Classic American West Coast Boxing

[kikibalt]

For our friend Bennie or is it Steve or maybe Sue?

http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-roy ... 8219.story

What's new in London since the last big royal wedding

[Bobbin & Weavin]

The last two weeks have been somewhat grueling for me (relatively speaking). I have been walking everyday, anywhere from a half hour to one hour at a brisk pace, between 1 and 1/2 to 3 miles (with some running mixed in), along with shadow boxing and just basic working out. I have drastically reduced my eating, especially the carbs.

My numbers were so low that for all practical purposes it looks like my diabetes has disappeared. The Docs were in disbelief. It made feel good to know that I can still surprise people. The truth is though that diabetes will never disappear, it can only be controlled. Right now I'm in control.

I weighed 207 this morning. In about a week or so, ll be under 200lbs for the first time in a decade. Considering a little less than two years ago I was 240lbs that's not too bad. To quote James Brown "I Feel Good!"

Randy,
I couldn't be happier for you, I too am trying to change some of my bad eating and exercise habits though I love a good meal nothing taste as good as what it feels like to step off the scale with successful results. Currently I'm where you were two years ago. Though I don't have to look diabetes in the face but I do know at this weight other demons are lurking just around the corner. I have promised my family to work on it and with they're backing I will find success. Keep us posted on your progress it's encouraging and helps me stay on track.
Bruce

[Rick Farris]

Jerry Quarry wasn't a big heavyweight, he was a finisher. When his mind was free, Quarry could box beautifully, a razor sharp counter-puncher who would take chances.
The so-called experts said Quarry would be done in by Earnie Shavers in 1973.
Watch Jerry Quarry do what today's heavyweights don't, becasue they can't . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEpVPBH1 ... grec_index

This fight along with the Lyle fight and Mac Foster fight were Quarrys most impressive, I actually think the Mac Foster fight was even more impressive because Quarry was the only fighter to stop Foster in his career and the fact that Foster was so much bigger and unbeaten at the time 24/0 all kayoes going into the fight shows what kind of fighter Quarry was when his head was in the game.

Paul . . . The Mac Foster fight was also one of my favorites. I have a number of Quarry fights that I enjoy remembering, one was his stunning second round KO of iron-chinned "Scrap Iron" Johnson. Ref Lee Grossman counted ten over Scrap on that night. No other heavyweight including Frazier and Liston were able to do that to Scrap Iron Johnson. Here is a video of Jerry stopping Mac Foster. I met Foster a few months later, when he joined the Johnny Flores stable. You bring up an interesting point regarding Quarry's power, nobody KOed Foster but Quarry. Jerry's single punch power was second to none in an era of very powerful heavyweights, and I love the way he could close the show . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SoIWuKS ... re=related

[Chuck1052]

That is great news in regards to your weight loss and possible diabetes remission. I find that you have to take it one day at a time when to comes to weight loss.

- Chuck Johnston

[Randyman]

Tony Baltazar (middle top row) and his 6th grade flag football team, Tony was the QB.


Circa 1968

Tony and his raggedy tags team won the league championship 3 years in a row.

Frank, I love these old photos that you post of your sons, or the Simons photos. Lots of good local history in your family.

[Randyman]

The last two weeks have been somewhat grueling for me (relatively speaking). I have been walking everyday, anywhere from a half hour to one hour at a brisk pace, between 1 and 1/2 to 3 miles (with some running mixed in), along with shadow boxing and just basic working out. I have drastically reduced my eating, especially the carbs.

My numbers were so low that for all practical purposes it looks like my diabetes has disappeared. The Docs were in disbelief. It made feel good to know that I can still surprise people. The truth is though that diabetes will never disappear, it can only be controlled. Right now I'm in control.

I weighed 207 this morning. In about a week or so, ll be under 200lbs for the first time in a decade. Considering a little less than two years ago I was 240lbs that's not too bad. To quote James Brown "I Feel Good!"

Great Randy!
Changing habits takes heart.
It's no secret you have a big heart!

Thanks Rick, I appreciate that.

[Randyman]

The last two weeks have been somewhat grueling for me (relatively speaking). I have been walking everyday, anywhere from a half hour to one hour at a brisk pace, between 1 and 1/2 to 3 miles (with some running mixed in), along with shadow boxing and just basic working out. I have drastically reduced my eating, especially the carbs.

My numbers were so low that for all practical purposes it looks like my diabetes has disappeared. The Docs were in disbelief. It made feel good to know that I can still surprise people. The truth is though that diabetes will never disappear, it can only be controlled. Right now I'm in control.

I weighed 207 this morning. In about a week or so, ll be under 200lbs for the first time in a decade. Considering a little less than two years ago I was 240lbs that's not too bad. To quote James Brown "I Feel Good!"

Randy,
I couldn't be happier for you, I too am trying to change some of my bad eating and exercise habits though I love a good meal nothing taste as good as what it feels like to step off the scale with successful results. Currently I'm where you were two years ago. Though I don't have to look diabetes in the face but I do know at this weight other demons are lurking just around the corner. I have promised my family to work on it and with they're backing I will find success. Keep us posted on your progress it's encouraging and helps me stay on track.
Bruce

Bruce, you are 100% correct about the good feeling we get when we step on the scale and see the weight loss. It's no secret that I love food. On a normal sitting I can eat enough for three people; me, myself and I, and I make sure that all three get properly fed. No more.

Diabetes is not the only disease that can result from an improper diet or more correctly, stuffing our faces. Most of it can be reversed or maintained with some effort.

I told myself that I was going to train as if diabetes was my opponent and the truth is, diabetes is my opponent. That's my frame of mind right now. It' never too late

Thanks
Randy

[Randyman]

That is great news in regards to your weight loss and possible diabetes remission. I find that you have to take it one day at a time when to comes to weight loss.

- Chuck Johnston

It's the only way Chuck, one day at a time.

Thanks
Randy

[Randyman]

If this is the best boxing thread on the web then this :http://boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=118618 have to be a close #2 Great stuff from Charley

Thank You Remy. My father had a remarkable career and life and left behind a treasure trove of pictures and scrapbooks. I think Boxrec is a great forum to share this material.
If anybody can get enjoyment out of it, like I do here, than its my pleasure.

[Rick Farris]

If this is the best boxing thread on the web then this :http://boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=118618 have to be a close #2 Great stuff from Charley

Thank You Remy. My father had a remarkable career and life and left behind a treasure trove of pictures and scrapbooks. I think Boxrec is a great forum to share this material.
If anybody can get enjoyment out of it, like I do here, than its my pleasure.

[kikibalt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orAppYVBcs4

Big Manny's band..."Somebody Please"



Big Manny Gonzalez
Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science
Beverly Hills, Ca.

[CNorkusJr]

Big Manny and The Blazers Great stuff Frank,Thanks for the Post.
Definetly my speed and taste !

[bennie]

For our friend Bennie or is it Steve or maybe Sue?

http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-roy ... 8219.story

What's new in London since the last big royal wedding

In London? Well, we now have a congestion charge in the city which means that the cabbies do well.

[bennie]

The last two weeks have been somewhat grueling for me (relatively speaking). I have been walking everyday, anywhere from a half hour to one hour at a brisk pace, between 1 and 1/2 to 3 miles (with some running mixed in), along with shadow boxing and just basic working out. I have drastically reduced my eating, especially the carbs.

My numbers were so low that for all practical purposes it looks like my diabetes has disappeared. The Docs were in disbelief. It made feel good to know that I can still surprise people. The truth is though that diabetes will never disappear, it can only be controlled. Right now I'm in control.

I weighed 207 this morning. In about a week or so, ll be under 200lbs for the first time in a decade. Considering a little less than two years ago I was 240lbs that's not too bad. To quote James Brown "I Feel Good!"

Top man, Randy.

[bennie]

I once spent a lovely couple of hours in a New York bus station.

Wow, If I were you I would not tell anyone that ! I been in NYC Bus stations on fire business, and 10 mins in there is 20 mins too long.
I cant begin to tell you what going ons go on there behind the scenes-lets just say it looks and sounds very unhealthy for anyone-even you.

It was a place called Port Authority. I had to wait around for a bus to Atlantic City and every minute was a bit unnerving.

[Rick Farris]

"Boxeo" . . .

Award winning film maker Alan Swyer's Latino boxing documentary "Boxeo" has been edited and a promo is being put together.
It will air on HBO later this summer. A few of us of us will appear in the feature including Frank Baltazar, Don Fraser, Oscar De La Hoya, Roberto Duran, Ruben Olivares and more.
Swyer traveled around the world filming his movie and I look forward to it. Alan will be at the CBHOF lunch in June.

[Rick Farris]

No coffee crew?

[CNorkusJr]

I once spent a lovely couple of hours in a New York bus station.

Wow, If I were you I would not tell anyone that ! I been in NYC Bus stations on fire business, and 10 mins in there is 20 mins too long.
I cant begin to tell you what going ons go on there behind the scenes-lets just say it looks and sounds very unhealthy for anyone-even you.

It was a place called Port Authority. I had to wait around for a bus to Atlantic City and every minute was a bit unnerving.

Yeah-Thats the one. 8th Ave & 42 St. Though its been remodeled a few times over the years-its still a dangerous place-more missing children/runaways are fooled into prostitution and worse in that hell hole. Did you know that you were just 200 feet or so from the place where boxing champ "Battling Siki" was gunned down many years ago.(outside its back doors)

[Flump]

This was a non-TV fight and I was working the corner, a guy by the name of Tio Mata was helping out in the corner. Yes Tony was past his prime. If Tony ever got robbed of a win, this fight was it. We had the 3 knockdown rule in this fight, Tony drops Moore 3 times in the first round, thus, the should have been over, but no, the referee picked Moore up after the third knockdown and leaned him against the ropes and 15 second later the bell rang. Moore recover to make a fight of it for the next 9 rounds, but I thought Tony did more than Moore to win the fight. The Promoter couldn't let Moore lose as he was been groom for a title shot, which he got about a year later.

Frank did the ref rule the last knockdown a slip or did he rule all of the knockdowns slips ? .

Just the last one, he gave Moore the 8 count on the first two, on the third; Moore without the ref's help wouldn't have been able to get up on his own...damn ref picked moore up!!.... ...I am still piss....

Sorry if this makes you worse kikibalt but this was the Boxing News report of the fight, thought you might like to see it, apologies in advance if you didn't, sounds like quite a scrap.

[THEHAMMER321]

No coffee crew?

Well Rick, you know the ''Vegas kept man'' sometimes sleeps till the mid afternoon as I don't want to spoil my reputation,as for the ''La puenta kept man'' he must be sleeping in also.

[kikibalt]

Happy Birthday Paulino.....

[kikibalt]

Boxer Erik Morales wants to beat Marcos Maidana, and beat the odds at least once more

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-dwy ... 208.column

[kikibalt]

The Catastrophist: The Troubled World of Don Jordan

AUTHOR: Carlos Acevedo/Fanside


“Chaos” is the only suitable word to describe the career of Don Jordan. Fifty years after he first won the welterweight title, Jordan remains a mystery without a solution. Not only did Jordan bewilder spectators with his desultory performances, he also mystified trainers, sports writers, police officers, mobsters, and historians, few of whom have bothered to trace a career that reads more like a case study than the narrative of a boxer. Welterweight champion only long enough to make two defenses and accidentally TKO nefarious Frankie Carbo, Jordan left behind a legacy as befuddling as that of Iron Eyes Cody or D.B. Cooper. Like many fighters in the 1950s, Jordan was dogged by ties to mobsters, but it was his own instability that ultimately led to his spectacular crash.

Donald Lee Jordan was born on June 22, 1934, in Los Angeles to a sprawling family estimated to have had anywhere from between 18 to 22 children. Son of a former amateur boxer, Jordan revealed his wild side early, running with street gangs as a teenager and spending time in various reformatories. “ I wasn’t a tough kid,” Jordan once told Lee Greene. “I was real quiet. I just had one big fault. I liked to fight.” His nickname, “Geronimo,” was earned during his stint gang banging in the Russian Flats section of Boyle Heights in East L.A. Jordan dropped out of high school, married at age sixteen, and decided to put his fists to better use.

After a short stint in the amateurs, Jordan turned pro as a lightweight in California in 1953. A converted southpaw with a snappy jab and a busy left hook, Jordan won the State lightweight title less than two years after his debut, defeating Joe Miceli, Art Ramponi and former champion Lauro Salas on his way to a 20-2 record.

In 1955 Jordan lost two decisions to buzzsaw Art Aragon, and subsequently fell into a slump, dropping six of his next twelve fights. Although he managed to beat another ex-champion in faded Paddy Demarco, Jordan lost decisions to Jimmy Carter, Orlando Zulueta, Joey Lopes, LC Morgan, and, for the California State welterweight title, Charley “Tombstone” Smith. A slew of knockover fights in Mexico, where his fluent Spanish and ring finesse made him a popular draw, put Jordan back on track, and when he returned to Los Angeles he hooked up with a used car salesman named Don Nesseth, who turned Jordan over to trainer Eddie Futch and Jackie McCoy for development. An improved Jordan soon ran off a hot streak that included decisions over Isaac Logart and Gaspar Ortega.

Even with his career gathering momentum, Jordan was unable to curb his reckless nature. Bad habits, the kind that sabotage athletic pursuits, were modus vivendi for Jordan. “Not only did Jordan drink but he was a chain cigarette smoker,” recalled Jackie McCoy. “Not many fighters do that. This guy never stopped smoking. But somehow he won the welterweight title.” Jordan, however, did not draw the line at Martinis and Marlboros. In one of the strangest stories to ever come across police blotters involving a boxer, Jordan was arrested on November 8, 1958, for firing arrows from a 60-inch target bow at two women after a dispute. Jordan was booked for assault with a deadly weapon. A belligerent and obviously blotto Jordan could easily have been charged with resisting arrest as well. “While being questioned by detectives,” reported The Los Angeles Times, “Jordan tried to grab the bow and arrow after threatening to shoot the officers and a newspaper reporter-photographer team.” Charges were later dropped, but in time other problems, the kind endemic to boxing in the 1950s, would arise.

When Nesseth asked Jackie Leonard, matchmaker at the Hollywood Legion, to approach IBC viceroy Truman Gibson for big fight exposure for Jordan, he unknowingly set off a chain of events that would eventually change the course of boxing history. No sooner was Gibson in the mix than Jordan was matched up with rugged Virgil Akins for a shot at the welterweight championship. Akins, who won the vacant title by annihilating Vince Martinez in 1958, would be making his first defense against Jordan. Hard-punching “Honeybear” was considered “inconsistent,” one of several euphemisms tossed around boxing in the 1950s, but as a fighter with friends in low places, it is nearly impossible to say how much of his hit-and-miss career was legitimate and how much was not. On December 4, 1958, Jordan plastered the 3-1 favorite over 15 dirty rounds before 7,344 fans at the Olympic Auditorium to win the welterweight championship. His unexpected victory would have dramatic repercussions.

It is hard to imagine someone as erratic as Jordan–who was arrested for possession of marijuana only three weeks after winning the world title–causing the downfall of Frankie Carbo, but truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction. When Nesseth refused to give Carbo a “cut” of Jordan after the Akins match, “Mr. Gray,” along with malignant sidekick Blinky Palermo, resorted to threats. Threats gave way to action, and Jackie Leonard, mistakenly thought by Carbo to be a willing go-between for his underworld shenanigans with Jordan, was beaten senseless by unknown assailants for taking his jitters to authorities. Several arrests, indictments, and trials later, Carbo and Palermo were convicted of conspiracy and extortion for their schemes involving Jordan, and were each sentenced to long bids in prison. The mob stranglehold on boxing had been loosened, courtesy of a prizefighter for whom collateral damage was merely second nature. Even as Carbo and Palermo stewed on the witness stand, Jordan was partying with Mickey Cohen, posterboy of L.A. gangster chic, and drawing the enraged scrutiny of the California State Athletic Commission.

In 1959 Jordan defeated Akins in a rematch at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis and then made his second–and last–title defense a few months later against former sparring partner Denny Moyer in a dull and sparsely attended bout in Portland. For the Moyer fight Jordan, who often trained like a man with hypersomnia, weighed in at 148 and ½ pounds and had to sweat down to the limit. ”We never knew what kind of shape he would be for a fight,” Jackie McCoy told Dave Anderson. “Eddie Futch used to train him. When he was getting ready for a fight with Gaspar Ortega he came down with a terrible cold. I thought we should call off the fight, but Futch said, ‘No, he might show up in worse shape.’ Jordan, amazingly, finished strong and won.”

For the next few months Jordan alternated between night crawling through Los Angeles, battling his now ex-wife Stella in court, and testifying to grand juries about racketeers. Finally, the impulsive Jordan decided to make his own career moves. Against the advice of his managers–and with McCoy seeing his cut reduced to training fees only–Jordan went on a short winter tour of South America, where unknown Luis Federico Thompson promptly knocked him out in Argentina. Jordan blamed his first stoppage loss on a mysterious “virus” that might actually have been a combination of mononucleosis and Jake Leg.

Humiliated, Jordan returned to Los Angeles to recover over the holidays. Before long, however, he found himself in one rumpus after another. First, he was suspended by the California State Athletic Commission after refusing to appear for a physical without explanation; then he was arrested on a DWI charge after crashing into two parked cars; next Jack Urch of the Athletic Commission pointed the finger of suspicion directly at “The Geronimo Kid” by bluntly stating, “We want to know why Jordan persists on palling around with Mickey Cohen;” finally, Jordan incurred the wrath of the NBA when he preposterously agreed to a “tune-up” bout with journeyman Candy McFarland less than two weeks before a scheduled defense against Benny Paret. At odds with his brain trust and full of near-surrealist irrationality, Jordan turned down a $12,500 television date with Don Fullmer to face McFarland at Baltimore Stadium for under $1,400.

On May 16, 1960, after a rain delay of two days, McFarland, undistinguished but earnest, cuffed Jordan into a stupor over 10 rounds and copped an easy decision. “It was the best kind of work out I could have got,” Jordan blithely told the press. Oddsmakers immediately installed him as a 3-1 underdog against Paret.

By this time Jordan was considered not only a “cheese champ,” but serious trouble as well. Nevada state boxing commissioner Jim Deskin, vexed by the loose cannon about to step into the Las Vegas Convention Center, assigned a security detail of police detectives to stakeout the Jordan training camp. On May 27, 1960, in the first nationally televised bout from Las Vegas, Paret pounded Jordan over fifteen monotonous rounds. “As early as the fifth round…” reported Sports Illustrated, “it was clear that Don Jordan had lost everything but courage.” And courage was not nearly enough for the 4,805 spectators who booed intermittently as Paret churned away at a champion who could have doubled as a Penitente that night.

Never one for damage control, Jordan compounded his troubles by signing over his entire $85,000 purse for the Paret bout to co-managers Jackie McCoy and Don Nesseth in order to hook up with Las Vegas-based hotel impresario Kirk Kerkorian. “I’d fight ten times for nothing to get rid of Nesseth,” Jordan snarled. Kerkorian, a former amateur boxer, knew little about the labyrinthine world of prizefighting, and, it could be said, his signing of Jordan proved it. With lawyers hounding him for alimony payments, Jordan decided that he would need a little incentive to step into the ring and held promoters ransom for $2,000 in the dressing room. He got the payoff, but that was the last time Don Jordan had things his own way in the topsy-turvy world of boxing.

Over the next two years Jordan would hit the skids running and would win only 2 of his last 11 fights. The boxer with graceful footwork, snappy combinations, and a precision jab seemed to vanish overnight. Other than Carmen Basilio, Tony DeMarco, and Ludwig Lightburn, Jordan suffered his humiliating freefall at the hands of one middling pug after another. Finally, on October 5, 1962, Jordan hit bedrock after being “stopped” in the first round by Battling Torres at the Olympic Auditorium, where Jordan had won the welterweight title less than four years earlier. The California State Athletic Commission immediately suspected a fix and suspended him for life. Don Jordan, only 28 at the time of the Torres fiasco, never fought again. His final record stands at 51-23-1-1.

Today Don Jordan is all but forgotten. If he is remembered at all it is for the sudden tailspin that sent him crashing from welterweight champion to complete washout in less than two years. Why did such a talented boxer unravel so suddenly? Was it the drinking, the carousing, the smoking? Certainly other fighters—from Abe Attell to Harry Greb—burned candles at both ends without sputtering out so quickly. Did the strange virus he claimed was responsible for his loss to Luis Federico Thompson linger on and effect his performances? Or was it merely hard luck? The kind of luck a rough and tumble man like Jordan might believe was the only kind he could expect?

In 1973, over a decade removed from his short-lived and tumultuous heyday, Jordan earned more notoriety after a bizarre interview with Peter Heller. Akin to some of the jailhouse ramblings of Charles Manson, the former welterweight champion of the world claimed, among other things, to have been a paid assassin as a child in the Dominican Republic and to have been a factotum for the underworld throughout his career. One outlandish claim follows another until, finally, the question of veracity becomes moot. His answers are “true” insofar as they function as dark correlatives to his fractured psyche. “Winning the championship was the most awful experience of my life,” Jordan told Heller. “Believe me, it was awful. It was not a thrill to me. I was involved in certain situations, activities not to my advantage, shall we say. I was involved in certain things; to win was not as thrilling as I thought it would be as a fighter. When I lost it I was happy. I was more happy losing it than winning it.”

Boxers, like recently paroled felons, often have difficulty adjusting to the “outside” when their careers are over, and, in this respect, Jordan was no different. He struggled with alcoholism, divorced for a second time, and found it difficult to make a living. “I went from job to job,” he told The Los Angeles Times, “I was a swamper in a produce market, a machinist in the shipyards and a carpet layer. I found there were more people in public against me than there were when I was fighting.”

A few steady years working for Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica were followed by a stint as a longshoreman in Wilmington. It was there, in the rugged waterfront district of Southern California, that Jordan was savagely beaten during a robbery on September 30, 1996. Two thugs attacked Jordan in broad daylight and left him for dead in a parking lot. Jordan lingered in a coma for nearly five months before dying on February 13, 1997. He was 62 years old. Two men suspected of the murder were later released due to insufficient evidence. His senseless and tragic death was a fitting exclamation point to the unruly life of a boxer who once muttered the bleakest of aphorisms: “But all man knows when he fights he must lose.”

[Cholo]

Does anybody know how Chico Vejar is doing these day's, I've been watching Audie Murphy's World In My Corner where Vejar played the part of Al Carelli, also in the film were Cisco Andrade and Art Aragon.....

[Rick Farris]

Happy Birthday Paulino.....

Happy Birthday, Paul!