AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 59
{“type”:”block”,”srcClientIds”:[“273f4eab-0bad-4cbd-9481-f1812bf78107″],”srcRootClientId”:””}Calvin Coolidge Lytle, better known by his professional names Bert Lytell and Chocolate Kid, was an American boxer and middleweight contender in the 1940s and early 1950s. He and Booker were of the famous “Murderers Row” group of black boxers, along with the likes of Charley Burley, Holman Williams and Jack Chase, avoided by other elite fighters of the era because of their ability and their skin colour. Watch The Scoop from Monday to Friday featuring Canadian heavyweight champ Bola Ray, who lends his vast experience in the sport and provides his comments and analysis on boxing, on YouTube and TalkinFight.com/live. #boxinghistory @eddiefudge @Black Lives Matter #racialequality @racism . . . #boxer #boxing #boxingtalkshow
Transcribed:
Hello talk and fight fans around the world.
Thank you for joining us.
Welcome once again to another episode of the scoop featuring the champ bola ray who’s in, as i said, the opposite corner today, uh, but ready with all uh guns blazing to give us.
I think actually a double barrel, shotgun approach to the show tonight, um, why not right there you got you got two guys lined up absolutely absolutely um, as i’ve mentioned in a few my episodes this week.
It’S nothing shy of rage, inducing to think of the treatment that some of the african-american fighters had to endure.
Last century.
The black murderers row were eight fighters of which i’ve showcased now three this week, um thus far, but today i’m doing something a little different in that i’m gon na actually showcase two of them and not because they’re any less significant as much as there’s just not That much written on which speaks volumes in its own right.
My name is bola raymond, and this is the scoop born somewhere in texas, which again speaks volume because i’ve scoured the internet looking for exact location of his place of birth.
It just says: texas, texas, is a big place.
Um november 5th 1917 was none other than hilton, edward or eddie, as his friends would call him.
Booker now at some young age, his family or him alone migrated to san jose california, and that is where his boxing career began.
Now uh a title-winning amateur uh boxer was rumored to be incredibly popular and in the net in that neck of woods of california.
And this popularity cascaded right into his professional career, the ring was the most natural habitat for this guy um booker was seen as a complete fighter in that he had impressive muscular uh physique and was willing to box, but also was love to throw down at any Chance he got so um was often compared to the legendary heavyweight champion jack johnson um, because he too would do this technique of catching his opponent’s punch and then, with that same hand, launching a a counter attack, it’s um yeah.
It was.
It was, i wouldn’t say revolutionary for the day, but it was.
It was definitely uh unique for the day.
You know um, due to his membership.
In the most exclusive boxing fraternity, the black murderers wrote, his choice of dance partners was limited to mostly non-whites and definitely never a world title dance.
What he did have is the opportunity to fight his fraternity brothers.
Several times the results speak loudly.
He finished his career with a record of 65 or 66 wins five losses and eight draws 34 knockouts taboo.
That includes a record of three wins two losses and three draws against fellow members of the hall of fame famers.
Like the coca kid you know: um lloyd, marshall and archie moore, even holman williams.
I did a show on him.
A couple days ago, booker went one win and two draws against moore one of the great fighters in history and was the first to knock out more, which was no small feat, to say the least, that was in 1944, the mongoose went down four times in the Fight and was stopped by the referee in the eighth round moore was was unable to continue now moore thought, like incredibly highly of booker, just thought he was.
He was a cat’s ass, actually one of the greatest of all time in his in his opinion, um.
He actually said i had some rough fights in my time, but all things being equal when i was in my prime one of the toughest had to be against eddie booker, a fighting machine who shadow punches with dealt precision.
Booker was one of the greatest fighters of my time.
He had me fighting for my dear life as far as i’m concerned.
That’S quite the testimonial from one who some revere to be in the top five greatest fighters of all time, so victories again against some of the best west coast.
Battlers such as the hogan twins, bob burch and lloyd marshall, earned him his world ranking now winning the california state middleweight title against big boy, hoyg uh.
He went on to defend it twice where he fought to withdraw with moore and then after that lost a 15 round close decision um to the brilliant, absolutely brilliant jack chase, a match with legendary charlie burley, never materialized with eddie confessing to the his sparring partner that Broly was just about the best that was out there so a little bit of cold feet a little bit of uh underestimation, underestimate under estimation wow.
Don’T think that’s a word, but let’s work on that um underestimating himself.
Let’S go with that.
Um booker was revered as being a good guy in and out of the ring uh with his boyish smile.
He won people’s friendships rather easily and well with all that going for him.
He was still victimized by racism in the in the day in the sport of boxing, but also by the more notably ugly side of professional boxing in a second last fight, um against holman or sorry in his second fight against holmen, which was his last fight period.
Uh booker won the fight in a decision but because holman had doctored his glove booker suffered like permanent damage to his eye, which rendered him blind for the remainder of his life wow.
But he won the fight um yeah.
He left the ring at the incredibly young age of 26 and the rest of his life.
He was blind.
He achieved so much now january 26, [, Music, ], 1975.
filton edward booker passed the other side at the ripe young age of 57.
2017.
He was inducted into the international boxing hall of fame and it couldn’t okay well, it should have come a lot a lot before that, but that i really hope that they do something and to honor the men, because he was for such a young man, a career That last that span a professional career that spent eight years he was able to amass over 80 fights and with, like 66 wins of those 80 fights, the man was a star now.
The second athlete that i’m going to feature today is early years, where nothing shy of an enigma simply because he could have had one of two beginnings like yeah.
On one hand, his um, his birth name could have been calvin coolridge lyle from victoria uh from victoria texas, and then he started boxing in the u.
s navy.
While others say that he was born in fresco california and took the name from some silent movie.
Star um had over 30 fights, while he was in the army either way.
The chocolate kid was in the ring named was genuinely the southpaw sensation that tore through the late 40s and early 50s in the middleweight division.
We’Re talking about none other than forgive me.
We’Ll talk about none other than bert mattel outside of um or actually he was gifted or his gift was his biggest curse in that just like much of the others in the fraternity of black murderers wrote, he was avoided by the high rate or highly ranked white Fighters and even the legendary sher gray robinson, this has been a sobering week because i literally thought that robinson could walk on water, um, yeah outside of jake lamotta and walter popeye.
Woods bert had to resort to fighting other fraternity brothers to sustain his boxing career, and these fights were nothing shy of epic burt.
Remember was remembered as being gifted and difficult to be.
He was often ranked in the top 10 in the world and was ranked as high as fi as fifth and yet his phone never rang for a world title shot different time.
In 1948, the trial was involved in two exciting fights, with talented, with the talented uh but doomed jackie uh dat heart.
The slicker had over 30 bouts in his first two years as a professional and was ranked amongst the top five middleweights at by the time.
He was 18 years old.
The first fight was declared a draw, though most people thought in the trial.
The tell uh was a clear winner, but in the return the turret, the telescope uh, scored a seventh round ko of that heart, where he never regained consciousness.
Despite his apparent success amongst the middleweight and light heavyweight, the frisco southpaw of fresno southpaw was also fall short of gaining a world title shot in his final two years as a pro littell dropped, a decision to archie, moore and i’d, say, town again and finally, in October of 1951 to julian keane, the world middleweight champion.
Randy chirpin used him as a sparring partner when the british fighter was defending his crown against yours, truly sugary, robinson in new york uh.
But after the boat with keane, bert patrol appeared to vanish from boxing almost as mysteriously as he appeared, he was just never heard.
No, never heard of didn’t fight and spar didn’t do anything.
It was later, then deduced um january 26, 1990, two days after his 66th birthday, the chocolate kid was no longer.
You know tell me that both these stories wouldn’t make incredible movies.
Like i don’t know, it was a trying time.
It was hard for me to to ingest um the just the blatant racism and the unfair environment that these fighters had to to go through and they were entertaining.
They were entertaining the masses, but they weren’t being compensated anywhere remotely close to their white counterparts.
Um.
Do you it wasn’t? It wasn’t uh an oddity to find one um and and should be told.
How can you blame them for this, but you find them having to take on side jobs, working for the mob, um collections or, more importantly, door? Knockers, let’s say door knockers, you know um, but again, how can you fault them? They weren’t making anything or virtually anything right.
It was a little nasty to speak of it’s funny.
You bring up uh the powers that be back then because they honestly did control from what i’ve heard from your stories a lot of the boxing madness and mayhem.
Quite frankly, i have to wonder if, in those back rooms and the smoky back rooms that we see in the movies uh, you know where those powers that beat them up uh, whether they didn’t, because i couldn’t see uh a black fighter, not wanting to fight a White fighter, i couldn’t see a white fighter, not one fight, a black fighter if they were both best in their respective divisions.
If they were both best of the best, you would think their boxing mentality would say.
Yes, i want to go against that guy because they wouldn’t care, but so i have to.
I have to wonder whether it’s the powers that be who would say.
No, no, it’s we have the the black fighters over.
Here we have the white fighters, which i just i can’t figure it, but anyway, i’m just wondering whether the powers of b had made those decisions, not necessarily the fighters.
It would be a combination of the two um what i’m reading, especially when it came to sugary robinson.
Was he even in time? Sometimes his handlers told him or put him out there to fight all comers and he would make the decision he’s not fighting the black murderer, israel.
He doesn’t want anything to do with him because he knows that he get beat um.
These guys were more like these guys were devastating fighters, devastating fighting um, and it was more you.
You would think that it would be more of a scenario where they would just they’d want the challenge, but it’s more.
I learned this the hard way in the amateurs you want to fight the best and you have.
You have no fear about fighting anybody, but when it comes to the pros, it’s a business and you don’t want to fight the best until you’re compensated properly for it and even after you’re compensated properly for it.
Sometimes you don’t want that challenge when you want you how you want to be knocked off your perch being on top.
That is what i’m seeing to be the reality when it comes to uh sugary robinson.
As for the other fighters, um yeah, they knew that they’d get their ass handed to him their form.
Let’S ch, let’s take the easy way out and just accept that my handlers are saying no a different time.
It’S a different, it’s a different time and unfortunately, these fighters went to their grave, not really being compensated properly for for for the gift of the they handed history.
So you know you know it’s ironic in in both the hockey world and the baseball world, both of those modern organizations have celebrated uh the fact that a lot of their early days, although there was separate leagues, etc, for the most part, they’ve been big, welcoming to All races for lack of better description and they’ve been honoring a lot of the black men who were first of their generation to enter into these white, dominated leagues, both hockey and baseball.
You know so i am kind of surprised that the boxing organizations out there these days don’t do something, as you were saying earlier, don’t do something more formal in their respective hall of fames to recognize the contributions of these black fighters, who obviously were ignored.
Okay, surpassing that little point, you know surpassing the whole point of racism, but why don’t they just give them the recognition that they’re due as fighters? I think that that’s what they think they’re doing via entering them into the international boxing hall of fame or the hall of fame hall of fame um.
I think it’s just a little bit too a little too little too late, um, there’s no remuneration that comes from it, or at least nothing sizable and, more importantly, these guys are dead.
They had, they lived, nothing shy of a struggle, their whole life and they’re.
Only getting into these uh what’s going into these hall of fames in the past two decades, most of them have been like long gone since the 90s.
So, but if i, if i was if i was uh like a kid or a grandkid of one of those fighters, i would be i’d like i’d like it to be known that my grandpa that had done that back then uh.
I 100.
I totally agree um, like i said, i thought that sugar ela robinson floated on water and to hear that he he genuinely, he was a predominantly um or actually almost all these guys were fighting out of california for a while, and he like you could either go To california and fight the best or not and be comfortable in the east, and he actually chose to not fight them, waited until who was um.
Weighed was two years out two years out called him out of retirement won the fight questionably, because wade’s uh son is saying how wade was given or was taken, um taking a bribe to take a dive.
Wow yeah took a dive and it wasn’t robinson that that planted that seed but um the promoter paid him off and over above that afterwards he hired wade to be his sparring partner and then short changed him.
So then wave beat him up.
So a guy like wade two years out, could have beaten him.
What would it happen if they had fought when he was in this prime five six years prior? This is what i call the great muhammad ali referred to him as the great shibuya robinson, and this is what what’s the great.
Despite in what arena against two, you know right right, yeah, you would argue he was up against tomato cans.
That’S exactly it! I don’t know, i wouldn’t say tomato cans, but like literally a step below right, a step below, because any one of these eight guys could have been world champions at one time or another in multiple different weight classes, so yeah he he would have had his hands.
Full to say the least: well i’m glad we live in this era.
It’S uh, it’s a lot of fun and we’re we’re seeing a lot of great fights, a lot of great fighters uh.
I think a lot of honest promoters now uh, certainly well, the the the leveling of that playing field has been that introduction of pay-per-view, quite frankly right because now now the fighters can demand as free agents for, like a better word uh, that kind of money.
The sport’s even changing it’s it’s.
Actually, it’s completely morphing into something some kind of beast.
I just don’t know anymore.
It went from it, went from the mob handling things going off and dipping their hands way too much into the scenario to pretty much the mob being cleaned up and then individual promoters running things, the don kings or bob arums.
What have you and then all of a sudden, the fighters learned a thing or two about business, and then you get the different fighters going off and having their own promotional companies like golden boy, um ricky hatton had one uh joe calzaghey had one lennox lewis had One um: what’s it called uh mayweather, has one pacquiao has one you understand.
So then, all of a sudden, now it’s the individual fighters who are doing the promotions per se per se.
Only to now you see you don’t even need to know how to box.
You have the the those two brothers, the logan paul, like just walk into oncoming traffic.
Please um like please because it’s it’s all about hype down! It’S gotten away from athleticism! It’S all about talking, [, Music, ] i’ll! Do everything i can to revert history from going down that trajectory, because it’s nothing there’s a brick wall going down? The idiots are going to get clubbed for sure when they step into the ring against a real boxer sure, but they won’t, but it was.
It was making 20 million dollars a fight, he was zapped, it was zab judah who told us that uh and i can’t remember which paul he was talking about jake, paul or logan paul was taking his training extremely seriously.
I don’t care, no, no i’m just i’m.
Just simply saying so: he’ll get beat by a real boxer anyway, and he’ll get his he’ll get his money be a pay-per-view, which is what he wants.
His millions of twitch followers will will pay him handsome if you’re getting beaten up.
And that’s that’s my point.
You have fighters who, like genuine champions, um, who didn’t make 20 million dollars in their career yeah.
There’S nothing goes off and makes it a night, or what’s that uh mcgregor made a hundred million dollar like i can count on one hand with fingers to spare the amount of fighters that made more than a hundred million dollars in their career one night this guy Made it in his first night of boxing and actually i’ll give it to him.
He didn’t do as bad as i thought he would.
Um actually showed a great deal of of athleticism um, but he should have been destroyed like it was yeah.
There’S a leveling little playing field needs to happen because this insanity, where just being able to talk, will get you rewarded to that magnitude.
Just doesn’t sit well, but i think i think it’ll it’ll all be sifted and sorted.
I, like i said i i think you know when i hear the other show hosts talk about all the up and coming great boxes and all the different weight, divisions and uh, and mike talking about that.
The knockout artists he’s discovering whether we’re talking about uh from australia, where they’re talking about from japan, where they’re talking about puerto rico anywhere in the americas or europe.
There are an awful lot of great boxers coming out in all different weight classes, properly trained, probably enthusiastic, properly aggressive and hopefully we’ll be compensated uh for that journey, uh for the chance to fight for a title for a belt.
That’S what i hope.
That’S why i hope it works.
I hope it works too.
I and i for this for the sake of the sport yeah.
I hope it works because, but this nonsense, where guys going off and not having anything, called anything and being able to garner that kind of payday well for well, it’s not just non-sustainable it’s unfortunate, because what are you telling? What are you teaching kids, where you’re teaching the next generation? You don’t need to work hard? You just need to have a big mouth and then go get, go.
Take a good trouncing.
Maybe that’s the way it’s been throughout history.
Yeah i own the fool, [ Laughter, ], the pet.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Is that what i say yeah there you go right on okay, that is the scoop.
That’S a scoop! Um! If you like this episode, please hit the like button and subscribe.
Don’T forget the notification bell, there’s your boy baller and that’s scoop.
Thanks very much we’ll see you tomorrow, night cheers
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