Boxing Mysteries-Whatever became of Jeff Merritt?

[Old bones Ian]

Also the famed 'spar' between a suspended Ali and Merritt was supposed to be filmed for the 'Wide world of Sport' program. I wonder if it was?

[loaded_gloves]

I met Jeff Merritt 6 years ago in Las Vegas. He was living there and said he was in financial difficulty. He also was in a wheelchair

Can you tell us more?

Where did you meet Jeff, how did you know it was him? Was he homeless, or did he look like he was living somewhere? What was he doing? Did he seem sound mentally?

Come on man! Merritt is such an enigma, give us some details please!!!

[Brutu]

Seems kind of odd to me why none of the sports newspaper writers
in a boxing town like Las Vegas have never been able to locate Jeff Merritt
and interview him themselves.

[Brutu]

here is a link to a newspaper article from November.9.1967 about Jeff Merritt
when Joe Louis helped him get an early parole from Missouri State prison,
and it was planned that Sandy Sandler would train him for the Olympics.
http://www.news.google.com/newspapers?i ... 3446083&dq

[Brutu]

here is a brief article from november.29.1973
of his fight with Ron Stander in Cleveland Ohio.
http://www.news.google.com/newspapers?i ... 3721944&dq

[Brutu]

I dont know what to make of this article,if accurate,
They must have been Merritt's"unofficial"Manager around late 1971
when Merritt was suspended for not showing up for a fight in the last minute
in front of a packed house in Miami Beach.
pp.77-79.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_nvIQP ... pg=PA76&dq

[hofguy]

I dont know what to make of this article,if accurate,
They must have been Merritt's"unofficial"Manager around late 1971
when Merritt was suspended for not showing up for a fight in the last minute
in front of a packed house in Miami Beach.
pp.77-79.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_nvIQP ... pg=PA76&dq

The part about where he says that Jeff Merritt was sent from Florida to New York to fight on the Patterson-Johannson card cannot be right.
Jeff Merritt was fighting out of Miami in 1970, the two New York bouts for Patterson-Johannson were in 1959-60. Boxrec says Merritt was 11-1, when he went to Florida & not 21-0, as the book says.

[Brutu]

Here is a link to another rare photograph of Jeff Merrit from May 1972.

(scroll to very far left of article to see photo of Jeff Merritt)

http://www.news.google.com/newspapers?i ... 2282211&dq

[loaded_gloves]

The 1991 Las Vegas story is definitely true - it's from boxing writer Jack Newfield. It wasn't a story he'd heard from someone else, it was Newfield himself who was accosted by Merritt outside the Tyson/Ruddock fight. It's in 'The Life & Crimes of Don King'.

[Brutu]

But even if it was Jeff Merritt,wouldnt he gravitate to the various boxing gyms in the city?particularly the ones in the run down parts of the city.
Even if only to ask for some money.Maybe someone should e-mail
the sports editor of the LAS VEGAS SUN and ask them to track him down.

[Brutu]

I forgotten I had posted this earlier from a link to the book
THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF DON KING
scroll down to pp48-51.

http://books.google.com/books?id=sWYN6c ... pg=PA48&dq

[Brutu]

here is a link to a rare newspaper photograph of Earnie Shavers,Don King and
Jeff Merritt from November 1973.
(scroll up to see it at this page)

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_4 ... 1594304&dq

[loaded_gloves]

Maybe someone should e-mail
the sports editor of the LAS VEGAS SUN and ask them to track him down.

Why don't you do it?

[Brutu]

the beginning of the end.Jeff Merritt knocked out within the first minute
of his second fight with Henry Clark March.4.1974 Oakland Coliseum.

http://www.news.google.com/newspapers?i ... 1786945&dq

[Brutu]

Check out Larry Holmes recollections of Jeff Merritt,when both were sparring partners for Muhammad Ali in 1973.
pp 46-47.


http://books.google.com/books?id=dVr5Re ... pg=PA46&dq

[Brutu]

If you ask me Jeff Merritt is no more.
Its difficult to believe that someone who was that reckless in his youth
and even when golden opportunities presented themselves with his own (boxing)
ability,that they would just throw it away for the most part from the
almost the beginning,for the pursuit of getting drugs and getting high.
He was quoted in the 1970 Miami Beach newspaper article
at age 22,that he had no other skills other then boxing to rely and fall back on.
and he was not a veteran and it doesnt even sound like he had any other
job in his life time other then being a boxer.
The 1970 article also said that he had a wife and son(who would be about
47 years old now)as well as 6 brothers and sisters that he grew up with
in Kansas City.
and all these years on the internet here as far as I know(at least 10 years)
Not one of this family members had ever came on to a boxing forum like here to ask about him?
A man who had connections to one extent or another to
Joe Louis,Sandy Saddler,Henny Youngman,
Bob Arum,Muhammad Ali,
Jimmy Ellis,Don King,Earnie Shavers and Larry Holmes?
IMOP,I think Jeff Merritt had probably ended up a"John Doe",somewhere
and was cremated when no one showed up to claimed him,possibly in the mid 1990's.Las Vegas certainly isnt the same Las Vegas it was even 20 years ago.
I think crime there has more then tripledespecially in the sections Merritt
was in.
If that was the last(present?)city he lived in.
(Although of course I could be wrong).

[Brutu]

I just found this out.
Jeff Merritt's last professional fight was against
Memphis Al Jones October-14-1982
at Dukes Country Club in Tulsa Oklahoma.
Guess what other boxer(making a comeback too)head - lined that card that night?
(no fair looking it up here at boxrec).

[Bladder]

Guess what other boxer(making a comeback too)head - lined that card that night?
(no fair looking it up here at boxrec).

Who was it then?

[Brutu]

Guess what other boxer(making a comeback too)head - lined that card that night?
(no fair looking it up here at boxrec).

Who was it then?[/quote

It was his old Sparring partner Earnie Shavers.]

[klompton]

I finally got ahold of some footage of Merritt fighting. I cant say Im too impressed. He fights like a lanky version of George Foreman, with a very heavy reliance on left hooks and left uppercuts. Keeps his hands low and has a very leaky defense.

[Caractacus]

Well I guess that question appears to have been settled once and for all.
As Al Gore(who BTW 'invented the inter-net"
says
"CASE CLOSED(?).

[Sheila]

Jeff 'Candy Slim' Merritt

June 1971 at the Fifth Street Gymnasium in Miami Beach.

Jeff sparred with former WBA Champion - Jimmy Ellis in helping him prepare for his July 26, 1971
bout with former Champion - Muhammad Ali to be held in Houston, Texas.

Jeff 'Candy Slim' Merritt was now Managed by Chris Dundee, and his height was listed at 6' 4".

[Caractacus]

Jeff 'Candy Slim' Merritt

June 1971 at the Fifth Street Gymnasium in Miami Beach.

Jeff sparred with former WBA Champion - Jimmy Ellis in helping him prepare for his July 26, 1971
bout with former Champion - Muhammad Ali to be held in Houston, Texas.

Jeff 'Candy Slim' Merritt was now Managed by Chris Dundee, and his height was listed at 6' 4".

Is that a 'vid-cap'?looks like it may be one to me.
if so,
would U care to share the video?

[Caractacus]

here is a link to a rare newspaper photograph of Earnie Shavers,Don King and
Jeff Merritt from November 1973.
(scroll up to see it at this page)

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_4 ... 1594304&dq

In that photo,of Shavers and Jeff Merritt.
It looks like Merritt was the more Badasss,Mean Muthu of the two.
He seems to be saying to Shavers'
I outta kick yor ass-again!!'

[Caractacus]

Here is a link to another rare photograph of Jeff Merrit from May 1972.

(scroll to very far left of article to see photo of Jeff Merritt)

http://www.news.google.com/newspapers?i ... 2282211&dq

Did you see that publicity photo of Jeff Merrit?.
He must have gone to the same barbershop as this guy

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VEkALFBQUL0

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y-72-Lcqhcw