AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 1
Welcome to Ring Talk with Lou Eisen! This week, we’re going to be talking about the classic light-heavyweight title fight between Dick Tiger and Bob Foster at Madison Square Garden on May 24th, 1968. This was a fight that had it all – two of the greatest light-heavyweights of all time going toe-to-toe in the Big Apple. We’ll be talking about the strategies employed by both fighters, the background to the fight, and the energy that filled the air in MSG that night. We’ll also be looking at the legacy of this fight and why it’s still remembered vividly by boxing fans today. So, join us as we take a trip back in time to one of the most exciting and iconic fights in boxing history.
#Boxing #LightHeavyweight #DickTiger #BobFoster #MSG #RingTalk #LouEisen #May241968 #ClassicFight
Transcribed
[, Music, ] foreign [, Music ], welcome to ring talk and we have a great fight to to uh start the or end your weekend on, I should say: May 24 1968 New York City, New York, Madison Square Garden.
It’S the world light heavyweight title fight between Dick Tiger and the world light heavyweight champion.
He had the WBA WBC titles and the Challenger Bob Foster.
Now there was a big um difference in in height Foster with uh.
Six three tiger was six eight or excuse me.
Six eight tiger was five, eight and and also uh Foster had a an 11-inch uh reach Advantage.
He was also eleven to five favorite in the fight um.
Both men took Securities roots to to get to this particular boat.
Dick Tiger was born in Nigeria and uh.
A magbo Nigeria August 24th 1929.
It was known as the colony of Nigeria.
Then it was a British colony and his total boxing record.
He had 82 fights, 60 wins 27 by knockout 19 losses and three draws.
Dick Tiger was built like a Sherman tank thick, huge thighs that were as big as other guys waists and also had a barrel chest thick arms and started boxing in in Nigeria.
And when you look at his early record, he fought guys.
You know that were named black power super black power.
You know, Mr big strong, uh hurricane wind, just odd name, so his early record is sketchy.
He did well.
He, as I said, his birth name, was actually Richard, o’hetu and, and he fought he was so aggressive when he thought that they said he fought like a tiger.
So, instead of an announcer trying to announce he had to, they just said tiger, and then he took the name Dick Tiger uh after fighting for a short time and Nigeria moved to Britain, where he didn’t have good luck.
He emigrated to Liverpool and he lost a bunch of fights uh when he first started out in Britain and because of that uh, a change manager and he got a a much better manager and he was a two-time, Undisputed World, middleweight Titleist and he you know, he’s One of those guys uh dick tagger that brought people out to the fights he put asses in the scene type he helped save boxing in that sense um, because people just would come out and pay a lot of money to see him with Dick Tiger.
You didn’t get a boring fight, no one would sit there and go boo because it was boring or nothing was happening.
If you went out to take your head off every round and he first won the title uh I guess in the 50.
I guess you first want to tell against Gene Fulmer.
He fought him in the 1950s and he won the uh fund 62.
Excuse me, but he had fought in the 1950s, so it former former been the world champion and he won a WBA awarded underweight title October 23rd 1962 and then he won uh after that he he lost it and he won it again and then uh after he Won the game, he lost it to Emile Griffith and he lost its Joey dear jello jello, and then he went up and fought.
Uh Griffith Griffith beat him, and then he went up to light heavyweight after that.
But when he won, he beat a really good Champion October 23rd.
1962.
He beat Jose Torres, it was trained by customado and customado trained Mike Tyson and Floyd Patterson and many other Fighters, and when he was starting his career out in England, he was based in Liverpool and he was getting really small purses on undercards.
His career wouldn’t move ahead and um.
He uh fought a really well-known future Champion Terry Downes, who was heavily favored.
I think there’s a bit of racism in that and they knocked him out in six rounds.
So his new management saw that they got him a great trainer and they corrected some of his errors.
You know he he would leap in at times with punches and that would expose his chin.
So he the new trainer New Management, they fixed everything and it really took off for him when he moved into the United States uh, he won um uh, you know after we started about four or five years in he’s.
In still in Britain he won the British middleweight title and he also take took 17 of 19 fights in the year that he won that so he was uh managed by uh Jersey, Jones, an independent, and then he came to America uh, as he said, to face Adversity in a whole new way um, he resisted the influence of his manager of uh, Madison Square Garden and broker deals for for uh tiger all by himself, so, rather than getting in with them uh, it was a stupid move because it caused tiger a lot of Money and he was fighting in Edmonton, which is not a which is a great city city of Champions.
But it’s not a boxing City and he was fighting for small money and he lost a really questionable decision for the Empire.
Middleweight title to Wolf Greaves and it was a fight that tiger won without a doubt.
But the ironic thing, of course, is Canadian boxer judges.
Now I’ll try to bend over backwards to help a Canadian fighter win and back then they did.
But this was the exception and wolf: Greaves won wolf.
Greaves was a great fighter.
If you don’t know wealth grades, look him up one of Canada’s greatest Fighters, um the what happened with the wolf Greaves fight, it was called the draw and then judges met and because the manager of Tiger Jones demanded a recount and then they said they made a Mistake and they’ve changed it to a win for Greaves and if you see the fight tiger dominates the fight from first to last and tiger never argued things like that.
He was very honest uh, but in the long run it caused him and uh.
The great writer AJ liebling, if you don’t know AJ liebling um, he was the one that labeled it the sweet science and he uh.
He want Dick Tiger take on Henry Hank, another fighter, an unsung great fighter from that era and the way liebling it became a template the way he described Dick Tiger.
He said Dick Tiger had a chest like an old-fashioned black office, safe, dropping away to a slender waist big thighs and slender legs.
He boxed classically his arms tight against his sides.
He would box like this from a Crouch uh and at the beginning of each punch.
Um, you know he would throw straight punches from the shoulder and he was methodical with his shots.
He knew where to place them and he was sort of like Arthur bitter B have threw the shots and shirt Arts uh.
They didn’t travel, much distance, four inches.
Three inches but boy when they landed, they had a lot of impact and um.
He uh.
Gene Fulmer was a guy who was like one of my favorite Fighters.
I was lucky enough to meet.
Fullmer was built like a Sherman tank.
He was a heavyweight in the middleweight’s body and to have a guy like that and challenge him for the title I mean Fulmer had a lot of wear and tear, but still that’s a tough fight and he said tiger was a tough guy.
You know I went to Nigeria to fight him and – and I don’t know what happened, he just beat me and he beat me bad and uh uh.
He said didn’t matter.
If um, my mom or dad was a referee.
I couldn’t have won one round from tiger.
In Nigeria, because he was so strong and so dominating Fighters like to take time off in the ring, so after a clinch, a walk back, a couple, you know feet five ten feet hit you up their trunks tiger.
Didn’T do that.
If you did that against him, he was in top here right away.
Whacking you to the body into the head, and so tiger didn’t have a lot of Knockouts.
You know he’s more of a distance fighter and uh.
He was very frustrated because he lost the title to Joey giordello and you know: there’s a return plots you get a return match, but giordell didn’t honor it.
He made him wait two years before he fought him and beat him again and um.
You know he he.
He said if I’d come to America and met giordello and his kind of people first, I would have gone home, because this is not how you treat people.
He said you can’t sign a contract for a certain date to fight and then just decide not to honor.
It so um uh tiger wanted to trade punches with him, and gerardello was more of a stick of move boxer and giordell apparently said to Howard Post cell.
I wouldn’t trade stamps with him, let alone punches so uh.
You know he was a solid guy.
He was a decent guy, he he I’m not saying he was smart, but he he didn’t put on theirs and he had the face.
Uh, the uncomfortable Bob Foster Foster was 6’3 and he was just a magnificent light Headway.
You you can uh go on YouTube and look at Bob Foster Foster is interesting because uh, when you look at him, I mean it’s.
A big slender guy and his management early on incorrectly tried to get him into the heavyweight division and the reason for that was there’s more money in the heavyweight as a light, heavy light Foster couldn’t fight heavyweight at six foot.
Three 175 pounds was his maximum, so he had to go up to, like you know, 185 190, and that just wasn’t good enough.
He lost to Doug Jones, who uh George Cheval knocked out, and Ali B, but Jones came close to beating a young Cassius Clay when they fought.
But the thing with that was Foster was the bigger man but Jones who himself had been a light.
Heavy had come up and wait, and he was just physically too big.
For God, like Foster, Foster, got knocked out by Joe Frazier.
He got stopped by Ernie Terrell, who was six six and he also got stopped by by Muhammad Ali.
He what he he periodically after.
He won the light.
Heavyweight title would go up and fight various heavyweights, but his luck never changed.
He wasn’t physically strong enough to deal with a heavyweight punch, but I’m telling you when you saw him fight, someone like Mike Corey, Jerry, Corey’s younger brother, and he hit him with a left hook.
Corey was out for 30 minutes and people.
When I watched that fight, you know I thought he’d kill them and most people thought he killed him like the announcers weren’t, even talking it.
It was the most devastating knockout I’ve ever seen and just fell on his back his arms splayed by his side, and he was out and they’re giving the smelling salts and they’re rep.
You know turning his head and nothing and they had doctors working on him for a long time and finally, he came around, but he was never the same again.
You know in or out of the ring Bob Foster at late heavyweight was a devastating puncher and very few people could could uh withstand what he could do.
Um he was born uh Bob Foster in Texas, but moved to Albuquerque and Albuquerque became his home.
You know what’s interesting about that, of course, is is um with Albuquerque is home.
Um years later he became a sheriff.
He was a deputy sheriff originally, but he was the sheriff down there.
In Albuquerque and George Cheval, one of the sons I think Mitch was driving there and he pulled him over and I don’t know if it was for speeding.
But for some infraction and Foster has to see his driver’s license and he showed it to him in the wallet and he said chevalo, you know, George, it’s my dad so foster was so kind.
He called him.
You know went back to the station and said I have your son Mitch here and George’s worried.
He said no, no! No! He was just, I think he said he was just speeding a bit, but I’m not going to give him a ticket.
I just want to let you know he’s all right and that’s the kind of guy he was.
He had a very deep voice like James Earl Jones and uh.
As I said, six foot three born April 27, 1942 in Borger, Texas and um.
You know 13 years younger than uh Dick Tiger, who was August 14th, 1929 and uh Foster.
You know, went through the light heavyweight division.
He just started to flatten people like it was no one’s business, so he he fought in the Air Force.
He won uh Air Force tournaments, he won the AAU, he won the Pan-American games and um.
He uh won the Golden Gloves and he started his professional career on March 27, 1961 knocked out a guy named Duke Williams in Washington DC uh in two rounds uh.
He also had bad management.
It’S it’s.
It’S hard to um understate how critical good management is and guide you all the way you know, Angela Dundee’s Fighters have good management through him and his brother Chris, and that’s very important to get the right fight to the right time.
You fight someone, that’s a bit better than you, but you can beat them, but you can also learn from him.
This didn’t happen, so foster went around fighting in different places, Eastern United States, Eastern Canada, and he wasn’t making much money.
He was earning the short end.
Money and working his butt off and then his first loss came against Doug Jones in four rounds when his manager thought yeah we’ll take the money grab and go up, not realizing that you know Foster was doing well as a light.
Heavy leave him alone, but uh.
The manager didn’t care about his welfare Foster when he fought in the amateurs was actually a middleweight, but because of his size you know he kept putting on weight and he went back to the States.
James management and he started to get these quick.
Knockouts Foster was an orthodox fighter, but he had the one to pass left hooks, I’ve ever seen and in 1964 he made a mistake because he went up the heavyweight again and fought Ernie Terrell, who was six six two forty and Trail just decimated him and uh.
Then he had three more uh knockout wins at life heavyweight and he beat a lot of good guys, Don Quinn he beat in the first round, but the big one was when he knocked out Henry Hank Henry hangs one of those unsung heroes.
In boxing we didn’t win a title, but it was always in the top ranked in the top two.
Three all the time, always a tough fighter sort of a gatekeeper, uh 1965 comes along, he wins.
Four fights loses one B tank again but lose to Zorro Foley.
Another heavyweight by decision fully lost to Ali and to uh listen, so these These Guys these heavyweights, he just can’t compete.
He doesn’t have the poundage on his body, the armor, to take these kind of shots from how big the heavyweights are his punch.
He can hit his punch, is devastating at light heavy weight, but at heavy weight it’s a good punch, but it’s not a knockout punch, so he beats Leroy Green in uh, 1968 or 66.
Excuse me by 1967 um.
He wants to.
You know still give heavyweight a try, but he’s frustrated and the ring ratings come out and he’s ranked number one at light.
Heavy ranked number one light heavy weight.
So he figures: why not concentrate on this? You know there’s so much more money at heavyweight and but you just can’t succeed it heavily, so he was frustrated and he started improve his quality of opposition.
So he beats Eddie cotton, who became a referee as we all know, and Sonny Moore and then, after that he was rated as the number one Challenger for Delight heavyweight title, and this happened in 1968.
He got his shot at Madison Square Garden.
On May 24th March 24th, excuse me and May 24th.
I got that wrong and he fights Dick Tiger and the disparity in weight and necessarily wait.
But excuse me height, the disparity in height is so dramatic.
You is, it almost looks like an optical illusion, because you know you have one.
You know Tigers down here.
He’S here he’s got a punch down and he 11 to five favorite and you wanted to fight and he comes out and he’s jabbing tiger and tiger is trying to get by his job, but he can’t Foster’s job is so quick and of course, Foster’s hungry.
All the years of fighting you know eight to ten years of fighting and getting screwed over and ripped off and and all the disappointments, and this is one chance to grab it and get money and tigers.
Doing his best tiger fought from an exaggerated Crouch, which was smart, she refunding a guy that that is, that much taller you want to make your uh height differential.
You want to exaggerate, you exaggerate it.
You want to make your weakness, your strength, yeah, so they’re going at it and Foster’s winning the rounds uh first round, he wins.
The site shift lead second round you can tell tiger is frustrated.
Dick Tiger is very frustrated.
Um.
This title means everything to him, because tiger had a lot of frustration in his career.
He was one of the few Champions I think lost his first six professional fights or whatever, but kept going because he had such a belief in himself and he took on all comers.
You know um and there’s no way to avoid Bob Foster at that point, because he was the young crown light heavyweight champion.
So Tiger has the belt.
You know that he won from Jose Torres and Jose Torres wanted for mantel Dundee’s finder Willie pastrano, who won from Harold Johnson, and you know these.
These were all great fights and they’re fighting and second round third round goes to Foster and it’s such a dramatic thing, because you can see it in color on YouTube, where you know: Tigers, bopping and weaving and trying to get fostered to commit.
So he can counter him and he he ducks and as he comes up, Foster clocks him with the left hand, it’s the only time and Dick Tiger’s career of almost 70 fights that he got knocked out.
Cold he’s flattened on the campus, his head.
It still shakes me up.
His head makes a huge thud when it hits the gambits Bang and then he he lifts his head up a bit and then he’s back he’s out.
He can’t move and he you know he needed to be.
He needed medical attention and Bob Foster is going crazy, but it just seemed like an odd thing to me to watch because the disparity in height and reach it almost seemed like a grown man punishing his son, but it was a dramatic knockout.
It’S one of the most dramatic Knockouts I’ve ever seen and Foster reached the Mountaintop.
He achieves his goal.
The tiger at that point unfortunately didn’t have many years to live.
Dick Tiger, as I said, is from Nigeria and Nigeria was going through a civil war where a part of Nigeria named Biafra, wanted to separate so he fought on.
But he went back and fought in Nigeria and then he just he.
He came back to the states to fight a bit, went back to Nigeria to Biafra in the Civil War and he disappeared, and we don’t know how he what happened to him.
We know that he died uh at the age of 42 December 14th, 1971 in in um Abba, a colony of Nigeria, and it’s it’s sad uh.
They found out that he died from cancer.
He known he’d had cancer for a long time, but he didn’t tell anyone.
He didn’t want people to feel so informed and treat him differently.
You know his record, he had 82 fights, 60 wins, 27 Knockouts, 19 losses and three draws and a lot of those losses.
I would say a good eight.
Nine of them, at least, were were um uh.
How would I say suspicious? You know fights that were close, but because he didn’t have the power in his corner to make the judges honest, he didn’t get the decision.
Um Foster went on.
You know they had a common opponent.
Frankie de Paulo Frankie De Paula is a book out on him.
He’S an interesting guy.
He was a full-time mobster, a gangster who killed people, but but he was also a light heavyweight and so tiger beat him and he challenged.
Uh Foster for the World Heavyweight or for the world light heavyweight title now.
The interesting thing is, Foster, wins the title and then he beats Charlie polite by a knockout and then he uh Beats uh another fighter named Vic, and then he he uh uh, Roger Rouse and uh.
Who was a well-known fighter back then? He beats them all by knockout Tigers.
Getting Knockouts in every fight now he’s going for it.
So in 69 he fights a guy named Frankie De Paula and they’re, not in the same class.
In terms of skill I mean Foster.
Is an all-time great into koala? Isn’T but somehow, as happens in boxing from time to time, the stars align and to Paula not Foster down and all 16 000 people, Madison Square Gardens stood up in gasp at the same time.
This can’t happen.
I mean DePaula was a man of the people, the people loved them.
You know he’s a.
He was a a people’s fighter, they always cheered him and Foster, gets up.
You know they wipe his gloves off moves his head around.
You could see his whole physical chemistry.
Changing walks over and bang quick left hook and DePaula is out cold and sometimes it’s better to let the tiger keep sleeping, because if you wake him up, you’re going to pay a fearful price and that’s exactly what happened to Frankie De Paula.
It’S a fascinating story, but he just dropped him and destroyed him um.
He knocked out Andy Kendall in 1969 and he closed in 1960s went into the 70s with two more Knockouts so foster.
I remember watching him and I was born in 1960, so I grew up watching Bob Foster and uh his voice always scared me because it was such a deep bass voice uh after he wins the light heavyweight title uh.
He has two more trips.
He wants to make to the heavyweight Division, and now he gets more money.
He gets more money because he’s the world light heavyweight champion he’s not just a light heavyweight going up, so they got to pay more money.
Uh he easily beats Lou, Wallace or Lee Wallace.
Excuse me Lou always wrote Ben her uh Lee Wallace.
He wrote he beat him in six rounds by a knockout.
Wallace was a fringe Contender, always in and around the top, 15 or 20, but never really breaking any higher than that, and then in a defense.
The hell against Roger Rouse and he was upset because Roger routes made comments um about Foster before the fight which weren’t particularly uh kind, and he knocked Foster out in one round you know or Roger Rose Foster was not a guy.
You wanted to piss off you.
Don’T want to get on his bad site because a lot of Fighters when they get angry, they don’t fight well Foster, fought better when he was angry so to piss him off.
You know, as Angel Dundee said to me.
The guy already wants to bash your face and why give him more motivation to do that by bad mouthing him just doesn’t make sense, and you know he beats a guy named Mark testman in 10 rounds, and then he makes the mistake.
He’S got a challenge for the title and he figures, maybe lightning will strike twice because I’m 6’3 Joe Frazier is 5-11 at most and but Frazier was a born heavyweight.
He was heavy set, you know 210 and he could really punch.
Fish was one of the all-time greats.
Best left hook may be in the history of the sport and he he Foster fights him and he hangs in there the first round but Frasier’s just finding the range he’s throwing left Hooks and they’re just missing, and I remember you know the announcer saying well Foster Better be careful because, despite the height difference, Frazier’s coming awfully close Treacher had no respect for Foster’s power, because his attitude was he’s a light heavy weight.
I let him hit me with his best shot, I’m not going anywhere and in the second round he cats It Foster with a left hook and bye.
Bye Bob Foster that was it and uh Foster it’s frustrating because after that, he defeats a guy named Hal Carroll by knockout in four rounds and and then the alphabet boys started to get greedy and wanted more money for each title.
Defense and Foster was saying to him.
You can’t do this.
I agree to pay you this much to defend your belt.
Now you come back with just before the fight and say uh.
Now we want double or triple yeah.
I mean all the sanctioning bodies: WBA WBC um, ibf, WBO, they’re, all run by criminals, they’re criminal organizations and um they’ve done more to hurt the sport than they have to help the sport and WBA stripped him the title, but he was still recognized by the WBC.
As a champion, because the WBC and WBA dislike each other intensely, they still do so foster became a rage at the WBA and WB set up a fight between Vicente Rondon and Jimmy Dupree Ron, Don Juan and um.
He Foster said.
Okay, you want to give it to him I’ll fight him and Foster.
You know in a row beat quickly beats Ray Anderson, Tommy, Hicks and Brian Kelly, and then he meets Ron Don and the unification boat and he’s he’s 1972 April 7th.
It’S in Miami and boy Foster and just a ring with the look.
It’S the look of a man that was about to execute another man.
He was just determined, focused lasered in and he goes out and he’s just pummeling Ron Don in the first round.
Second round comes – and you know when you you don’t really you’re – not really supposed to technically go for a knockout in boxing, because if you do you’re taking a risk and you’re going to get hurt, but Foster was smart, he was a smart boxer.
He started everything with his left jab because it opened up his body and allowed him to come over the top with the right straight right hand, and he comes after Ron Don in the second round, and you know he’s trying to decapitate him and he catches him With a shot and Rondon is out, I mean out out and Foster probably enjoyed this victory, uh almost as much as winning the lottery titled first time from Dick Tiger, so foster goes on and he keeps fighting and the fight comes up on November.
21St.
1972.
.
That’S! When Muhammad Ali was fighting uh, Jerry, Corey and Corey is watching his brother Mike fight him and wow.
You know Corey’s hanging in there.
People are, I remember the broadcast with the broadcasters are saying Corey’s doing better than we thought he would.
He Quarry is hanging in there with Bob Foster.
No one thought he would go this far and the fourth round he caught with that.
You know: fight, ending lights out, night uh left hook and Corey.
Like I said before, I thought Corey was dead.
I really thought he was dead, I mean he hit the canvas, bang and you know no one moved Foster, thought he was dead, Foster, didn’t leave the ring, he just stood in his car and staring at him and uh there’s a great photo of Oscar walking away Seconds later, just looking back at him um, but thankfully Corey got options.
He was fine and that thought was uh amazing, but uh.
It was also special because it was the late great meals Lane for it’s about as a referee, and he said from that bout to the end of his career.
He never saw a knockout like that and he refereed for a long time and um.
He fought again in 1973 against a guy named Pierre Fury.
He made a mistake of fighting in South Africa, and people got really upset about it and he did it because he was black and Pierre, for he was white and I um he beat him the first time around and then the rematch in South Africa uh.
You know he defeated him again on points, so he was starting to slip by this time.
You know he’d been boxing since 1959 professionally, so this is 13 years into his career and there’s a lot of wear and tear boxers stamina and strength and the length of his career aren’t infinite not by any means.
You only have so much before your body says.
That’S enough, there are Rarities like Archie Moore who, because of racism, was denied a shot at the light, had really duddled for a long time and still kept kept on, but he kept himself in phenomenal shape in and out of the ring.
Uh George Foreman is another example because he could hit harder than a Mack truck and and uh Bernard Hopkins, but that’s only three in the 320 year 23 year, history of modern boxing, that’s the only three guys who fought father kind to a standstill, so um yeah.
You know the fight almost didn’t come off in South Africa.
It’S the apartheid government didn’t want to allow it, but it was, and his last defense of the world heavyweight title or light heavyweight.
Title came in 1974 and I remember going to Maple Leaf Gardens to watch this because it was on the undercard of Ali, Joe Buckner, and he fought a guy named yorge ahumada from Argentina.
I never forgot his name because I thought ahu, Mata won and and the fight was declared a draw, um uh and he got dropped by ahumada and when the fight was over.
I remember my father saying well.
I think we have a new light heavyweight champion because I definitely think ahu might have Beat Foster, but he they called it a draw.
Sometimes, when it’s an old Champion like that, a popular Champion which Foster was um, you know they they wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I’Ll tell you one thing about Bob Foster and people wrote this all the time during his career.
He brought the paint, I mean man.
Could he punch if you haven’t seen him fight, you got to go on YouTube and watch it uh, he retired after that, and came back in a year later than 75 and and then retired for good 1978 at the age of 36, and then he just um.
You know he went into uh policing because that’s you know he’d been dabbling in that all through his career, so he became a police officer of the uh Bernard little County Sheriff’s department and he became a detective and a well-known policeman uh.
He had a very um, tragic personal life, he his first wife.
He had four children married a lady named Pearl divorced and then a married lady named Sue.
They had a child named Nelson and then he married Patricia saez and 82, and then she took her own life in 84 and then Foster has had got married a fourth time to a lady named Rosetta.
Benjamin and I remembered you know this was only eight years ago – he died at the age of 73 November 21st um 215 and he was in a hospital in Albuquerque and it was sad I mean he, he lived, he was 73 and still I think you would Look at it today as not enough years for anyone, but but you know in the time I gotten to meet him a couple times: he he he just uh what he’s just a real gentleman, just a kind person who treated everyone well and you you know, except For his physique and his nose, which is like most boxers, knows and his callous hands, you wouldn’t know that he was a boxer because of his manner uh.
He had uh 65 fights, 56 wins.
Eight losses of his 65 fights 46 were Knockouts.
This is a man who was devastating when you got in close, and he was the first and I think only person to cut Muhammad Ali Ali beat him, but he got cut him over Ali’s left eye and that in itself was a victory for him, because no One had ever done that before, but when Ali went back to the corner Angel Dundee said stop playing with this guy go out, get rid of him, and Ali did Ali was the Ali said, I’m the much bigger man and physically stronger, and you know Ali made That distinction between the 60s and the 70s and the 60s I could win with my speed with my feet and my hands in the 70s.
I had to knock people out because the speed was gone.
Uh Bob Foster dagger fought a great fight, as I said it.
Only lasted four rounds, but when you launched that knockout you just get such a rise, you know it’s almost.
It’S exhilarating, not for Dick Tiger, of course, but uh it was.
As Gene former said, when he got knocked up by Sugar, Ray Robinson.
It’S the painless way to go because it’s the punches, you don’t see to get you out of there and tiger.
You know his head.
He wasn’t looking at the left hand, he was ducking and, as as he came up straight to back out of a uh of enclosed, he was backing out you always back out with your hands up in a Crouch.
He backed out straight up, which is actually a European way to fight, and that’s what they do a lot in Europe and he fought in Europe a long time, but Foster is waiting for it.
I don’t know what the left hand and ended it and he fell in sections.
You know he just hit his head like a tetherball, his knees went, you know and and then his midsection then his chest and then his head and the thud.
You know like when you hear something dropped off a building and Foster was the kind of guy, as I said before, and it’s happened with Dick Tiger and Corey, but a lot of other Fighters man he knocked you out.
There was always a fear that he could end someone’s life.
It’S almost remarkable that Bob Foster didn’t kill anyone in the ring.
Given his tremendous punching power.
But people don’t know the backstories, you get a guy like Foster and tiger and you see them fighting at the elite level for a long time and you think well, you know they make tons of money, not true.
You know they didn’t make tons of money and tiger had a big family back in Nigeria, had the support and was giving money to Biafra for the Civil War to his friends there.
So my friend Ron Lipton who’s a great referee and a real Manch, and he knew Dick Tiger well and and nothing but great things to say about him.
He said he was just section.
Gentlemen.
You know Dick Tiger was the kind of guy when he was living in New York.
You know he might say Iran, let’s go out for breakfast or you know it’s one o’clock, you know what I’m going to go out and get an afternoon paper.
Okay, I’ll meet! You I’m gon na go for a coffee and tiger would have a suit and tie and an overflow time and a bowler hat and Ron would say why are you dressing up champ for getting a newspaper? He said? Well, you know I’m a world champion.
I have to look dignified.
I have to look respectful.
That’S that’s.
You know, that’s what I have to present to the world.
It’S disrespectful to have to treat other people if I was to dress sloppily and expect to see a world champion just well, and so I dressed well.
My own father is like that.
That was quite a common ethos.
Back then so, and and Foster is more of a cowboy.
You know if the cowboy hat and the jeans and and that now you’re saying it doesn’t really matter what they wear, but it shows you their temperaments tiger was always deadly.
Serious Foster was serious in the rain, but very casual outside of it most boxes when they’re outside of the Ring they like to forget it and enjoy their time off before they have to get into the back into the ring, because the riggers of of the fight Came mentally are as tough as they are physically.
It’S sad that we lost um tiger when we did uh at a young age but um.
I don’t think his body was ever recovered either he’s in the international Boxing Hall of Fame, as is Bob Foster and um Foster, has another one of those guys that when I met him, I thought I can’t see anyone beating this guy.
I mean look how physically big he is, but he wasn’t he was tall, but he wasn’t physically big in the way that George Foreman, physically big or Lennox Lewis.
You know Nike irons, but tremendous balance.
Tremendous leverage and could hurt you with both hands but Orthodox fighter with a great left hook and uh tiger was one of the most determined fighters ever to walk in the face of this Earth and it you know as he he was upset when he wasn’t treated Well, he treated people with dignity and – and he just thought it was so rude um when people would say nasty things about him before a fight, because he would look at his opponent and say I don’t hate you you’re, not my enemy.
This is just a professional sporting contest.
That’S all! I have nothing against you or your family, I’m trying to earn money for my family you’re, trying to earn money for your family, no reason to say nasty things about me or insult me and, of course, the fighters.
He would say that too felt really ashamed because he was right.
He didn’t hate anyone, but you know he was a two-time world middleweight champion and to Division, World middleweight and light heavyweight, and he was only five eight.
You know light heavyweights today.
You know you look at Arthur.
Budabev is what five eleven six feet tiger.
Wasn’T a big guy.
You know I’m taller than he was and and uh just a magnificent fighter to watch.
You know what he was doing in the ring at all times.
He was on top of his opponent at all times, like Joe Frazier was against Ali, accurate short hard punches, like bitter BF, and he was built to go.
The distance Foster uh.
I’D like to you know, set you up with that jab and then and then come over with the right hand, but he Foster was great if he could get your lead and then he’d count you it’s a lot of Orthodox Fighters like this.
With that vicious left hook and bang – and that was it – that is this edition of ring talk, that was a fight between Bob Foster and Dick Tiger, which Foster won the Undisputed World, light heavyweight title, and I think, next to Archie Moore, you would have to say Foster is the greatest light heavyweight champion of all time, just based on his punching power and his longevity in the ring.
I’M Lou Eisen, that’s Ring talk for this Sunday hope you enjoyed it we’ll see you again next weekend enjoy your week, bye-bye foreign
Transcribed
[, Music, ] foreign [, Music ], welcome to ring talk and we have a great fight to to uh start the or end your weekend on, I should say: May 24 1968 New York City, New York, Madison Square Garden.
It’S the world light heavyweight title fight between Dick Tiger and the world light heavyweight champion.
He had the WBA WBC titles and the Challenger Bob Foster.
Now there was a big um difference in in height Foster with uh.
Six three tiger was six eight or excuse me.
Six eight tiger was five, eight and and also uh Foster had a an 11-inch uh reach Advantage.
He was also eleven to five favorite in the fight um.
Both men took Securities roots to to get to this particular boat.
Dick Tiger was born in Nigeria and uh.
A magbo Nigeria August 24th 1929.
It was known as the colony of Nigeria.
Then it was a British colony and his total boxing record.
He had 82 fights, 60 wins 27 by knockout 19 losses and three draws.
Dick Tiger was built like a Sherman tank thick, huge thighs that were as big as other guys waists and also had a barrel chest thick arms and started boxing in in Nigeria.
And when you look at his early record, he fought guys.
You know that were named black power super black power.
You know, Mr big strong, uh hurricane wind, just odd name, so his early record is sketchy.
He did well.
He, as I said, his birth name, was actually Richard, o’hetu and, and he fought he was so aggressive when he thought that they said he fought like a tiger.
So, instead of an announcer trying to announce he had to, they just said tiger, and then he took the name Dick Tiger uh after fighting for a short time and Nigeria moved to Britain, where he didn’t have good luck.
He emigrated to Liverpool and he lost a bunch of fights uh when he first started out in Britain and because of that uh, a change manager and he got a a much better manager and he was a two-time, Undisputed World, middleweight Titleist and he you know, he’s One of those guys uh dick tagger that brought people out to the fights he put asses in the scene type he helped save boxing in that sense um, because people just would come out and pay a lot of money to see him with Dick Tiger.
You didn’t get a boring fight, no one would sit there and go boo because it was boring or nothing was happening.
If you went out to take your head off every round and he first won the title uh I guess in the 50.
I guess you first want to tell against Gene Fulmer.
He fought him in the 1950s and he won the uh fund 62.
Excuse me, but he had fought in the 1950s, so it former former been the world champion and he won a WBA awarded underweight title October 23rd 1962 and then he won uh after that he he lost it and he won it again and then uh after he Won the game, he lost it to Emile Griffith and he lost its Joey dear jello jello, and then he went up and fought.
Uh Griffith Griffith beat him, and then he went up to light heavyweight after that.
But when he won, he beat a really good Champion October 23rd.
1962.
He beat Jose Torres, it was trained by customado and customado trained Mike Tyson and Floyd Patterson and many other Fighters, and when he was starting his career out in England, he was based in Liverpool and he was getting really small purses on undercards.
His career wouldn’t move ahead and um.
He uh fought a really well-known future Champion Terry Downes, who was heavily favored.
I think there’s a bit of racism in that and they knocked him out in six rounds.
So his new management saw that they got him a great trainer and they corrected some of his errors.
You know he he would leap in at times with punches and that would expose his chin.
So he the new trainer New Management, they fixed everything and it really took off for him when he moved into the United States uh, he won um uh, you know after we started about four or five years in he’s.
In still in Britain he won the British middleweight title and he also take took 17 of 19 fights in the year that he won that so he was uh managed by uh Jersey, Jones, an independent, and then he came to America uh, as he said, to face Adversity in a whole new way um, he resisted the influence of his manager of uh, Madison Square Garden and broker deals for for uh tiger all by himself, so, rather than getting in with them uh, it was a stupid move because it caused tiger a lot of Money and he was fighting in Edmonton, which is not a which is a great city city of Champions.
But it’s not a boxing City and he was fighting for small money and he lost a really questionable decision for the Empire.
Middleweight title to Wolf Greaves and it was a fight that tiger won without a doubt.
But the ironic thing, of course, is Canadian boxer judges.
Now I’ll try to bend over backwards to help a Canadian fighter win and back then they did.
But this was the exception and wolf: Greaves won wolf.
Greaves was a great fighter.
If you don’t know wealth grades, look him up one of Canada’s greatest Fighters, um the what happened with the wolf Greaves fight, it was called the draw and then judges met and because the manager of Tiger Jones demanded a recount and then they said they made a Mistake and they’ve changed it to a win for Greaves and if you see the fight tiger dominates the fight from first to last and tiger never argued things like that.
He was very honest uh, but in the long run it caused him and uh.
The great writer AJ liebling, if you don’t know AJ liebling um, he was the one that labeled it the sweet science and he uh.
He want Dick Tiger take on Henry Hank, another fighter, an unsung great fighter from that era and the way liebling it became a template the way he described Dick Tiger.
He said Dick Tiger had a chest like an old-fashioned black office, safe, dropping away to a slender waist big thighs and slender legs.
He boxed classically his arms tight against his sides.
He would box like this from a Crouch uh and at the beginning of each punch.
Um, you know he would throw straight punches from the shoulder and he was methodical with his shots.
He knew where to place them and he was sort of like Arthur bitter B have threw the shots and shirt Arts uh.
They didn’t travel, much distance, four inches.
Three inches but boy when they landed, they had a lot of impact and um.
He uh.
Gene Fulmer was a guy who was like one of my favorite Fighters.
I was lucky enough to meet.
Fullmer was built like a Sherman tank.
He was a heavyweight in the middleweight’s body and to have a guy like that and challenge him for the title I mean Fulmer had a lot of wear and tear, but still that’s a tough fight and he said tiger was a tough guy.
You know I went to Nigeria to fight him and – and I don’t know what happened, he just beat me and he beat me bad and uh uh.
He said didn’t matter.
If um, my mom or dad was a referee.
I couldn’t have won one round from tiger.
In Nigeria, because he was so strong and so dominating Fighters like to take time off in the ring, so after a clinch, a walk back, a couple, you know feet five ten feet hit you up their trunks tiger.
Didn’T do that.
If you did that against him, he was in top here right away.
Whacking you to the body into the head, and so tiger didn’t have a lot of Knockouts.
You know he’s more of a distance fighter and uh.
He was very frustrated because he lost the title to Joey giordello and you know: there’s a return plots you get a return match, but giordell didn’t honor it.
He made him wait two years before he fought him and beat him again and um.
You know he he.
He said if I’d come to America and met giordello and his kind of people first, I would have gone home, because this is not how you treat people.
He said you can’t sign a contract for a certain date to fight and then just decide not to honor.
It so um uh tiger wanted to trade punches with him, and gerardello was more of a stick of move boxer and giordell apparently said to Howard Post cell.
I wouldn’t trade stamps with him, let alone punches so uh.
You know he was a solid guy.
He was a decent guy, he he I’m not saying he was smart, but he he didn’t put on theirs and he had the face.
Uh, the uncomfortable Bob Foster Foster was 6’3 and he was just a magnificent light Headway.
You you can uh go on YouTube and look at Bob Foster Foster is interesting because uh, when you look at him, I mean it’s.
A big slender guy and his management early on incorrectly tried to get him into the heavyweight division and the reason for that was there’s more money in the heavyweight as a light, heavy light Foster couldn’t fight heavyweight at six foot.
Three 175 pounds was his maximum, so he had to go up to, like you know, 185 190, and that just wasn’t good enough.
He lost to Doug Jones, who uh George Cheval knocked out, and Ali B, but Jones came close to beating a young Cassius Clay when they fought.
But the thing with that was Foster was the bigger man but Jones who himself had been a light.
Heavy had come up and wait, and he was just physically too big.
For God, like Foster, Foster, got knocked out by Joe Frazier.
He got stopped by Ernie Terrell, who was six six and he also got stopped by by Muhammad Ali.
He what he he periodically after.
He won the light.
Heavyweight title would go up and fight various heavyweights, but his luck never changed.
He wasn’t physically strong enough to deal with a heavyweight punch, but I’m telling you when you saw him fight, someone like Mike Corey, Jerry, Corey’s younger brother, and he hit him with a left hook.
Corey was out for 30 minutes and people.
When I watched that fight, you know I thought he’d kill them and most people thought he killed him like the announcers weren’t, even talking it.
It was the most devastating knockout I’ve ever seen and just fell on his back his arms splayed by his side, and he was out and they’re giving the smelling salts and they’re rep.
You know turning his head and nothing and they had doctors working on him for a long time and finally, he came around, but he was never the same again.
You know in or out of the ring Bob Foster at late heavyweight was a devastating puncher and very few people could could uh withstand what he could do.
Um he was born uh Bob Foster in Texas, but moved to Albuquerque and Albuquerque became his home.
You know what’s interesting about that, of course, is is um with Albuquerque is home.
Um years later he became a sheriff.
He was a deputy sheriff originally, but he was the sheriff down there.
In Albuquerque and George Cheval, one of the sons I think Mitch was driving there and he pulled him over and I don’t know if it was for speeding.
But for some infraction and Foster has to see his driver’s license and he showed it to him in the wallet and he said chevalo, you know, George, it’s my dad so foster was so kind.
He called him.
You know went back to the station and said I have your son Mitch here and George’s worried.
He said no, no! No! He was just, I think he said he was just speeding a bit, but I’m not going to give him a ticket.
I just want to let you know he’s all right and that’s the kind of guy he was.
He had a very deep voice like James Earl Jones and uh.
As I said, six foot three born April 27, 1942 in Borger, Texas and um.
You know 13 years younger than uh Dick Tiger, who was August 14th, 1929 and uh Foster.
You know, went through the light heavyweight division.
He just started to flatten people like it was no one’s business, so he he fought in the Air Force.
He won uh Air Force tournaments, he won the AAU, he won the Pan-American games and um.
He uh won the Golden Gloves and he started his professional career on March 27, 1961 knocked out a guy named Duke Williams in Washington DC uh in two rounds uh.
He also had bad management.
It’S it’s.
It’S hard to um understate how critical good management is and guide you all the way you know, Angela Dundee’s Fighters have good management through him and his brother Chris, and that’s very important to get the right fight to the right time.
You fight someone, that’s a bit better than you, but you can beat them, but you can also learn from him.
This didn’t happen, so foster went around fighting in different places, Eastern United States, Eastern Canada, and he wasn’t making much money.
He was earning the short end.
Money and working his butt off and then his first loss came against Doug Jones in four rounds when his manager thought yeah we’ll take the money grab and go up, not realizing that you know Foster was doing well as a light.
Heavy leave him alone, but uh.
The manager didn’t care about his welfare Foster when he fought in the amateurs was actually a middleweight, but because of his size you know he kept putting on weight and he went back to the States.
James management and he started to get these quick.
Knockouts Foster was an orthodox fighter, but he had the one to pass left hooks, I’ve ever seen and in 1964 he made a mistake because he went up the heavyweight again and fought Ernie Terrell, who was six six two forty and Trail just decimated him and uh.
Then he had three more uh knockout wins at life heavyweight and he beat a lot of good guys, Don Quinn he beat in the first round, but the big one was when he knocked out Henry Hank Henry hangs one of those unsung heroes.
In boxing we didn’t win a title, but it was always in the top ranked in the top two.
Three all the time, always a tough fighter sort of a gatekeeper, uh 1965 comes along, he wins.
Four fights loses one B tank again but lose to Zorro Foley.
Another heavyweight by decision fully lost to Ali and to uh listen, so these These Guys these heavyweights, he just can’t compete.
He doesn’t have the poundage on his body, the armor, to take these kind of shots from how big the heavyweights are his punch.
He can hit his punch, is devastating at light heavy weight, but at heavy weight it’s a good punch, but it’s not a knockout punch, so he beats Leroy Green in uh, 1968 or 66.
Excuse me by 1967 um.
He wants to.
You know still give heavyweight a try, but he’s frustrated and the ring ratings come out and he’s ranked number one at light.
Heavy ranked number one light heavy weight.
So he figures: why not concentrate on this? You know there’s so much more money at heavyweight and but you just can’t succeed it heavily, so he was frustrated and he started improve his quality of opposition.
So he beats Eddie cotton, who became a referee as we all know, and Sonny Moore and then, after that he was rated as the number one Challenger for Delight heavyweight title, and this happened in 1968.
He got his shot at Madison Square Garden.
On May 24th March 24th, excuse me and May 24th.
I got that wrong and he fights Dick Tiger and the disparity in weight and necessarily wait.
But excuse me height, the disparity in height is so dramatic.
You is, it almost looks like an optical illusion, because you know you have one.
You know Tigers down here.
He’S here he’s got a punch down and he 11 to five favorite and you wanted to fight and he comes out and he’s jabbing tiger and tiger is trying to get by his job, but he can’t Foster’s job is so quick and of course, Foster’s hungry.
All the years of fighting you know eight to ten years of fighting and getting screwed over and ripped off and and all the disappointments, and this is one chance to grab it and get money and tigers.
Doing his best tiger fought from an exaggerated Crouch, which was smart, she refunding a guy that that is, that much taller you want to make your uh height differential.
You want to exaggerate, you exaggerate it.
You want to make your weakness, your strength, yeah, so they’re going at it and Foster’s winning the rounds uh first round, he wins.
The site shift lead second round you can tell tiger is frustrated.
Dick Tiger is very frustrated.
Um.
This title means everything to him, because tiger had a lot of frustration in his career.
He was one of the few Champions I think lost his first six professional fights or whatever, but kept going because he had such a belief in himself and he took on all comers.
You know um and there’s no way to avoid Bob Foster at that point, because he was the young crown light heavyweight champion.
So Tiger has the belt.
You know that he won from Jose Torres and Jose Torres wanted for mantel Dundee’s finder Willie pastrano, who won from Harold Johnson, and you know these.
These were all great fights and they’re fighting and second round third round goes to Foster and it’s such a dramatic thing, because you can see it in color on YouTube, where you know: Tigers, bopping and weaving and trying to get fostered to commit.
So he can counter him and he he ducks and as he comes up, Foster clocks him with the left hand, it’s the only time and Dick Tiger’s career of almost 70 fights that he got knocked out.
Cold he’s flattened on the campus, his head.
It still shakes me up.
His head makes a huge thud when it hits the gambits Bang and then he he lifts his head up a bit and then he’s back he’s out.
He can’t move and he you know he needed to be.
He needed medical attention and Bob Foster is going crazy, but it just seemed like an odd thing to me to watch because the disparity in height and reach it almost seemed like a grown man punishing his son, but it was a dramatic knockout.
It’S one of the most dramatic Knockouts I’ve ever seen and Foster reached the Mountaintop.
He achieves his goal.
The tiger at that point unfortunately didn’t have many years to live.
Dick Tiger, as I said, is from Nigeria and Nigeria was going through a civil war where a part of Nigeria named Biafra, wanted to separate so he fought on.
But he went back and fought in Nigeria and then he just he.
He came back to the states to fight a bit, went back to Nigeria to Biafra in the Civil War and he disappeared, and we don’t know how he what happened to him.
We know that he died uh at the age of 42 December 14th, 1971 in in um Abba, a colony of Nigeria, and it’s it’s sad uh.
They found out that he died from cancer.
He known he’d had cancer for a long time, but he didn’t tell anyone.
He didn’t want people to feel so informed and treat him differently.
You know his record, he had 82 fights, 60 wins, 27 Knockouts, 19 losses and three draws and a lot of those losses.
I would say a good eight.
Nine of them, at least, were were um uh.
How would I say suspicious? You know fights that were close, but because he didn’t have the power in his corner to make the judges honest, he didn’t get the decision.
Um Foster went on.
You know they had a common opponent.
Frankie de Paulo Frankie De Paula is a book out on him.
He’S an interesting guy.
He was a full-time mobster, a gangster who killed people, but but he was also a light heavyweight and so tiger beat him and he challenged.
Uh Foster for the World Heavyweight or for the world light heavyweight title now.
The interesting thing is, Foster, wins the title and then he beats Charlie polite by a knockout and then he uh Beats uh another fighter named Vic, and then he he uh uh, Roger Rouse and uh.
Who was a well-known fighter back then? He beats them all by knockout Tigers.
Getting Knockouts in every fight now he’s going for it.
So in 69 he fights a guy named Frankie De Paula and they’re, not in the same class.
In terms of skill I mean Foster.
Is an all-time great into koala? Isn’T but somehow, as happens in boxing from time to time, the stars align and to Paula not Foster down and all 16 000 people, Madison Square Gardens stood up in gasp at the same time.
This can’t happen.
I mean DePaula was a man of the people, the people loved them.
You know he’s a.
He was a a people’s fighter, they always cheered him and Foster, gets up.
You know they wipe his gloves off moves his head around.
You could see his whole physical chemistry.
Changing walks over and bang quick left hook and DePaula is out cold and sometimes it’s better to let the tiger keep sleeping, because if you wake him up, you’re going to pay a fearful price and that’s exactly what happened to Frankie De Paula.
It’S a fascinating story, but he just dropped him and destroyed him um.
He knocked out Andy Kendall in 1969 and he closed in 1960s went into the 70s with two more Knockouts so foster.
I remember watching him and I was born in 1960, so I grew up watching Bob Foster and uh his voice always scared me because it was such a deep bass voice uh after he wins the light heavyweight title uh.
He has two more trips.
He wants to make to the heavyweight Division, and now he gets more money.
He gets more money because he’s the world light heavyweight champion he’s not just a light heavyweight going up, so they got to pay more money.
Uh he easily beats Lou, Wallace or Lee Wallace.
Excuse me Lou always wrote Ben her uh Lee Wallace.
He wrote he beat him in six rounds by a knockout.
Wallace was a fringe Contender, always in and around the top, 15 or 20, but never really breaking any higher than that, and then in a defense.
The hell against Roger Rouse and he was upset because Roger routes made comments um about Foster before the fight which weren’t particularly uh kind, and he knocked Foster out in one round you know or Roger Rose Foster was not a guy.
You wanted to piss off you.
Don’T want to get on his bad site because a lot of Fighters when they get angry, they don’t fight well Foster, fought better when he was angry so to piss him off.
You know, as Angel Dundee said to me.
The guy already wants to bash your face and why give him more motivation to do that by bad mouthing him just doesn’t make sense, and you know he beats a guy named Mark testman in 10 rounds, and then he makes the mistake.
He’S got a challenge for the title and he figures, maybe lightning will strike twice because I’m 6’3 Joe Frazier is 5-11 at most and but Frazier was a born heavyweight.
He was heavy set, you know 210 and he could really punch.
Fish was one of the all-time greats.
Best left hook may be in the history of the sport and he he Foster fights him and he hangs in there the first round but Frasier’s just finding the range he’s throwing left Hooks and they’re just missing, and I remember you know the announcer saying well Foster Better be careful because, despite the height difference, Frazier’s coming awfully close Treacher had no respect for Foster’s power, because his attitude was he’s a light heavy weight.
I let him hit me with his best shot, I’m not going anywhere and in the second round he cats It Foster with a left hook and bye.
Bye Bob Foster that was it and uh Foster it’s frustrating because after that, he defeats a guy named Hal Carroll by knockout in four rounds and and then the alphabet boys started to get greedy and wanted more money for each title.
Defense and Foster was saying to him.
You can’t do this.
I agree to pay you this much to defend your belt.
Now you come back with just before the fight and say uh.
Now we want double or triple yeah.
I mean all the sanctioning bodies: WBA WBC um, ibf, WBO, they’re, all run by criminals, they’re criminal organizations and um they’ve done more to hurt the sport than they have to help the sport and WBA stripped him the title, but he was still recognized by the WBC.
As a champion, because the WBC and WBA dislike each other intensely, they still do so foster became a rage at the WBA and WB set up a fight between Vicente Rondon and Jimmy Dupree Ron, Don Juan and um.
He Foster said.
Okay, you want to give it to him I’ll fight him and Foster.
You know in a row beat quickly beats Ray Anderson, Tommy, Hicks and Brian Kelly, and then he meets Ron Don and the unification boat and he’s he’s 1972 April 7th.
It’S in Miami and boy Foster and just a ring with the look.
It’S the look of a man that was about to execute another man.
He was just determined, focused lasered in and he goes out and he’s just pummeling Ron Don in the first round.
Second round comes – and you know when you you don’t really you’re – not really supposed to technically go for a knockout in boxing, because if you do you’re taking a risk and you’re going to get hurt, but Foster was smart, he was a smart boxer.
He started everything with his left jab because it opened up his body and allowed him to come over the top with the right straight right hand, and he comes after Ron Don in the second round, and you know he’s trying to decapitate him and he catches him With a shot and Rondon is out, I mean out out and Foster probably enjoyed this victory, uh almost as much as winning the lottery titled first time from Dick Tiger, so foster goes on and he keeps fighting and the fight comes up on November.
21St.
1972.
.
That’S! When Muhammad Ali was fighting uh, Jerry, Corey and Corey is watching his brother Mike fight him and wow.
You know Corey’s hanging in there.
People are, I remember the broadcast with the broadcasters are saying Corey’s doing better than we thought he would.
He Quarry is hanging in there with Bob Foster.
No one thought he would go this far and the fourth round he caught with that.
You know: fight, ending lights out, night uh left hook and Corey.
Like I said before, I thought Corey was dead.
I really thought he was dead, I mean he hit the canvas, bang and you know no one moved Foster, thought he was dead, Foster, didn’t leave the ring, he just stood in his car and staring at him and uh there’s a great photo of Oscar walking away Seconds later, just looking back at him um, but thankfully Corey got options.
He was fine and that thought was uh amazing, but uh.
It was also special because it was the late great meals Lane for it’s about as a referee, and he said from that bout to the end of his career.
He never saw a knockout like that and he refereed for a long time and um.
He fought again in 1973 against a guy named Pierre Fury.
He made a mistake of fighting in South Africa, and people got really upset about it and he did it because he was black and Pierre, for he was white and I um he beat him the first time around and then the rematch in South Africa uh.
You know he defeated him again on points, so he was starting to slip by this time.
You know he’d been boxing since 1959 professionally, so this is 13 years into his career and there’s a lot of wear and tear boxers stamina and strength and the length of his career aren’t infinite not by any means.
You only have so much before your body says.
That’S enough, there are Rarities like Archie Moore who, because of racism, was denied a shot at the light, had really duddled for a long time and still kept kept on, but he kept himself in phenomenal shape in and out of the ring.
Uh George Foreman is another example because he could hit harder than a Mack truck and and uh Bernard Hopkins, but that’s only three in the 320 year 23 year, history of modern boxing, that’s the only three guys who fought father kind to a standstill, so um yeah.
You know the fight almost didn’t come off in South Africa.
It’S the apartheid government didn’t want to allow it, but it was, and his last defense of the world heavyweight title or light heavyweight.
Title came in 1974 and I remember going to Maple Leaf Gardens to watch this because it was on the undercard of Ali, Joe Buckner, and he fought a guy named yorge ahumada from Argentina.
I never forgot his name because I thought ahu, Mata won and and the fight was declared a draw, um uh and he got dropped by ahumada and when the fight was over.
I remember my father saying well.
I think we have a new light heavyweight champion because I definitely think ahu might have Beat Foster, but he they called it a draw.
Sometimes, when it’s an old Champion like that, a popular Champion which Foster was um, you know they they wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I’Ll tell you one thing about Bob Foster and people wrote this all the time during his career.
He brought the paint, I mean man.
Could he punch if you haven’t seen him fight, you got to go on YouTube and watch it uh, he retired after that, and came back in a year later than 75 and and then retired for good 1978 at the age of 36, and then he just um.
You know he went into uh policing because that’s you know he’d been dabbling in that all through his career, so he became a police officer of the uh Bernard little County Sheriff’s department and he became a detective and a well-known policeman uh.
He had a very um, tragic personal life, he his first wife.
He had four children married a lady named Pearl divorced and then a married lady named Sue.
They had a child named Nelson and then he married Patricia saez and 82, and then she took her own life in 84 and then Foster has had got married a fourth time to a lady named Rosetta.
Benjamin and I remembered you know this was only eight years ago – he died at the age of 73 November 21st um 215 and he was in a hospital in Albuquerque and it was sad I mean he, he lived, he was 73 and still I think you would Look at it today as not enough years for anyone, but but you know in the time I gotten to meet him a couple times: he he he just uh what he’s just a real gentleman, just a kind person who treated everyone well and you you know, except For his physique and his nose, which is like most boxers, knows and his callous hands, you wouldn’t know that he was a boxer because of his manner uh.
He had uh 65 fights, 56 wins.
Eight losses of his 65 fights 46 were Knockouts.
This is a man who was devastating when you got in close, and he was the first and I think only person to cut Muhammad Ali Ali beat him, but he got cut him over Ali’s left eye and that in itself was a victory for him, because no One had ever done that before, but when Ali went back to the corner Angel Dundee said stop playing with this guy go out, get rid of him, and Ali did Ali was the Ali said, I’m the much bigger man and physically stronger, and you know Ali made That distinction between the 60s and the 70s and the 60s I could win with my speed with my feet and my hands in the 70s.
I had to knock people out because the speed was gone.
Uh Bob Foster dagger fought a great fight, as I said it.
Only lasted four rounds, but when you launched that knockout you just get such a rise, you know it’s almost.
It’S exhilarating, not for Dick Tiger, of course, but uh it was.
As Gene former said, when he got knocked up by Sugar, Ray Robinson.
It’S the painless way to go because it’s the punches, you don’t see to get you out of there and tiger.
You know his head.
He wasn’t looking at the left hand, he was ducking and, as as he came up straight to back out of a uh of enclosed, he was backing out you always back out with your hands up in a Crouch.
He backed out straight up, which is actually a European way to fight, and that’s what they do a lot in Europe and he fought in Europe a long time, but Foster is waiting for it.
I don’t know what the left hand and ended it and he fell in sections.
You know he just hit his head like a tetherball, his knees went, you know and and then his midsection then his chest and then his head and the thud.
You know like when you hear something dropped off a building and Foster was the kind of guy, as I said before, and it’s happened with Dick Tiger and Corey, but a lot of other Fighters man he knocked you out.
There was always a fear that he could end someone’s life.
It’S almost remarkable that Bob Foster didn’t kill anyone in the ring.
Given his tremendous punching power.
But people don’t know the backstories, you get a guy like Foster and tiger and you see them fighting at the elite level for a long time and you think well, you know they make tons of money, not true.
You know they didn’t make tons of money and tiger had a big family back in Nigeria, had the support and was giving money to Biafra for the Civil War to his friends there.
So my friend Ron Lipton who’s a great referee and a real Manch, and he knew Dick Tiger well and and nothing but great things to say about him.
He said he was just section.
Gentlemen.
You know Dick Tiger was the kind of guy when he was living in New York.
You know he might say Iran, let’s go out for breakfast or you know it’s one o’clock, you know what I’m going to go out and get an afternoon paper.
Okay, I’ll meet! You I’m gon na go for a coffee and tiger would have a suit and tie and an overflow time and a bowler hat and Ron would say why are you dressing up champ for getting a newspaper? He said? Well, you know I’m a world champion.
I have to look dignified.
I have to look respectful.
That’S that’s.
You know, that’s what I have to present to the world.
It’S disrespectful to have to treat other people if I was to dress sloppily and expect to see a world champion just well, and so I dressed well.
My own father is like that.
That was quite a common ethos.
Back then so, and and Foster is more of a cowboy.
You know if the cowboy hat and the jeans and and that now you’re saying it doesn’t really matter what they wear, but it shows you their temperaments tiger was always deadly.
Serious Foster was serious in the rain, but very casual outside of it most boxes when they’re outside of the Ring they like to forget it and enjoy their time off before they have to get into the back into the ring, because the riggers of of the fight Came mentally are as tough as they are physically.
It’S sad that we lost um tiger when we did uh at a young age but um.
I don’t think his body was ever recovered either he’s in the international Boxing Hall of Fame, as is Bob Foster and um Foster, has another one of those guys that when I met him, I thought I can’t see anyone beating this guy.
I mean look how physically big he is, but he wasn’t he was tall, but he wasn’t physically big in the way that George Foreman, physically big or Lennox Lewis.
You know Nike irons, but tremendous balance.
Tremendous leverage and could hurt you with both hands but Orthodox fighter with a great left hook and uh tiger was one of the most determined fighters ever to walk in the face of this Earth and it you know as he he was upset when he wasn’t treated Well, he treated people with dignity and – and he just thought it was so rude um when people would say nasty things about him before a fight, because he would look at his opponent and say I don’t hate you you’re, not my enemy.
This is just a professional sporting contest.
That’S all! I have nothing against you or your family, I’m trying to earn money for my family you’re, trying to earn money for your family, no reason to say nasty things about me or insult me and, of course, the fighters.
He would say that too felt really ashamed because he was right.
He didn’t hate anyone, but you know he was a two-time world middleweight champion and to Division, World middleweight and light heavyweight, and he was only five eight.
You know light heavyweights today.
You know you look at Arthur.
Budabev is what five eleven six feet tiger.
Wasn’T a big guy.
You know I’m taller than he was and and uh just a magnificent fighter to watch.
You know what he was doing in the ring at all times.
He was on top of his opponent at all times, like Joe Frazier was against Ali, accurate short hard punches, like bitter BF, and he was built to go.
The distance Foster uh.
I’D like to you know, set you up with that jab and then and then come over with the right hand, but he Foster was great if he could get your lead and then he’d count you it’s a lot of Orthodox Fighters like this.
With that vicious left hook and bang – and that was it – that is this edition of ring talk, that was a fight between Bob Foster and Dick Tiger, which Foster won the Undisputed World, light heavyweight title, and I think, next to Archie Moore, you would have to say Foster is the greatest light heavyweight champion of all time, just based on his punching power and his longevity in the ring.
I’M Lou Eisen, that’s Ring talk for this Sunday hope you enjoyed it we’ll see you again next weekend enjoy your week, bye-bye foreign
Contact The Hosts