Jimmy Wooten

Name: Jimmy Wooten
Birth Name: James A. Wooten
Hometown: Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA
Birthplace: Poplar Bluff, Missouri, USA
Died: 1987-02-03 (Age:73)
Pro Boxer: Record

Brother of boxer Cappy Wooten.

Obituary

BLUFFS BOXER WOOTEN DIES AT 73

Longtime professional boxer James A. Wooten, a resident of the Glen Haven Home in Glenwood, died of respiratory failure Tuesday night at Jennie Edmundson Hospital. He was 73.

Mr. Wooten was born in Poplar Bluff, MO, and moved to Council Bluffs in 1920. He began boxing professionally at age 12 and quit school after the eight grade to pursue his boxing career full time.

Trained by Olympic boxer Royal Coffman, Mr. Wooten gained his reputation in the Midwest, winning his first 100 fights. When he ran out of Midwestern opponents during the Great Depression, he traveled throughout the country, fighting in middleweight and heavyweight divisions. Mr. Wooten was the Midwest middleweight champion in the early 1930s, according to his son, Jimmy, of Omaha. Between 1935 and 1940, he was ranked fifth in the world as a lightweight and seventh in the world as a middleweight.

After earning two Bronze Stars for combat duty in the Philippines during World War II, Mr. Wooten won two more fights in an attempt at a comeback in 1950 and 1951, but then retired from boxing.

In his professional career from 1925 to 1951, Mr. Wooten had about 357 bouts, compiling a 330-9-18 record. Of those, 67 were wins by knockouts, 263 wins by decisions, nine losses by decisions and 18 draws. After he retired, Mr. Wooten worked as a bouncer and managed the King of Clubs nightclub in Council Bluffs. He taught boxing in the basement at his home in 1959 before he became a physical education teacher at the Council Bluffs Young Mens' Christian Association. He and his wife, Norma Jean Walls, divorced in 1967.

Between 1948 and 1968, Mr. Wooten made seven unsuccessful bids for the Pottawattamie County Sheriff's office. He also worked for the city street department. Back problems from the war forced him to retire on a disability pension. He worked at the Mayfair Club for about 10 years. He was a resident at Glen Haven Home for about five years, Jimmy Wooten said.

"The guy had a fighting heart," said Leonard "Hawk" Hawkins of Omaha, a childhood friend and former sparring partner of Mr. Wooten's. "That kind of guy doesn't come along too much. Hawkins, 73, said the skills that made Mr. Wooten a great fighter 40 years ago would also make him successful today. "He just had instinct," he said. "If he was fighting at this time and age, this guy would have been world champion."

With no nationwide amateur boxing competitions such as the Golden Gloves, Hawkins said, it wasn't unusual for young, good fighters like Wooten to step into the professional ring. Hawkins and Mr. Wooten were 15 years old when they trained together. "He fought some of the best boxers in the county," Hawkins said.

"He was a clever boxer," said Sebastian "Sonny" Sofio, 73, of Omaha, one of the few fighters who beat Mr. Wooten. "He danced around and made himself harder to hit." Sofio said he and Mr. Wooten fought only once, in a bout for the Nebraska-Iowa Welterweight Championship in Omaha in 1932. "I won on a 10 round decision," Sofio said.