BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:tiger ted, one of the best journeyman of all time. like an emanuel agustus
Anyone who has ever had even a remote interest in boxing knows that Rocky Marciano retired undefeated.
But there are at least a few people who saw Marciano fight in Providence Oct. 10, 1949, who might want to put an asterisk beside the result of his victory that night.
"Tiger" Ted Lowry, former New England light heavyweight and heavyweight champion and local legend, is one of them.
"I know I beat him the first time," said Lowry. "Everybody there knew I beat him. The bell saved him in one of the rounds. I had him sitting on the ropes. I was hitting him with uppercuts."
Lowry fought Marciano twice and is the only man to have gone the distance with the Rock twice. The rematch was also in Providence a year later.
"He beat me the second time," said Lowry. "He won the decision. But the people at the first fight know I won that decision. The fans booed, and they were Italian people. The fight was in Providence."
Wrote former Standard-Times editor and boxing aficionado George Patzer in a 1950 column: "It was in Providence last summer where the "Tiger" almost upset the Marciano applecart and those elaborate and careful plans made to elevate him to the heavyweight championship of the world. Ted gave Rocky the fight of his life, and while the verdict finally went in favor of the Brockton youth, newspapermen covering the fight and veteran fans were of the opinion that Lowry had won."
Marciano was managed by the wily, well-connected Al Weill, which in Lowry's mind played a part in the decision. "The judges wanted to get in with Weill, that's why they voted the way they did," said Lowry, who in 20 rounds with the Brockton Blockbuster never was seriously hurt or in danger of going down. "He hit me on the arms," said Lowry. "He punched good, but he never knocked me down." And then after a pause, "I wasn't easy to hit, you know."
Lowry, in fact, was an excellent defensive fighter. Reflecting on his two fights with Lowry after his retirement, Marciano had this to say: "I think Lowry would have gone the distance if we had fought a hundred times. I could never get used to his style of fighting."
It was also a time when the mob was running the fight game. Lowry was never approached about taking a dive, but he was warned about winning once. "Blackjack Billy Fox had won 52 straight fights by knockout and I beat him," said Lowry. "That was a fight I was supposed to lose. They put the Mafia on me. They threatened me."
The hardest puncher he ever faced was -- surprise, surprise -- not Marciano. That distinction belongs to the venerable light heavyweight great Archie Moore, to whom he lost a 10-round decision in August, 1948.
"He almost broke my jaw," said Lowry. "I was going with (the woman who would become) my wife then and we had been invited out to a turkey dinner right after that. And I couldn't eat. I was sucking through a straw.
"Moore was the hardest puncher I ever fought. And he was pretty old when I fought him."
That was four years before Moore beat Joey Maxim for the light heavyweight title at the age of 39.
Lowry doesn't remember exactly how many knockouts he posted, but said it was "around 68." And at least three of those victims suffered broken jaws. THere was never any question of his power, or his heart. The only knock on him was that he didn't have the "killer instinct."
"They said I didn't eat enough raw meat," he smiled. "I didn't want to hurt anyone. If a guy was cut, I'd stop hitting him. I would have had a lot more knockouts if I was savage."
Wrote Patzer, who covered many of Lowry's fights: "When it came to punch, Lowry had to take a back seat to no one, not even Louis and Marciano. . . Ted, however, lacked the will to fight and the killer instinct and it was to cost him the big money and perhaps the title. He was too nice a guy and one of the mildest-mannered and soft-spoken fellows you'd want to meet."