your head you can thank the Aztecs

[kikibalt]

Simons Brickyard, 1937



Top row, first from right, my dad, bottom row (sitting) my uncle max, who is now 89 years old

[dagosd2000]

Vail Elementary School, Simon, Ca. (Montebello, Ca.)

I went to the Simons Reunion today and I bought a book that had lots of old photos, found the picture above in the book.
Middle row, third from right, thats me, don't know what grade that was or what year, other then to say it was in the mid-late 1940's

Frank, thought you might like to see this one. It was 3rd grade. That's me next to the teacher.

You still look the same Randy, just a bit heavier around the middle.....

Randy
Looking at the photos of you and Frank in grammar school(and I think I can speak for the rest of us),I bet our teachers enjoyed their professions. It's different now. Teaching is not an easy gig. Kids today bring more into the classroom than most of us would want to think about. If a kid back then got into trouble it was probably because he was having too much fun. Today, it's less fun and more hurt.

[dagosd2000]

Simons Brickyard, 1937



Top row, first from right, my dad, bottom row (sitting) my uncle max, who is now 89 years old

When I see stuff like this,I know I was born too late.

[kikibalt]

Vail Elementary School, Simon, Ca. (Montebello, Ca.)

I went to the Simons Reunion today and I bought a book that had lots of old photos, found the picture above in the book.
Middle row, third from right, thats me, don't know what grade that was or what year, other then to say it was in the mid-late 1940's

Frank
Friday I was with a friend seeing some of the museums in L.A. Passed through Montebello. Seemed like nice peacefull Mexican /American community. Away from all the downtown riff raff.

BTW. That hair you got on your head you can thank the Aztecs

Roger, is that where got my hair, the Aztecs? , didn't know that, thanks....

[dagosd2000]

Vail Elementary School, Simon, Ca. (Montebello, Ca.)

I went to the Simons Reunion today and I bought a book that had lots of old photos, found the picture above in the book.
Middle row, third from right, thats me, don't know what grade that was or what year, other then to say it was in the mid-late 1940's

Frank
Friday I was with a friend seeing some of the museums in L.A. Passed through Montebello. Seemed like nice peacefull Mexican /American community. Away from all the downtown riff raff.

BTW. That hair you got on your head you can thank the Aztecs

Roger, is that where got my hair, the Aztecs? , didn't know that, thanks....

Frank
When I go to Spain I see more pelones runnin' around. Some have black hair that they got from the Moors(the Arabs)that onced rule there. They have most of their hair,but the Spaniards without that blood have those solar plates on their heads.

Now when Spain conquered Latin America and got horny with the Indians,the Indian gene for hair was dominant. (BTW,the woman passes this gene along).

Did you ever see a bald Indian? Geronimo with a wig. Can't imagine that.

[kikibalt]

Simons Brickyard even had it local sheriff, it was a one man department.
I remember this guy, just don't remember his name.

[Rick Farris]

Sparring With Mike Quarry

In an earlier post by Rick, he mentions that Jerry Quarry was hard on his younger brother Mike, bulling him and roughing him up when they sparred and more or less taking advantage of the size and weight difference.

In the above article about Jerry Quarry and Joey Orbillo by Pete Ehrmann, Ehrmann says this "In the last round, with the fight in hand, Quarry dropped his hands and did an imitation of ali dancing around the ring. the crowd loved it, but Quarry says he wasn't showing off."

Both the bulling and Ali shuffling clear up something, more or less, from 1976 when I sparred with Mike Quarry. I don't remember the date but it was sometime in the middle of the year. I had yet to have a fight.

Mike Quarry showed up at the Main Street Gym one day. This was the first time I had seen him at the gym since I had been training there and I had been there for at least a year and a half. Mike carried himself like a pro. His mannerisms, the way he walked and the way he dressed. He was wearing a light blue three piece suit that day. I was skipping rope when he came through the doors. From where I was standing, Mike cut a pretty imposing figure. I immediately recognized him.

No sooner did he come through the door then he and my trainer, Mel Epstein, had eye contact. They talked for a few minutes, then Mel walked over to me in that slightly bent and rapid pace way that he did whenever he felt rushed. "You're gonna spar with Mike Quarry today" he said to me. "He wants to work with someone smaller and faster than him-you okay with that?" Yeah, I'm okay with it" I said. "Okay, Keep warming up" and he walked away.

A few minutes later I was getting geared up for sparring, putting on the cup, head gear and wraps and gloves. Mel was putting Vaseline on my face and says to me "Don't try to slug with him, it's just a workout, and don't get nervous just because it's Quarry". I'm not nervous Mel" I said, and I wasn't.

As soon as I stepped in the ring, Mike started teeing off on me. He came at me as if I was someone that he hated. It took me a minute to realize that Mike was not playing around. I immediately had a bloody nose. I was doing my best to keep him off me and I never took a backward step. When the bell went off and I went to the corner, Mel was livid. "That f*cking bastid is cutting you with his laces". I hadn't noticed but I remember saying "Mel. He wouldn't do that". "F*ck it, I'm pulling you out-he can find someone else." "Mel. don't do it" I was serious. Normally I went along with whatever Mel wanted but I was firm on this. It was a matter of pride.

We sparred about four or five rounds that day and Mike was really laying it on thick. I was being pummeled. I got in a few licks though but for the most part I was just a punching bag.

When we were done sparring, Mike was back to his old self, smiling and joking. The picture of affability. I don't think I have ever seen Mel so angry. He used every curse word he could think of and probably created a few just for the occasion. After I was done getting dressed I walked back to the floor to wait for Mel. Mike walks up to me and says "tomorrow?" Yeah sure, no problem"

The next day my friend Ken Robledo came with me. I think he wanted to see Mike kick my ass. If so, he wasn't disappointed. It was a repeat of the first day only more so. Again Mel was pissed off. I know that Mel never really cared for the Quarrys. He always thought that they had a negative influence on middleweight Mike Nixon, at least that's what he told me. So for Mel, it was just one more thing to be angry about. When I was cleaned up and ready to go, my friend Ken walks up to me and said "Man, Quarry really kicked your ass" Yeah, well..." was all could muster. "You never took a backward step though, I'll give you that".

The third and last day was more of the same. Still I was looking for some payback, just a little bit. My chance came when Mike finished teeing off on my head. The funny thing is no matter how many times Mike landed, and he did land, he never really hurt me. He overwhelmed me at times but never hurt me. He dropped his hands to his sides and did the Ali shuffle and stuck out his chin. The guy was mocking me and was probably expecting me to be awed or intimidated, instead I threw the best right hand I have ever thrown or ever will. It landed flush on his chin. His eyes rolled up and flickered and he fell against the ropes. I know I hurt him. As I rushed him trying my best to at least end this sparring session with some dignity, the guy that was working his corner called an end to the sparring. Then Mike started acting funny. He started shaking his ass and laughing the way a fighter does when he wants to show the other guy he wasn't hurt. I hate to say it but he was acting like a jerk. I think he was embarrassed.

Mel walks up to me and said "You knocked that f*cking bastid out on his feet". "I don't think so Mel, I think he was kidding" "Bullshit, he was hurt.

Later after we showered Mike came up to me and said "Randy, thanks for the workout-I had a harder workout with you than most light heavyweights". "Thanks Mike, I had a harder workout with you than most welterweights!" Maybe Mike was just being polite, I don't know, but coming from him it was quite a compliment.

Evey word was true. It took me three f*cking days but I caught him and I know I hurt him, just a little. More importantly, at least to me, I never took a backward step.

Great story Randy. I love it.
You hit Mike with a shot.You showed heart and Balls.Im not surprised at all that you hung in there with a guy who fought the great Bob Foster.That is a fond memory for you Im sure.Not many folks can say the same.

Rattling Mike Quarry's Plaster . . .

You must have rocked him, Randy. Mel didn't blow smoke about that kind of thing. It must have made his day. I know that Mel didn't have any respect the Quarry's. There was a time when certain behavior was not accepted, I'm not talking about what goes on in the ring, but how boxers behaved outside boxing. The Quarry's were no class, rude, boring, the kind of guys that you really didn't want to invite to a party. I have seen Mike and Jerry start a food fight in the nice home of a fan, trashing the place like a couple idiots. I happened to be there with another boxer, we walked out embarrassed. The things that upset Mel about the Quarry family were things regarded as socially unacceptable anywhere.

As for the workout with Mike, you validated what most of us were aware way back when Mike was a kid. I truly believe that a fighter is "born" with a punch. You can teach proper form and execution, and you can improve a boxer's punch, but a puncher is pretty much something that God creates. Jerry Quarry was a born puncher, Mike was just the opposite. I've told of how Jerry beat up Mike in the gym. I don't believe guys should take it too easy in the gym. If you pull your punches in the gym you will do the same in the ring. What you practice you will take into the ring, so you have to let them go. But when a guy is out on his feet and unable to defend themselves, you needn't put in the finishing touches on them, you know you can and unless you are satisfying some vendetta, why?

You were a fighter with heart. You won a personal victory with your continued workouts with Quarry. At that stage of both of your careers, you were too small and inexperienced to dominate Mike, and he had a helluva chin in his own right. But you did have a punch, and due to your perserverence you planted it on his chin. I have a feeling that one shot hurt him more than anything he had to offer you. Great story, Randy.


-Rick

[kikibalt]

Bricks on their way to be dry





Bricks been laid out to dry

[kikibalt]

Bricks been stacked up to burn





Bricks been burned

[dagosd2000]

Bricks been stacked up to burn





Bricks been burned

Frank
When i go to Michoacan,in the back country,you can still see the Indians making bricks this way. . Mounds upon mounds of bricks. Looks almost like pyramids.

[kikibalt]

After a little league game in La Villa




Boys playing indoor soccer in La Villa




The local school in La Villa



The church in Colonia Francisco Villa




Canyon Jhonson. It has none of the above. And a lot more.

Rog...Thanks for the great photos and great story...

Btw,how did Canyon Jhonson got its name,?