BoxRec

Norm- Like Roger Rouse, Ellsworth "Spider" Webb, a top middleweight of the 1950s, was on the boxing team at Idaho State. It is my understanding that Webb also was on the boxing team at Compton Junior College in Compton, California. Both Webb and Rouse are in the Idaho State University Sports Hall of Fame.

- Chuck Johnston

Chuck1052 wrote:Norm- Like Roger Rouse, Ellsworth "Spider" Webb, a top middleweight of the 1950s, was on the boxing team at Idaho State. It is my understanding that Webb also was on the boxing team at Compton Junior College in Compton, California. Both Webb and Rouse are in the Idaho State University Sports Hall of Fame.

- Chuck Johnston

When looking at Webb's record, the name of opponent Irvin Thatch rung a bell with me. So, that led to his record which shows Jim Rouse, who I believe is Roger's brother referred earlier in this topic, as a Thatch opponent.
http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_ ... &cat=boxer

Norm, I should have said that Jimmy Lundy had a NUMBER of bouts in the Los Angeles area, not alot of them. But I think that I found some information on him on Ancestry.com.

According to the 1930 U.S. Census, one James R. Lundy, a 26-year-old "prizefighter" and a native of Minnesota, was living in Chicago. According to other records, there was a resident of Minnesota named James R. Lundy who was born about 1899. While there is quite an age discrepancy in the records, it may be that I am on the right path.

If Lundy was a resident of Butte during the middle 1920s, it would be very difficult to verify such a fact unless he was listed in the city directory. After all, the U.S. Census is enumerated every ten years.

- Chuck Johnston

Looking at Todd Foster's record, I will agree that he was not ready to fight someone like Jimmy Paul during the early 1990s. Up to the time of that bout, Foster had faced comparatively "soft" opposition. As Flash Gordon, the terrific boxing newsletter publisher, use to say, "Stiffs teach you nothing." While I doubt that even well-prepared Todd Foster would have been able to beat a vintage Jimmy Paul, I think that he would have had a better shot at it under the circumstances.

Hope that Foster is doing well at this time. It appears that he was a fine individual who gave boxing his best shot. As a result, Foster should take pride in what he accomplished.

- Chuck Johnston

Chuck, its pretty interesting cross-referencing and finding answers, am enjoying the age of information. The reason Irwin Thatch was familiar is that I attended the Rouse-Henry Hank bout in Missoula where Thatch was against Joe Hopkins on the undercard. The fight program states Thatch is 36-6 at this time. Boxing records are only as sketchy as a promotor's thoughts back then.

I have a recent photo of Foster I'll dig out and post soon.

Below is the Inspector's Report for one of the stops on Jack Dempsey's appearance tours. Blumenauer, in the main, had fought the night before in Billings, also a Dempsey ref job, and was at least his 3rd bout in five days. It was a complete sham, more like a traveling circus reminiscent of Dempsey's dash out of Shelby when he fought Gibbons in 1923. He had a fondness about Montana money. I'll post news articles too.



http://boxrec.com/show_display.php?show_id=517961

Note in the article above about Sleepy Blount incurring an elbow injury that stopped the bout. The article gives him benefit of the doubt, but they probably didn't know he'd fight in Helena the next evening. Dempsey was guest ref in Helena as well. It was a circus using many of the same boxers nightly in the whirlwind 401K for Dempsey, and involving Jack Kearns.

Blount and Blumenhauer were opponents on Dempsey referee appearance card almost 3 weeks earlier in Boise Idaho on November 15th. It seems this was at least a 3 week tour for Dempsey, but hard to find how many dates in total.

In regards to the "sham" boxing tour in Montana during 1940, what was the Montana State Athletic Commission doing at this time?

It appears Joe Simonich, Al Webster and Pete Bross, all former boxers based in Montana, were referees.

Quite a number of Great Falls-based boxers worked at the local smelter at one time or another, including Bross, Al Rossberg, Cliff Rossberg, "Marine" Raineri and George Gilstrap.

- Chuck Johnston

I went down to Burbank, California and met with several people who are interested in boxing history. Roger Rouse's name came up in our conversation.

Rouse was 23 or 24 when he became a professional boxer, which means that he had a fairly late start in that regard.

It appears that Frankie Wine, Joe Simonich and Pete Bross were of Croatian descent. I found evidence that Wine was born in Belt, a small town located about twenty miles east of Great Falls. Belt was once a coal mining town. There is a Frank Wine had a father who worked in the coal mines in the Roundup area during 1910. There also is a Frank Wine who worked as blacksmith in connection with coal mining at the age of 16 in the Roundup area during 1920.

- Chuck Johnston

Chuck, that's a good question about the MSAC regarding the scam tour. But really, under the possibility of Jack Dempsey coming through town, I can't imagine much discretion. RJ Lewis KO'ed Blumenhauer in 3 rounds on Oct. 24, 1940, in 2 rounds on Nov 11, 1940, and in 1 round on the Inspector Report and articles posted of Dec. 3rd.

But I think there is a great story buried in there somewhere. The article of the Dec 3 card mentions that its sponsored by a "new whiskey"... was the whole thing a promotional tour? Or just that date. But considering all the dates leading up to the exposure, it seems like a cleverly conceived scheme.

Almost all the names you mention are sprinkled in the 100+ reports I have. If I remember right, Simonich was here nearby at the State Veterans Home but he kept wandering away. I wish I'd had a chance to talk with him though.

This is a 2008 pic of Todd Foster. He played here in a Celebrity-Pro golf tourney and if I remember right, it was an auction in which his presence brought maybe the highest price. He's very well thought of in Montana, and last I heard was in sales at an auto dealership.



http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_ ... &cat=boxer

41(34 KO's) - 4 - 1

A parade honored Todd Foster upon his return to Great Falls, Montana from the 1988 Olympics.
"I'd lost... and people treated me like I won."

SPIDER WEBB



Spider Webb was a top level middleweight.

He was the only fighter to stop Giardello (on cuts).

Webb won four fights in a row by KO leading up to his title shot against Fullmer:

Joey Giardello TKO 7

Terry Downes TKO 8

Bobby Boyd TKO 1

Neal Rivers TKO 4

Webb then got his chance at Fullmer's middleweight title in Fullmer's first defense after Fullmer beat Basilio to win the title.

I remember the resignation that Webb emanated as he came out for the last rounds of that fight, realizing he was not going to be champion.

In adddition to stopping Giardello, Downes, Boyd and Neal Rivers,
in his career Webb also stopped Franz Szuzina (7), Rory Calhoun (4), Irvin Thatch (1), Jackie LaBua (1).

Webb won 10 round decisions over Dick Tiger, Jimmy Beecham, Holly Mims, Rory Calhoun, Charley Cotton, Neal Rivers, Wilfie Greaves, Randy Sandy, Willie Vaughn.

Webb was only stopped ONCE--in his very last fight, against Dick Tiger, whom he had beaten previously by decision.

Webb lost 10 round decisions to Gene Fullmer, Holly Mims, and Charley Josephs.

He only lost six times in 40 bouts against the top level middleweights of his time--

Two decisions to Fullmer (one for the title), a 10 round decision to Holly Mims (who he also won a decision over on another bout), a 10 round decision to Charley Josephs (who he also won a decision over on another bout), a loss on a 6 round decision early in his career, and the final loss to Tiger.

grandberry, Spider Webb has been elected to the World Boxing Hall of Fame and is scheduled to be inducted this year.

- Chuck Johnston

Recent article about Marvin Camel, great content:

Heavy hitter: Marvin Camel still fighting to be known as Montana’s only world champion boxer

Written by VINCE DEVLIN of the Missoulian Sunday, January 24, 2010


PABLO – There was a tapping on his shoulder in the Polson VFW; the 11-year-old boy turned to see his father.

“How much do you weigh?” his dad asked.

The answer: 105 pounds.

“Good,” his father said, and laced boxing gloves on his son’s hands.

“There was a 105-pound kid who needed someone to fight that night” on a local boxing card, he recalls. “I got my ass kicked.”

Seventeen years later the kid who got his butt whipped that evening, Marvin Camel, was a world boxing champion, the first and only one to ever come out of the state of Montana.

“Anybody can do what I’ve done,” Camel says, “but in reality, nobody has. I often ask myself, ‘Why me? Why was I chosen to be the first cruiserweight champion of the world?’ I come from a town of 1,500 people, Ronan, Montana, and I’ve won two world titles. There are towns, there are states, there are countries with millions of people that have never won a world championship.”

As Camel speaks, clips from one of his title fights plays on a big screen in the Johnny Arlee/Victor Charlo Theatre on the campus of Salish Kootenai College. It’s nearing 5 p.m. and all of eight people have wandered into the building for the start of an event called “Share the Vision.”

Ken Camel, one of Marvin’s brothers and a former professional boxer himself, put it together. It’s largely a tribute to Marvin, who lives in Florida now but was home for a visit, and partially a promotion for the youth boxing club Ken would like to start on the Flathead Indian Reservation.

Mostly, Ken explains, the tapes of the title fights have been sitting in his closet for decades, dusted off only once before for a public showing, at a bar in Ronan. Local people – those who saw Marvin box in the 1970s and ’80s, and a new generation who weren’t around then – ought to have the chance to see them.

“I feel like I’ve accomplished something even today, 30 years after the fact,” Marvin Camel says, his WBC title belt fastened tightly around his trim 58-year-old waist. “But there are people on the Flathead Reservation, in Missoula County, in the state of Montana, who are not aware of what I achieved.”

It’s not like the first cruiserweight title fight is no contest – Camel and Yugoslavian Mate Parlov go 15 grueling rounds on Aug. 12, 1979 – but there is no question who wins.

“He’s hitting Parlov almost at will,” CBS sportscaster Tim Ryan says of Camel during the fight, held in Parlov’s hometown of Split, Yugoslavia, and broadcast nationally in the United States.

“Parlov is getting slapped all over the ring,” agrees analyst Gil Clancy.

By the later rounds the partisan crowd of 7,000 has quieted as Camel continues to dominate Parlov, a former light heavyweight champion.

“They know what’s happening,” Ryan says. “Their champion is losing.”

The World Boxing Council created the cruiserweight division in the late 1970s, a place for boxers too big for light-heavyweight, and too small for the heavyweight class (Evander Holyfield would later become one of Camel’s successors before moving up to the heavyweight division).

The WBC had placed the eight best boxers who fell into the new class in a tournament. Camel and Parlov were the last two standing as the WBC prepared to crown the world’s first cruiserweight champion.

“I was 28 years old,” Camel says. “Twenty-eight is very old for a boxer. I was fighting guys 18, 19, 20.”

Ken Camel is showing a tape of the CBS Sports broadcast of the Camel-Parlov bout. He found the 30-year-old commercials amusing and didn’t edit them out. Between rounds we watch an ad for Bell Telephone, and, in another, Radio Shack tout the latest in technology, a pocket calculator capable of displaying eight digits, for $15.95.

“Barring a knockout, Mate Parlov is not going to be a winner tonight,” Ryan announces during Round 14, and he’s right.

Unbelievably, the judges declare the fight a draw. There is still no world cruiserweight champion.

“A travesty,” Camel says 30 years later, and indicates Parlov was really a double loser that night.

“Going 15 rounds with me once is enough for any man,” Camel says, “and he had to go 15 rounds again. I stepped up my pace the second time to make sure they understood who the winner would be.”

The rematch was held several months later, this time in Las Vegas, this time with no network TV coverage. The footage Ken shows was taken with a home movie camera. His brother dominates again, and this time becomes the first cruiserweight champion in the history of the world.

“In boxing there are pretenders, contenders, and world champions,” Camel says. “Pretenders never train enough. Contenders never get over the last hump. It doesn’t only take 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It takes 25 hours a day, eight days a week. You have to stay away from drinking, smoking, philandering, wild women. I didn’t wish, hope and pray to become world champion. I put in the time and effort to become world champion.”

Several more people filter into the theater as the night goes on; there are probably 40 to 50 in the seats when the lights come on after the Vegas fight is shown.

In between fights on the screen, Camel gives away hats from his Florida boxing club and autographed photocopies of old newspaper photographs from his fights. One of the hats goes to Jim Anderson of Polson, who used to drive Camel around the state to compete on amateur boxing cards. Another goes to one of Camel’s half-brothers, who answers a trivia question – “What was Marvin Camel’s professional boxing record?” – correctly. (It’s 45 wins, 13 losses and 4 draws.)

There was, Camel says, resentment when he left the reservation to turn pro. Missoula boxing promoter Elmer Boyce gave Camel a job in Boyce’s day-side amusement game business as a “pinball mechanic” and pushed Camel’s boxing career at night.

“People said I was a traitor, that I should remain here even if I turned pro and was fighting in another county,” Camel says. “I didn’t feel the hostilities, living in Missoula. But I was always fighting for the people on the reservation, I was fighting for the people of Montana, to give them their first world champion. And when I fought for the titles, I was fighting for all the people of the United States.”

Nov. 25, 1980, the Superdome in New Orleans, the undercard of the world welterweight championship match between Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran.

Marvin Camel makes his first cruiserweight title defense, against Carlos “Sugar” De Leon of Puerto Rico.

Duran famously gives up and walks to his corner during Round 8 against Leonard, a bout dubbed the “No mas” (Spanish for “no more”) fight.

What Duran didn’t give the crowd in the Superdome, Camel and De Leon do.

Ken Camel has edited down the two Parlov fights, but this one against De Leon he shows in its entirety.

It is an amazing fight to watch, the sometimes-inane comments of broadcaster Les Keiter and analysts Larry Holmes and Don King notwithstanding.

“Woo woo woo!” King war whoops as Camel, whose mother was Salish, enters the ring wearing a headdress. “He’s a real Indian!”

Keiter notes the presence of a woman in Camel’s corner, calling it “bizarre.”

“Women’s lib,” King explains. “They can do anything now.”

“He wears his belt everyplace he goes,” King says of Camel later in a more insightful moment. “He wants everybody to know who he is.”

Both fighters weight in at 182 pounds. Camel’s reach has De Leon’s by 3 inches, 79 to 76, but De Leon has Camel, who will turn 29 in less than a month, by nearly eight years in the age department.

The fight starts. Anyone who watched portions of the first two fights already knows Camel is boxing’s version of a distance runner. He starts slowly, feels out his opponents – even lets them get to feeling cocky, it sometimes appears. But Camel never lets up, never relents, never seems to go flat-footed.

“Rocky Marciano was undefeated in 49 fights as a heavyweight,” Camel was saying earlier, before the program began. “He was the world’s best fighter, but if he was fighting at the same time as (Muhammad) Ali, he couldn’t have done what he did. Ali was a boxer, and the two don’t jibe. Fighters are the world’s best fighters, but only for the first 30 seconds. After that, they’re mine. I’m not one-shot Eddie. I’m in it for the haul.”

De Leon appears to win the first three rounds, but by the fourth, Camel starts to open up.

So, unfortunately, does a cut over his left eye.

“His championship is dangling because of that bad cut,” King says, but doctors don’t stop it. Round after round they go, Camel’s corner working furiously to stem the bleeding after each bell.

“Camel’s face is a bloody mask!” Holmes observes at one point, and his white trunks become more and more soaked in blood. By the 14th round, Keiter notes the champ is “bleeding out of both eyes.”

On they go, both fighters connecting with vicious jabs. There are below-the-belt blows by both men. Camel head-butts De Leon at one point. De Leon throws punches at Camel after the bell has sounded several times.

“It’s a war,” King decides. “They hate each other.”

It goes all 15 rounds, a real-life “Rocky” match. One judge scores it a 145-145 tie. The other two give De Leon the edge, 145-142 and 145-141.

“I get a lot of flak for not defending my world title,” Camel says, “but the fact of the matter is the first six cruiserweight title fights were all Marvin Camel versus someone, whether they were wins, draws or losses, and in two of them I became the world champion.”

On Feb. 13, 1983, Camel beat Roddy McDonald to become the International Boxing Federation’s first cruiserweight champion of the world. As with the WBC crown, Camel held it only until his first defense.

“To me, defending a championship is immaterial,” Camels says. “It’s how many times you won it in the first place. Defending a title is just holding on to something you already have. I’m still world champion.”

Camel and Norma, his wife of 26 years, live in Tavares, Fla., a community outside Orlando. He’s said before he never really realized the financial impact that can come with a world title. Camel is pursuing an online degree in business administration after being one of 40,000 employees to lose their jobs when Circuit City went belly-up.

“I was a grunt,” he says, working in a Circuit City warehouse, loading and unloading trucks, but he says he put the same effort into his job that he did into boxing.

“We gave Montana two world championships,” he says. “Other people got close – Roger Rouse (of Anaconda) was ranked No. 1 in the world – but nobody else could get over the hump and win a championship. I’m a two-hump camel, because I got over the hump twice.”

He’d like to produce a world champion for Florida from his Tavares club, called the Unique Boxing Club, which he says he named for himself, “because I’m unique.”

And then, Marvin Camel says, he’d like to move home and help his brother Ken produce the second world champion from Montana, the second from the Flathead Indian Reservation.

“Kenny can give them the ups and downs, the ins and outs,” Camel says, “but there’s one little step he’s got to take that he hasn’t, and I have. He can’t teach them to become a world champion, but I can.”

Thirty years have passed since he first won it, and Marvin Camel wears his belt proudly to this day.

Thanks Norm. I enjoyed that.

I had read that Marvin Camel lost his job when Circuit City went out business, but didn't know that he is pursuing an online degree in business administration. Hope that he gets it and is able to parlay it into a good job.

As I recall, Camel lived in the Los Angeles area over twenty years, trying to make a go in his own landscaping or gardening business.

In regards to Todd Foster, I remember reading an article on the Great Falls Tribune website about his toughman-style bout which took place in Great Falls about five years ago. According to the article, he was working at a car dealership in the city at the time.

I would think that Foster has been far more popular in Great Falls than Ryan Leaf. Of course, Leaf was known for his very boorish behavior and even put down his hometown, unlike Foster.

- Chuck Johnston

WBC Cruiserweight Champion Marvin Camel of Ronan, MT suffered multiple cuts, some old some new, when losing the title by 15 round majority decision to Carlos "Sugar" DeLeon on November 25, 1980 in the New Orleans Super Dome.



http://boxrec.com/show_display.php?show_id=1977

On Saturday 21 August 1993 at Raceway Park in Kalispell, Montana, United States, Julio Cesar Borboa, from Sonora Mexico, successfully defended his IBF Jr. Bantamweight title against Carlos Manuel Mercado of Columbia. Team Borboa was a class act. I've heard that he left boxing because he was nearly blind. Am hoping things are well with him. If anyone knows an update, I'd appreciate it.



http://boxrec.com/show_display.php?show_id=34614

Taking a look at Johnny Marquez's record, it appears that he was an accident waiting to happen based on his last four bouts. Up to the time of the the first of the four bouts, Marquez hadn't been stopped in any bout which is listed on his record posted on the BoxRec website. But after that time, it appears that he was taking a beating or being knocked down in each of his last four bouts.

- Chuck Johnston

Great stuff about Camel and DeLeon fight. Have to dig up the tape of that fight.

I apologize for deleting some images in this thread. I hadn't thought that through, but will be adding some deleted and more reports and articles.

Collins2000 wrote:Thanks Norm. I enjoyed that.

Yep, you bet, thanks for checking it out.

Chuck1052 wrote:Taking a look at Johnny Marquez's record, it appears that he was an accident waiting to happen based on his last four bouts. Up to the time of the the first of the four bouts, Marquez hadn't been stopped in any bout which is listed on his record posted on the BoxRec website. But after that time, it appears that he was taking a beating or being knocked down in each of his last four bouts.

- Chuck Johnston

Chuck, it seems likely that Marquez's first KO loss was to Sutka, as confirmed by the quote from the Helena Independent. The devastating KO loss to RJ Lewis was a missing part until the Boxing Inspector's report and article tell that tale. There is a chance, maybe a probability, that he had other bouts between then and his return to California. I do wonder the path of that missing year.

This is information from the Journal of Combat Sport, Boxing Fatalities

Al Globe W by KO
Date: 15-May 1942
Result: KO 8
Fatality: Johnny Marquez, Age: 26
Location: San Francisco California, USA
Division: Middle
Report source: Lima (Ohio) News, May 17, 1942; Oakland Tribune, May 18, 1942. Marquez was the 1937 National AAU champion. Cause of death was listed as brain hemorrhage.

This is the Inspector's Report of the KO loss to RJ Lewis in the Billings, MT bout:
http://boxrec.com/show_display.php?show_id=518003

The tragic life of Johnny Marquez has haunted me since learning insight to his career through this article.