New HW Boxers Rated

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Looking at the Early 1947 NBA and Ring rankings we look into a little more some of the "top" heavyweight competition in 1946 beyond the one's we've reviewed thus far.

The January 13, 1947 NBA ratings:
Heavyweights
Joe Louis, Champion
Outstanding boxers
1. Elmer Ray
2. Tami Mauriello
3. Bruce Woodcock
4. Jersey Joe Walcott
5. Joe Baksi
6. Joey Maxim

The February 1947 Ring Annual Ratings:
Heavyweights
Joe Louis, Champion
1. Tami Mauriello
2. Elmer Ray
3. Jersey Joe Walcott
4. Bruce Woodcock
5. Lee Q Murray
6. Curtis Sheppard
7. Melio Bettina
8. Joe Baksi
9. Joe Kahut
10. Joey Maxim


Elmer Ray fought 15 times in 1946 winning all of them, 14 by stoppage. The only decision a 10 round split decision on November 15 over Jersey Joe Walcott. That year helped Ray climb to #1 Outstanding Boxer to champion Joe Louis in the NBA Jan 13, 1947 quarterly ranks. The Feb 1947 The Ring ranked Ray #2 to Tami Mauriello, swapping positions on how the NBA ranked those two. I tend to agree more with the NBA’s positioning. Mauriello fought only 3 times in 1946, a couple earlier knockouts of John Thomas and then British heavyweight champion Bruce Woodcock apparently solidified Mauriello’s standing with The Ring to go along with that 1st round knocking Louis into the ropes, Mauriello managed over Louis before Louis knocked him out in the 1st. Mauriello also had two quick 1st and 2nd round KO’s over Jimmy O’Brien and John Thomas again in January 1947 before the February rankings came out. Not sure if early year results had any bearing on those February rankings.

Woodcock other than the disappointing showing in his American debut against Mauriello racked up a 7-0 (KO 6) record otherwise in 1946 including wins over Freddie Mills and Gus Lesnevich. He also won the EBU Heavyweight title knocking out Albert Renet in the 6th. All that worth moving Bruce up a bit in the Ring and NBA early 1947 rankings.

Earlier wins over Jimmy Bivins, Lee Oma and Tommy Gomez by Jersey Joe Walcott were offset with losses in August and November to Joey Maxim and Elmer Ray, both decisions but none the less decisions that helped knock Walcott down and peg in the rankings to start out 1947.

Joe Baksi won four fights in 1946, the big one being the 6th round win over Freddie Mills in November.

Joey Maxim was busy throughout the year with 16 bouts, 12-2-2 (KO 3) including three bouts winning 2 of them against Phil Muscato and then that 10 round decision over Walcott. He then started off on the wrong foot in 1947 loosing a 10 round majority decision to Walcott on Jan 6th. All good enough to pull into The Ring’s top 10 for Feb 1947, #6 Outstanding HW in the NBA Jan 13th rankings.

The February 1947 Ring Top 10 saw Schott, Godoy and Oma drop from the previous year’s rankings and we see three new names we’ll look into, Lee Q. Murray, Curtis Sheppard, Joe Kahut and Melio Bettina whom we looked at earlier from the early 1946 NBA rankings.

Lee Q. Murray, after being disqualified in the 9th round against Walcott by the referee for “not trying”, then racked up 10 wins in 1946, 7 by KO the other three unanimous decisions. Victims included Larry Lane, Vern Escoe, and Jimmy Bivins.

Curtis Sheppard ended 1945 and started 1946 with a 10th round KO to Joe Walcott and a 12 round unanimous decision loss to Archie Moore. Sheppard then ground out 1946 with 10 wins, 9 by KO while loosing a 10 round decision to O’Dell Riley. Riley was knocked out by a right to the jaw as the bell rang to end the fight, so that prevented him being counted out. Other than Walcott and Moore, I don’t see any real names in Sheppard’s opponents in 1946 to why I wonder how he warranted a #6 ranking by The Ring? Signs of just how the heavyweight division was in fact deteriorated of talent in the late 40’s and The Ring and other publications alluded to. I’d seen some newspaper articles on the web covering fights during this time that the authors said as much the same.

Melio Bettina we’ve looked at but mention in 1946 he was a perfect 5-0. “Big” name wins including Bill Weinberg and Joe Muscato. Like Sheppard, a sign of lack of talent in the heavy ranks getting him ranked by Ring?

Joe Kahut after loosing by 1st round KO to Gus Lesnevich in January then won 6 fights, 5 by stoppage, and drawing a 10 round decision with Fitzie Fitzpatrick. In September he loses a 10 round decision to a Costello Cruz before finishing 1946 with a 10 round decision over Freddie Schott. Schott was the one true heavyweight in this batch of opponents for Kahut, looking at fight weights. Kahut himself was really a heavy light heavyweight. That Schott win get him ranked by The Ring in their Feb 1947 Heavyweight Top 10?!!

We’ll look at these guys anyway sing Ring saw fit for some reason to rank them.

[Cap]

Elmer Ray deserved his shot at Louis, but The Ring boosted Mauriello probably as a favour to Louis and his management. The Ring did some questionable things back in the day, playing favourites.

Cap

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Joe Kahut - WW / LHW / HW - US
Career Record: W55(KO 37)/L26(KO 8)/D6

TITLES:
Oregon State light heavyweight title
Oregon State heavyweight title
Pacific Coast heavyweight title
Pacific Northwest heavyweight title

Unknown information has been left blank.

Joe had two brothers, Tony and Eddie who were middleweight fighters.

An article from The Bend Bulletin, Bend, Orgeon newspaper, Dec 13, 1945 mentions that Kahut was discharged from the navy on basis of agricultural neccessity to operate the family's farm at Woodburn, Oregon. While operating the farm, Kahut was training to fight the world light heavyweight champion Gus Lesnevich. But because Kahut weighed in at 187.5 pounds after his workouts, he was over the light heavy weight limit so the fight would go on as a non title fight. Lesnevich KO'd Kahut in the 1st round on January 11th, 1946.

Findagrave.com places Kahut's birth place as Gervais, Oregon. He's buried in Woodburn.DOD is placed as October 1, 1990.

Hunterboxing.net notes that Joe started his career as "tall, lanky", welterweight in 1941 at just 17 years old. BoxRec fight weights recorded would confirm this. This account of his career says after fighting for 6 months he took 18 months off before coming back and fighting between middleweight and light heavyweight. BoxRec fight weights recorded could make case he fought as a light heavy during this time. The article then notes Kahut making his heavyweight debut in March 1945 against Jack Huber. For 1945 through 1946 Kahut bounced back and forth fighting in the two weight classes.

Once 1947 started he seemed to settle in as a small heavyweight for the remainder of his career.

Oregonsportshall.org article mentions Kahut reached No. 6 in the Ring Magazines' November 1945 rankings.

Career breakdown:
WW 1/1941 - 6/1941 W6(KO 3) / L0 / D1
LHW 12/1942 - 10/1944 W18(KO 12) / L2(KO 1) / D3
HW 3/1945 to Remainder W34(KO 23) / L25(KO 7) / D3 / 1NC

I didn't change anything with the TBCB3 HW rating. the LHW I changed just a tad.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Thought I'd round out the Kahut boxing clan. Here's some quick takes on Eddie and Tony.

Tony Kahut - MW - USA
Career Record: W24(KO 12) / L7(KO 4) / D1

TITLES:
Oregon State Middleweight Title

Unknown information has been left blank.

Birth Name: Anthony Joseph Kahut


Eddie Kahut - MW - USA
Career Record: W17(KO 11) / L5(KO 2) / D4

Unknown information has been left blank.

DOB estimated on boxrec.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Curtis Sheppard was a pleasant new discovery for me. Looking through the internet and finding various articles on him I come to find myself not realizing at all what kind of fighter he was.

His file is just an update of some bio and information on him. I tested him and found the TBCB3 rating very good. Wins and KO's a little high, but I didn't see messing with it.

Curtis Sheppard - HW - USA
Career Record: W51(KO 33) / L33(KO 5) / D0

Unknown information has been left blank.

Defeated Unknown Winston, Lee Q Murray, Mose Brown, Joey Maxim, Nate Bolden, Yancy Henry, Johnny Shkor, Bill Peterson, George Fitch, Al Hart, Alfredo Lagay, Clent Conway, Buddy Walker, Tony Shucco, and Larry Lane.

A Facebook site, Pittsburgh Boxing: A Pictorial History, came across a posting discussing the competition in the 1940's while Joe Louis was in the service and his title was "frozen" so heavyweight contenders during that time period only could fight each other ongoing with the hope of winning the lottery so to speak and get the chance to meet Louis when I returned from service after the war. One such ongoing matchups in this time period was Curtis Sheppard and Lee Q. Murray fighting 6 times. Murray was the ultimate winner 4-2 but the Facebook posting accounts the popularity with large crowds for these fights with them being some of the "bloodiest in the history of the game." Described Sheppard as the harder hitter with proven one punch KO power and Lee Q. as the better boxer but who still had a strong punch.

hunterboxing.com places his record at 52-33-0-2(33KO) and his DOB as 8/28/20.Some other sources found on the internet place his birth as 1919.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Lee Q. Murray - HW - USA
Career Record: W60(KO 43) / L17(KO 5) / D3

Unknown information has been left blank.

Defeated Jimmy Bivins, Curtis Sheppard, Ted Lowry, Vern Escoe, Turkey Thompson, Buddy Walker, and Wally Sears during his career.

A very good article from The Wisconsin Rapids, The Daily Tribune on Nov 23, 1943 found on newspapers.com wrote about Lee Q's upcoming fight with Jimmy Bivins. The article mentions his real name was Emanuel Murray. He got his ring moniker from his first manager, F. Steven Chase . Chase dubbed him Lemuel Q. Then when Tex Sullivan took over as manager he shorten it to Lee Q.

The article mentions Lee Q. had the ability to switch to a southpaw stance during a fight.

A site on Facebook, Pittsburgh Boxing:A Pictorial History has a nice write up on Lee Q. Murray and Curtis Sheppard who fought each other 6 times.

As with Sheppard, Murray's file I've only added some new Bio info and update to his Fighter page. With a built schedule of many of his opponents in it, replay results were like average 2-3 more wins than actual and his KO's 5-6 light, but his times stopped were almost right on 5-6, so overall very happy with replay results so did not change anything.

This rounds out the group of rated fighters in the Ring and NBA early 1947 ratings.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Originally Posted by Cap

Elmer Ray deserved his shot at Louis, but The Ring boosted Mauriello probably as a favour to Louis and his management. The Ring did some questionable things back in the day, playing favourites.

Cap

I found a newspaper article on the net, The Lewiston Daily Sun, 1946-09-18 previewing the Louis Mauriello fight. It mentions that promoter Mike Jacobs had talked Louis into doing this fight, after Louis had decided he was going to finish his year playing golf after having done away with Conn in June.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

So I just got today some 1948 Rings that I invested in for my collection. This is putting me in to position to start a walk through The Ring to explore this New Era of Heavyweight Boxing and boxing in general. I want to do something like I was attempting with 1958 but I realize in doing that and trying to look at every heavyweight/light heavyweight fight all over the globe, I was never going to get through probably even a couple month's issues before you'd find me 6 feet under!

I'm going to explore through these 1948 issues to see first what kind of stories and information were in them. Not sure, I want to do this as a historical exploration for my self and maybe for others here, while hopefully contribute some new fighters. Will probably stick to that mostly with heavyweights. Before I kick this off though I'm going to continue a bit looking through some of prominent heavyweights in 1947 as we've been doing to lead up to 1948. Actually with the way Ring was issued being events in an issue were about 2-1/2 to 3 months previous. So Jan 1948 will take us looking at events around October 1947.

Stay tuned.....

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Looking at the first half of 1947 rankings by the NBA in early April and then again in July we see the same names. Not much change. Louis has been inactive since his 9/18/46 1st round defense again Mauriello. I mention the light heavyweights here just looking at Ezzard Charles as he at this time is in the light heavy ranks. But a Nov 1946 10 round UD over Jimmy Bivins and then a 4th round KO of Bivins in a rematch in March 1947 is signally the beginning of Charles' climb into the heavyweight ranks in 1947.

Announced April 10, 1947:
Heavyweights
Joe Louis, Champion
Outstanding boxers
1. Jersey Joe Walcott
2. Bruce Woodcock
3. Elmer Ray
4. Tami Mauriello
5. Joe Baksi
6. Melio Bettina

Light Heavyweights
Gus Lesnevich, Champion
Logical contender
1. Ezzard Charle



Announced July 11, 1947:
Heavyweights
Joe Louis, Champion
Outstanding boxers
1. Jersey Joe Walcott
2. Joe Baksi
3. Elmer Ray
4. Tami Mauriello

Light Heavyweights
Gus Lesnevich, Champion
Logical contender
1. Ezzard Charles
Outstanding boxers
1. Billy Fox
2. Archie Moore
3. Tommy Yarosz

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Looking at some of our 1947 rated heavyweights fight opponents, Tami Mauriello started his 1947 year on January 8th with a 1st round KO of Jimmy O'Brien. Found O'Brien in my data base. A LHW rating originally done by Mark Elwood.I've included a HW version of O'Brien. Could not find a lot on O'Brien. Found this one website which I've put the link in the attached file rating and on that site was photo of a black fighter. Was he? I honestly don't know. Is the photo really this Jimmy O'Brien.

Mark Elwood, you out there or anyone else can verify or not this photo is the O'Brien?

Jimmy O'Brien -LHW/HW-USA
Career Record: W26(KO 12) / L23(KO 15) / D3

Unknown information has been left blank.
Original LHW rating by Mark Elwood

Birth name: James Riley O'Brien

He fought up and down the weight ladder between light heavy and heavy, both himself and his opponents. Building a schedule with a good number of opponents, I created a HW and he performed overall much better as a rated heavyweight.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Sorry been super busy past week with work and home stuff so just haven't been getting to the old boxing game. Been thinking around what I'm doing with this and browsing through BoxRec I went to the Titles section and listed the heavyweight titles fought around the world during the late 1940's.

So I thought about taking some time and cruise through these world heavyweight title fights and US State HW title fights and see what kind of names we did up. I decided I was going to start with the beginning of 1945 where I'd kind of started this project. First fight listed was....
1945-01-20 Wilbert Bassett vs Ralph DeJohn for the USA Hawaii State Heavyweight Title. Started going through my data base, don't have Wilbert Bassett but had Ralph along with brothers Carmen, Joey, Mike. I'd always know of Mike DeJohn, not realizing right there are his brothers who were fighters. Well, started looking at all of them and looking up stuff. And have side tracked for the moment on the title fight and I'm going to look at the DeJohn brothers. First up just to go alphabetically, is Carmen.

Carmen I'm not sure but the file I had did not have a mentioned creator but I'm kind of guessing maybe it's by Mark Elwood who I know did the rating for Ralph at least. The file I had was for LHW, but I've done and attached a Middleweight Rating.

Carmen DeJohn - MW/LHW? - USA
Career Record: W21(KO 17) / L9(KO 3) / D1

Unknown information has been left blank.

Birth Name: Carmen DiGianni

Brother of Mike, Ralph, Tommy, Joey and Johnny DeJohn. All were boxers. Johnny never fought but managed and trained Joey and Mike and is best known for managing Carmen Basilio and later in the 1960s, he managed and trained Welterweight contender Dick DiVeronica.

Original rating by Mark Elwood as I had the Ralph DeJohn rating of?

Attached website link is really a story on brother Tommy, but, there is mention of Carmen.

BoxRec shows Carmen's fight weight as 192 vs Bobby Berry in Sept 1946, who's fight weight is also put at 192. I'm thinking the 192 for Carmen is an incorrect duplication of Berry's so Carmen's top end weight is listed as 167 shown against Henry Jackson.

On online printing from the Syracuse The Post-Standard, 1986-09-26 announced Carmen DeJohn's death on 9/25/86. It mentions Carmen serving in the Army in WW2. The article mentions Carmen as being a middleweight fighter. After boxing he became a cement mason. He had a wife and two sons and two daughters.Faded photo of Carmen is compliments of that newspaper article.

BoxRec lists Carmen as a Light Heavyweight. His listed fight weights you could argue that or him being a heavy middleweight (today's supermiddleweight). Taking from that death notice found on line, I'm presenting a Middleweight rating for Carmen.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Joey DeJohn-MW-USA
Career Record: W74(KO 52) / L14(KO 10) / D2


Unknown information has been left blank.


Birth Name: Giuseppe James DiGianni

Brother of Mike, Ralph, Tommy, Carmen and Johnny DeJohn. All were boxers.Johnny never fought but managed and trained Joey and Mike and is best known for managing Carmen Basilio and later in the 1960s, he managed and trained Welterweight contender Dick DiVeronica.

Internet article on blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2008/05/golden_boy.html
One letter to the Editor mentioned Joey was a hard, devestating puncher with a powerful left hook.The writer mentions of Joey's vulnerability being a glass jaw being KO'd in 10 of his 14 losses and that he didn't like to train and loved the nightclub life and party. If a fighter could get into the 5th round and more with Joey his lack of conditioning would start to show.

Another writer in mentions of speaking to Jake LaMotta says in thier fight, Joey "hit me harder than anyone I ever fought."

I attached a new file, identical to the TBCB3 rating which I tested and results were very good to not change. Except, I changed his conditioning number to a 5 based on the info above.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Ralph DeJohn - MW/LHW - USA
Career Record: W54(KO 21) / L15(KO 6) / D3

TITLES:
USA Hawaii State Heavyweight Title

Original Ratings by: Mark Elwood, vistamann44 Appeared to be a MW and as LHW seperate files. So I've combined them into one file.

Birth Name: Ralph DiGianni

Brother of Mike, Carmen, Tommy, Joey and Johnny DeJohn. All were boxers.Johnny never fought but managed and trained Joey and Mike and is best known for managing Carmen Basilio and later in the 1960s, he managed and trained Welterweight contender Dick DiVeronica.

Won a 10 round decision over Big Bill Lewis in August 1944 to first win the Hawaii State title. Successfully defended it in an 8 round decision over Cleo Everett in October 1944, then lost the title in a 6 round decision to Wilbert Bassett in January 1945.

Short Bio info in his BoxRec file mentions him as an "over-sized Middleweight and as a Light Heavyweight." Says he lost two fingers on his left hand as a boy after getting them severed by a freight train when he was stuck on the tracks.

https://syracusefan.com/threads/ther...ne-1952.36175/
Article more about Carmen Basilio mentions the DeJohn brothers noting Ralph was a middleweight and light heavyweight.

A short article on UPI.Com noting his death at age 67 mentions the train accident loosing "several fingers". After boxing he opened up a restaurant on Syracuse's North Side until he then retired in 1981. He had a wife, daughter, three grandchildren and six brothers.

www.boxing.com/ten_count_for_tommy_dejohn.html
Article on the passing of Tommy DeJohn on Thanksgiving day, 2011 at age 83, mentions Tommy was "the last surviving memeber of Syracuse's "Fighting DeJohn Boys"". He was born Thomas DiGianni and he'd followed his older brothers, Johnny, Carmen, Ralph and Joey into boxing. He never fought professionally.

Breaking is career down with after his three straight fights with middleweight Teddy Yarosz, he moved up to LHW in February 1939 against Lou PResto.

Career MW record: W30(KO 12) / L5(KO 1) / D0
Career LHW record: W24(KO 9) / L10(KO 5) / D3


Also adding a file for Mike DeJohn, just updated a little bit of fighter info. Did nothing with the TBCB3 file.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Ok after our brief diversion looking at the DeJohn brothers, we start things looking at the world wide heavyweight championship bout post WWII, actually starting with the beginning of 1945 on. Now all of these I'm sure will not bring up a new fighter to look at every time but hoping we'll meet some.

First up...
USA Hawaii State Heavyweight Title
1945-01-20 Wilbert Bassett 184 W Ralph DeJohn 175½. PTS 6/6
Civic Auditorium, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA PTS 6/6

So this fight in fact got be off on looking at the DeJohn brothers but now look at Ralph DeJohn's opponent, Wilbert (Butcher) Bassett. Did not have have him so here's look at...
Wilbert Bassett - LHW/HW - USA
Career Record: W26(KO 17) / L10(KO 3) / D3 1Nc

TITLES:
USA Hawaii Stat Heavyweight Title

Unknown information has been left blank.

Bassett defeated Ralph DeJohn in Jan 1945 for the Hawaii title, a 6 round decision. His very next fight listed, an 8 round decision loss to Cleo Everett about 3 weeks later shown to be his last.

Looks to be started out as light heavyweight until a no decision fight against Heywood Storey in January 1937. Does not show fighting again for over a year unitl March 1938 meeting a Clyde Harris as a heavyweight. Fought as a heavy the remainder of career.

Split ratings then for....

LHW Career Record: W10(KO 7) / L1(KO 1) / D1, 1NC
HW Career Record: W16(KO 10) / L9(KO 2) / D2

Did not turn up anything on the net on Wilbert.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

BUI Ireland National Heavyweight Title
1945-02-09 Martin Thornton W Paddy O'Sullivan. KO 1/15 Theatre Royal, Dublin, Ireland

The next HW title fight in 1945 saw Martin Thornton KO Paddy O'Sullivan in the first round of a scheduled 15 for the Ireland National Heavyweight Title. This exploration into this fight proved itself a bit of delight. I first discovered I had both of these gentlemen in my data base! Looked them up and they both had little record to them. Bio in them both said these had my name in them that I'd slightly altered some ratings posted in the old Cornerwork sit. I went exploring back in this New HW Boxers Rated and found I posted them in December 2005. Looked them up in BoxRec and found they had, especially Thornton much more of their careers recorded.

I didn't really find anything about O'Sullivan, but boy did I find quite a bit mention of Martin Thornton on the internet. Quite a character it would seem who happened to have a Hollywood connection!

Paddy O' Sullivan - HW - Ireland
Career Record: W7(KO 4) / L4(KO 3) / D0

TITLES:
BUI Ireland National Heavyweight Title

Unknown information has been left blank.

DOB has been estimated.

Frist did a rating of O'Sullivan back in December of 2005 during a project rating Irish HW Tomato Cans I called it. That rating was an altered Tomato Can from Cornerwork). I've left my original rating from 2005. At that time Paddy's listed record on BoxRec was 1-2-0,0KO.

So BoxRec has filled out his career some since then.

Won the Ireland title in May 1943 by a 15 round decision over Pat Mulcahy. Then in February 1944, Martin Thornton KO'd O'Sullivan in the 3rd round to take away the title. BoxRec notes O'Sullivan was down 8 times in the first round!

A rematch in Feb 1945 for the same title, Thornton stopped O'Sullivan in the 1st round of a scheduled 15 round championship fight.


Martin Thornton - HW - Ireland
Career Record: W22(KO 18) / L9(KO 6) / D0

TITLES:
BUI Ireland National Heavyweight Title

Did a rating of Thornton way back in Dec 2005 as part of a project rating Irish HW Tomato Cans. Back then BoxRec has a record for Thornton of 7-5-0,6KO's. That rating which I've left included was altered from a rating posted at the old Cornerwork sight back then. So Thornton's record has filled out quite a bit more since then on BoxRec.

Defeated Paddy O'Sullivan by 1st round KO in Feb 1944 to take the Ireland HW title. After a 1st round KO over a Dixie Moore in May that year, Thornton was to fight the up and coming British heavyweight contender, Bruce Woodcock in August that same year. An interesting short account on BoxRec of that fight with Thornton wagering most of his bout earnings, which he got fight promotor Jack Solomans to pay him in advance of the fight, he wagered on Woodcock to win! Fight was stopped in the 3rd round.

Thornton is not shown fighting again till coming out in April 1949 to fight Ray Wlding getting stopped in the 3rd.

The included Wiki website link is fairly old from 2011 not updated. Puts his record as only 14-8. Says after Thornton "retired" from boxing he ran a pub in Spiddal.

An intersting Google Groups discussion found notes that Martin was apparently a cousin of American film director John Ford, or so what person in the dicussion states.

Other various websites discussing John Ford's, 'The Quiet Man', make the connection of Martin Thornton being a distant cousin of Ford and it is Martin Thornton whom Ford fashions, maybe loosely, the John Wayne character in 'The Quiet Man', Sean Thornton.

Only disappointment was in all the different websites I found with mention of Martin in discussion about the movie I never found a picture of Martin. I did find this photo of John Wayne with 2 or 3 other gentlemen who looked like may have been from where they did the movie but, no info on who was in the photo.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

vacant Australia - New South Wales State Heavyweight Title
1945-03-03
Alf Gallagher 185½ W Bob Turner 178½ PTS 12/12
Sydney Stadium, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Alf Gallagher -HW-Australia
Career Record: W18(KO 8) / L13(KO 3) / D4

TITLES:
Australia New South Wales Heavyweight Title

Unknown information has been left blank.

Fought a 12 round draw with Bob Turner in May 1943 for the New South Wales Heavyweight Title.

Lost by 10th round KO to Jack Johnson for the Australian Light Heavyweight Title in Nov 1943, then in March 1945 after a long layoff after the Johnson fight, Gallagher won the New South Wales Heavyweight Title by decisioning Bob Turner in 12 rounds.

In August 1946 Gallagher drew 15 rounds with Jack Johnson for the Australian Heavyweight Title.Three months later he was KO'd by Dave Sands in the 3rd round for the Australian Light Heavyweight Title.

After the Sands defeat Gallagher laid off for almost a year till turning up in South Africa in September 1947 where he then fought for about a year before traveling on to England and fought for a little over a year, then showed up in Feb 1950 in Sweden for one fight. After one other fight in England in April 1950 he went back to his native Australia to finish out his career with a couple fights before hanging the gloves up after a 15 round decision loss to Dave Sands in one last attempt Gallagher made for the Australian Heavyweight Title.


Bob Turner - HW - Australia
Career Record: W9(KO 2) / L6(KO 3) / D3

Unknown information has been left blank.

DOB has been estimated

Fought a 12 round draw with Alf Gallagher in May 1943 for the New South Wales State Heavyweight Title. Then about 3 years later in March 1945 the same two fought again for then vacant New South Wales State Heavyweight Title, this time Gallagher scoring the 12 round decision win.

You could probably make an argument that Turner was a heavy Light Heavyweight,

Photo is one of Gallagher off the BoxRec file on Gallagher.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

1945-07-17
BBBofC British Heavyweight Title
Commonwealth (British Empire) Heavyweight Title
Bruce Woodcock 182 W Jack London 215 KO 6/15
White Hart Lane (Tottenham FC), Tottenham, London, United Kingdom

I visited this fight and these two fighters actually early on when I started looking at the top heavyweights post WWII. Since then I ran across a neat in process website someone is creating documenting the complete career of Bruce Woodcock.
www.brucewoodcockboxer.co.uk

Some great reading on the Woodcock / London fight. Go to it to read up more on this fight....

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Sorry been away for the past week. I got started looking at this matchup then got side track with family stuff and the past couple days I've messing around trying to get TBCB2013 working on a Windows 10 computer that I got from someone. The computer itself is a bit newer than mine, so I like challenges and decided to take another shot at 2013. Got it loaded, now trying to get my data base into it. That is the pain in the butt challenge. Won't go into all the gory details.

Anyway.....

USA Texas State Heavyweight Title
1945-08-08
Watson Jones W Lou Brooks. KO 4/10
Plaza de Toros, Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico

I did some new takes on the TBCB3 Team ratings for both of these fighters. Jones in particular gets down rated. Now if you fight Brooks and Jones straight up with the Prime ratings Brooks will win pretty much every fight, but, take into account it's Brooks' last career fight and set his career stage at END and the results are about 50/50. So for what their worth.....

Watson Jones - HW - USA
Career Record: W51(KO 38)/L34(KO 114)/D10

TITLES:
Texas State heavyweight title
California State light heavyweight title

Unknown information has been left blank.

Birth Name: Alexander Dumas Watson
Fought as Alex Watson till sometime around January 1943 per BoxRec Bio.
Interesting info on BoxRec that in 1956 Jones testified that he participated in four fixed fights, against Joe Kahut, Pat McCafferty, Harry Matthews and Jimmy Bivins.

Accounts found in Ring Magazine of some of Jones' fights, Bert Lytell, Sonny Andrews, Leornard Morrow where the fights were stopped due to lack of effort on Jones' part to make a fight of it and incase the Andrews fight was stopped with neither fighter doing much, would indicate Jones part of the reason for Jones' up and down career. A comment in another Ring account of his fight with George Kochan in November 1947, described Jones as "one of those fighters who can look good or bad" depending on how he felt about the day in the ring to put up a fight.

Defeated Oakland Billy Smith, Dolph Quijano Rodney Jones, Frisco James, Tommy Garland, Fitzie Fitzpatrick, Ernie Rios, and Billy Metcalf.


Lou Brooks - HW - USA
Career Record: W28(KO 17)/L14(KO 3)/D2

Unknown information has been left blank.

Defeated Buddy Scott, Herbert Marshall, Tony Musto, Buddy Walker, Danny Cox, Gus Dorazio, Herbie Katz, and Bill Weinberg.

From BoxRec Bio: Was ranked 8th in 1942 Ring Magazine Heavyweight rankings. Won 1941 New York Golden Gloves and Diamond Belt in Philadelphia at light heavyweight.

Some info found on line about Delaware boxers mentions Brooks fight with Lee Savold and mentions Brooks as a light heavyweight? Looking at his fight weights on BoxRec you could probably make an argument he fought as a heavy, light heavyweight in his first 9 fights before the Savold fight.

A fight in June 1943 against Melio Bettina resulted in an eye injury from Bettina's glove thumb. This injury temporarily blinded Brooks in that eye and despite 4 operations, the eye site was never fully restored. According to the account in BoxRec, e was banned from boxing in Pennsylvania due to that.

Almost two years later in March 1945 he attempted a comeback with some fights in Mexico and Texas including one in Mexico billed as the Southwest Heavyweight Championship, a 10 round UD over Buddy Scott. Brooks' very last fight then in August 1945 was a 4th round KO loss to Watson Jones for the USA Texas State Heavyweight Title. Brooks finally retired for good.

Found an account on line that he turned manager and instructor and became the first black boxing judge for the Delaware Boxing Commission.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

USA Oregon State Heavyweight Title
1945-08-17
Joe Kahut 180 W Moose Kennedy 196 KO 5/15
Auditorium, Portland, Oregon, USA

Joe Kahut I took a look at a short while back. Here in August 1945 he fought Moose Kennedy a heavyweight with a modest record in the early/mid 40's. So this title fight introduces us, at least me to Moose (William) Kennedy.

Moose Kennedy - HW - USA
Career Record: w11(KO 5) / L11(KO 8) / L0

TITLES:
Oregon State Negro Heavyweight Title

Birth Name: William Kennedy

Unknown information has been left blank.
DOB has been estimated.

Lost twice by TKO to Bill Petersen and lost by TKO to Ernie Griffin and Billy Gilliam.Was stopped in two fights with Joe Kahut including a 5th round KO of a scheduled 15 rounder for the Oregon State Heavyweight title in August 1945. Lost by KO in his next fight to Tony Musto.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

I don't remember and am hoping someone on the board does. Who used to "sign" their fighter ratings in the biography, "Created by me"?