New HW Boxers Rated

[bear]

Here's what I have.

[Jackyle]

Thanks Bear.

[APBAgreat]

En after 1000 Bouts in that manner, a record can change vastly.

[APBAgreat]

Even after 1000 Bouts in that manner, a record can change vastly.

[Rspen46]

Ali - Definitely END
Leonard Prime

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Well....looked back at the beginning of this thread and seen it was 13 years ago I started it looking into doing so heavyweight fighter rating for this great boxing game called Title Bout. Been away mostly for quite some time. Busy with work, family and what ever. Other interests and raising two boys just took a lot of the leisure time. Over the past years been spending some of my time and money collecting old copies of the Ring Magazine and Boxing News to continue feeding my interest in reading about the fighters of the 1960s, especially as some of you maybe still hanging around here, my interest in the heavyweights.

Well recently while browsing on line through Google Play Books store I came across this book titled Heavyweight Boxing in the 1970s The Great Fighters and their Rivalries by Joe Ryan. Many of you may have read this. Well, I thought this was right up my ally, a book about Heavyweight boxing! Well, a really good book. The author explores primarily the 1970s which he theorizes as the greatest era of heavyweight boxing. He goes into the reasons why he arrives at that exploring the heavyweights through the decades up to the 70's and then on through the 90's. Well i'll let you read it if you have not already to find out what Ryan has to say on the subject. But, the book does also deal quite a bit on the 60's since many of the fighters then were active into the 70s.

Well reading this book just fueled my interest into cranking up the old TB2013 which I'd not done in a while and started exploring though the fighters I had in my data base. Also started digging back more into my copies of boxing magazines and started looking for more on eBay!

So, here I am, this got me all worked up and excited to dig back into this old Thread, New HW Boxers Rated and start exploring into researching and working on some new ratings maybe for this great game and start contributing some again to this forum and game. Not sure who all is still hanging around here. Hope I'll run across some old friends here. I'd still get emails from the forum on occasion so I know we've all not ridden off into the wild west. My collections of the Ring and Boxing News basically start off with the year 1959. Two reasons for that, 59 my dear mom and dad Norma and Rocco brought me into this world and two, It just happens to be an interesting, transition period, i feel anyways in heavyweight boxing. Rocky had retired and from then on through the very early 1960's heavyweight boxing just seemed like it was at a low point of excellence with no one of dominance on the scene. With all due respect to Patterson, Liston, Ingo and some others, the world of heavyweight boxing was in need of the emergence of a young Olympic gold medalist.

So I'm going to start going through my Ring and Boxing News with the start of the year 1959 and explore the heavyweight fights that these great boxing publications showcased in their pages way back then and see what kind of nuggets I can dig up to post here for everyone's enjoyment, both new fighters maybe not done by anyone in the past or even find out some new information for those already contributed to Title Bout. I'm going to look at the light heavyweights also. Some very interesting LH's during this time and there is so much cross fighting between the HWs and LHWs.

There's a lot of heavy and light heavy bouts each month of the Ring to review so one month at a time will take some time and bring out I think some new and interesting boxers for us all. Boxing News of course was a weekly publication and I'll use it to supplement what I can find from the Ring. I've already started on this adventure so I hope to get started tomorrow on this journey and start introducing a few new things to Title Bout 2013.

Looking forward I hope to getting reacquainted with many of you....!!!

Rocco Del Sesto

[bear]

Welcome back. Always nice to see one of the old timers come back. You were a big contributor here when I first joined the forum, one of the many, that provided vitality and made me appreciate visiting and encouraged me to contribute through your own efforts.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Originally Posted by bear

Welcome back. Always nice to see one of the old timers come back. You were a big contributor here when I first joined the forum, one of the many, that provided vitality and made me appreciate visiting and encouraged me to contribute through your own efforts.

Thank you Bear for your kind words. I'm looking forward to getting active back in this for sure.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Get my first little posting in here. Going to title this off by the Month and Year corresponding to the Ring Magazine I'm working out of. As I'm sure you all know Ring reported on fights with regular sections covering the action in New York, California, Europe, the UK, Latin American and then covered individual states and areas within the US and other areas around the world and there was reporting to put in. I"m just going to cover going through the sections in order so dates will be a bit jumbled up. Also, coverage in each month's edition actually covered for the month period about 2 month before. So January 1959 is covering action from around October-November 1958. Again you all probably know that.

Friday 17 October 1958
Madison Square Garden
New York, New York, USA
division boxer lbs record boxer lbs record
Heavyweight George Chuvalo 207½ 15 2 1 L Pat McMurtry 188¾ 29 2 1 UD 10/10

referee: Ruby Goldstein 1-8 judge: Artie Aidala 3-7, Frank Forbes 2-8


Jan 1959 Ring article noted that McMurtry and Chuvalo were both fighting for the first time in New York and on a national television with McMurtry’s experience proving itself out with the 10 round UD over the hard punching but crude fighting Canadian slugger. McMurtry’s left jabs and right uppercuts had Chuvalo bleeding from the nose from the 2nd round and opened a bad gash over George’s left eye. Chuvalo’s hard punches staggered Irish Pat early in the fight but recovered to take control of the fight from the 2nd round on.

TITLE BOUT 2013 REPLAY: Fought McMurtry set at Prime and Chuvalo at Pre-Prime with a 10 round UD for McMurtry, just like back in 1958! A vicious cross my McMurtry sent Chuvalo down for an 8 count in the 8th round for the fights only knockdown.

Heavyweight Tom McNeeley 199½ 4 0 0 W Eddie Allen 197½ 1 0 1 KO 3/4
time: 1:17

Ring noted Tom McNeeley stopped Eddie Allen at 1:17 in the 3rd round of the scheduled 4 rounder at the Garden.
TITLE BOUT 2013 REPLAY: McNeeley managed “only” a 4 round UD over Allen.

I've posted McMurtry file here as I updated what I had in my DB with his date of death now posted in BoxRec. Eddie Allen is a new addition. If there's nothing I've done with existing files, I will not be posting those assuming you all have them. There will be probably a good number created at one time long ago by myself or others that I'll be updating even if its just information in the fighters file.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Monday 20 October 1958
St. Nicholas Arena
New York, New York, USA
division boxer lbs record boxer lbs record
Bartolo Soni 175 1 0 0 W George Bermuda 173½ debut PTS 4/4

January 1959 Ring Magazine records the event put on at the St. Nicolas Arena in New York with an announced attendance of 1,294 amongst other fights Bartolo Soni in his 2nd fight outpointing George Bermuda from Brooklyn, NY in 4 rounds. It’s the only recorded fight for Bermuda in BoxRec.
TITLE BOUT 2013: George puts Bartolo down for a 7 count in the 3rd round on the way to a 4 round UD verdict over Soni. A surprise there.

Not much recorded on this fight. I was surprised and pleased to see a photo posted for Soni in BoxRec! He has more fights so maybe we'll learn more about him as time goes on in future accounts in Ring.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Some comments on what I mentioned in my first post about the conditions in the heavyweight landscape as we approached 1960...

Some interesting reading in the January 1959 issue of Ring included a discussion on how over the past months, American heavyweights were losing against international competition which was helping that foreign competition to move up in the world rankings. Heinz Neuhaus and Mino Bozzano had turned in triumphs over Joey Maxim while George Chuvalo and Willi Besmanoff defeated Howard King and Pat McMurtry respectively. Nino Valdes had triumphs over Wayne Bethea and Mike DeJohn.

Later wins by Archie Moore, Harold Carter, Sonny Liston and Willie Pastrano over Besmanoff, Julio Mederos and Franco Cavicchi showed some signs of prestige resurrection for the Americans but then the roof sort of fell in so to speak. Valdez stopped Harold Carter in the ninth round in a match in July with Carter seemingly on his way to victory. Later Valdez beat Mike DeJohn and Pat McMurtry in matchups. The next three month period then saw the demise of the American “big three” heavyweights at the time, first Ingemar Johansson’s knocked out previous undefeated Eddie Machen, then Brian London recorded a 5th round KO over Willi Pastrano with the referee stopping the fight due to a cut over Pastrano’s eye, a cut much debated at the time to not be that serious to warrant stopping the fight. Then finally the other top British heavyweight at the time Henry Cooper upset Zora Folley in another disputed decision. Cooper was actually floored in the fight early on and if you seen pictures of Cooper after that fight you have to wonder how did Cooper get that decision??

All examples that Ring Magazine was writing on in this article about the upheaval going on in the heavyweight division as time turned into the next decade of the 1960s. The January 1960 Ring ratings had 4 international heavyweights in the top 10 rankings behind then champion Floyd Patterson. The LHW’s were even a bigger mix 6 of the top 10 under champion Moore, from outside the US. Don’t get me wrong, I think in a way this was great. Many of you probably know my love for the international heavyweights.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Monday 03 November 1958
St. Nicholas Arena
New York, New York, USA
boxer lbs record boxer lbs record
Jose Torres 164 7 0 0 W Burke Emery 163½ 29 7 4 TKO 5/10
Middleweight
time: 2:07 referee: Harry Ebbets
Roger Harvey 142½ 11 5 2 W Luis Velez 147¼ 4 1 0 KO 4/6
Welterweight
Chico Rollins 133½ 2 0 0 W Harry Smith 133¼ 6 0 0 PTS 6/6
Jackie Donnelly 135 7 0 0 W Ray Sanna 134½ 1 1 1 TKO 3/4
Juan Rivera 131½ 0 1 0 W Nino Malava 135¾ 2 3 0 PTS 4/4
Lightweight
Charlie Poole 172½ 0 2 0 W Clarence Augustus 172½ debut PTS 4/4

January 1959 Ring Magazine – Young middleweight Jose Torres was spreading excitement amongst the Puerto Rican population of New York helping to bring in a capacity crowd of 4,116 to St. Nicholas Arena on November 3rd, 1958 in a matchup against Canadian Burke Emery. Even with his years of experience in the ring, Emery’s skills were outclassed as Torres battered Burke at will such referee Harry Ebbets stopped the fight at the 2:07 mark in the 5th round of the scheduled 10.
On the tail end of the card, two LHW’s squared off with Charlie Poole out pointing Clarence Augustus in 4 rounds.

TITLE BOUT 2013: A close fight throughout the 10 rounds ends in a majority decision for Jose Torres. The referee and on judge scored both scored it 6-4, Torres while one judge scored the fight even 5-5.In the attached file for Torres, I've taken the TB rating that I had showing him for LHW and I've changed that to MW which is what Torres started at and fought as until late 1964 when he did move up to LHW. I've rated a new LHW rating included. I did not do any testing of the original 11 rating calling it a MW. Maybe it should be? Burke Emery from Canada was in the middle part of a modest LHW career compiling a 44(17KO)-15(KO4)-4 recored. I didn't have Burke in my data base. If anyone else by chance had done him I'd be interest to hear feedback opinion.

In our LHW bout at St. Nicholas, Charlie Poole won a Unanimous Decision 4 rounder over Clarence Augustus. A pretty dull one to finish out the evening, as neither fighter exhibited much punching accuracy with many a wild swing hitting nothing but air. Charlie Poole fought 4 times shown in BoxRec, 3 times late in 1958 and once in early 1959. Augustus turns up twice in two weeks in November 1958.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Originally Posted by Rocco Del Sesto

Monday 20 October 1958
St. Nicholas Arena
New York, New York, USA
division boxer lbs record boxer lbs record
Bartolo Soni 175 1 0 0 W George Bermuda 173½ debut PTS 4/4

January 1959 Ring Magazine records the event put on at the St. Nicolas Arena in New York with an announced attendance of 1,294 amongst other fights Bartolo Soni in his 2nd fight outpointing George Bermuda from Brooklyn, NY in 4 rounds. It’s the only recorded fight for Bermuda in BoxRec.
TITLE BOUT 2013: George puts Bartolo down for a 7 count in the 3rd round on the way to a 4 round UD verdict over Soni. A surprise there.

Not much recorded on this fight. I was surprised and pleased to see a photo posted for Soni in BoxRec! He has more fights so maybe we'll learn more about him as time goes on in future accounts in Ring.

I just noticed on my Bermuda rating I erroneously flagged him as Active so you'd want to fix that.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Monday 10 November 1958
St. Nicholas Arena
New York, New York, USA
division boxer lbs record boxer lbs record
Benny Kid Paret 154 23 4 1 W Andy Figaro 151 19 12 3 KO 1/10

time: 2:19
Lightweight Candy McFarland 137½ 11 2 1 W Isidro Martinez 136 19 6 1 SD 10/10

referee: Mark Conn judge: Tony Castellano, Sam Irom
Victor Zalazar 157½ 13 0 0 W Otis Woodard 160 12 17 5 TKO 5/10

time: 2:36 referee: Mark Conn
Bartolo Soni 176 2 0 0 W Clarence Augustus 173½ 0 1 0 PTS 4/4

January 1959 Ring – Bartolo Soni stepped into the ring at St. Nicholas for the 3rd time going against Clarence Augustus who fought for the 2nd and last time recorded in BoxRec with Soni outpointing Augustus in 4 rounds. No other detail of the fight recorded. The article did discuss some of the other fights in the card. Was noted that on the whole is was disappointing evening for Teddy Brenner who staged the event as only 1,802 paid attendance showed.

TITLE BOUT 2013 – Soni won my replay fight. Scored the fight by Rounds with Soni winning 3-1 by two judges and the referee giving Augusta the other verdict 3-1. A strong uppercut at 2:58 in the 2nd round by Bartolo sent Clarence down for a one count before the bell ended the round.

Just a recount. Sorry no new file!

[bear]

Rocco
Really nice to see you posting files again. The other day you, Bob Bask, and I all posted files. First time in dog's years that more than two people posted created files. Starting to feel like the old days.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Thursday 09 October 1958
Olympic Auditorium
Los Angeles, California, USA
promoter Cal Eaton
division boxer lbs record boxer lbs record
Alvaro Gutierrez 20 7 1 W Charley Tombstone Smith 28 8 0 UD 10/10

referee: Mushy Callahan 98-89 judge: Jack McDonald 100-89, Russ Bradford 99-90
Lightweight Joe Chavez 138 8 16 3 L Nat Simon 137 4 3 0 SD 6/6

Heavyweight Otis Fuller 190 4 8 1 W Johnny Freeman 185½ 3 3 0 TKO 2/4

Lightweight David Camacho 137 8 8 1 W Joe Jacobs 135¼ 1 4 1 PTS 4/4

Welterweight Ed Hickman 149 1 0 0 W Leo Anderson 144 4 3 0 PTS 4/4

January 1959 Ring – Otis Fuller KO’d Johnny Freeman in the 2nd of 4 scheduled rounds. Most of the Ring article was about the main event, Gutierrez vs. Tombstone Smith.

TITLE BOUT 2013 – Otis Fuller wins a Unanimous decision with three identical 40-36 scores.

Read up on the Biography for Fuller. I explain where this January 1959 Ring Magazine and BoxRec then apparently going by Ring's account in that edition would appear to have this Otis Fuller mixed up with some other Fuller who was a welterweight per the Ring's account in this Jan 59 edition. So I've noted this Fuller's record with one less bout, a KO loss in fact than what BoxRec records.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Saturday 11 October 1958
Legion Stadium
Hollywood, California, USA
promoter Jackie Leonard
boxer lbs record boxer lbs record
Joe Miceli 149 57 33 7 W Karl Heinz Guder 153 22 8 2 TKO 8/10
Welterweight
time: 1:37 referee: Tommy Hart
Collier Cox 127½ 20 21 5 W Joe Hernandez 130½ 7 10 4 KO 5/6
Lightweight
Jimmy Wilson 181 debut W Cleveland Graham 179½ debut TKO 3/4
Heavyweight
Eddie Baker 138½ debut L Lloyd Wilson 137½ 2 5 1 PTS 4/4
Lightweight
Rafael Gutierrez 140 6 0 1 L Larry Mercer 142 8 9 2 TKO 3/4
Welterweight

January 1959 Ring – Heavyweights Jimmy Wilson and Cleveland Graham both made their debut at Legion Stadium. Wilson scored a 3rd round KO victory. While Graham went out and shows a recorded record of 10-5-4, this is the only fight listed for Wilson in BoxRec.

TITLE BOUT 2013- Jimmy Wilson scored a Unanimous Decision in our Title Bout rematch. Wilson was up with a slight scoring lead through the first three but then in the 4th round at the 1:03 mar, he landed a short, clean uppercut that dropped Graham. Cleveland managed to get up at the 5 count with the referee giving him a standing 8 count. Graham got through the rest of the round but that knockdown sealed it for Wilson.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Thursday 16 October 1958
Olympic Auditorium
Los Angeles, California, USA
promoter Cal Eaton
boxer lbs record boxer lbs record
Herman Marques 115½ 8 1 1 L Boots Monroe 117 19 2 0 TKO 10/12
Bantamweight
USA California State bantamweight title
time: 2:30 referee: Charley Randolph
Marquez stopped on cuts
Dave Martinez 127¾ 3 2 1 W Ward Yee 127½ 11 0 2 SD 6/6
Featherweight
Willie Bell 168 1 1 1 W Rocky Elliott 162½ debut KO 3/4
Middleweight
Ed Edwards 127½ 2 1 0 W Estes Phillips 128½ 0 1 0 PTS 4/4
Featherweight

January 1959 Ring – Main event was Herman Marques vs Boots Monroe billed as the USA California bantamweight title. Willie Bell, described in Ring as a “Sugar-Ray Robinson look-alike” was stepping into the ring for only the fourth time taking on new comer Rocky Elliott. Bell KO’d Elliott in the 3rd round.

TITLE BOUT 2013 – Rematch saw a Bell KO of Elliott again but it took till 1:42 of the 4th round for Willie to make it happen. Through the first 3 rounds all three scorers actually had Elliott ahead 29-28 on their score cards. Up through the first three neither fighter was connecting much. But then about 25 seconds in to the 4th round Bell started connecting, first a cross scoring to the head of Elliott followed by a jab and an uppercut connecting. Bell then pinned Elliott in the corner and hard combination suddenly caught Elliott sending him down. He got to his feet at the 5 count but he stumbled down on his knees and never got back up!

Interesting looking at Bells record in BoxRec, he fought all his bouts in California and one in Las Vegas but in July 1961 he traveled to Wellington, New Zealand taking on Tongan heavyweight George Mahoni. Did some looking a bit through 1961 issues around that time but have not found any account of the fight yet. Will look through my Box News and see if there’s anything there.

[Rocco Del Sesto]

I just got in the mail yesterday an almost complete set of 1958 Ring Magazines (missing I think it was Oct/Nov, these came from the UK). Was gazing through them last evening. I may switch gears this weekend and restart my project and start going through the Jan 1958 edition. 1958 looks to have a lot of interesting things going on with those HW's that were the main attractions happening between Marciano's retirement and on into 1960. More coverage of guys like Patterson, Johansson, Machen, Valdez, Folley, Roy Harris and UK mates like London, Richardson, Copper, etc. that were the prime heavyweights of the 1958-60 era.

Yep think that's what I'm going to do. I started working on someone last evening and I'll finish that first. Hope you all are enjoying this. I am!

[Rocco Del Sesto]

Tuesday 21 October 1958
Auditorium
Richmond, California, USA
promoter Jimmy Cosenza
boxer lbs record boxer lbs record
Sixto Rodriguez 171 17 0 1 W Willie Gilbert 163 12 10 3 PTS 10/10
Light Heavyweight
referee: Matt Zidich 97-93
George Sullivan 142 10 4 6 W Roosevelt Carter 140 0 0 2 UD 6/6
Welterweight
Carter was knocked down in the 1st round.
Al Medrano 133 1 0 1 L Al Conley 139 2 0 0 KO 1/4
Lightweight
Joe Sullivan 181 1 3 0 W James Head 185 2 1 0 PTS 4/4
Heavyweight
Felix Palega 149½ 0 1 0 L Bill Pate 152 2 1 0 PTS 4/4
Welterweight

January 1959 Ring – The main event at the Civic Auditorium pitted Sixto Rodriguez and Willie Gilbert in a LHW matchup. The Ring account of this fight mentions of Rodriguez having 20 straight victories. The BoxRec lists him at 17 wins and 1 draw? Gilbert is 12-10-3 record coming in and on the tail end of his career. Despite weight difference between the two fighters, Gilberts overall bit more experience in the ring helped him carry through a complete 10 rounds with Rodriguez and even managed to put Sixto down on one knee in the 9th round but by that time Rodriguez was well ahead to earn a 97-93 points win.

TITLE BOUT 2013 – Sixto Rodriguez scores a 6th round TKO verdict over Willie Gilbert with referee Matt Zidich stopping the bout at the 1:17 mark with Gilbert suffering from a badly cut right eyelid first opened about 2/3rds the way through the 4th round. It was a severe cut but the fight was allowed to continue and Gilbert fought the remainder of the 4th and through the 5th despite the blood flowing from the wound until finally though the ring side doctor and the referee had seen enough and stopped it in the 6th.

Sixto is rated in TB2013. Did not see anything to update so no file for him.

January 1959 Ring – One of the undercards this night at the Civic Auditorium was a 4 round heavyweight match up between two relative new comers, Joe Sullivan, 1-3-1 at the time on his way to a 7-12-1 career, and James Head 2-1-0 who fought on only to a 4-2-0 career mark. Interesting all 4 of Head’s wins were stoppages.

TITLE BOUT 2013 – Sullivan dropped Head for a KO victory at the 2:48 mark in the first round!