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Pound for Pound

Page 26

by Herb Boyd

Apr 27

  Bobby Lee

  Port of Spain, Trinidad

  KO 2

  Jul 9

  Phil Moyer

  Los Angeles

  L 10

  Sep 25

  Terry Downes

  London

  L 10

  Oct 17

  Diego Infantes

  Vienna

  KO 2

  Nov 10

  Georges Estatoff

  Lyon, France

  KO 6

  * * *

  1963

  Jan 30

  Ralph Dupas

  Miami Beach

  W 10

  Feb 25

  Bernie Reynolds

  Santo Domingo

  KO 4

  Mar 11

  Billy Thornton

  Lewiston, ME

  KO 3

  May 5

  Maurice Rolbnet

  Sherbrooke, Canada

  KO 3

  Jun 24

  Joey Giardello

  Philadelphia

  L 10

  Oct 14

  Armand Vanucci

  Paris

  W 10

  Nov 9

  Fabio Bettini

  Lyon, France

  D 10

  Nov 16

  Emile Sarens

  Brussels

  KO 8

  Nov 29

  Andre Davier

  Grenoble, France

  W 10

  Dec 9

  Armand Vanucci

  Paris

  W 10

  * * *

  1964

  May 19

  Gaylord Barnes

  Portland, ME

  W 10

  Jul 8

  Clarence Riley

  Pittsfield, MA

  KO 6

  Jul 27

  Art Hernandez

  Omaha

  D 10

  Sep 3

  Mick Leahy

  Paisley, Scotland

  L 10

  Sep 28

  Yolande Leveque

  Paris

  W 10

  Oct 12

  Johnny Angel

  London

  KO 6

  Oct 24

  Jackie Caillau

  Nice, France

  W 10

  Nov 7

  Baptiste Rolland

  Calen, France

  W 10

  Nov 14

  Jean Beltritti

  Marseilles, France

  W 10

  Nov 27

  Fabio Beltini

  Rome

  D 10

  * * *

  1965

  Mar 6

  Jimmy Beecham

  Kingston, Jamaica

  KO 2

  Apr 4

  Ray Basting

  Savannah KO 1

  Apr 28

  Rocky Randall

  Norfolk, VA

  KO 3

  May 24

  Memo Ayon

  Tijuana

  L 10

  Jun 1

  Stan Harrington

  Honolulu

  L 10

  Jun 24

  Young Joe Walcott

  Richmond

  W 10

  Jul 12

  Fred Hernandez

  Las Vegas

  L 10

  Jul 27

  Young Joe Walcott

  Richmond

  W 10

  Aug 10

  Stan Harrington

  Honolulu

  L 10

  Sep 15

  Bill Henderson

  Norfolk, VA

  NC 2

  Sep 23

  Young Joe Walcott

  Philadelphia

  W 10

  Oct 1

  Peter Schmidt

  Johnston, PA

  W 10

  Oct 20

  Rudolf Bent

  Steubenville, OH

  KO 3

  Nov 10

  Joey Archer

  Pittsburgh

  L 10

  Dec 10

  Announces Retirement

  INTERVIEWS

  Johnny Barnes, December 7, 2002

  Howard Bingham, November 30, 2002

  Sylvia Dixon, December 17, 2002

  Clint Edwards, November 2, 2002; December 7, 2002

  Howie Evans, September 4, 2003

  Kelly Howard, March 15, 2003

  Delilah Jackson, September 25, 2002

  Carl Jefferson, November 26, 2003

  Max Roach, July 24, 2003

  Hilly Saunders, February 23, 2003

  Roger Simon, March 12, 2002

  Percy Sutton, January 17, 2003

  Jackie Tonawanda, May 1, 2003

  Langley Waller, November 4, 2002; July 2, 2003

  Rev. Dino Woodard, May 8, 2002

  Sigmund Wortherly, December 27, 2002

  NOTES

  CHAPTER 1: FROM RED CLAY TO BLACK BOTTOM

  1. Gene Schoor, Sugar Ray Robinson (Paris: Hachette, 1952), p.1.

  2. Donald L. Grant, The Way It Was in the South: The Black Experience in Georgia (New York: The Carol Publishing Group, 1993), p. 307.

  3. Coleman Young with Lonnie Wheeler, Hard Stuff: The Autobiography of Mayor Coleman Young (New York: Viking Press, 1994), p. 20.

  4. Sunnie Wilson with John Cohassey, Toast of the Town (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), p. 43.

  5. Ibid. p. 47.

  6. Joe Louis with Edna and Art Rust, Jr., Joe Louis: My Life (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), p. 24.

  7. Schoor, p. 6.

  CHAPTER 3: A HOME IN HARLEM

  1. Schoor seems to believe they were on relief during their days in Detroit. There is no confirmation of this in any of the other material about Sugar’s formative years. It appears that his mother always worked.

  2. Schoor, p. 15.

  3. Schoor relates a similar incident but he names the boy Sonny Leacock.

  4. Sugar calls him “Booksiegel” in a Sport magazine article by Ed Fitzgerald in June 1951.

  CHAPTER 4: THE CRESCENT’S STAR

  1. Interview with Sigmund Wortherly, December 27, 2002.

  CHAPTER 5: THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GLOVES

  1. Ronald K. Fried, Corner Men: Great Boxing Trainers (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1991), p. 80.

  2. Interview with Langley Waller, July 2, 2003.

  3. Sometimes Kurt and sometimes with one n in his last name.

  CHAPTER 6: PUNCHING FOR PAY

  1. Kathleen A. Hauke, Ted Poston: Pioneer American Journalist (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999).

  2. Barney Nagler, Brown Bomber (New York: World Publishing, 1972), p. 27.

  3. Sugar Ray Robinson, with Dave Anderson, Sugar Ray: The Sugar Ray Robinson Story (New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), p. 80.

  4. Ibid., p. 87.

  CHAPTER 7: SUGAR RAY AND EDNA MAE

  1. Robinson, p. 94.

  2. David Dean, Defender of the Race: A Biography of James Theodore Holly (London: Carlson Publishing, 1978), p. 195.

  3. Howard Brotz, ed., African American Social and Political Thought: 1850–1920 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1996).

  4. Interview with Delilah Jackson, September 25, 2002.

  5. Interview with Clint Edwards, November 2, 2002.

  6. Interview with Sylvia Dixon, December 17, 2002.

  7. Sport, June 1951, p. 84.

  CHAPTER 8: THE MATADOR AND THE BULL

  1. Nick Tosches, The Devil and Sonny Liston (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2000), p. 80.

  2. Robinson, p. 107.

  CHAPTER 9: FROM SILK TO OLIVE DRAB

  1. Robinson, p. 115.

  2. John Peer Nugent, The Black Eagle (New York: Bantam Books, 1971).

  3. Robinson, p. 123.

  4. Arnold Rampersad, Biography of Jackie Robinson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), p. 102.

  CHAPTER 10: CHAMPION AT LAST!

  1. Althea Gibson, I Always
Wanted to Be Somebody (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958).

  2. Richard Bak, Joe Louis: The Great Black Hope (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998), p. 237.

  3. Robinson, p. 133.

  4. Bob Roth, Internet.

  5. Robinson, pp. 137–38.

  CHAPTER 11: A DREADFUL DREAM

  1. Robinson, p. 141.

  CHAPTER 12: A BROWN BABY AND A PINK CADILLAC

  1. New York Times, February 4, 1949.

  2. Ring—Boxing the 20th Century, p. 86.

  3. New York Times, July 12, 1949.

  4. Interview with Hilly Saunders, February 23, 2003.

  5. Daily Worker, August 26, 1949.

  6. Robinson, p. 150.

  7. James Haskins and N. R. Mitang, Mr. Bojangles: The Biography of Bill Robinson (New York: William Morrow, 1988).

  8. Ring, February 1951, p. 6.

  9. Robinson, p. 152.

  10. Rampersad, p. 266.

  11. Amsterdam News, September 1950.

  CHAPTER 13: “LE SUCRE MERVEILLEUX” IN PARIS

  1. The New Yorker, September 29, 1951.

  2. Interview with Langley Waller, November 4, 2002.

  3. Interview with Roger Simon, March 12, 2002.

  4. Jet, April 1, 1954.

  5. Tyler Stovall, Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1996), p. 68.

  6. New York Times, January 3, 1951.

  CHAPTER 14: THE ST. VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE

  1. David Remnick, King of the World (New York: Vintage, 1999), p. 46.

  2. Jeffrey T. Sammons, Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), p. 142.

  3. Jake LaMotta, with Joseph Carter and Peter Savage, Raging Bull (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 148.

  4. Fried, p. 302.

  CHAPTER 15: IT’S TURPIN TIME

  1. Jean-Claude Baker and Chris Chase, Josephine: The Hungry Heart (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 298.

  2. Our World, August 1951, pp. 40–44.

  3. In his autobiography Sugar may have inverted the dates, believing his moment with the president’s wife occurred before the fight. He also contradicts newspaper accounts when he said he wore a pink Lou Viscusi tie to match his pink Cadillac.

  4. New York Times, June 16, 1951, p. 5.

  5. New York Times, June 29, 1951, p. 23.

  6. Sunday Express, March, 16, 1969.

  7. New York Times, August 3, 1951.

  8. New York Post, May 18, 1956.

  9. Our World, November 1953, pp. 71–74.

  10. Robinson, p. 210.

  CHAPTER 16: BUMPY, BOBO, AND ROCKY

  1. Ebony, April 1954.

  2. Gerald Early, The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture (Hopewell, N.J.: The Ecco Press, 1994), p. 106.

  CHAPTER 17: TAKE IT TO THE MAXIM

  1. Interview with Carl Jefferson, November 26, 2003.

  2. Grantland Rice, Sunday Mirror, June 29, 1952, p. 52.

  3. LaMotta, p. 188.

  4. Stanley Weston and Steven Farhood, The Ring—The 20th Century (BDD Illustrated Books, 1993).

  CHAPTER 18: TOP HAT AND TAILS

  1. New York Times, October 14, 1952, p. 41.

  2. Art Taylor, Notes and Tones (New York: Da Capo Press, 1993), p. 119.

  CHAPTER 19: RETURN TO THE RING

  1. Tan, March 1955, p. 49.

  2. A. Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, Volume II: 1941–1967, I Dream a World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

  3. The Daily News, November 4, 1951.

  4. Sunday Post, September 23, 1962.

  5. Robinson, p. 267.

  6. Roger Kahn, The Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring ’20s (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1999), p. 358.

  7. Muhammad Ali, The Greatest (New York: Random House, 1975), p. 96.

  8. Ali, p. 280.9. Sammons, p. 138.

  10. New York Times, May 19, 1956, p. 15.11. Ibid.

  CHAPTER 20: THE PERFECT PUNCH

  1. Grand Rapids Express, January 5, 1957, p. 32.

  2. New York Times, May 3, 1957, p. 33.

  3. Ibid.

  CHAPTER 21: BROKE!

  1. New York Times, March 13, 1958, p. 37.

  CHAPTER 22: SUGAR’S DILEMMAS

  1. New York Post, April 16, 1959.

  2. New York Times, October 24, 1959.

  3. New York Post, August 7, 1959.

  4. Amsterdam News, November 28, 1959.

  5. Amsterdam News, January 21, 1961.

  6. Interview with Max Roach, July 24, 2003. (Edna Mae may have been a couple of years off in her memory of the concert and the incident. Roach’s memory is hazy about the whole affair, but he seems to feel it occurred in the early sixties, which would be consistent with his black militancy phase.)

  7. Charles Nichols, ed., Arna Bontemps/Langston Hughes Letters, 1928–1967 (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1980).

  CHAPTER 23: MILLIE AND THE MORMON

  1. Conrad Lynn, There Is a Fountain (New York: Lawrence Hill, 1979).

  2. In her preparation notes for her memoir, Edna Mae calls the woman Maxine.

  3. Interview with Kelly Howard, March 15, 2003.

  4. New York Post, September 27, 1961.

  CHAPTER 24: MEXICAN DIVORCÉE

  1. Amsterdam News, October 28, 1961, p. 28.

  2. She may have been a few months off in her recollection of the refund, which the IRS said was received on May 15, 1963.

  3. Interview with Howard Bingham, November 30, 2002.

  CHAPTER 25: THE OTHER WOMAN

  1. Amsterdam News, March 10, 1962.

  CHAPTER 26: ALI

  1. Ferdie Pacheco, with Jim Moskovitz, The 12 Greatest Rounds of Boxing: The Untold Stories (Toronto: Sport Classic Books, 2003), p. 73.

  CHAPTER 27: UP AGAINST THE MOB

  1. Interview with Johnny Barnes, December 7, 2002.

  2. Peter Heller, “In this Corner”: Forty World Champions Tell Their Stories (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973).

  CHAPTER 29: POUND FOR POUND

  1. Interview with Clint Edwards, December 7, 2002.

  2. Joyce Carol Oates, On Boxing (Hopewell, N.J.: Ecco Press, 1994), pp. 33–34.

  3. LaMotta, p. 154.

  4. New York Times, April 15, 1965, p. 22; May 15, 1965, p. 17.

  5. Art Taylor, Notes and Tones (New York: Da Capo Press, 1993), p. 203.

  6. Pete Hamill, quoted in Sugar Ray Robinson: The Bright Lights and Dark Shadows of a Champion. HBO, November 10, 1998.

  CHAPTER 30: LORD OF THE RING

  1. John Henrik Clarke, Harlem USA (New York: Seven Seas Press, 1964), p. 183.

  2. Amsterdam News, July 22, 1962.

  3. Amsterdam News, July 22, 1962.

  4. Sports Illustrated, July 13, 1987.

  5. New York Beacon, April 4, 1994.

  THE FINAL BELL

  1. Interview with Jackie Tonawanda, May 1, 2003.

  2. Fried, p. 304.

  EPILOGUE

  1. CBZ Journal, April 2001.

  2. Boxing Monthly, July 2003, p. 17.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Ali, Muhammad, with Richard Durham. The Greatest: My Own Story. New York: Random House, 1975.

  Bak, Richard. Joe Louis: The Great Black Hope. Dallas: Taylor Publishing, 1996.

  Baker, Jean-Claude, and Chris Chase. Josephine: The Hungry Heart. New York: Random House, 1993.

  Bernard, Emily, ed. Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925–1964. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

  Blumenthal, Ralph. Stork Club. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2000.

  Clark, Kenneth B. Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965.

  Clarke, John Henrik, ed. Harlem USA. New York: Seven Seas Press, 1964.

  ———, ed. Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. Trenton, N.J.: African World Press, 1990.

  Dodson, Howa
rd, Christopher Moore, and Roberta Yancey. The Black New Yorkers: 400 Years of African American History. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2000.

  Early, Gerald. The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture. Hopewell, N.J.: Ecco Press, 1994.

  Fried, Ronald K. Corner Men: Great Boxing Trainers. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1991.

  Goldman, Peter. The Death and Life of Malcolm X. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1979.

  Grant, Donald L. The Way It Was in the South: The Black Experience in Georgia. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1993.

  Graziano, Rocky, and Rowland Barber. Somebody Up There Likes Me: My Life So Far. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954.

  Haskins, James, and N. R. Mitang. Mr. Bojangles: The Biography of Bill Robinson. New York: William Morrow, 1988.

  Hauke, Kathleen A. Ted Poston: Pioneer American Journalist. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999.

  Hauser, Thomas, with the cooperation of Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.

  Heller, Peter. In This Corner: Forty World Champions Tell Their Stories. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973.

  Johnson, Jack. Jack Johnson: In the Ring—and Out. Introductory articles by Ed Smith, “Tad,” Damon Runyon, and Mrs. Jack Johnson; with special drawings by Edward William Krauter and other illustrations. Chicago: National Sports Publishing Company, 1927.

  Kahn, Roger. The Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring ’20s. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1999.

  LaMotta, Jake, with Joseph Carter and Peter Savage. Raging Bull: My Story. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970.

  Louis, Joe. The Joe Louis Story. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1953.

  ———, with Edna and Art Rust, Jr. Joe Louis: My Life. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.

  Mailer, Norman. The Fight. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975.

  Malcolm X, with Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine Books, 1964.

  Nagler, Barney. Brown Bomber. New York: World Publishing, 1972.

  Nugent, John Peer. The Black Eagle. New York: Bantam Books, 1971.

 

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