Classic American West Coast Boxing

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The Cars In Tijuana Talk

I used to have a slew of them-boxing posters from Tijuana.That's how I kept track of the fights down there. I'd walk along Revolution Boulevard and see the posters nailed on the lampposts and telephone polls on the street and that's how I knew what fights were coming up.Like I said I had dozens of them. Hell,when the fight was over they had to be taken down so I helped myself.

I had posters announcing matches with fighters like Joe Napoles,Vicente Saldivar, Julio Cesar Chavez,Baby Vasquez,Hedgemon Lewis,and Jibaro Perez.But my favorite was the one telling of Muhammad Ali' making an appearance to do a workout with his sparring partners at the Municipal Auditorium. There were two versions-one in Spanish and the other in English.I grabbed a few of each after Ali became a "no show."

It was when Ali was in San Diego to fight Norton.He was to appear in TJ to train for a day.I never found out the reason why he bailed but looking back I think it turned out for the good. Ali was never that popular in Mexico,especially back then.Mexicans don't go in for all that talk. Ali's poetry,and cockiness wouldn't have made a positive impression.. I don't know if he would have performed his usual act anyway..He could read people pretty good.I think he would have been sandbagged.I could just here it now.All the whistles and racial slurs.Maybe that was why he backed out. Joe Louis,Racky Marciano,Archie Moore,and even Mike Tyson were welcomed in Mexico.Ali's schtick would have caused problems.

There's another way that fights are sometimes advertised in Tijuana. I've heard people down there refer to what they call "speaker cars"-cars that go along the back streets real slow and a recorded voice sounds, with back round music, whatever they want to hawk to the public.Everything from sharpening knives to selling fresh bread. They'll let you know the circus is in town or that the wrestling matches are coming up. My granddaughter's husband used to promote some wrestling matches and he used the speaker car to make his pitch..

I remember one day I was in Canon Jhonson with my little niece and we were walking to the store.A speaker car dove by.
"Tio,"said my niece."The cars in Tijuana talk. Do they talk in the United States?"
"No,"I answered.
"Why not?""
"There are people that think they make too much noise."
"They don't make too much noise,"said my niece.
"I know but Americans have to have nothing to complain about."


DIdn't have this one but it's a classic. Gave the ones I had to my friends.Dumb me.

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A poster from when of my granddaughter's husbands wrestling shows.

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I Love Lucy And The Indian

There hasn't been many Mexican fighters who were in demand to fight back east in the big venues like Madison Square Garden where at one time that was the big prize back in the day. It wasn't Las Vegas or any arena overseas..If you made the grade you were fighting in The Garden. And if for some reason you started to lose your grip you wouldn't be asked back unless you could straighten yourself out back on the road.

When TV made its run to get viewers to stay home instead of going out to the movie theaters one of it big draws was showing the fights on the tube. It got to be three nights a week. In the meantime the little local arenas were beginning to dry up.Anyway,the fights on the tube were becoming as familiar as any of the regular fare that graced the screens in mom and dad's living rooms. Growing up in the 50's I got used to watching some of those pugs as I did becoming a regular fan of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Getting back to one of those fighters whose face was becoming as recognizable as Lucy Ricardo's.He was a a product of Meheeco of all places,from a town a stone's throw across the New River called San Luis Rio Colorado from another dot on the map Yuma,Arizona on the U.S. side.Both burgs were in the middle of the Mojave Desert and the only things that took comfort there were the Gila Monsters and rattlesnakes,and a guy called Gaspar Ortega. who they nicknamed "Indio." They hung that moniker on him because the only other ilk that had adapted to the climate were the Apache Indians,and Ortega could have passed for Geronimo's long lost cousin. He was a fighter in the best Apache style all right and he was on the tube during the week in the 50's showing his stuff against the likes of the best in the division in the famed Garden.!7 times "Indio" Ortega was slugging it out with the cream of the crop like Federico Thompson,Emile Griffith,Florentino Fernandez,Benny Paret,Rudell Stitch,Denny Moyer,Isaac Logart, Tony DeMarco,and Carmen Basilio.,You can also toss in big shots and former champions like Kid Gavilan and Don Jordon who Ortega encountered east of the divide. Now THAT"S ENTERTSAINMENT! What an era that was.

I became friends with Gaspar Ortega at the now defunct World Boxing Association bashes.My wife Maria was the buffer. Being as Mestizo and looking like she was from Ortega's tribe we'd sit together and converse back and forth. Ortega certainly was a gentleman.soft spoken,terse and honest in delivery. He'd mention boxing and that he was grateful that gurus like Whitey Bimstien and Freddie Brown took him under their wings. during is time in The Apple.Stillman's Gym became his home away from home. But then he also liked to talk about Mexico and what it was like living sparsely and earning a peso or two in towns like Nogales and Cananea. He ran the gamut so to speak.Took it full measure.

I asked him if he ever went back to Mexico(He used to live in Tijuana in Colonia Morelos)now that he and his wife had settled in Connecticut.He said he went back around ten years ago when the parks and rec department in Tijuana opened a boxing gym in the Zona Norte and put his name on the building,"Gimnasio "Indio" Ortega.I told him that I had seen the facility in its current state,-abandoned and a haven for drug addicts.It didn't surprise him. He said he had no urge to cross the border and relive old times.

"EL Indio" passed away a couple of years ago. I went back to his gym in Benito Juarez Park.The city had restored the gym and reopened its doors, but they didn't put his name back on the building. If someone rally wants to do "Indio" justice they should but one of those star plaques down on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in category of "TV Entertainment" right next to Lucy's and Desi's.


Gasar Ortega,me,and my better half at one of The World Boxing Hall of Fame get togethers


Friendly rivals.Gaspar Ortega and Emile Griffith, and some guy in the middle.

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Inside "Indio" Ortega's gym at the Parque Benito Juarez in the Zona Norte.(They didn't put his name back up on the side of the building)They gave everything in the park a facelift- artificial turf on the baseball field,refloored the basketball gym,a weight room fully equipped. Funny thing is not many people go there still(You can see in my picture the pace is empty)The neighborhood,especially at night, is a place you'd want to stay away from.One of the areas in the city that ranks Tijuana the murder capital of the world per capita -138 deaths for every 100 thousand people.

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The Unforgotten

Legend has it that he fought his first professional fight when he was 10 years old in 1924.Maybe that's how he got the name "Baby." Another Latino fighter with that name,this one belongs to the Mexican fighter Arturo Vasquez aka. "Baby."

When they kick around fighters ' names in the bars in Mexico you'll get the usual responses-Olivares,Saldivar,Sanchez,Chavez,and Canelo. Those are the Mexican boys that come quickly to mind. Some old timers might want to put you at a disadvantage and bring up Manual Ortiz or Joe Becerra.Those recollectors are getting pretty long in the tooth. But if I were drop in and say "Baby" Arizmendi, the conversation at the bar might stop suddenly.You see "Baby" Arizmendi had his last fight in 1942. I doubt if anyone 's around still breathing that remembers Arizmendi in action.So you have to go to the record books and what was written down about him.

Boxrec shows him with 129 bouts under his belt. Knowing that he started off in Mexico you can bet that figure is probably only half of what he faced in the ring. Legend has it again he took up boxing to combat the after effects of overcoming a bout with polio. He was a fireplug,short and squatty,a brawler who had only a forward gear. He could have used more of a sock but then he was only stopped four times and that was because they couldn't stop the blood flow from his eyes.

He fought Henry Armstrong five times.(Who in the hell would want to do that?) He won two of those fights.He was in there with the likes of Tony Canzoneri,Lou Ambers,Freddie Miller,Chalky Wright,and Sammy Angott-all of them champs at one time.Armstrong said that Arizmendi gave him his toughest fights.

After his fighting days were over he joined the Navy in WWII and fought the Rising Sun. He settled in LA and opened a few watering holes in the Echo Park district.He was no saint but then he was only a baby,at least at heart.He died when he was 48.

Yeah,those aficianados will give you Olivares,Saldivar,Sanchez,Chavez,and Canelo but they'll probably leave out "Baby" Arizmendi. He might have been better than all of them.



"Baby" Arizmendi.


"Baby" Arizmendi against Henry Armstorng,fight number 5 for Armstrong's welter title. You got your money's worth with those two.
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Under The Radar

This guy got by me.Didn't find out about him,which isn't much,until much later.Name? Ciro Morasen,Cuban featherweight.He was born in Santiago De Cuba,Jose Napoles' hometown, and maybe that's why Jose said that Morasen was his boyhood idol watching him fight.This was back in the early 50's. Morasen made his start in 1943.Went 15 years as pro finishing in 1958 just before Castro took over and outlawed pro fighting.Boxrec has him down for 102 fights but that's more than likely a low count.

Morasen never fought in the U.S. like his compatriot Kid Gavilan. Never really fought a top contender.Willie Pep,Sandy Saddler fought them all but Morasen never made the list.The Cuban scribes said that Morasen was a non pareil in the technique department. A tall lanky sort who had all the knowhow he was once ranked number 3 in the 125 category in 1955 by Ring Magazine.But like I said he didn't get the exposure nor a try against a top contender.When he was done fighting there was nowhere for him to go.All the cream of Cuban boxing had left the island.

Evidently Morasen had a falling out with the way Castro was running the country and aired his grievances public.For that display Fidel had him thrown in jail. In 1963 it was reported that Morasen had committed suicide behind bars.

There's no film of him in the ring.It's all kind of sketchy.But if Mantequilla said that Morasen was the best he ever saw there must be something to it.


Ciro Morasen

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What's In A Name

There were a lot of Italian fighters back in the day that changed their names. Maybe they thought their real names were hard to say or maybe people didn't like wops or maybe they thought they'd become more popular with an Anglo name. Some of those fighters that come to mind-Joe Grim,Hugo Kelly,Johnny Dundee,Rocky Kansas,Sammy Mandell,Lou Ambers,Willie Pep,Billy Graham,Joey Maxim.I won't go into putting down what their real last names were because then I'd have to look all that up and then copy them letter by letter and that would give me a case of eye strain.

Funny ,Rocky Marciano changed his last name but kept it Italian

.My mother who was full blooded Italian like my father wanted my father to change his last name. it was Esposito but they decided that Esty was better.My father didn't fight it.He told me he ran for some public office in Chicago when his name was still Esposito..There we four guys runnin'.. My father finished dead last finishing behind a black guy in the 3rd slot.I never liked Esty that much. It's very uncommon and sounds weird. Esposito has more of a ring.By The way,the Italian way to say Esposito is Es-pos -i- to.

My mother had 7 sisters who all married white guys-Swedes,Poles,and Germans. My mother was the only one who married an Italian. My aunts never seemed "Italian" to me. They acted white.I think they were ashamed of being Italian. Maybe that was because they were so poor growing up and maybe the thought of marrying a white guy was moving up in the world.They all spoke Italian but I never herd them talk it except for a few words.

My mother wasn't exactly into the Italian thing either. She wanted my father to change his last name so it didn't sound so Italian and the fact that my mother wanted to disassociate herself from my father's father Diamond Joe Esposito. My father thought his father walked on water.My mother didn't like him. She thought he was a"dirty old man." Too greaseball. She hated my father's side of the family-his mother,brothers ,and sister.And my father hated all my mother's side including her 7 sisters and 2 brothers. The brothers married floozies and wound up divorced but still my father hated them.One weekend we'd visit my father's side of the family and on the way home my mother and father would fight with my mother saying my father's family was no good. Then the next weekend it would be visiting someone on my my mother's side and my father would be taking shots at them. When my other and father were alone inside the house they'd be be taking shots at each other.

Italians didn't start getting a better shake from the public until all those Mafia movies came out like The Godfather. They had to glorify criminals to become "popular." And they kept the ball rolling with The Sopranos,Goodfellas,and Growing Up Gotti.Shows what the world has come to.And then there was Raging Bull. Let's face it no one knew of Jake LaMotta until that movie me out.Talk about glorifying a greaseball.

My favorite film about Italians is Marty He's a bachelor butcher pining for a girlfriend in the Bronx..Ernest Borgnine won an Oscar for that one.He's as Italian as anybody but he never went in for that Mafia stuff. HIs real last name was Borgino.Sounds better than Esty.



Here's a good wop-Vince Lombardi. Ernest Borgnine payed him in his life story.

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One of boxing's Odd Couples-Jake LaMotta and his 7th wife. Not exactly Ozzie and Harriet.

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One Side Of The Story

When I was a kid in the Southwest Side of Chicago and all those guys that hung out in the poolroom would come outside and start talking the day after Marciano knocked out Louis I'd hear them say,"Marciano sure put that Joe Louis in his place.That mulignan didn't know what hit em'."
I've never seen so many happy fellas like they had a part in it.My uncle Anthony was no exception.I was with him outside when he came out of the poolroom.
"You saw the fight last night. Marciano murdered him,"he boasted
"Yeah,but wasn't Joe Louis an old man?"
"You don't know what your talkin' about," he grumbled at me."He just came off beating Lee Savold."
I figured I'd better keep my mouth shut. I'd already cast some question on Marciano's victory. It was like now I'd have to go to confession.

Al those guys who hung out in that poolroom were the same. They had that swagger and arrogance that they knew everything and if you questioned them,especially being a kid,you were out of line and didn't know your place. If it came to sports the rule of thumb was that if the athlete was Italian he had the goods. He was probably the best. Joe D was the best baseball player and Rocky Marciano was the best fighter. There weren't many Italian Football or basketball players so those sports they didn't talk about much.But if the athlete was Italian he was always very good to say the least.With boxing I never heard those guys even have something bad to say about Carnera.

And if an Italian lost it wasn't his fault.There was always a valid excuse.Or they never brought it up. I didn't find out until later that Willie Pep lost three times to Sandy Saddler and I never got that info from one of those guys in that poolroom and I sure never brought it up. When Pep lost his first fight to Sammy Angott that was OK because Angott was Italian. If Pep had lost to a non Italian I would have had to stumble upon that on my own.

I'll retell the story of how I was watching the replay of Jose Napoles re winning the championship against Billy Backus.I was in the living room in front of the tube when my old man walked in.
"Who's fighting?"he asked looking down at me.
Jose Napoles and Billy Backus."
"Never heard of them."
"The fight was last night.Napoles re won the title."
My father leaned over squinting at the screen.
"Isn't that Carmen Basilio in that guy's corner?"
"Yeah,he's Backus' uncle.He trains him."
"Then his nephew must have won."
"No.The fight was last night.Napoles won."
"Carmen wouldn't be in the corner of someone who lost,"my father pressed on.
My father stood there watching Backus get cut to ribbons.He didn't say anything.Finally he came up with something.
"What's the other guy's name?"
"Jose Napoles."
"Napoles?"
"Yeah."
"Well then you have it .He must be from from Naples.He's Italian."
With that he turned smiling and walked out of the room.

I wish my father would have run into Martin Scorsese.I bet he would have put my old man in one of his movies.


Sammy Angott

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Boxing Is Not Really A Fight

When I was a kid I thought boxers were the toughest guys around.And the heavyweight champ the number one baddest ass dude on-the planet. Yeah,there was wrestling but everyone knew that was fake.There was some karate and judo but that stuff was foreign Oriental stuff and besides the Japs knew that stuff in the war and they couldn't kick our ass.Mixed Martial Arts?That was something they had to add to the dictionary years later. Besides,if you wanted to learn all that dirty fighting it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

That fighting using your feet was fighting dirty and everyone knew a dirty fighter couldn't beat a guy who fought with just his fists.You could put it in a way like Joe Louis said,"God is on our side."The fair fighter's side-the boxer.

But deep down inside I had questions.What if a wrestler or some guy who knows all those sneaky holds gets a grip on a boxer and starts choking him out? I couldn't stand to see that happen to Rocky Marciano. But then Rocky would catch him coming in and nail him with his Suzy Q. As much as I believed that I didn't want to see Marciano get in there with someone like Andre The Giant.Boxing was something sacred and pure.I didn't want to see it soiled by some guy kicking someone's balls and sticking a finger in an eye.

But in today's world I' have to come to grips with it.I see these ex boxers getting in the ring with one of these dirty fighters and the boxer gets his assed kicked.He submits. Unless both parties agree that it should be a boxing match only.

The Z generation never grew up with boxing.Ray Robinson.Joe Louis.Roberto Duran.Marciano. But like I said I couldn't stand to watch those clean, pure, artistic athletes in a way get choked out and lying flat on their backs in the ring.I guess I'll never get used to it.


I remember how Andre The Giant picked up Chuck Wepner and threw him out of the ring.But Chuck was kinda' a slob anyway.

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Ouch.I know Bobby Chacon was a tough guy but...?


Jack Dempsey trying to make amends during World War 2 ,since he was considered a draft dodger in WW 1,instructing the boys in the sweet science. All is fair in love and war. I don't think a GI would want to box the enemy if he snuck into his foxhole.

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Superman Never Kicked Anybody In The Balls

If you grew up during my era as a kid you probably watched The Adventures Of Superman.(Starring George Reeves not that wimpy Christopher Reeve)Did you ever see Superman fight chicken s--t? Hell, no. At the beginning of the show you'd see Superman standing there with the American flag waving in back of him,.The announcer would say that he "could leap buildings in a single bound" and was "more powerful than a locomotive" and "faster than a speeding bullet." But with all that in him you never saw him kick the bad guy in the balls in a fight. Could you imagine watching a scene of Superman in a fight and all of a sudden he kicks the guy in the balls?It would make him look bad. No.Superman duked it out with his fists. And he never kicked a man when he was down. No.Superman showed us kids how to fight fair and square. IT was "truth ,justice,and the American way.

But imagine if Superman did kick guys in the balls? Talk about a different approach to birth control.

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Interesting story depicting cultural differences between Mexico and the US regarding boxing promotion and Muhammad Ali's swaggering persona.

Ali,to this day,was never idolized by the Mexican public. Part of it was being black and showing off too much.If you're a black personality in Mexico it's wise to humble yourself and embrace the culture. Ali was never the one to have a few belts of Jose Cuervo and then get up to sing with the mariachis wearing a big sombrero on his head.

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Great, great photo of Wepner and Andre ! So much for Andre being 7"4"; Wepner was a legit 6'5".

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Home Away From Home

Those fighters knew the time was coming soon when they had to leave the island,those Cuban professional fighters,before it would be too late and then thy couldn't leave.They were already pros so they couldn't fight in the amateurs anymore and that's the way Castro wanted it. Professional sports exploited athletes That's what he believed.

Well,these fellas' on the the island had to make a living and make something better of themselves and if they couldn't get away their lives would become miserable.Gavilan was already here in the States.So was El Feo and Valliant and Florentino,and Paret. They were all right.They were with the Dundees in Miami.

But guys like Jose Napoles,Sugar Ramos,Jose Legra,and Baby Luis had to find a way out. That would involve a promoter who was willing to stake them to a trip across the gulf. The thing these boys had was was talent.It was their ace card.If you were a professional fighter in Cuba and didn't have the goods or were past your prime and too old like Ciro Morasen you were out of luck.

Napoles, Ramos, Legra,and Baby Luis got out in time. George Parnassus took the gamble and bankrolled Napoles for example.Now these boys had to find a spot to land. Jose Legra tried Mexico. It was near the States and the lingo was the same but he felt uncomfortable and was invited to Spain by another former Cuban fighter,Kid Tunero to try his luck.Baby Luis and Ramos also tasted Mexico. But Luis was more hungry for drugs than fighting and wound up getting killed in a dope deal that went bad.Sugar Ramos was a fit.He was a humble sort and he also had to prove himself better than the local product,Vicente Saldivar,which he failed to do.Now we come to Napoles.

Napoles was made to order for the aficinados of Mexico but he knew that he'd have to get off to a good start.He didn't fight right away. He waited to build up his strength in the gym before he'd be tested by savvy vets like Al Urbina,Tony Perez,Raul Soriano,and Baby Vasquez.It didn't take long for Jose to master those guys with a boxing style that got him the name,"Mantequilla." He had that smooth,easy flow approach like he was stalking his prey, never wasting any gas,sporting that bushy mustache on that tomcat face.He could take a guy out whatever way he wanted.

By the time Napoles finally got his shot at Curtis Cokes for the title ,after bring ducked more times by champions like Ismael Lsaguna(We're practically cousins.We shouldn't fight each other),Lapopolo who wouldn't fight anywhere but in his backyard of Spagettilandi,and Carlos Ortiz who knew he'd be in over his head;Jose tore Curtis Cokes apart in the LA Forum to win the welterweight championshipThe rematch in Mexico City was a carbon copy.

They asked Naploes in the ring after he won the title, draped in a serape and donning a big sombrero ,what he thought of Mexico.
"They could put me in the middle of the ocean and I would just have to iisten to the sound of the mariachis to find my way back."
Mexico's president Diaz Ordaz got on the horn to Mexican immigration and did a first-the first Mexican president to intercede on behalf granting a foreigner citizenship.

Mexico was a perfect fit for Jose Napoles. He married a Mexican gal and quickly had a slew of kids.He kept cutting a swath through the welterweight division.But the variant in his corner was that Jose was a bit ornery.He wasn't a nice guy like Sugar Ramos. Napoles had a tough outer.He could be nasty when he wanted,and hat was quite often.He liked to drink,gamble on the ponies,shoot pool, and jump in the sack with the senoriras. He'd sing with the mariachis.In fact the famous singer Jose Alfedo Jimenez wrote a song in tribute for Jose,"El Rey"(The King).You can't get a bigger bow than that or one that's more macho.

When Jose was on top he opened a nightclub in the zona Rosa section of Mexico City.One night the cops showed up wanting to shake Jose down.Well, Jose locked the front door and he and his boys took the cops into the back room and gave them a beating and them stripped them naked and then threw them out into the street.

Can't say Napoles didn't win the hearts of Mexico with that move.



Jose Napoles making a quick assimilation.

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Jose Napoles.

When I finally chased him down in the end in Ciudad Juarez living in that little house that Jose Sulaiman was paying the rent for(it couldn't have amounted to more than a couple of hundred bucks a month) with his wife Berta on that back street in that bleak neighborhood I thought back when Napoles was the toast of Mexico if not one of the stars of the boxing world.He had everything,and now he had a roof over his head and a wife. If Mexico had a Shakespeare he could have written a tragedy. But that's why from time to time I talk about the guy.He was my favorite fighter.He's gone now but he's worth remembering. A wife and a roof over his head. He came out of it pretty lucky all considering.

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In that picture above,when I caught up with Napoles in Ciudad Juarez,he sat there out front smoking his cigar and waved at everyone that passed by.He came out OK.

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Raging Bulls#*&t

That movie directed by Scorsese,Raging Bull,that put Jake LaMotta on the map.That performance by Bobby DeNiro was great.Got him an Oscar.You now DeNiro was one of those method actors so he put on something like 50 pounds so he could look like LaMotta did when he retired from fighting and opened his joint in Miami.

Now, Rocky Graziano was more well known than LaMotta was before that movie. Paul Newman played him in that flick Somebody Up There Likes Me.I thought that movie was pretty bad.Paul Newman with that exagerrated Bronx accent and he didn't look like Graziano.He was too white to pull that off.Besides, it made Graziano seem like a dummy.After that movie he went on the Martha Raye Show on the TV and played her boyfriend,her"Goomba".It wasn't very funny and again Graziano made himself look like a dumb dago.

Anyways, it was Graziano all the non fight fans knew about,not Jake LaMotta.That movie with Paul Newman put him on the map too.

Then there was that Billy Fox thing that hurt LaMotta's rep. It wasn't so hot to begin with.LaMotta was a moody guy to get along with.He didn't trust no one.He never listened to his trainers.He didn't want guys like Frankie Carbo running his career.But then that Billy Fox thing hurt his rep.Yeah,he finally caved in to the fix.He had it all planned out.In training for Fox. He got a doc to write down that he had hurt his liver ,or it might have been his kidneys, in training so that when he went before the commission after the fight was over he could show them he was hurt before he got into the ring.The commission couldn't find nothing but circumstantial stuff so they let him off but everyone knew that he went in the tank.That hurt his rep.

And then after he retired and had his place in Miami and got nabbed on that pimping beef.He went to jail for that one.That didn't help his rep.

While Graziano was making fun of himself and guesting on talk shows,Jake was scuffling with a bad nightclub act and the boxing world wanted no part of him.When they gave Ray Robinson his send off at The Garden they didn't inviteJake.There was Carmen and Gene and Bobo and Randy in each corner of the ring,but Jake was left bombing out in seedy bars with his stupid jokes.

Then Scorsese read his autobiography as told to someone else.Scorsese wanted to do a movie.Oh,It was a good one.Don't get me wrong.But here's this thing I have with Scorsese or any of those Italian directors like Fellini who put Italians in their movies.ALL ITALIANS ARE ACTING ANYWAY. Just go to Italy and everyone is acting.Not really acting.They'e just being themselves but it seems they're acting.

Before I wrap this up about whatever the hell I'm talking about I want to clear one thing up.That fight with Marcel Cerdan when LaMotts became champ? It wasn't like in Raging Bull. In the first round Cerdan threw a punch and missed and LaMotta pushed him and Cerdan fell to the mat landing on his shoulder injuring it.In Raging Bull it has LaMotta clipping Cerdan with a snappy left hook. As the fight progressed Cerdan couldn't throw a left hook without pain nor any pop..There was some fan there with a video camera who got some snippets of action on film.If you watch it on YouTube(by the way I can't get to paste anything from YouTube onto Boxrec.Any of you guys have the same problem?)Anyway,if you watch the film Cerdan doesn't use his left anymore,just right hand crazy. The ref said he heard something "pop" from Cerdan's shoulder in the 4th frame,the last time Cerdan tried his left.

OK.this dago's done.Anyone got Marty Scorsese's phone number?I'm looking for a little part time work.


Jake LaMotta

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He's Bigger Today Than Back Then

That fight when Jake LaMotta won the championship when Marcel Cerdan wouldn't get off his stool for the 10th round because of his bum shoulder;they put that fight in Detroit in the ballpark,Briggs Stadium, figuring on a big gate but it didn't turn out that way. The day of the fight it was raining so thy moved it back to the following day.The crowd was a disappointment.

Marcel Cerdan won the title beating up Tony Zale pretty good.It was after the war and a lot of the good fighters were going south. The layoff took something out of them. Joe Louis wasn't the same.Neither was Billy Conn. Their post war fight was a dud.Conn who was scheduled for the rematch with Joe before the war broke his hand when he got into beef a with his father in law.He was always at odds with his father in law.Billy made the moves on the old man's daughter when she was 15 years old. But then those Irish clans were always going round and round with each other, especially after opening up a bottle.

But I'm telllin' ya' the LaMottts/Cerdan go wasn't as big as it seems today.It was that movie again,Raging Bull. It magnified everything.

Cerdan had a record of something like 100 wins against only one loss when he beat Zale in Jersey. But all those wins in Europe were against Allied servicemen during the war and camel jockeys in Algiers where he was from.It wasn't until Cerdan made the flight across the pond that the he broke out of his shell. He won over the likes of Harold Green,Georgie Abrams,and then of course Zale. When he entered the ring with Jake, Frsnchy was a 12 to 5 favorite.I'm telin' ya' LaMotta is a bigger name today than back then. Sure,he was the first to beat Robinson,but he also lost to him five times and always had ten pounds on him.

When Cerdan died in that plane crash in the Azores returning for the rematch he was pressed into leaving France early because his squeeze,the French torch singer Edith Piaf ,was begging for her big strong boy to come back and be with her in New York. She was performing at a French joint,The Versaille Club.trying to win over the U.S. public. Oh,she could be something.She was the toast of the Continent back then Only Sinatra raked in more dough than Edith when it came to the singing department.She also had more paramours than you could shake a stick at. Marcel was her current roll in the sack.Jo Longmann ,Cerdan's manager and trainer hated her.She was an obvious distraction. But both Edith and Marcel knew it was one of those May To December things,Besides,Cerdan had a wife and kids back in France but that didn't stop him getting his picture in all the rags with Edith arm in arm.

When Cerdan died in that plane crash Edith's spirit died with it.Like I said both knew it was only a fling but Edith would always call it of her way, and then Cerdan would go back to the wife nd kids and Edith would find another hunk.The affair didn't end on her terms.She spiraled into a world of drugs and alcohol. She died when she was 47.

Marcel Cerdan isn't talked about much anymore. His son,Marcel Jr., tried to carry his boxing legacy but came up a cropper.Edith Piaf made a comeback with that movie they made about her and that French actress Marion Cotillard pulling out all the stops playing her to win an Oscar.And then there's Jake. There's a guy who never looked over his shoulder and apologized for nothin'. When he went to seersging Bull at the theaaer he took his ex Vicky.
"Was I really that bad a guy?"he asked her when the movie was over.
"No.You were worse."


Marcel Cerdan



Marcel Cerdan in training with Edith Piaf

[dagosd2000]

Everyone has heard this theme but few know it was written for Edith Piaf.One time I went to Paris and visited the Montmarte and Pigalle,where the underworld of sin lurked and Edith Piaf as an orphan kid would walk the streets and sing and pass the cup. Louis Leplee,the owner of his club Le Gerny's and entrepreneur heard her voice, and gave her her start. From there she became a star.

As I walked the streets I stopped at various new and used book stores and asked the help if they had any books on Edith Piaf. One typical example:
"WhO?"
"You know,Edith Piaf the famous French singer.She got her start here in this part of town."
"No. But we have books on The Beatles and The Rolling Stones."
"I'm looking for something on Edith Piaf."
"Here's a nice book on Janis Joplin."
Times have changed.

[dagosd2000]

The other day after posting my story about Jose Napoles and telling that the great Mexican singer and songwriter,Jose Alfredo Jimenez,dedicated his song, El Rey (The King), to his drinking compadre Mantequilla ,I went to YouTube to share the charros' song.But for some reason I couldn't get it to paste onto the forum. Today something happened.Here it is.When the mariachis are at your party and everyone has had a few too many El Rey is a standard request.But then you have to get up and sing.

[dagosd2000]

In A Pizzeria

I always wanted to go to Naples and visit Acerra outside of town because that's where my grandfather Diamond Joe was from.I found something I liked on the internet,a hotel that was near the airport but not in all that traffic in the city. The hotel was nice and clean but was small and didn't have a dining room so me and the wife we'd walk somewhere to eat. Most of the time we ate in a pizzeria.

Pizza was invented in Naples before the start of the 20th century. The guy who invented pizza named the traditional style, cheese and tomato, after his wife,Margherita.If you ever go to Naples you ain't gonna' find a bad pizza unless you go down to the docks where the ferries go to Capri and ischia.Those little stands are owned by the Turks and they don't know or care less about making a good pizza. I think their get their mozzarella from Turkey.

Anyway, me and the wife would walk around and find a pizzeria which isn't hard to do.There's one on every block almost and they cook the pizzas in those domed shaped piping hot brick ovens.and slide the pizzas in them for what seems like 30 seconds and then slide them out.You can get pizzas with different toppings like here but we stuck with the Margherita .Everyone we saw eating in those pizzerias were eating Margheritas.Believe me you can't get better pizzas anywhere else than in Naples,at least on a consistent basis. I told my wife,"Let's see if we find a place that has bad pizzas." Except for those Turkish places by the docks. I was only joking.

One afternoon we walked inside a pizzeria that was around the corner from the hotel and we went through a bunch of side streets where they had all those open air markets and the vendors were hawking their goods like eels and octpopuses,cracked olives,frash bead,and every fruit and vegetable you can name.They'd all try to out shout each other.

Well, me and the wife walked inside this pizzeria that looked like all the other ones we'd been to,small and modest with the big dome brick oven, and took a table.We were the only customers.A man in shirt sleeves came over to take our order.He didn't seem too enthused.
"A Margherita pizza and two Cokes please."
He walked away without saying nothing.

I looked on the wall and to my surprise I see and bunch of pictures of fighters.They're all Italian/ American fighters-Marciano,LaMotta,Graziano,Pep,Basilo,Canzoneri,and Ambers.When the guy came back with the food I asked him.
"You like boxing?"
The guy perked and with that and changed into somebody else.
"I sure do,"he said smiling ear to ear.
He had a full head of curly dark hair and that swarthy skin. A five o'clock shadow on a face that was showing its years but was proud of it The guy sat down suddenly with us.
"I'm a big fight fan,"he couldn't wait to say in a sure voice.
"How come you don't have any Italian fighters on your wall?"
"You mean Italians born in Italy?"
"Yeah."
"The Italian fighters born America were better."
"How abut Benvenuti?"
"He was scared of Monzon."
"How about Carnera?"
"He was a better wrestler."
"How did you become a fan of Italian/American fighters?"
"My father was a solder in the war."
"He was in the Italian army?"
"No. He was in the U.S. army. He came to Italy to fight Mussolini."
"Did you live in America?"
"When I was a kid in New York.My father would take me to the fights at St. Nicks."
"That's how yo got to know the Italian/American fighters?".
"Yes sir," he answered all happy.
I started to break apart the pizza.It was very hot.
"Why did you come back to Naples?"
"I was visiting my cousins here and I feel in love with this girl and we got married."
"You didn't want to return to the United States?"
"My wife has papers and we visit New York once a year but we like it better here.Here we're with our people,and besides we're Neopolitan.We can't get used to other thingsYou understand what I mean?"
"By the way my bloodline is Neopolitan."
"Then I don't have to explain too much."
"Save it. I understand."
"Why did you choose to stay in the Segundigliano? It's not a place for tourists."
"They said it was near the airport."
"You made a good choice.Now I have to get back",he said standing up.."Enjoy the pizza."


Rocky Marciano

[dagosd2000]

The Haircut

Before returning home from Jiquilpan after spending two weeks shifting my way through family fueds,balmy weather,and the fiesta celebrating my wife's birthday I stopped to get a haircut at the barber shop I usually go to in the plaza to get my standard "numero uno" that doesn't take long to do because I have by now more hair on my arms than I do on my head.

But this barber who works alone in his little shop does a meticulous job and I can tell he takes the care and patience with me like he does all his other customers.I don't especially like to converse in a barber chair but this guy likes to start something so I try to keep up to be polite. He's around my age I'm guessing and his stout frame and thick eyebrows cover over eyes that never keep still seems to go hand in hand with his urgency to say something I think trying to calm his nerves. That day in the barber chair somehow he brought up boxing as the topic as he switched on the electric razor.
"There's going to be boxing matches over in Sahuayo Saturday.Do you like boxing?"
"I follow it,"I said trying to tread water.
"Boxing isn't what it used to be in Mexico,"he went on."Alvarez is the only one of interest."
"It seems that way," keeping pace.
"It's not like it was in the old days.Mexico had many champions and every week there were fights in the local arenas."
"I'm from Dan Diego and cross the border to Tijuana often. There are very few fights there anymore."
"There were so many good fighters back then. Olivares, Saldivar,Napoles,Sanchez.Some are almost forgotten.I was a fan of Rafael Herrera.He destroyed El Puas.He doesn't get the credit he deserves."
"I agree with you.I always thought Juan Manual Martinez should get more credit.He's underrated."
The barber began cutting with the scissors now and didn't say anything.
"Don't you think Marquez is a bit underrated?"I tried again.
"Maybe",he said as he stopped clipping."I wasn't a big fan of his."
"He gave Pacquiao a good fight.Those decisions he lost could have gone either way. and that last fight he knocked him out with a single punch cold.No one ever did that to him."
"He was fair."
"Fair," I said now wanting an explanation.
"He drank his urine. Every time I think of him I can imagine him drinking his piss."
"He said he did that because it had vitamins in it."
The barber chuckled while clipping away again.
"Vitamins,he scoffed."If he needed vitamins he could have taken a pill."
"But he did stop doing that."
"So he said."
The barber loosened the towel and grabbed a can of talc and began shaking it around my neck and then held a small mirror behind my head so I could see what he had done in the big mirror in front of me.
"Buen hecho,"I said."How much do I owe you?"
"80 pesos."
I went for my wallet and retrieved the money and gave him an even 100 pesos..
"Will you be going to the boxing matches in Sahauyo?" he asked me.
"I'll be going back to San Diego before the weekend."
"Well,have a safe trip."

As I walked back to my car I was thinking that if the barber didn't know that Juan Manual Marquez drank his own urine he would have thought more highly of him.That's something that if I did I sure wouldn't tell anybody.


Vicente Saldivar.Not a piss drinker that I know of.

[dagosd2000]

Joyride

I was around those guys a few times when they got to drinking and of course I went along for the ride because I liked to drink too and there was no doubt those guys did..Denny Moyer and Ronnie Wilson were as fond of drinking as anyone.The irony of it was that Sid Flaherty ,who handled both those boys, brought Moyer down from Portland to keep an eye on Ronnie because he was beginning to have struggles with his boxing career and his marriage. But I could never figure out why Flaherty thought Moyer would be the answer.

They used to advertise Wilson was being Irish,"Irish " Ronnie Wilson they called him but he was from Canada and he wasn't Irish no more than I was.It was a build up that wasn't necessary because Ronnie fought mostly in San Diego and here nobody cared what nationality you were.But Ronnie drank like an Irishman but then again his Celtic blood was familiar with drinking anyway even though he wasn't a Mick.I don't know what Moyer was but i know they didn't advertise him as being Irish. But when those two got together and started drinking they could put anyone under the table.

I hung around the gyms enough that I got to know those two well enough and though I wasn't a fighter I was like a friend against outsiders.I knew my place and knew how to act.When they were amongst fighters I'd step back. They're a different breed. You can be everything else but if you never fought in the ring you were not with them in a sense.But because they knew I wasn't trying to be like them they let me tag along.

One night after they had been working at the Goodyear tire place, that was near The Coliseum, I was to meet them so we cold go out drinking.They worked off and on there as tire busters when they needed a little extra scratch to make ends meet that usually wound up in the cash registers at the near by watering holes. This night they closed up and had already started to bend their elbows.When I got there I knew I'd be driving because they were in no condition to.We wound up going to a joint called carl's Baseball Inn that was close to The Coliseum on 16th Street.

Carl's Baseball Inn in those days was one of the last of the neighborhood hangouts which catered to a pretty standard crowd of drinkers and sports enthusiasts..When we got there everyone knew who Moyer and Wilson were and before we could belly up to the bar there were three bottles of beer waiting for us.

Now I'll be up front with you ,I'd never have a bar.Too many things to worry about-fights,underage drinkers,theft. But the one thing I couldn't deal with is drunks. People act different when they're drunk and it's never good. Some are what they call "nice drunks." They sit there all happy and dopey but most guys when they get drunk get the courage they lack when they're sober and cause trouble.They act stupid. When Moyer and Wilson got a snoot full it was bad news. Sober, those two were the nicest guys around ,you could even say they were kind of shy.,could barely hear them when thy talked and that wasn't much of the time.

Well, this night they were both pretty far gone.I needed to do some catching up and I could see they were going through that change going from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde.I knew they were two sticks of dynamite ready to go off.I was just waiting for someone to light the fuse.Sure enough this idiot ,all aglow, walks up to Wilson and taps him on the shoulder
" I saw you fight last week at The Coliseum.You know you're a bleeder."
In one move Ronnie slips off the bar stool and delivers a right hand on this guy's chin.He went down like a sack of flour, out cold.No one came to this guy's aid and let him lie there.The bartender got a couple of guys to drag him to a booth till he came around.

I can't remember too much else about went on that night except that I was worried that I'd get pulled over for a DUI when I drove those two back to the Goodyear shop.There they would sleep it off.In the morning they be all right and go back to work like nothing happened.

How those two lasted as long as they did boxing was beyond me.


The old Car's Baseball Inn on the corner of 16th and Island.Now a homeless shelter.