Ezzard wrote:I’ve never seen Joey Giambra fight but reading about him it seems like he was a really top quality fighter who was frozen out and put on the wrong end of decisions.
Who has seen him fight and how would you rank him.
He has an impressive record.
In the rich and bountiful middleweight division of the fifties and sixties, the “G Men” of New York became a permanent fixture and were known and admired by the boxing fraternity for their slick and worldly skills.
Joey Giardello, from Philadelphia by way of Brooklyn, and Joey Giambra from Buffalo seemed to fight every five minutes and became leading and perennial contenders for the middleweight championship.
In 1952 they battled each other twice within a month, trading unanimous decisions as Giardello triumphed in Brooklyn and Giambra got even in Buffalo. Six years later the two Joeys met up again for their third and final contest at the old and wonderful Cow Palace in San Francisco, with Giambra winning a split verdict. But it was Giardello who had the last laugh when he finally landed the world championship after sixteen years of hard campaigning with a points victory over Dick Tiger in 1963.
Joey Giambra, for all his talent, never even got a shot. He lost just ten times in a 77-bout career against consistently stellar opposition; and five of those losses came in his last eight fights when he was fading but still artful enough to mess the best men around. Giambra was never knocked out.
In the summer of 1961, twelve years after starting out as a pro, Joey was talking excitedly about a new outlook and a new fighting style. No longer would he trade solely on skill and finesse. He was rolling the dice, letting rip and taking more chances. It seemed to be working, but it was in fact the beginning of the end of a long journey.
Desperation had set in, as it does when a sliding golfer begins to fiddle with a tried and tested swing or treat himself to a new putter to cure that dreaded nervous condition known as the ‘yips’. Arnold Palmer embraced all manner of gimmicks in his bid to shoo Father Time away from his door. Tony Jacklin ended up plugging his ears when he began to hear every pin drop in a hushed crowd.
Joey Giambra simply let it all hang out. It was late in the day. He had to go for it. “Chasing champs can wear you out,” he said. “You know how far back I began hollering for a title fight? When Bobo Olson was the champ. In 1955. I fought Olson over the weight. It was a TV fight in San Francisco. I was in the Army at the time and couldn’t train the way a civilian can. At that, I deserved the decision.
“Well, Bobo wouldn’t give me a chance at the championship and neither would Sugar Ray Robinson after he got the title from Bobo on his comeback. Fullmer, Pender, Tiger – they’ve all seen my calling card. No soap.”
Giambra explained his new, no-nonsense approach eagerly: “From the cosy, lay-back boxing I did for so long, I’ve gone in for open hammer-and-tongs stuff. It may lose a fight for you here and there but you make friends, influence people. You begin to get the kind of publicity you need.
“This spring Yama Bahama was scheduled to fight Farid Salim on a national TV fight in New York. Yama got sick and I got a hurry-up call. Now Salim was a tall fellow with a good left hand and an awkward style. If I had boxed him my old way, I likely could have won but the fight would have been a stinker.
“Instead I ripped and tore. I knew I was playing into his hands, yet I also knew it would make a good impression. I wasn’t wrong. He got the decision but a short while later the TV circuit needed somebody for Florentino Fernandez at Miami Beach. They thought of me.
“Maybe you caught me on the air with Fernandez. Again, I didn’t go in for smart, stick-and-run manoeuvring. I planted my feet firmly and banged him with the most stinging shots I had, left hooks, right uppercuts, right crosses. He was game and rough, but I got through. I concentrated on his schnoz, which stands out like a headlight. I scored so often and bloodied him up so much, the referee had to stop it.
“This, friends, is the new Joey.”
Proud fighters, proud golfers, proud footballers and proud baseball players. All develop tunnel vision as age begins to nibble at their special talents. The “new Joey” had already been pushing leather for too long in a torrid era of competition when only the special few could still be contending for major honors in their mid-thirties. Joey Giambra was thirty and an “old” fighter. The Fernandez win was his last. Joey lost successive decisions to Denny Moyer, Luis Rodriguez and Joe DeNucci and then retired. He came in at short notice against DeNucci and put up a splendid battle before losing a split verdict.
Some time before, Giambra had said defiantly, “Some day, some champ is going to break down and give Pal Joey a chance.”
Some champ never did. It was over. Joey G from Buffalo never fought again.
Mike Casey is the Founder & Editor of ALL TIME BOXING at Twitter@boxing_com to continue the discussion