BoxRec

List former World Champions who served in the military at some point during their lives. I'll start:
Jack Dempsey (heavyweight), United States Coast Guard, World War II.

I think Gene Tunney served in some capacity in the Navy. He proposed abstinence instead of giving servicemen condoms, which indicates to me that his high ring intelligence wasn't present outside the ropes.

I was an usher at the NY Strand Theatre in 1942 and showed Sgt. Joe Louis and his friend to a seat in the loge . He tipped me a dollar which I refused to accept, but merely said "Thank you, Champ"

nice joe Louis story. But..I was assuming the question meant guys who were former champions at the time they went into service.

If it's former heavyweight champions who served in the armed forces, Ezzard Charles was in army,and stationed in Italy. While he was still in the states and in service in 1943 he had two pro fights.,.and lost both..decision to Jimmy Bivins and kayhod by Lloyd Marshall. An indication, that, great as these two guys were, Army training wasn't the best for a pro boxing match.

Here's another:
Pete Sanstol, Bantamweight Champion, who served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II:
http://www.geocities.com/boxofdaylight/Private.htm

...and of course, there were Max Schmelling and Primo Carnera.

Hey..it says military...it doesn't say on whose side!

Barney Ross...one of the most compelling stories of all..triumph over tragedy.

Still not sure if this means they were former champions at the time they served. If not, then Graziano served bravely and with intellegence..flattened a commanding officer and got the hell out.

No, I just meant anyone who had been a champ -- before or after service. And, yes, I'm not limiting it to the U.S.
Barney Ross is a good one. Former Lightweight, Jr. Welter, and Welter champ. As his bio says: "Ross became a much-decorated veteran of Guadacanal during World War II. He suffered from war wounds and malaria. So much so that he was in constant pain.
Well-meaning friends offered him narcotics to help him ease that pain.
He became addicted to the pain medication." He eventually kicked the habit.

For those who are interested in knowing more about the Barney Ross story, see if you can find his auto-bio, "Monkey on My Back." You'll have to dig for it, but it's worth it.Also made into a movie of the same title with Cameron Michell as Ross.

Sugar Ray (the real one) was in the army for while but got into a scrap with either officers or MPs over segregation and got tossed out. Not sure what his discharge was offically called, but to me that's an honorable one.

A Ross/movie side comment. The great boxing movie "Body and Soul" opens with the future boxer's father being killed in a store robbery. This was true in real life of Barney Ross, and he sued ,claiming something about privacy or whatever, and it was settled out of court with some money going to him.

Billy Conn was in the army. there was a hot rumor that he and Ezzard Charles sparred and Ezzard kicked the hell out of him, but Charles said it never happened.

Tony Zale was in the Navy, I think it was, for a while.

Lew Jenkins was in the army and reentered and became a career soldier.

Vince Phillips is one that comes to me of the top of
my head.
Is there enough room here to list boxers who have
served time in prison.Oh well i'll start it

Tyson
Corrales
Liston
Heres another qustion who do you think will end up
in prison.

bollocks wrote:

muzza wrote:Vince Phillips is one that comes to me of the top of
my head.
Is there enough room here to list boxers who have
served time in prison.Oh well i'll start it

Tyson
Corrales
Liston
Heres another qustion who do you think will end up
in prison.

Jeff Harding
Dennis Andries
James Scott - a prisoner who sometimes boxed

Will end up in prison - Tyson, Tony Ayala

Tyson & Ayala will most
probly go back to jail but i meant boxers who havent been there but
are destined to go there. i will say Fernando Vargas will end up in jail.

Back to the champions who served in th armed forces. There were so many that the titles were "frozen" (the official word) while they were in and there was a non-offical "interim champion" for those who stayed on the home front and were considered the best in thier division. for example,Jimmy Bivins was called by some the interim heavyweight champion while Louis was in. Again, highly informal title with no real meaning...just an attempt to give a little more pizazz to non-title fights among the civilian boxers, and more of a promoter's designation than anything else.

Jaclem, how about announcer Michael Buffer's grandfather?
It was said during his day that he was the only United States Navy sailor to have become a world champion.

Buffer's grandpa? I haven't heard about this one,so tell me more. I hope he didn't shout "Let's get ready to rumble" during silent nighttime approaches.

He wasn't a champion or even well known, but there New York fighter named Smuggy Hersey (or Hershey) who was among the first, if not the first, American main event fighter to be killed in combat. WWII.

Nigel benn was in the royal fusilliers & served several tours of duty in Northen Ireland @ the height of the troubles. he says getting in the ring after that was a piece of cake

Jaclem, bantam champ Johnny Buff is Buffer's grandfather, at least according to Buff's bio here.

I'd guess nearly all of Britain's World Champions from the first world war through to the 1950's will have served in the military at some point because of National Service (conscription).

Since the abolition of conscription, I can think of three other British World Champs who served in the military:

Terry Downes (US Marines)
Terry Marsh (Marines)
Nigel Benn (Fusiliers)

Never a title holder but a champion in every other sense of the word was
heavyweight Al Hoosman of Rock Island, Illinois.

Hoosman, who served in the Pacific Theater during WWII, fought a series
of bouts in Germany in 1950, then stayed in that country to spend the
better part of his life working with abandoned children of German/American parentage.

Thanks to Simon Pure for correcting my information...amnd spelling..of the fighter Smuggy Hursey. Simon pointed pointed out to me that he fought as later as 1948...so it must have been the Korean war he was killed in. I have no idea why I remember him at all...just that his name was unusual and I heard radio broadcasts of his fights, and Ring Magazine reported his gettin killed.

Simon...I've got a couple of hunches on the question you asked, and will get on it. I've been looking for the same guy myself. does Jackie Darthard ring any bells?

Gene Tunney was known as the "Fighting Marine." Won the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) Light Heaveyweight title while in Europe during WWI.