AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 33
This week Neil discusses his heroes – and this week great fighters from @Philadelphia and boxing in general. Talkin’ Fight Monday to Friday on YouTube or LIVE at talkinfight.com/live Weekday’s at 7pm EST (6:30 on Fridays) #boxinghistory @The World of Boxing! @titleboxingphilly @philadboxing #boxingphiladelphia @USA Boxing
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#boxer #boxing #boxingtalkshow
Transcribed:
Hello, talking fight fans welcome once again to another episode of neil the deal featuring neil the deal himself and our ongoing exploration of the americas, various cities, countries, territories, regions, uh they’ve, produced great fighters over the years, uh we’ve and we’ve spanned many decades.
In our exploration of the americas, by the way tonight we’re going to take a look at philadelphia.
What do you got for us? Neil hey good evening, graham thanks for having me out tonight, hello guys all you talking fight fans, neil the deal show fans thanks for coming out tonight, guys really appreciate it.
Yeah, graham so uh we’re gon na talk a little bit about, like you had said, um fighters around the americas, all right, so we have just recently talked about the five guys.
I felt that were the the big five say of detroit out of the motor city.
Uh, so we know who those guys are um you guys can go back.
Obviously, there’s joe lewis, sugar, ray robinson, floyd, mayweather, right, uh, tommy hearns, so there’s there’s a whole bunch of guys out of detroit that hillmer kenti right.
So you talk, look look at those guys check it out talk to talk amongst your buddies or whatever and uh.
You know always check it out, so we’re gon na move from detroit now we’re moving into pennsylvania, the state of pennsylvania, primarily in philadelphia.
Graham, we all know a lot of fighters at affiliate, correct growing up.
We all know that it’s a fight in town, even rocky, said that in the movie didn’t he he did exactly basically glorified philadelphia is the place to be, if you’re a boxer.
I guess you know the life story of chuck webner, as we talked about on an earlier episode, but uh yeah.
So we’re going to talk guys tonight about the five well we’ll talk about one.
So we’ll do one a day, we’ll see how it goes.
We’Ve already done a bunch all right, so let’s uh, let’s just recap what we’ve done and what we’re going to do moving forward as far as these fighters in philly.
So i’m going to go through a list of guys that were uh big time, philly fighters, the ones that i felt you know were on the list.
I had to determine what five were going to be on that list.
So, let’s just go through the list of guys that i feel from philadelphia made their mark in boxing were amazing, uh at their craft and uh.
I was, i watched them all at one time or another and be it like old videos, old old stuff, whatever it may be, but these guys are a lot of them.
I’Ve never heard of graham so i spent today looking at some of these guys and crazy stuff man.
You know what i mean.
So, let’s go through the list.
Uh we’re gon na start at the top.
Basically, i feel the the best boxer ever of all time out of uh philly would be just my personal opinion for me would be bernard hopkins right.
I mean that’s disputable, but bernard hopkins did a lot of things in many weight classes.
In many divisions he won multiple, multiple titles.
He he would.
We grew up in jail.
He was a boxer in jail.
Like i mean you look at that guy’s life story.
You know he’s a hell of a hell of a fighter like over his unbelievable.
So i got hopkins there philly fighter number one moving down the list.
We got joe frazier smoking, joe.
Obviously we all know smoking joe.
The eastern assassin larry holmes comes in around third, we have another guy here, a world champion x, world champion bernie briscoe.
I don’t know if you guys have ever heard of bernie briscoe, but he was a hell of a hell of a champion of his of his day.
Then we go to jersey, joe walcott, one of my faves uh.
Then we move on to a big big name that we probably all know sunny liston from the philadelphia area.
Then we move up into uh earlier guys like newer guys, like meldrick taylor, philadelphia, danny garcia, all right, danny garcia is a serious cat.
There burke cooper, we talked about smoking, bert cooper, uh, you know with the willie dewitt thing back in the back in an earlier episode, tim witherspoon, i don’t know if you guys remember him.
He was a wba heavyweight champion of the world, for, i believe, a couple of times not very long but he’s a good fighter.
Witherspoon matthew, matthew, uh assad muhammad another great fighter out of philly dwight muhammad cowie.
We talked about him in a in an earlier episode.
Graham then, the couple of guys that i hadn’t really heard of – but i checked them out today – a guy named tommy, lagren, logren, logren or something l-a-u-g-h-r-a-n lagren, he’s a light heavyweight champion uh out of philly back in the day longren and apparently he was uh he’s Right at the top of the list and another guy that was interesting, guys that i checked out now.
He never won a title gram but apparently he’s like one of the best fighters out of philly.
I’Ve never heard of him, but i checked him out.
The name and same was lou tendler lou tendler.
He was, it was like not 1898.
He was born in 1898 or something and uh he lived until 1970 and they ranked him surprisingly enough without winning a title.
They ranked him uh the number 10 best light heavyweight in the world like all time, but he never won the title.
He had a couple of shots.
He didn’t win the title, so i was interesting.
Talk, like you know, checking him out learning a little bit more about him, and i was thinking of talking about him, but i think we’re going to talk about a guy.
You know i thought about it this afternoon.
This guy needs needs to be on that list.
So uh, graham we’re going to talk about jersey, joe walcott tonight, out of philly, all right cool, awesome, you’ve heard of him.
I guess you’ve heard of him right.
Yep, yeah, yeah, he’s uh.
You know he was before my time but uh.
I remember my dad talking about him how good he was and uh he had some memorable fights like big ones, joe lewis.
He fought joe lewis uh.
He fought a bunch of guys that were like of their era the big like rocky marciano.
He fought him.
You know he literally had to he fought the biggest and the best of his time.
So let’s just go over his uh.
His stats is a little bit about his life and what he was up to so he was not born jersey, joe walcott.
He was born.
Arnold raymond cream, that’s cream! C-R-E-A-M! You know the stuff you put in your coffee, so i would have never known how do you get jersey, joe walcott out of arnold raymond, green? Well, i’ll! Tell you how it happened so he had a boyhood idol, a boxing idol and his name was joe walcott.
So his idol as a kid was joe walcott.
So because he’s from jersey, he just called himself jersey, joe walcott, and that’s how he got his name.
That’S pretty good, you know what i mean like.
How do you pick your name? That’S how he did it.
It was pretty interesting, so crazy, stuff, hey like i never knew that, like you know so, anyways guys, let’s just go through a bunch of his stuff here, born january 31st, 1914, all right in uh, pensalokin, new jersey, pennsylvan, new jersey, uh.
Then he moved to i.
I understand he moved to camden new jersey later on in his life and uh and that and he died february 25th 1994.
in camden new jersey.
So he won the world heavyweight title in 1951 and he lost the title in 1952.
So he didn’t hold the title for very long and it took him a long time to actually get the title shot.
I believe well at the time of winning the title.
Graham, he was the oldest heavyweight to ever win the world heavyweight championship title.
He was 37 years old right and at that time that was the oldest guy.
Now that record was beat by one other heavyweight, individual and uh.
I’M going to ask you graeme, you got any idea who that might be uh.
Is it from the modern era? Yeah? Oh yeah, like a larry holmes kind of guy ish yeah, is yeah ish, george foreman, bingo, good guess, graham, that’s the guy.
George farman won the heavyweight world championship title when he was 45.
and i believe that was against michael moore.
If i do remember correctly, so he was 45 years old, so until foreman won the title at 45 jersey, joe walcott, was the oldest man to ever hold the heavyweight world championship title so just an interesting little tidbit about that.
He uh he was one of 11 brothers and sisters all right, so he had a big family and uh, and just you know he basically he had to fight to put food on the table.
Apparently i mean when you have 11, kids and stuff your dad works in a factory and your mom’s kind of washing clothes for a living.
I guess or whatever there’s not a lot of there’s.
Not a lot of you know opportunity right.
So his dad worked in a soup factory or something you know what i mean it was like and 15 years old uh.
He took up boxing, that’s what he decided.
He’D just take up boxing and uh, and then he was watching this individual, the guy, the joe walcott.
The boxer was out of the barbados, graham joe walcott.
So if we look up joel walcott out of the barbados, i’d be interested to see actually who that guy is right.
It was his idol.
So there’s something i was planning on doing today, but we got a little busier.
So anyways we’re gon na go over his pro we’re gon na go over his pro uh stats right here right now, so he had a pretty big career, so he had 71 fights total.
Graham 71.
51 wins 13 losses.
Two draws he had 32 knockouts out of the 51 wins that gives him a knockout percentage of 44, so he wasn’t too bad in the knockout percentage range.
You know he was almost at the 50, but he can’t win them all like that.
So but he he obviously won the majority of his fights so uh.
Oh i’m sorry! I believe he lost 18 grand, not 13.
If i said 13, it’s 18.
, so he turned pro september 1930 and uh.
It took him 17 years, graham to get a title shot and he fought joe lewis for the title uh december 5th 1947, and he was at that time, even the oldest guy to fight for the title.
He was 33 years old, um right, so he lost a 15 round.
Uh split decision very controversial, graham, if you watch that fight the first one between uh jersey, joe and joe lewis, apparently most of the people that saw the fight or were at the fight or whatever at that time said that uh he got robbed and he won The fight, so it was just back in those days.
Graham, there was a lot of stuff going on, as we all know, in the back rooms and the under the ground and whatever you want to call it and stuff.
There was a lot of so who knows what was going on right, but apparently he won the fight and was he lost the fight, so he they? I guess that’s what happened so the other thing that was interesting, so he had they had a rematch in 1948 and he lost again.
He got knocked out in the 11th round, so split decision, the first one knocked out.
Second one, and then he didn’t get a title.
You know he didn’t get a chance for a few more years, but the thing that was interesting too about that fight, graham the first one.
I believe the bout was the first closed-circuit television broadcast distributed for uh for tv theater for the television first time.
That’S ever happened in the history of so cctv.
I guess they call it right.
Close circuit television first match ever closed circuit, joel like who knew right.
It’S kind of interesting, so uh, then he then he fought a guy.
We talked about earlier on uh, as for charles right.
Remember that one graham ezra charles yeah yeah yeah, so he he won the title from ezra charles in a 15 round to see he got a 15 round decision.
He only won the title, but then he lost the title uh.
He he lo.
No, he lost.
He lost the first one in a 15-round decision and then he then he ko charles in the in the second match, all right, which was was three months after the first one.
So the first one was may 7th 51 and the second was july, 18th.
51.
.
So he finally won the title, and that was actually his fifth try at winning the title.
You know what i mean, graham.
He had fought four times before that for the title and lost all four and finally won the one, but then like i said he only defended it once and then he ran into rocky marciano and then uh.
That’S you know he.
He basically walcott was ahead in that in the fight it’s crazy.
That was the fight that i was watching today was marciano walcott, so because it says walcott was winning the fight and here’s another one of marciano fight, that’s kind of like you know, but in the end marciano wins.
You know what i mean so for 12 rounds.
He buy, he basically was beating marciano, graham, like he won at least nine of the rounds that i watched easy.
But then, of course, in the 13th round out comes rocky marciano with that signature punch to the head.
That just basically puts you into the third row, and that was it.
It was like he was like.
I believe it was considered one of the hardest punches or something of all time again like it was like, because walcott was winning the fight so so easily and then all of a sudden.
Oh you know.
If we got knocked down, i seen it.
He fell against the ropes, he tried to get up and he was just still like real woozy, so they just called it right there.
So they had a rematch on may 15 1953 and he lost again to marciano first round knockout crushed one, and that was it that was he retired.
After that fight.
That was his last fight.
He got knocked out in the first round by rocky marciano and decided all right.
I guess this is enough for me, you know what are you gon na do right, so so anyways, it’s a great career with the guy.
I really you know, checking out those fights today were really fun to be honest with you, so in his retirement guys he was pretty cool like you know, he did a bunch of really cool stuff that that i was like wow.
That’S that’s really cool.
So he started doing like uh acting of course, they all get into little small, acting roles and tv roles and then interesting enough.
He became a referee.
Well, i guess they appointed him as referee and he was the ref between uh, ali and liston fight.
I kind of remember this because my dad mentioned this and he did it.
Apparently he did a.
It was a very controversial job that he did in that fight and uh.
He kind of botched it.
Graham.
If you watch the list in ali fight, he kind of botched it right so um, then they just basically told him he’s not he’s, not refining any more fights.
After that he got fired for life.
He literally he just got fired.
He was like because if you watch the fight it is, i don’t want to say anything guys, but just go check it out yourself and so ali liston, with jersey, joe ref, in the thing right so in night.
So then i guess that just didn’t work out.
Grandma, you know yeah, so he decided he went back to camden and uh between 71 and 74.
He was the camden county sheriff of the uh of the county, first african american sheriff in new jersey history, so which was an interesting thought and then uh 75 to 84.
He became the chairman of the new jersey state, athletic commission.
So he’s like the one.
That’S funny enough, he went from refereeing and now he’s sanctioning the fights and hiring the referees.
You know what i mean, so he is the commission.
There you go so i guess he got back at them for firing him for being a raft.
Now he’s took everybody’s job, so that was it right, so he did that funny enough too.
I thought this was kind of a joker.
Apparently, in 1963 he decided he wanted to try pro wrestling and he fought an old wrestler that i remember my mom used to talk about this guy and his name was lou fez.
You ever heard of him graham luther’s yeah that one does not ring a bell.
He’S like he’s like gorgeous george, remember that guy yes like this is you know what i mean like 1950s wrestling of billy red lions, maple leaf wrestling like just crazy stuff right anyway, this luther’s guy remember him.
He was a big bruiser anyway, he lost so wrestling.
Wasn’T for him he said: forget that i’ll, just i’ll, just i’ll just run the cop shop and then become the state.
Commissioner, it’s fine, so he was inducted into the new jersey hall of fame in 2013 um and he was also inducted into the international boxing hall of fame.
I believe it was in 1984, but i’m not 100 sure, but he’s definitely in there, so notable quick fights.
Graham guys, thanks a lot for everything, the likes chairs everything thanks for coming out tonight and we’ll just go through these quick notable fights and get you back watching whatever you’re doing over there, all right, so uh notable fights jersey, joe walcott versus marciano, one and two Check them out that one with right, crazy, anyways, walcott, ezra james uh as urgent ezra, charles guys, sorry ezra, charles uh.
He fought him four times.
Graham, they fought four times.
So i think ezra charles won.
Three and uh walcott won one and that’s the guy that he actually won the title from so that was it and then uh, walcott and uh joe lewis.
I figured you know you guys would like to see that one, it’s a really good fight.
Uh.
Very.
We won that fight.
He should have won the title that year 51, but he had to wait a little while to to get to finally win it.
So thanks a lot all you guys out there uh to the jersey, joe walcott, uh family, if you’re watching out there rest in peace there, joe thanks a lot for our blazing career, wicked, wicked and uh.
Hey you go down in history as one of the best of all time, and especially out of the philadelphia area.
So you got to thank those philly fighters, they’re, bringing them up from what all the time you guys are coming in with new fighters.
It’S philly.
You know what i’m saying: that’s what they do over there right, graham an awful awful lot of gyms right now, operating in philadelphia, producing a lot of great fighters for sure for sure and by the way, let’s, let’s add a little bit of history, uh football to This uh jersey, joe walcott, took his name from barbados, joe walcott, who passed away in 1935 um, but he had the name barbados, joe walcott, because there was already another joe walcott fighting who was from guyana so but yeah.
But barbados, joe walcott, was actually the first um.
I think he was fighting the welterweight yeah, so he he was the first black man to capture the world welterweight championship in like 1901.
I believe so.
The guy goes way way back, so he must have been a a huge hero for jersey, joe walcott, and an inspiration and that’s why so there you go.
That’S awesome man right on thanks a lot.
That’S really cool uh! You know! That’S that just gives us a little more insight on how he ended up becoming jersey, joe walcott, i mean, like you, said, he’s he was an idol, but i didn’t really know who this jer well.
Joe walcott from barbados was but that that’s really neat how that kind of it kind of played on for more than just that it was.
It was like it was really a nice story, you know what i mean like uh, you know, i’m sure, i’m sure the joe walcott, the first i guess, would uh be pretty proud to say that you know a guy from you know.
Pennsylvania philadelphia is going to decide to use his name and, and then just you know, have a great career with it right.
So it’s pretty cool, pretty cool stuff.
I haven’t checked this out, is uh jersey, joe walcott, actually from philadelphia, or is he actually from jersey? Because new jersey, yeah he’s from uh new jersey right so he’s actually from jersey, okay right, so it was uh s-a-u-k-a-n, but then he moved to camden.
He basically, but that’s normal.
He was always known as a fighter out of philly right i mean philly and jersey.
I guess they go hand in hand.
I guess maybe we’ll get some back flash about that.
I don’t know, but he he’s he’s he’s he’s under he’s under the same uh philly boxers and like he’s under he’s, considered a philadelphia boxer for whatever reason you know, although a little a little a little sidebar uh, basically philadelphia’s across the river, from uh, new jersey And on the other side, in new jersey, there’s a small town just a few miles away from that particular bridge.
I’M thinking of it’s called cherry hill and in cherry hill is where you might.
You might have heard of cherry hill because of the nfl films, and i don’t know if they’re still there, but they cherry hill became quite famous for holding the studio where nfl films produced all their great moments of nfl.
She has nothing to do with boxing uh.
The exception may be of a few sons of famous boxers who played in the nfl um, but anyway, uh just thought i’d.
Let you know that uh new jersey, borders, uh philadelphia and you cross the bridge into philly uh and if you go backwards, uh into new jersey, south jersey, uh you’ll come across a relatively small town of cherry hill and that’s small town cherry hill you’ll find nfl.
Well, i don’t know if it’s still there we’d have to google that, but there’s a little bit of history for you and uh.
Maybe an hour up, the road is uh camden in north jersey, cool, interesting man.
Yeah see i’ve never been down that way, myself.
So uh i like that.
I like geography.
I like history, that’s what we’re you know.
I love boxing the history of boxing, the history of sports.
You know yeah, i, like all kinds of i like all kinds of history, so so anyways guys yeah, that’s really interesting! Stuff and uh, i want to thank you again for coming out watching the show tonight.
I want to say hi a couple of my friends amanda, i hope you’re having a good day uh the guys up north.
I hear you’re digging out.
I talked to a friend of mine, graham today he said the snow was up to his waist wow, like literally as like he’s got mega snow he’s about.
I don’t know four hours from here five hours north right and he said it’s just he’s.
Having a hard time, even with this, with a snow machine, so there’s a lot of snow man, so we’re dealing with that, but uh everything’s cool, not too bad.
We’Re uh getting ready to watch the leafs today again tonight: hey graham, let’s uh! That’S right! That’S right! A little better, a little better performance this evening, so uh, but thanks guys for coming out for the jersey, joe walcott, we’re going to talk a little bit tomorrow, more about some philly fighters.
We got uh one left and the five so like.
I said if you guys want to go back and check out any of these other philly fighters.
We did episodes on them already uh.
They would be joe lewis, uh, thomas hearns and uh and uh joe fraser right.
So we did those.
Today we did jersey, joe walcott tomorrow we got another surprise for you to top out the top five and then uh we’ll see you then stay warm thanks.
A lot and uh guys cheers have a good evening.
Graham thanks, yeah, no problem.
Let me just clarify camden’s across the river from philadelphia.
Sorry, you don’t have to go to north jersey and south jersey.
Cam is right across the river.
That’S where it is it’s uh anyway, there’s several bridges out of philadelphia and camden is uh right across the river.
That’S probably why he was probably he probably i’ll bet he went to gyms in philadelphia.
He trained in philadelphia i’m guessing now, but then yeah, like.
I said, good point for our viewers to send in some comments because uh uh, i’m not kidding like camden’s here across the river there’s philadelphia.
So – and you know, as i say that it’d be interesting to see whether uh he trained in philadelphia or trained in camden and just simply became known kind of like if you’re from uh, you know ajax or pickering and and all of a sudden, you say.
Well, i’m actually from someone who’s from another part of the world.
You say: well, i’m i’m from toronto because you know toronto, but you might not know ajax or pickering, so maybe he was telling everyone he’s from philadelphia, because that’s the huge city compared to say cam.
I don’t know i’m just assuming that camden is like uh like a mississauga to toronto type of thing.
I think the outskirts of the big city yeah, it’s literally across the river uh um yeah yeah yeah, anything, oh cool, yeah.
I’M sure a lot of the guys.
I i mean people in that region.
I guess i’ve always heard they they kind of go back and forth, because it’s pretty pretty close, it’s pretty close, like jersey to phil.
You know what i mean you can go over those bridges and you’re like you’re there.
You know 15 20 minutes over the bridge.
You’Re in two different states, yeah over the bridge is yeah you’re, one state and one and then over the bridge is the other state right anyway, so yeah.
So we got some more fighters in philadelphia to highlight and showcase yeah and yeah.
If the viewers out there uh go back scroll back, a few episodes, you’ll find uh ezra, charles and uh quite a few other episodes on the americas and because we’ve been highlighting quite a few prominent well-known great fighters from the americas, north, south and central america.
Absolutely we’re going to keep it rocking we’re going to do we’re going to do a few other cities, graham right, we’re gon na.
I hope so all right we’re gon na go right through the americas and see what we can find.
As a matter of fact, uh tomorrow night on the friday night panel uh, we have montel griffin as our guest and he’s actually from chicago, and he had the pleasure of fighting uh roy jones jr in his career and uh tommy anyway.
He so we’re gon na talk about his career uh as a professional and, more importantly, talk about what he’s doing right now in chicago and that is giving back to community.
He runs quite a few gyms uh for youth and uh.
You know keeping them involved, keeping them active and showing them the relevancy of boxing so yeah as we you and i continue spread our wings and and investigate and evaluate and analyze all these different regions.
We’Re going to find a lot of great fighters right on montel griffin, hey i like him yeah, he was a really good fighter.
I used to love watching him and yeah.
He fought roy jones jr and he fought james tony yeah.
So i was like i know exactly who you’re talking about mr griffin.
Thank you very much for coming out to see us and talk and fight neil.
The deal says: hi loved your career buddy.
That was awesome, so yeah.
Graham, thank that’s great news that montel’s coming out to talk with us.
That’S awesome! That’S great news, guys so check that out tomorrow.
After the neil, the deal show we’re going to move right into montel.
Is that correct? That is correct? That’S awesome i’ll be watching for sure.
Like 100, that’s awesome! So thanks a lot ken again guys thanks a lot for everything.
Uh like shares comments.
If you got anything to say about uh this jersey, joe uh, camden philly thing, i don’t know penn stocking or wherever he says he’s from so let us know if you guys know anything about uh what what is the official or, if you’re from jersey are you From jersey, or are you actually from fitness? That’S the place you’re from new jersey, it’s the state of new jersey, so pennsylvania’s to the separate streams yep.
So new jerseys.
These guys confuse me all the time.
So you got new york up here in the north.
You got new jersey coming down the coast there, and then you got pennsylvania running off to the west, wow all right cool.
Well, i guess he ain’t from philly, then i don’t know.
I guess i don’t know how to explain that.
He’S he’s considered a philly fighter.
So we’ll just we’ll consider him a jersey, philly fighter.
I guess all right well until until someone challenges us and says come on boys knuckle up, maybe we’ll call his family and say: can we change his name to philly joe walt joe alcott, joel walcott? There you go that’s once he changes his name to philadelphia, jaw, uh dude, joe walcott, then then it’ll be solidified.
Then we know where he’s from exactly all right, thanks again, hey, hopefully uh.
Hopefully we do well tonight.
Hope you guys have a good night.
Take care yourselves, amanda again nice to see you honey talk to you again, uh tomorrow, come on, see you tomorrow.
Thank you right on guys.
Thank you have a good evening.
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