BoxRec

So, I am reading the bio that came out on Tony a couple of years ago. The book is not written well. There is no flow to the story. It seems like a collection of factoids rather than anything else.

However, one factoid that I found interesting was the fact that the nickname "Two Ton" did not come from his stout stature, but from the fact that from his childhood and into his pro career Tony was an iceman. He would deliver two or three tons of ice each day from 4am until 8pm. It seems that during on fight he was running late. He almost missed the fight entirely. When he arrived that the arena, his manager asked where had he been all day. Tony exclaimed that he had to deliver two tons of ice to his customers that day and couldn't leave for the arena until his deliveries were done...thus his manager dubbed him "Two Ton Tony".

On that note, the guy would deliver between 2,000 and 3,000 punds of ice each day in blocks of 25 and 50 pounds. That must have been grueling work. He may have not looked like Evander Holyfield in the physical sense, but by doing that for a job, Tony must have been a pretty well conditioned (and strong) man.

Interesting little anecdote. I read Classie Freddie Blassie's wrasslin' book. Blassie was in Washington DC laying on his heel act and Tony was refereeing. Blassie was wrasslin a black feller and the crowd was mostly black and Blassie was working them up into a frenzy. Tony leaned over and whispered to Blassie begging him to tone it down so they could get out of the joint alive, but Blassie didn't give a shit.

Was that why the two of them engaged in an actual boxing match? I believe Blassie was Tony's final professional bout (and a win at that).

zojo, wrote:Was that why the two of them engaged in an actual boxing match? I believe Blassie was Tony's final professional bout (and a win at that).

Boxrec lists it as Tony's next to last fight but as far as I know that was just a boxer-wrestler gimmick featuring Tony KO'ing three wrasslers - including Blassie - in one night. Boxrec might want to correct their records there.

Tony was in the famous movie, "On The Waterfront". He was in three other movies as well.

twotontony wrote:

zojo, wrote:Was that why the two of them engaged in an actual boxing match? I believe Blassie was Tony's final professional bout (and a win at that).

Boxrec lists it as Tony's next to last fight but as far as I know that was just a boxer-wrestler gimmick featuring Tony KO'ing three wrasslers - including Blassie - in one night. Boxrec might want to correct their records there.

Quite a few boxer/wrestler match ups on BoxRec. Archie Moore took on at least four in his career, and they are listed on his record. His last bout was against Southern HW Wrestling champion Mike DiBiase, though some have said this was nothing more than a work.

Jack Dempsey, at the age of 45, knocked out Cowboy Luttrell in two rounds, to which RING magazine called the match a "disgrace". Myself, if Fred Blassie and other high profile wrestlers can be listed among the great boxers records here on BoxRec, then Dempsey's foray into wrestling should be cited as well.

Fair is fair, though tbh, the records need to be filtered through, exhibitions are not actual bouts, no matter how interesting they are.

http://www.wrestlingclassics.com/mu/mu- ... assie.html

^^^According to this site, the Galento-Blassie bout was the genuine article.

Genuine article. No, I don't think so. I don't even recall Blassie mentioning that so-called fight in his book, just that he was an amateur boxer in the Navy. Elsewhere on the internet you'll find references to Tony doing four wrestler-boxer shows in those years. BoxRec lists two of them, Blassie and Suzek, as if they were legit fights, but you can see that neither of those two had any prior fights. Why would Tony, even at the tail end of his career, be booking fights with amateurs?

Why would Joe Louis do exhibitions against servicemen long after his wrestling career? Why would Moore, Lamar Clark and several others have matches with wrestlers that are considered legit? Who knows why anyone does anything.

I am going to stray a bit from the boxer vs. 'rassler in a boxing match debate.

I found it very interesting that Tony's job for much of his life was to haul three tons of ice in blocks of 25/50 pounds a piece. Just by completeing that job each day from 4am to 8pm must have gotten his body very strong and dourable.

For many boxers of the past, simply doing their 9-5 job was a great way to condition yourself to make a wage being a professional boxer. Plus, by boxing as often as they did back then, they could stay in fighting shape more easily.

..tony is also in the movie "winds across the everglades.

while he was no tunney or marciano when it came to training, his pre-fight publicity having him training on beer and hot dogs was something of a hoax. he said it was to make his opponent think he was out of shape. more likely it was for publicity. it worked well in the period before his fight with joe louis. two tons or more of newspaper coverage, much of it with his saying "I'll moider the bum."

He got joe louis enraged by calling him at camp and insulting joe's wife and calling him a bum. The idea behind it was to lure louis into a slugfest, which tony thought was his best chance of winning. it actually worked in reverse. the bomber got so furious he planned to beat tony up with his jabs and hooks for a while to punish him. so tony came out and gave louis some trouble, wobbling louis with a right hand early and landing some other good punches. he was knocked down himself but came back later to famously put louis on the canvas. joe's corner got on his case with "do you want this guy to be the heavyweight champion of the world" and other motivators.

joe gave tony a terrible beating before the referee stopped it. tony had a lot pof courage and a very good chin, and he had a murderous left hook, all of which carried him a long way to good box offices and a shot at the champ.

footnote: as is common in boxing and especially with joe louis he and tony became friends and when galento died they didn't tell joe because he himself was having a lot of problems at that stage of his life.

HomicideHenry wrote:Why would Joe Louis do exhibitions against servicemen long after his wrestling career? Why would Moore, Lamar Clark and several others have matches with wrestlers that are considered legit? Who knows why anyone does anything.

That was my point, though. The last two "fights" listed for Tony on BoxRec were almost certainly just exhibitions.

It seems if you fought before 1956 or so then exhibitions
count on your record...

for example Foreman's Toronto 5 would have been on his
pro record had he fought around the time of Tommy Burns,
or some of the exhibitions that Ali and Holmes fought would
have been considered record worthy had they fought in such
and era.

Robinson wrote:It seems if you fought before 1956 or so then exhibitions
count on your record...

Why? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Boxing was kind of disorganized, and also often illegal or semi-illegal, in the old days. I mean long before 1956. A lot of old timers were in carnival shows and the like, challenging the local farm boys, at least before they became famous. Those should be sorted out, I think, same with more recent exhibition shows.

Foreman's 5 fights in one night. I saw that, but it's been a while. Some of them were sort of semi-legit, though complete mismatches. As I recall, at least one of the "opponents", though, wasn't playing along, and he was giving Foreman too hard a time, and so the referee dived in to stop it. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between regular boxing matches, with the usual crooked and incompetant refs and judges, and exhibitions.

Tony in wrasslin duds



Powerful man. Stocky build, only 5'9", but very little fat on him.

Robinson wrote:It seems if you fought before 1956 or so then exhibitions
count on your record...

If it's an exhibition it's not on the record - neither before nor after 1956.

wouter wrote:

Robinson wrote:It seems if you fought before 1956 or so then exhibitions
count on your record...

If it's an exhibition it's not on the record - neither before nor after 1956.

What vabout Galento's last two fights then?

Look at the legs on him! Powerful man.

Another one of those five aforementioned Foreman fights, as I recall the man actually won the fight, and the crowd agreed, but they gave the decision to Foreman anyway. Those are my rather vague memories of it anyway. Also Foreman was still a heel back then. He hadn't yet turned into a baby face. Going off on tangents here...

twotontony wrote:What vabout Galento's last two fights then?

You can't draw any conclusion from the fact that his opponents were wrestlers with (seemingly) no previous experience: there are plenty of examples through history of such encounters that were 100% bona fide fights - as opposed to exhibitions.
Exhibitions have always been explicitly announced as such - whether they were exhibitions in Galento's case can only be known by checking the buildup/report of the fights in the papers of the cities were they were held. As of now the fights are in Galento's record as they were reported per day-after wire as if they were 'real' fights. While that is no definitive proof, ofcourse, they should stay where they are until contemporary reports to the contrary come up.

The Tommy Burns vs Jim Obrien and James J Walker fights ? are they exhibitions
or fights ?
The Jeffries bout with Hank Griffin..thats a fight and not an exhibition?

twotontony wrote:Those are my rather vague memories of it anyway. Also Foreman was still a heel back then. He hadn't yet turned into a baby face. Going off on tangents here...

Story of your life huh ?

wouter wrote:

twotontony wrote:What vabout Galento's last two fights then?

You can't draw any conclusion from the fact that his opponents were wrestlers with (seemingly) no previous experience: there are plenty of examples through history of such encounters that were 100% bona fide fights - as opposed to exhibitions.
Exhibitions have always been explicitly announced as such - whether they were exhibitions in Galento's case can only be known by checking the buildup/report of the fights in the papers of the cities were they were held. As of now the fights are in Galento's record as they were reported per day-after wire as if they were 'real' fights. While that is no definitive proof, ofcourse, they should stay where they are until contemporary reports to the contrary come up.

I haven't found any detailed contemporary descriptions of those two fights yet. I think they were just boxer-wrestler works, though. I read Classy Freddy Blassie's autobiography. I don't recall him mentioning it (whatever that's worth - I need to skim it again and see if I missed it), tho I do remember him giving a detailed account of that Washington DC show when Tony was reffing that I mentioned.

Robinson - 'Fraid I'm not familiar with those...

A ton is 2000 pounds, not 1000. A metric ton is around 2200 pounds.

wow! so galento weighed in at 4000lbs. no wonder joe went down when tony caught him with that punch!

while a few fighters got up from knockdowns by joe louis before he became champ to go the distance (mostly by running...as a rule when louis had you he finished you) tony has one unique distinction....he is the only fighter to get up from a louis knockdown to come back and knock louis down.

(a writer...maybe bugs baer, wrote than in the knockdown by louis tony flew so high off the canvas he could have been counted out before he landed on it.)

galento was still beligerant years later when he and joe appeared on a US tv program looking back nearly 40 years to that fight. he was still cussing out louis and being the big bad mouth. what a guy..