EVER SINCE Jack Johnson, the excitement in professional boxing has always been dominated by black fighters. Especially in the heavyweight division. Some heavies have been well over 200 lbs and others have moved up through the 175 lb limit.
There have been some exciting white ones as well Jack Dempsey, Rocky Marciano but when you want excitement check for the blacks. Long before the television era, as a youth I never missed any of the sports news features on boxing in the cinema or on the radio. Except for that one time when my parents gave me the picture fare to go to the Joe Louis/Max Bear clash and I missed it.
I went to the family cinema - Palace while Joe was knocking the stuffing out of Max at Gaiety. The movie I saw at Palace was 'Arise my Love', a love story, something I was not prepared for that night. I eventually saw it again on television in England as an adult. Still didn't like it.
Another huge disappointment for me was watching Randy Turpin, a black fighter born in Britain, beating the greatest pound-for-pound boxer that ever there was and probably still- Sugar Ray Robinson. When Turpin returned home to England he had the whole nation at his feet and he made the sad mistake of giving a rematch to Sugar Ray. He was demolished! It was a lonely homecoming for him after that.
GREATEST PAIN
My greatest pain though, was suffered in my home while watching television in England. Mohammed Ali had come to London to give England's best, Henry Cooper, a crack at the crown. Cooper had a tough chin and a hard quick left hook, but he was very susceptible to cuts around the face.
I watched Ali toy with him and I shouted at my television set. I knew that Henry Cooper was fighting for race, Queen and country. Suddenly there it was.
In a flash a left hook connected flush on Ali's chin and he was down. Thank Heaven it happened near the end of the round. The bell intervened. The recovery minute was a godsend. Ali proceeded to pound Henry's face to shreds until the fight had to be stopped. My opinion was and is: if Ali hadn't clowned around and left himself open for that severe left hook he would have been strong enough to put Cooper down and out for the first time in his career.
All of Britain cheered Cooper's feat. He was not expected to win, but Ali was not expected to clown around either. The news only showed the knockdown. For me that was painful.
My pride and joy came when my good friend Delroy Mendez, wrote to tell me that Jamaica was chosen to be the Sunshine Spot for the clash between the new man to be feared, Joe Frazier and the up and coming 'sledge hammer', George Foreman. The reply to that letter was expected to be "Save a ringside seat for me, I am coming".
ALL NOT LOST
Regrettably that number could not be played. Never-the-less all was not lost. The fight was going to be shown via satellite in some special areas, London being one. The venue was the London Palladium. The tickets were expensive and of course, few. They were sold out within an hour.
Come the night of the fight - the wee hours of the morning for us in London standing room was available in the Gallery. Proud Jamaicans were up there in numbers more than four deep. While the preamble show was going, a buzz got around that the police were ticketing vehicles not parked on metres. Well, I wasn't on a metre, but at that hour of the morning it was never necessary before.
I decided not to take any chances, so I put down my pint of draught and dashed downstairs. Y'see I wouldn't put it pass the police to expect a lot of Jamaicans to attend the Palladium to see the fight and set out to haul in some. As it was the rumour turned out to be false. By the time I got back upstairs and tried to worm my way into the crowd, the fight was over.
There were two topics of discussion among the crowd. One was the awesomeness of George Foreman and the other was why was the fight not re-shown. Y'know which side I was on.
