BoxRec

Question for the same above three,
Have a girl in my class who said her uncle fought in San Diego and LA.,Toro Saenz. Looked at his record. Fought "Irish" Wayne Thornton and "Tombstone" Smith. Two more blasts from the past. I remember both. Good fighters. Any memories of any of these three guys?

dagosd2000 wrote:

bennie wrote:What happened to Saldivar after he retired? He had an incredibly low pulse rate and yet died young.

Bennie,
Saldivar finally was KO'd by John Barley Corn. The way my Mexican pals tell it,it was probably Jose Cuervo. He died of liver disease. Saw him lose his title to Shibata in Tijuana in a big upset. Saldivar said he got punched in the throat early in that fight and never recovered. That night, his strength,which he could always rely on late in a fight, wasn't there.

Shame. He was such a disciplined guy when he was boxing.

PS: I know Lopez puts his raspy voice down to being punched in the throat by Jose Torres.

dagosd2000 wrote:Question for the same above three,
Have a girl in my class who said her uncle fought in San Diego and LA.,Toro Saenz. Looked at his record. Fought "Irish" Wayne Thornton and "Tombstone" Smith. Two more blasts from the past. I remember both. Good fighters. Any memories of any of these three guys?

Wayne Thornton vs Jose Menno


Wayne Thornton vs Gregorio Peralta

Wayne Thornton

Charlie "Tmobstone" Smith

Rick Farris wrote:

kikibalt wrote:
This was taken at Main St. Gym in 1967.

Amos "Big Train" Lincoln, Johnny Flores, Ricky Farris, unknown, Jerry Quarry, Joe Shelton

Here is a little boxing trivia. The guy on the far right, shaking hands with Quarry is Joe "Shotgun" Shelton. Most boxers have some little oddity about there careers that relates to something bigger, and this was Shelton's. Muhammad Ali made his pro debut in Louisville, winning a six-round decision over a club fighter/policeman, named Tunney Hunsaker.

Less than two years after losing to Cassius Clay, Hunsaker is KOed by Joe Shelton, in the final round of a ten rounder. Hunsaker lapsed into a coma after the fight, and remained unconcious for nine days. Luckily, he came out of the coma, and eventually returned to his job as a Louisville Policeman. He died three years ago, at the age of 75.

Now this may not be earth shaking information, however, everybody asks me who the boxer is shaking hands with Jerry Quarry. Now you know.


-Rick Farris

Shotgun was also a sparring parter for Muhammad Ali, wasn't he? As I recall, he had a reputation as a good body puncher.

Stories about the late Art Aragon keep filtering in, such as this one from Doug Hays of La Canada, who e-mails to remind that the ever-quotable Aragon drolly remarked after taking a beating from Carmine Basilio in a 1958 TKO loss, "I really had him worried there for a while. He thought he'd killed me." . . .

Frank, didn't Keeny Teran retire just a couple of month later, after losing to Memo Diaz?

I think he was only in his early 20s. Do you know why he retired so young?

raylawpc wrote:Frank, didn't Keeny Teran retire just a couple of month later, after losing to Memo Diaz?

I think he was only in his early 20s. Do you know why he retired so young?

Tom,

The Diaz fight was Keeny's last fight, the drugs again got ahold of him, after that he was in and out of jail. too bad as he was a very good fighter.

Wow, that's too bad.

Interestingly, Pappy Gault became a very successful trainer of amateur boxers, and coached a least one Olympic Team. Like your friend Howie Steindler, Pappy was murdered.

raylawpc wrote:Interestingly, Pappy Gault became a very successful trainer of amateur boxers, and coached a least one Olympic Team. Like your friend Howie Steindler, Pappy was murdered.

I remember hearing about Gault getting mudered.

Five pounds is a big weight difference at the 113 to 118 pound level.

Jimmy Wilde at first refused to fight Pete Herman when Herman showed up much heavier than had been agreed upon. Finally, obviously against his better judgement, Wilde gave in to entreaties from the Prince Wales who was present, went out to fight, and lost.

SEE KID AZTECA HERE:



This is a url on ebay which will be inoperable in about a week.

Frank, I bet you saw that fight with Gault.

raylawpc wrote:Frank, I bet you saw that fight with Gault.

Tom,

I saw all of Keeny's fights in SoCal live.

I found this interview with Art Aragon.
I think you guys that remember Art well will like it.
So will anyone else.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7rNks9X1e8

"Art what was your greatest accomplishment?"

"Divorcing my third wife"
Classic.

Expug wrote:I found this interview with Art Aragon.
I think you guys that remember Art well will like it.
So will anyone else.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7rNks9X1e8

"Art what was your greatest accomplishment?"

"Divorcing my third wife"
Classic.

Thanks pug,

Great interview.

Hugh Riley,
I saw him fight Keeny Teran

Hugh was a pretty sound fighter. Herewith, some info from a Socottish website in Leith:

Born: 11 August, 1929, in Edinburgh.
Died: 22 November, 2004, in Edinburgh, aged 75.

HUGH Riley was born and raised in the southside of Edinburgh into a boxing family presided over by his father and noted boxing coach and cornerman Johnny Riley.

Riley snr was a close associate of the legendary Scottish boxing teacher Charlie Cotter whose gym at the top of the capital’s Leith Street between 1895 and Cotter’s death in 1950 played host to many an international amateur and professional fight game luminaries.

Outstanding names ranging from the 1920 American Olympic light heavyweight champion Eddie Egan who became New York State Athletic Boxing Commissioner in the 1940s; the future Lord Douglas Hamilton who also won a Scottish middleweight amateur title in the 1920s and Scotland’s first-ever Olympic boxing medal winner in 1908 at London, the Musselburgh featherweight Hugh Roddin.

In such an atmosphere, Riley snr had learned well from Cotter and operating himself out of the St James Square-based Melbourne club boxing gym he coached his own eldest son to professional prominence.

This prot駨 fought under the nom de ring of “Johnny Summers” guiding the latter to Scottish flyweight title challenges in Edinburgh in December in 1946 and Glasgow in 1947.

Then Johnny Summers met Airdrie’s Jackie Bryce who won on both occasions. Nevertheless, the example set by his elder sibling still inspired Hugh Riley to embrace the sport. This he did with alacrity and style, exhibiting in his amateur days a beautiful left jab, classy punch combinations and intelligent ring movement.

These were ring skills which meant that in 1949, Riley proved to be a worthy successor as both Scottish and British flyweight title holder to the 1948 winner of those two prestigious crowns - the Glasgow ring great Peter Keenan.

By now boxing for the Gilmerton club in his native Edinburgh, Riley then went on to Auckland, New Zealand and won the Empire (now Commonwealth) Games flyweight gold medal - the first-ever Scot to do so and the first of three capital based boxers (Jackie Brown at Cardiff in 1958 and Paul Shepherd in Canada in 1994) overall to do so.

Soon the pro ranks beckoned to this youthful Edinburgh plumber with the fast, skilful, educated left jab and ring skills which led to him boxing the notoriously ruthless Scottish bantamweight champion, also from Edinburgh, Eddie Carson.

This bout took place in October 1953 at Leith’s Eldorado Stadium over 12 rounds for the Scottish flyweight title.

A gentle man outside the ropes noted for his good humour, Riley was always bitter about Carson’s utterly ruthless disregard for the rules and top Edinburgh referee Eugene Henderson’s alleged handling of the bout which Riley lost controversially on points.

Many times subsequently when I discussed this ring battle with Riley which was one of the dirtiest on record in Edinburgh, he claimed that Henderson had repeatedly ignored Carson’s misuse of the head while he (Riley) tried to be legitimate.

Whatever the case, the result meant that Riley had also reprised his elder brother’s unhappy record of never winning a title bout at the Eldorado venue.

Nevertheless, Riley won many more pro bouts than he ever lost and in early 1954 he emigrated to the United States.

Across the Atlantic he made such a favourable impression on the hard bitten American West Coast fight-game crowd that he subsequently boxed on the same bill as then world middleweight champion, Sugar Ray Robinson, in Los Angeles in 1956.

Indeed, in a 1990s interview Riley told me that in their shared dressing-room, Robinson was so taken with his diminutive 5ft 2in stature and Scottish accent that the fabled five times winner of the world middleweight crown had a picture taken of Riley sitting on his knee.

Although he never quite scaled the heights he had achieved as an amateur boxer, Riley remains one of the best flyweight boxers ever produced by Scotland.

His death from cancer subsequent to returning from the US many years ago was linked to working with asbestos as a young plumber.