AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 1
Welcome to the third installment of Ring Talk, where we delve deep into the world of boxing and the Mob. In this episode, we will uncover the dark side of the ring from 1945-1960. Join us as we explore the untold stories behind the biggest fights, the most notorious characters, and the shocking conspiracies that rocked the boxing world.
In this video, we will take you on a journey through the golden age of boxing, when legends like Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Muhammad Ali rose to fame. We will examine how the Mob infiltrated the sport, controlling the champions and manipulating the outcomes of fights. You will learn about the seedy underbelly of the boxing world, where drug use, gambling, and violence were rampant. We will also reveal the shocking secrets behind some of the most infamous fights of the era, including the Louis-Schmeling rematch, the Robinson-LaMotta rivalry, and the Patterson-Johansson trilogy.
If you enjoyed this video, please hit the like button and subscribe to our channel for more “Ring Talk” content. Share this video with your friends and family who love boxing and the Mob. Also, don’t forget to turn on the notification bell, so you never miss a new episode.
Boxing, Mob, organized crime, corruption, champions, fights, legends, Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Louis-Schmeling, Robinson-LaMotta, Patterson-Johansson, drug use, gambling, violence, conspiracy, dark side, Ring Talk.
Transcribed
[ Music, ] foreign [, Music, ] boxing, author historian and columnist and podcaster.
I suppose uh welcome to ring talk and we’re going to discuss today.
Uh the Final Chapter um of uh, the mob’s influence on professional boxing 45 to 1960.
I’ll I’ll talk a bit about.
After about 1960 and Beyond, but uh as of it stands today, most of boxing, the the real criminals are in the sanctioning bodies, WBO WBA ibf and um um WBC uh there are.
There is still mob involvement today in certain ways and that uh big name Fighters have legitimate managers and and um a crew around them.
But you know they also have advisors and a lot of those advisors have criminal records associated with the mob.
And – and this is all coming from Bob Airmen as Airman said, you got to pay them an extra 250 300 Grand per fight and that’s just the way it works.
And if you don’t like it, you don’t you know, you don’t get that fighter.
So we, you can see, Fighters that you know have criminal backgrounds that have boxed even in the past couple weeks, um uh, so it’s quite prevalent, but the thing is: it’s been in the sport for 300 years, so it’s not something that you can remove overnight.
I I um liken it to Afghanistan, where you know the United States had the failed Mission.
They I mean they got.
The Taliban out and Taliban eventually came back, but they tried to put democracy in the same way that Soviet Union tried to put communism into Afghanistan, and that’s a country that for the last 5 000 years you know, has been changing.
Governments almost nightly and never had communism and never had democracy, and it’s hubris of people that think that it could actually work.
It’S never been.
There never will be there.
So inboxing the criminal elements always been there from almost the beginning.
It didn’t take a foothold to 1921.
, as I said several weeks ago, with ponche Dempsey fight, because that was the first fight to be a million dollar gate and made it worth the mobs while to get involved in the mob.
After that, when Oni Manning got out of prison in 23, 1923 really grab the sport and form the blueprint from which um Frankie carbol just improves on it and used it, along with Blinky, Palermo and hundreds of other scumbags cretans charlatans and psychotic killers that went on To run and ruin the sport because most of the fighters from then uh ended up, broke um also fighters, don’t have a union, but a lot of the I mean you see certain Fighters like Ray Leonard who didn’t end up broke because he he had legal representation.
He also had Angela Dundee to look after him too, which helped and was able to keep his money and a lot of times these Fighters.
You know they’re coming up from broke backgrounds, very impoverished, and so when you get a guy like Wilfredo Benitez, who was a champion at 17 and and now is broken living on handouts from people um, you know he’s being supported a lot by John, the Iceman Scully And other Scully and other people Russ Amber who are sending him money uh.
This is quite common and it’s unfortunate but boxers, don’t you know coming from a poor background, you don’t know how to handle your money.
You want to get everything that everyone else has all the gadgets and cars and watches and jewelry, and rather than do What Lennox Lewis did, which is just save it all.
You know, Lennox has one car and that’s it can’t drive anymore, one simple watch and that’s it.
You know.
As he said, I have a family and I don’t want to end up broke and have them make a comeback years later.
So I saved my money.
I make it work for me and he was smart about that now when we look at the mob, unboxing uh you’re, looking at fixed fights and fights are fixed in several ways: uh, if you couldn’t get the fighter to agree to go down, you know the fighter.
Basically, if the fighter wouldn’t say if the fighter refused to take a dive and go down when he was told to go down, he simply would never get another meaning meaningful or worthwhile fighting in, and it was certainly lose that fight, even when he’s dropped.
The other guy 10 times he would still lose the fight because carbo and his cronies would get to the referee and the judges and make sure it was scored uh the way they wanted it scored.
So you would have fights you know, such as the Gavilan um.
Kid Gavilan Jimmy uh, Johnny, Saxton, Welterweight, Title Fight in Philadelphia and 57 and the great writer Bud showberg wrote about that and he said this is a fight that it wasn’t the best fight but gavilion dominated Saxon from beginning to end, and you know didn’t matter because The judges was going to score it for Saxton and after in the dressroom Gavilan was crying and he said I wanted to fight.
We all know I wanted to fight, but there are other forces at hand, meaning the mafia and you couldn’t you know and and and I got screwed, but none of the reporters felt sorry for him because he also benefited from the mafia when he fought Billy.
Graham, the third time Graham won the fight but mob, because Billy, Graham and his manager, Irvin Cohen, went into business with the mob.
They weren’t allowed to win the title.
So the reporters didn’t really have much sympathy for gavilion, but you have to remember Gavilan and Johnny.
Saxon all these other Fighters that work for the mob or that were on in the clutches of the mobs of everywhere.
To put it didn’t, have a choice.
They came to you, they grabbed you.
They told your manager off, they got rid of him and then that’s what happened they took over and then they took all your money and then, when you couldn’t fight it anymore, they got rid of you and these guys ended up, broken legit, uh mentally damaged, and That’S that’s the way the mob worked um in 58 19.
I know we’re starting in 1945, so I guess we’ll start with Madison Square Garden or 45.
uh in 1949, Madison Square Garden.
You know Joe Lewis was a champ from from 37 to 49.
, and so Mike Jacobs, who wasn’t well, I was having uh 20th century sporting club.
Excuse me, 20th century boxing club, which we ran um controlled by his uh brother-in-law, Saul Strauss.
Well, he himself Jacobs who’s in the hospital Strauss was not a tough guy by any means, and the mob had no problem buying them out for 100 grand to relinquish their rights to promote flights in Madison Square Garden, 100 Grand I mean today it would be 100 Million or two or three hundred names, and now it’s 100 grand 20th century sporting club was disbanded and then Along Came the big octopus, the international boxing club run by James Norris, who owned the Chicago Blackhawks the arena on the Detroit Olympia owned a lot of racehorses Uh was very wealthy and what they did was they.
They paid Joe Lewis about 150 Grand when he retired, to use his name to help promote a tournament telling Lewis that he’d get part of the money.
It’S in the tournament Lewis got nothing, he didn’t even get the 150 Grand.
You got nothing from these people.
These were mobsters and because there were Mobsters, they they didn’t um.
The chair keeps rolling away here.
The mark get excited because they were monsters.
They didn’t care, in fact Ash Resnick, who was a mobster from New York, who controlled Sonny Liston and was the one who decided list and had to go uh.
He, I don’t think he actually made the call.
I think it was a higher up, but he’s the one that said he’s becoming trouble.
He was listening to you know.
Manager looked after him and from what I’ve heard is that he used Joe Lewis as a debt collector in the 1960s.
You know in Vegas when people money did the mob and the different casinos and they didn’t pay Lewis would show up which would induce them to pay, which is sad because Lewis should not have ended up that way.
But you know he had money taken from him.
Um he’s spent his money.
Much quicker.
Lewis was an outlier in that he was his Own Worst Enemy.
He spent it much quicker than he got it and that costume, like Jacobs, told him to save it.
He didn’t save it because he was broke constantly owed.
So much money to the IRS.
He had to make a comeback and making a comeback means he had to deal with the mob and because he had to deal with the mob.
He wasn’t going to get the money he was uh guaranteed to get paid, which happened to fall, mom Fighters.
Marciano was an interesting case: um Marciano love Joe Lewis, but Marciano had mob uh help um when he thought tiger Ted Lowry and, as I mentioned the other week, I heard this from Bert sugar and several other boxing historians that he fought Lowry in 49, 48 and Tiger Taylor, who’s an African-American fighter and um he hit uh Marciano, the solar plexus.
His knee came up hit Mur.
I said this.
The other week hit Marcia hit Lowry in the groin Lottery went down, couldn’t continue genuinely hurt, so it was, he was disqualified.
Then it was changed to no decision, then it was changed to a draw and by morning it was changed to a victory for Marciano and only the mob had the power to do that.
But you know they didn’t want to Sully the mob.
Didn’T want to Sully Marciano’s reputation because he was Italian American, it’s a great fighter.
Anyways.
He didn’t need the mobs out by any means and um.
He went out of his way to try to help Fighters that were being controlled by the mob um.
In fact, his manager, uh owl, you know, worked at the Madison Square Garden for the mob and he just didn’t like his contract Marciano, so in 49 or in in 55.
He quit because when he first started, wild signed him to a mob contract which was 50 50 split and after he became champ.
He said this isn’t right, so how about 75 25? No, how about 60, 40.
or whatever? Am I no and wildwood and Budge so Marciano just said: that’s it.
I’M done I quit and the mob was infuriated with wild.
They beat him up because they said you know you let our biggest Cash Cow go and from then on after Marciano would never take a check.
I always had to be in cash because his contract was in perpetuity.
Of course, have you gone to court? The contract would have been wiped out.
It was illegal to contract while made a fight or made him sign.
But still you know, he didn’t know that you could do that and he just accepted money in cash after him lost his job.
Because because, while I treated so many fighters like garbage on behalf of the mob that those Fighters when he was fired, didn’t have anything to do with him, um we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves.
So we’re in the 1940s and and there were a lot of people that were in boxing that um um, you know these are all monsters like Felix butchichio and he he trained or the manager of Jersey, Joe Walcott and uh other Fighters and Patricio.
We also had Curtis Hatchet Man Shepard and he was associated with the New Jersey, Bob and Lucky Luciano in Philadelphia’s, mobhead Angelo Bruno, and he killed a police officer earlier in his career.
He gone to prison for for, for robbery and for assault and, and he presented himself as his businessman and he genuinely like Walcott and forward him the money and he got well caught to fight.
This is very important against Lewis, the first fight, because Walcott had no chance.
He wasn’t known to the public then, and walk out of retired and he’d had enough.
He wasn’t getting anywhere, so he got a job on.
You know working uh for the war department on the docks making good money at five children, so he was very reluctant to get back into boxing butchio fixed it for him, paid him money and and uh fixed it that he got a fight with uh Joe Lewis, Which, based on his ranking, he shouldn’t have gotten a fight or lack of ranking, but the mob could do that same with uh Nathan.
Brown was a fighter controlled by Dutch Schultz, and Schultz got him to fight against Lewis.
Of course, Lewis demolished him when Brown didn’t deserve a fight but uh for the world title.
But when you have Dutch Schultz behind you saying to other people, you know especially Lewis’s managers, uh uh, John Roxborough or Julian black.
It was like you’re gon na get.
You know your gangsters too, um we’re gon na fight your guy and if you don’t you’re, going to be in trouble and they said, okay, you get a shot at the title.
Hi Alistair credit Shepard said Archie Moore those knit hats he used to wear, or so I read just watching.
I’M glad you liked, I’m glad you loved the show.
Thank you.
I love your comments.
So a lot of these Fighters had no choice but to hook up with them all what was Joe Lewis gon na do? He doesn’t spend his income so back then, in the 40s you had guys like Bernie Glickman glickman’s, an interesting guy.
He was a hired killer for the Chicago outfit, the outfit, the mob, the most powerful mob entity, even more so than Luciano’s outfit at that time, in boxing and Glickman was later associated with honey Terrell, but clickman had a lot of Fighters and a lot of these Fighters you know Glickman would be in the corner and you’d be wondering.
Why is Clinton in the corner he’s not a manager? He knows not a trainer.
He knows nothing about boxing doesn’t know how to fill a water bottle, doesn’t know how to train, to wrap a Fighter’s hands, he’s a professional killer, but he’s there.
This is what they meant by having muscle in your court.
Cheval didn’t have that George Chevelle didn’t have the muscle to make the judges on it.
So if you had a mob guy in your corner, you know – and the other guy may have been a mob guy too.
But the fact that you had a mob guy meant the judges would have to be on the up and up they were going to have to you know if he had two mob guys, they were going to have to be legit unless one side had more power, But but she rather than have that a lot of Fighters didn’t have that, and these guys were terrifying people.
And now there was a fight between middleweight’s Rocky cast, Delaney and Ernie.
Durando and castellani was favored to win and durando was is believed, was going to go down and and and uh durando, I believe, won and Castle.
Annie uh durando flipped, the script and Tommy Eboli was later associated with uh uh Atlantic Records.
Tommy bully was a small time mob guy then, and he was the manager of of um cast and landing and he uh he attacked the Ray Miller.
The referee.
He stopped tried to stop him, but didn’t know that Ray Miller was the former number one ranked featherweight in the world, so Miller didn’t hit him back because Miller knew you can’t lay hands on a mob guy, but Miller had no problem blocking his punches to staying Out of his way, and then he went and you know, uh Eboli went and used the name.
Tommy Ryan beat up a guy in the New York State, athletic commission, all this in public and he was banned for life.
And at that point I mean he was in a bit of a spot because the mob didn’t like bring having attention brought to them.
And now, by doing this, you’re bringing FBI attention, New York, State Police attention and the courts get involved and the mob sang to Tommy Eboli.
What are you doing? We don’t want this attention, because now we can’t make money, you know so get out of the box and this this kept happening over and over and over and what led to eventual downfall, the beginning of the downfall with um or Frankie carbo.
I was calling Bernie carbo, who was a player for the Boston Red, Sox, Frankie, Cairo and it’s henchman, his vicious crony Blinky Palermo, but there were so many uh, hundreds of other guys.
You know Jaime The Mink Walman uh, William Plunkett uh Louis sorachi um.
All these different guys that they used.
You know that uh.
As I mentioned, Palermo um other people from the Lucchesi crime, family, um Caribou had hungry the champ Siegel.
He had a lot of guys that he used in boxing to help him Bugsy Siegel uh Jimmy Doyle.
James Jimmy Doyle, plummeri um Felix Patricio, Eddie coca, who is a major mob guy, a major mob killer.
So a lot of these things were, you know, planned uh, open fans in the 1940s.
What happened was you had these people involved with boxing and they were leading on Fighters? Henry Armstrong was the guy in the 30s and 40s they had no choice but to have Eddie Mead, who was associated with only Madden and Frankie carbo and Eddie Mead.
You know people were wondering that you’d see Henry Armstrong at parties with all these white people and they’re saying how did that happen and it happened because of Bob management.
You know the mob did the only color the mob saw was Green, that’s all they cared about.
Was money they didn’t care about Fighters, black or white, although they particularly treated black Fighters worse than any other Fighters? So what happened? Is you have all these people in their 30s and 40s? You know Frankie carbo and all his hordes of evil men controlling the sport.
Acting as upfront managers and matchmakers behind the scenes and whole things at first, because you’re not allowed to have a matchmaking, you can’t have any license in boxing promoter, Matchmaker manager, trainer even bucket boy and last, unless you have a clean record.
These are all felons and boxing: they use different names, of course, but boxing um, the mob paid these New York State and other commissions to look the other way.
I want this guy to manage this fighter.
They can he’s, got a record.
Here’S 100 Grand okay, we’ll give them a new name, and it was as easy as that so and it helped too, because James, what helped also was James Norris uh.
When we formed the international boxing club, he owned Madison Square Garden and he owned uh uh.
You know the Chicago Stadium and he owned the Detroit Olympia and he owned hundreds of small Arenas who had pieces of them like the Saint Nicholas Arena and and so he owned so many hundreds of pieces of Arenas around the country.
He could have a fight anywhere because he was part of it and he loved gangsters.
He just looked up to gangsters.
So when we look at different fights you, you know the gangsters controlled, the Welter lightweight featherweight, every way they wanted it to go, and you know their fights that they say well.
How did they, let Primo car Network lose to uh? Maxed hair was a mob guy, but bear had to pay the mob a certain due and a promise that he give them a percentage if he won the fight.
Otherwise he never would have got to fight.
There were fights where guys that weren’t had no mob involvement.
At all, got the fight and won, but never got the title mob.
Just wasn’t going to allow that this is what’s so special about the alley listens fights.
This is why the second alley list and fight was a real fight and not a fix, as people said, because the mob never would have agreed to.
Let Ally win the title unless they had a piece of them and they didn’t have a piece of them, but also the other.
Mitigating Factor was that Ali was the best you could get was seven to one.
So in most cases Ali was 10 15-1 and a lot of casinos was Jimmy.
Dundee pointed out to me the other week wouldn’t take bets.
It simply wouldn’t take bets on that fight, and so people said, listen was afraid a valley and took a dive in the second fight because of the Nation of Islam, the fruit of Islam, the security wing of the Nation of Islam, but list them had the mafia.
Behind him he had the Chicago outfit, the most powerful mob unit on Earth.
Why would lisden be afraid of anyone? I mean the mob could have killed anyone they wanted and you know so.
There was no reason for listening to be afraid of them.
Uh were beat listed in the second fight, of course, was the fact that he, the fight, was delayed six months and he was out of shape, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves.
So the mob had a piece of everything they had a piece of the fighters.
The managers they controlled, it all the judging the referees they got to and they got to the State athletic commissions.
They could buy off anyone, they wanted those they couldn’t buy off, they killed so, and it was amazing that this was allowed to happen, because you know during the 1940s, when carbo was in his prime.
You know he had, as I said: Eddie Coco, um, Jimmy James, Jimmy Doyle, plummeri, Frank, Blinky, Palermo, Harry champsingo, Philips, Barone, all these different people that were working for him and nothing I mean nothing.
It seems that no one had the willpower or the ability to to stand in their way, so you have many of these fights um.
Most of them that were fixed people are surprised to hear it.
Well that couldn’t have been a six fight.
It was a fixed fight, they were both mob guys.
You know, I remember arguing with someone over Chuck Davey and I said you know Chuck Davey once in a mob fighter.
I said he was, but not by his own choice.
He didn’t want to be.
He was an honest guy, but he had no choice.
Anyone fights against much better Fighters that he should have should have easily beaten him, but didn’t beat him because the mob had fixed it.
That way, and that’s one problem of being a mob fighter that you actually think you’re as good as the mob wants you to think you are and you’re not these guys are going down because they’re told to go back and um one thing that is, that is That um in the U.
S District Court in the 1940s uh there was a judge, Sylvester Rhine, and he said that the IBC of New York was a monopoly and participated in the murder of various people, such as Harry big Greenie Greenberg in California.
Who was a mob guy, who was played by Elliot Gould in the movie Bugsy and carbo was arrested for two years later, and Greenberg was a guy who was autistic.
He had the mental capacity of a seven-year-old if that and he had squealed or re-spoken with with the government, and they wanted to take him out for that, so he couldn’t hurt any more of their people.
But you know the problem for some of the guys was he’s autistic.
Carville didn’t care, you know, carbo fandom in California got a call from Bugsy Siegel.
I found him took him out for a drive and shot him in the back of the head and left him there, and also Scarborough apparently was the guy that delivered the money to the cops at the half moon hotel in Coney Island.
Where eight kid twist, the former Murder Inc guy, who was singing to the feds, was killed.
He was thrown out the tenth floor window became known as the canary who could sing, but couldn’t fly, and this that that killing was ordered by Meyer Lansky.
And there was a great comment: uh in the English paper, The Observer right about Shelbert, and he talked about Carbone Palermo, an involvement in boxing in the 50s excuse me and and the 40s in particular one fight 1954, Walter White title fight between kid gavel and John Saxton and he said Frank carbo, the mob’s unofficial commissioner for boxing – he was known as the underworld.
Czar was controlled almost all of the welterweights and middleweights, and not every fight was fixed, of course, but from time to time, Garba won his lieutenants like don’t keep playing around Philadelphia will put the fix in and when the kid gavel and Johnny Saxon fight Was Won By Saxton on a very dubious decision in 54 in Philly uh, he was covering it for Sports, Illustrated and shelberg said.
The boxing was a dirty business and it had to be cleaned up now.
It was an Open Secret that the mob was in control.
The Press knew that one and other fights are fixed and gavlan was a mobster mob, controlled fighter and Graham had been robbed of the title when he fought um 25 Gavilan and it was clear, Graham had been had it stolen from and the mom said.
The decision would be bought if it was close, the judge would always shaded the way they had been told and Saxton was managed by Blinky playing around Saxon was in particularly disliked um, throw boxing because he openly praised Palermo, but Zach come wasn’t a bright guy.
He was told to praise political, but he never got more in two or three grand to fight.
Even when he was told you’re fighting on TV he’ll get 80 grand.
You never got that and of course he had a terrible life and when he lost his title, they let him fight and use them as a punching bag.
After ended up in a mental hospital on Long Island eventually ended up at a mental institution in Florida.
After being arrested many times for break an entry, and he would still break an end to excuse me in grocery stores or laundromats or dry cleaners or convenience stores, where he was still two or three dollars, I mean he he was out of it.
They used him and discarded him, that’s what they did and Saxton was managed by Palermo, Palermo’s five one and he just was a vicious piece of garbage.
This was a man who had no problems, killing anyone and enjoyed it and he had small man syndrome.
You know guys who were that tiny want to make believe that they’re, really much bigger and that they’re more important than their height actually allows so Saxton lost his title to Tony DeMarco and you know: DeMarco had people managing him who weren’t necessarily mom but had to Pay off to the Mob, we lost his title 55 sacked into DeMarco, regained it in a 55 title.
Rematch um and that’s my mistake so sacked and loses to DeMarco DeMarco loses to Carmen basilio and then basilio loses uh the title in Chicago to Saxton.
In the fight that was fixed, it was booed, people got up and threw Chairs into the ring.
Saxton had been pummeled for 15 rounds and the cereal just he didn’t know what to do when he was being interviewed.
He wasn’t close to crying, but he said I I don’t.
I don’t know what to say.
He said I’ll, I’m going to kill him next time.
I don’t care about the title now now, I’m just going to take his life, but this was a fight that the decision was.
You know he was saying this out loud on TV.
This was the decision that was bought before the fight started.
He wasn’t backing down from the mob and Saxon made a mistake of saying: well, he’s a store loser.
I was a better man.
He doesn’t have it anymore and basilio scared a hole through him, but Sylvia looked at him and thinking to himself that’s going to cost.
You your very life next time, it’s not the title, You’re Gon na Lose it’s your life and the next fight.
He knocks him out.
I think in the eighth or ninth round and basilio had him ready to go from the first to second round on, but he wouldn’t do it.
He deliberately punished him.
He deliberately, you know, would hit him.
Have his knee sag hit him another shot, his knees with saggy more be hanging on the ropes and then he would just step back.
I mean watch and he let him recover, and then he attack him again.
He wanted to punish him, knock him out and in the third fight he said, I’m just gon na put him away for good and then end them tonight and knock money too rounds.
They made the fight started.
He was across the rain and sex and didn’t have the ability or to wherewithal to stop a basilio’s punches basilia item.
One of the first punches of the fight was a vicious left hook to the liver, and you can see that life go out of Saxton’s eyes.
His knees just sag and then basilia concentrated on the head, kept hitting the liver into two rounds.
Saxon was done and not just done and that’s like professionally.
He was done.
He fought some more, but it had nothing left to offer, but so Leo had beaten the career out of him and although basilia wasn’t a mob fighter, his managers, Joe mutual and and uh um John Dijon, still had to pay a percentage of their pay to carbo.
Uh, to get him a shot at the world story, title and also at Sugar, Ray Robinson for the middleweight title.
People always wondered was Robinson mobbed up Robinson never dealt with the mob because he was such a draw.
Boxing comes down to one thing: asses in the seats so last week we had the Ryan, Garcia, uh, travonta, Davis, fight and someone.
I asked a friend of mine, Rick Blazer online.
How much did they make and he said they made probably 10 to 8 to 10 million each and someone said why that much and he said asses in the seats they filled the stadium.
They had seven eight hundred thousand pay-per-views and their draws, and when you get to put asses in the seats you make demands, this is why Fighters you know will complain.
Well, I’m not getting Pay-Per-View fights and I should right but you’re a good great fighter, but you’re boring and people aren’t watching you.
So you know that’s what happens if you’re not a paid for a few drops, you don’t put Assets in the seats.
You don’t get.
The money where the mob came in – and this is when they had uh – they called it feeder event, television and closed circuit in the 40s and 50s and 60s, where the mob would take 80 percent of that plus 80 of the rebroadcast rights on TV Plus, 75.
80 percent of each Fighter’s money and the managers money and everything involved, so they were getting wealthy.
What the fighters weren’t so you’d think you know this guy was guaranteed 400 000 for the fight he’s walking away with 35 40 Grand while people say well, you know, taxes, training, camp expenses was basically mob taxes that were taking most of it, if not all of It um so there were so many fights back then uh that were named where the mom was was um, and I have a list here, these fights.
So it’s actually Evelyn.
It’S like.
What’S the controversial fight, however, there was written into, it was very unusual.
It was written into the contract, there absolutely no rematch under any circumstances, and that was written in because excuse me they knew Saxton was going to win and they didn’t want.
Gavilan give Gavilan another chance.
Gambling won the fight, but that wasn’t his best fight ever and Gavilan was on the down, so um Saxton basilio one were Saxton, as I said, one in Chicago that was a fixed fight in favor of Saxton and uh Rocky cast and Lionel Ernie.
Durando fight was supposed to be a fixed fight, but to Randall didn’t follow the script and there were a lot of fights: Virgil, Aikens versus Isaac, logard for the world.
You know the world of altitude title that was a fixed fight.
Aikens was a mob fighter, so it was low guard.
He had no choice.
Akins got victories over guys that he shouldn’t have got victories over um.
One fight, which I watched this past week was Aikens versus Vince Martinez.
You probably may not have heard of Vince Martinez.
He was one of the greatest welterweights of all time.
He had something like four losses out of 80 or 95.
He was a magnificent stick and move fighter.
He’D only been knocked down once or twice in 70 fights, and he had Akins knocked him down nine times in four rounds.
And when you watched a fight, Martinez, isn’t making an effort to defend himself, he’s walking in hands down and he’s getting hit with shots that he would never get hit with usually and so.
Aiken’S fight stopped after four rounds and Akins wins the world while doing title, and that was a mob setup.
Martinez was told you’re going down and you know you got ta.
Let him I mean Aiken’s Martinez was dragged, it was Corner after the fight, but he didn’t put up a fight.
He just stood there and took a beating it wasn’t.
If you watch all his other fights it wasn’t the real Vince Martinez uh.
Taking that beating.
Excuse me from Aikens it was someone else.
You know he just wasn’t making an effort problem.
Was these boxers weren’t good actors? Uh, you had a featherweight fight from that time.
Ike Chestnut versus Harold, Gomes and Frank Travis and Sammy Richmond uh manage Chestnut and Chestnut was a featherweight, but he was a mob fighter and the managers really were there on behalf of Frankie carbo same as the Canadian, Yvonne Durrell uh, the the fisherman from Bay Como, Who almost became light heavyweight world champion and he fought Clarence hinnett and Billy Edwards was the manager of record of Clarence Tennant and Billy? Edwards was a mobster working for carbo, carbo was the real manager, and so in that respect, Durrell goes into the fight, knowing that he has to do what he’s told and if he doesn’t do what he told he’s going to get hurt.
This happened later on.
Darrell was a wonderful fighter and a wonderful person and he was well loved within the sport.
He gave Archie more the best fights of his career, but him and more became very close friends and Moore did a lot to help him out, after he retired from boxing and became and had problems financially, but also the mob kept threatening him and Moore used.
His influence with Doc Kearns, who, who you know uh, was connected with the mob and knew how to use them and manage more to get people and other people to get the mob to leave Darrell alone um.
Another fight was Jimmy, Peters was a mob fighter.
He fought a guy named George chimenti.
These are all happening at the same time.
These are all February 21st or March 21st and in the late 50s, 58 and carbo managed Peters, but he used Hank Hank, Jaime The Mink, Walman and hanging them Inc.
Wellman was a Jewish Furrier Furrier.
I mean codes in that.
That’S why they called him the mink.
It was also a monster that killed people and he was an undercover manager with that license for what she got indicted for, and he was the point.
Man also a heavyweight fighter, Nino Valdez and uh fought Alex Smith at the Garden on February 21st, 1958 and carbo-controlled mid Taft, but he used hammy to make Walman as a front man.
Now.
This is an interesting fight because midtev died later not from this fight, but in the 60s he been knocked out by Ali.
He knocked he was one of three fighters to die in a short time span.
We we had um Benny good Pratt, who was also a mobbed up fighter, not by his choice but his his real manager, yamil Shad um was pushed out and Manuel Farrell, who was his other manager.
Who’S had mob Connections in New York to help correct get the fights he needed.
Pratt was a great fighter and I think would have got there anyways, because the mob didn’t care about him.
He took too many beatings and too short of time span, especially against Gene Fulmer and then fought Emil Griffith, the third time uh only three months later and died after that fight, but mob didn’t care.
In fact the Bob was so vicious.
I think he got 45.
50, grand for the third Griffith fight and the money was in the locker, his locker, but right after the fight the locker would have been during the fight.
Locker have been cleaned out.
I was told by someone it was Frank Costello who did it? I don’t know if that’s true or not.
I can’t verify that in any way, but the mob had taken his money and you know he died broke and he made all this money during fights, and that was just how a lot of mob Fighters ended up and terrible, controlled um, as I said, but used Other people and it’s interesting another Canadian fighter, Burke Emery uh, fought a guy named Don mcateer Burke, Emery um for people.
If you don’t know them, you should b-u-r-k-e -m-e-r-y Burke Emery was a great fighter.
He trained he’s trained by the great Charlie Goldman who took Marty server to the world about the way Championship.
He helped train terrible Terry McGovern for the featherweight and and ban weight title and and trained Rocky Marciano for the world heavyweight title and he he helped Burke.
Emery after his career become a trainer and Emery trained my favorite fighter, my dear friend, whom I love and adored the the Magnificent art hafee, who was the number one featherweight in the world for many years in the 70s, from Stellar to Nova Scotia, who was rated Above the world champion by Ring magazine, although he never got a title shot so perk, Emery fought, Don mcateer and mcateer was was managed by mobster, William Plunkett, but Plunkett was controlled by by Frankie Carver.
So in those fights people said well what, if you knocked the guy out if you’re knocked the guy out, it wasn’t a good thing for you.
If you knocked out a mom farted, you weren’t allowed to do that.
You were specifically told not to do that.
Um Walcott in the 40s was interesting Jersey, Joe because, with the help of Felix boccio and boccichio’s connections of Lucky Luciano and Angelo Bruno, he started to get the fights that he deserved that were commensurate with his talent level.
He had enough time to train watching Shield said I’m going to give you money to help you train and to feed your family, so he didn’t have to work two three jobs and train, and he got him.
The fights people were reluctant to fight him because he was a real cutie, but because of his mob influence because he was a mobster bocceo got those top-notch fighters to get in the ring with Walcott.
He was able to force them to and walk out one and when it came to close fights or before Walcott had been.
Screwed didn’t happen this time because he had a powerful member of the New Jersey mob uh.
You know Felix batuccio as his manager, so they weren’t going to go against the mob, Alistair Halo.
It was Maxie Rosenblum Affiliated.
Yes, he was Maxie.
Rosenblum was affiliated with Oni the killer Madness.
They were very close friends and he had that great restaurant.
You should look Alistair look up online, see if you can get a color picture of uh slapsy Maxis in Los Angeles, it’s just a gorgeous looking uh restaurant, but yes, he was mob Affiliated.
He had no choice.
There’S a lot of photos.
I have photos of him with um uh, only Madden and and uh on a beach in Atlantic City.
In fact, I might have it uh right here I’ll see if I can, if I can find it but um, it may not be the right book but um.
Yes, he was – and I don’t have the book with me at the moment – it’s about hang on one sec.
Is this it? No? This isn’t.
This is the book.
Okay! So sorry about that folks! So Aleister, I have a photo here in this book somewhere and, as you can see, I think it’s this book.
It’S about Arkansas, Godfather only Madden.
Only Madden was when I asked him pulled mob guys who was the most vicious of all these guys um.
They always say only Madden now this is an interesting picture.
The picture on the boat okay.
Now, if I can, I can only get it so close to the camera.
I don’t know what I’m doing here, but, as you can see, this man here is Henry Armstrong, and the Man in the cap is only imagine so.
Armstrong was helped by him, uh only Madden and then and there’s also in this book on imagine what’s with Mae West and I believe yeah now you ask about slapsy Maxi Alistair right, so here’s only Madden with George Raft Madden’s in the middle slapsy, Roxy Maxie and Kid, Francis another fighter: this is Atlantic Beach right, so at slapsy Maxi, that’s only matted! That’S the act of George Raft! That’S kid Francis and that’s taken, as you can see in Atlantic Beach, Atlantic City in the 30s, 20s or 30s upstairs love hanging out with boxers.
If there’s a conferred a special um coolness to them special street cred – and you see this all the time you know – is that clip online – that you can and I’m sure I’ll still you you’ve seen it millions of others of 76 Oscars and there’s Sylvester Stallone talking And who walks up behind him Muhammad Ali and yawning skills knots and he turns around yeah all these movies starts all these great movie stars through the years and and they’re nothing compared to Muhammad Ali right, because the boxers the athletes are the highest you can get On the scale and Ali was the most famous of all all athletes ever to have lived, um, yeah, Arkansas Godfather it’s by Graham known n-o-w-n.
You can get it online, he just died.
Not too many months ago I tried to contact him.
Uh only Madden was the interesting guy.
George travalynum too, and Madam was the guy who I said in the last broadcast seated part of his boxing Empire.
He had no choice because they were moving in on it and he had to leave New York because he’s getting hassled by the police to carbo employment to the Lucchesi family, because they had a meeting of the commission and the commission.
That said, listen only we’ve been good to you, we’re your allies.
We have nothing against you, but we shared bootlegging amongst all of us.
We shared the linen industry that is ride, cleaning industry we shared um, uh, the jukeboxes and and other things like that, because they love cash industry.
You can’t trace cash and you haven’t shared boxing, so you got to share if you’re going to use our muscle to help you control the sport.
At least you come on, you know, let’s have a piece of this and Madden knew he had no choice.
He had to do that and so mad and let them have a piece of it, and this is what happened so uh.
Another fight, as I mentioned I was just talking about these fights – were middle-aged Jimmy Peters, Rudy, Sawyer, Jaime to Mick.
Wallman was Peter’s manager of record, but it was really carbo and, of course, the fight that brought them down the fight that ended it for the mob was Virgil, Aikens versus Don Jordan.
Now what happens was Virgil? Aikens was the was the champ welterweight champ he’s fighting Don Jordan Jordan’s a good fighter, Akins wasn’t a great fighter and they kept threatening uh Don Jordan that he he would only get a title shot if he agreed to lose, and even though he was in Florida At the time working there, they asked uh um Chris Dundee the promoter Angela’s brother.
What how long you should they should handle the situation and he said listen and he was right.
He said Don Jordan is not mentally.
All there he’s very flighty um he’s very you know, he’s very emotional, so, even if he wins it doesn’t matter because he’s not gon na be able to hold up for very long and either Aikens or another one of your Fighters can beat him.
So don’t worry about it, you’re expanding all this energy on all these threats and taking a risk, that’s not necessary for you to take.
If you let boxing take its natural course, something surprising will always happen, and so before the fight you know, Jack Leonard, the promoter gets beaten up.
You know he’s beating up with the pipe he’s in the hospital and it’s all recorded and sent to the FBI, because he’d gone, as I said last week to the Los Angeles police, with tape saying this is Frankie carbo and Blinky plumeral uh threatening me.
Well, I would do what they say.
That’S what the police says because they’re on the mobs payroll LAPD, so what he did was you know he contacted the FBI.
He’D been after them for years tape, them um and Don nesseth said no, I’m not giving you a piece of Don Jordan, absolutely not and they kept threatening him and they kept telling the promoter to tell your manager there that he better do this, and so they Beat up Jack Leonard after hassling him for months, the Bob wasn’t used to dealing with that they weren’t they weren’t.
They weren’t used to dealing with these people that you know um were were recap Center people that just didn’t give in to what they said, and so he beats them up.
The carbo hasn’t beaten, carbo’s on tape and lo and behold, Don Jordan Beats Virgil Aikens, but they have a rematch and he beats him again, but they said so Mom don’t worry another one of your Fighters will come along and and and beat Jordan, which is what Happened with Benny kid bread.
You know he came along and beat Jordan because, as Chris Dundee said, Jordan is not mentally stable and he wasn’t so and he’s not disciplined.
So he’s not going to hold on to the title for very long.
You know you own.
Every welterweight in the world, except him so don’t worry about it.
The only other one they didn’t own was Louis Rodriguez, who was trained managed by Angelo Dundee.
So if they go to court and carbo goes to prison, you know for this.
He goes to be sentenced to like 25 years in Plano, sentenced to 17 years.
They let cargo out early for health reasons, which was ridiculous and he died in Florida.
In 1976.
um uh Plano came out when polaro came out in the early days when he came out um 79 80.
He uh walked into a Philadelphia gym.
He was hired by Don King Don King was put in place by the uh help put in place by the Cleveland mob, who made a deal with New York mobs, and they said, let’s have an African-American run it.
Let’S see how they deal with that and King had killed two people already so he’s running it now and he hired Blinky plamer who walked into a gym in Philadelphia.
So the African-American gym and saw people working out and they looked pretty good and he said hey.
You use now worked for Don King and you use work for Don King and you use work for Don King.
If you know it’s good for you shut up and do it and tell you he was 90 at the time and one of them said.
Excuse me, sir um.
Is it what you got a problem with that? No, no! No! No! No! No! I just wanted to tell you um we’re not Fighters we’re all professionals – and I mentioned this months ago on the podcast here – we’re not boxers, I’m I I’m a lawyer.
That’S a statistician! That guy over there is a dentist.
You know the other guys in um archaeologists that one’s an architect – none of us are professional boxes, we’re just working out because we’re getting older, so you guys don’t want to fight professionally.
We’Ve never had an amateur fight, we’re not interested in fighting we’re just interested in exercising so people say.
A lot of them essentially ignore Palermo, although King had other people on his payroll uh to hurt them and what originally happened and and how it got strengthened.
How carbon these guys got strengthened as they went into bed with or Jane James Norris and his partner words went to bed with them.
Along with the well-known lawyer, Truman Gibson had worked for the for the federal government and was working for Gerald Lewis, and so what happened was that um IBC was was um at its downfall, was bought by The Gardens and operators is a wholly owned subsidiary and the Court decided that the IBC was a monopoly and it had to be dissolved, and so words and Norris were given five years to the vest himself with their Holdings, which was 40 in the corporation, are in the garden and then Ryan also declared that the judge Ryan Sylvester Ryan, the IBC of Illinois, a monopoly and ordered its dissolution as well, and they were repealed, but confirmed on January 12, 1959, so that era of boxing was over on that day, um nor somewhere.
It’S also announced they were selling their interest on January 30th, 1959.
In the garden to Graham page Corporation and New York Investment Company, and that became essential February 19 1959 uh in 1960, the Senate subcommittee on 19 trust and Monopoly chaired by Senator Estes Cafe, held hearings and to organize crime and professional boxing, and it’s revealed that the Ibc had ties to mafioso Frankie Carver ran that organization bottomed it up.
He was a soldier in New York, so the Casey crime family have been a gunman with murder, Rank and killed many people, and at the time of the hearing me, he was actually he wasn’t able to appear because he was in Rikers Island.
I haven’t been convicted of undercover management of prize Fighters, an unlicensed matchmaking, which is how we operated.
The question here is: how do they get these licenses? I was able to do this when it was known.
If you had a felony on your records, you weren’t supposed to be licensed.
That was part of the deal made in 1921.
Boxing was illegalized in New York, but all these Mobsters have paid them off and then and then um.
He was also charged in La which he went eventually went to jail for with um uh.
After a three-month trial with conspiracy and extortion against National boxing Association onto a champ Tom Jordan, he was charged along with friends with Blinky Palermo, Joe decica, of the Los Angeles mob, which was run by John Vitale and and uh Louis Jack, Louis dragna, of Los Angeles.
It was the brother of Jack jagner.
If you watch the movie Bugsy, that’s the one.
He said: one crawl crawl like a pig and oink, so that man, after in the trial, by the way for on the government, their lawyer was Robert F Kennedy.
He was U.
S attorney general.
He didn’t want to take a chance and the defendants were all convicted and sent to federal prison and that that didn’t end Carlos uh controlled boxing.
He controlled a lot of boxing uh from then on from from prison.
Prison didn’t stop him or any Monster uh from controlling boxing, and you know by 1959 um we get uh, uh, uh, Sonny, Liston who’s coming along and listen was one of the sorry souls in the history of boxing um you’d actually started boxing in 1930s.
They said he learned in prison, but Chris Dundee had posted, saying sailor, boy, Sonny, Liston from 37.
or 35.
So if Liston was born 1917 as people think then uh he was 18 at the time which would have made him um.
You know 47 when he fought Ali.
I don’t think he was 47.
We fought Ali well, never know listen’s, true age, and neither did listen so by 1959.
Um carbo and Palermo owned a piece of Sonny Liston and listen of course, won the title against um, uh, Floyd, Patterson and first fight in in a minute or in complimented second fight couple seconds longer and of course, the Patterson before that had three title fights where They traded to Hell back and forth with ingomario Hansen and Tony Pro profanzano was the guy who provided the money for those fights.
Um uh.
As I said, John Vitale, owned about 12 to 15 percent, he’s a mobster out of St Louis and it said: listen fought! 12 times for carbo and Palermo and um, when Liston went to court over his various troubles um, especially in late 50s early 60s, he took the Fifth Amendment.
You know.
I cannot be compelled to be a witness against myself over 25 times.
They knew he’d got him.
They’D caught him and he went to Alcatraz the famous prison on the Rock and then eventually was sent to McNeil Federal Island in Washington state and then to the ultramax in Marion in Illinois.
Carpal died in November 9th 1976, and the best comment in all of this, of course, was by Arthur Daly of the New York Times an outstanding writer.
I want to read this to you before.
I say goodbye for today about boxing managers and promoters.
They are Forever on the prowl uh, these Mobsters searching for the extra Edge and dishonest dollar.
They have no Scruples, no morals, no decency, they manipulate Fighters and discard them cold-bloodedly when their usefulness is over not until lamada blew.
The whistle did the fact emerge, for instance, that Blackjack Billy Fox is now a patient and a mental hospital.
The Fate that befell Johnny sacks and many others lamado was guaranteed a shot at the middle league title if you lose if he lost and he did lose delivery took a dive against Blackjack, Billy Fox, who and said you know later on.
It came out that he took it.
He admitted it to the Commission in 1960.
Blackjack Bailey Fox was not a good fighter, ended up, broke into gin and and mentally incompetent, and you know guide a popper, that’s what the mob did for most Fighters.
Boxing is the slum area of sports, and the forces of evil have thus far been able to prevent any attempts at clearance or Rehabilitation.
Boxing is ruled by the gangster’s Code of Silence.
Evidence at a municipal estate level has been too elusive.
Perhaps Congress can sweep clear the debris and I ordered the garbage jettison, lamada’s whistleblowing, it’s a start and strange doing to recent years, and some of the lighter weight divisions May yet be laid.
It was called, it was called the combination.
All these Mobsters together were known as the combination and they ran boxing um uh uh.
I didn’t know that uh else, there’s some monsters.
Grand kid owns a copy of listening versus Valdez.
I I’m not sure I think you I’m not sure if you can get them online, I don’t think so.
Uh Mobsters on most fight films, um, in fact, the late, Steve Lott, who worked for Bill Caton and Jim Jacobs, who managed Mike Tyson and Edwin Rosario and Wilfredo Benitez um.
They had a company known as big fights Inc and they own hundreds they own.
All of the great big fights going back to the 1890s.
You know all the films because they were all owned by monsters and um.
Steve lot told me a story um that they were looking for some fights from the 20s and Bill Caton, a paid 100 Grand or more to this one guy, and he went out to this nice, Jewish guy in Long Island.
Why did Jamaican maid? The guy was in his 90s guys five, two five three and he bought them all, bought all these films, and he said no, let me pay any of this money, we’re going to give you a percentage.
Every time he’s shown and the guy said.
Thank you and he’s this little guy I mean very frail and and uh.
He was talking to Steve lot and said you’re a nice boy here have some cookies and is there anything you know my helper can get you and anyways.
He gets back to uh the office and Bill Kate and hands of an article on this guy.
The guy was one of the mobs top Killers, but people said this little frail Jewish guy yeah because he looked like what he was.
He was an accountant.
He wasn’t scary to anyone.
No one would be afraid of him.
So if he approached you to ask for directions, um or whatever uh, you wouldn’t be afraid right, you can’t hurt, but he would walk up.
He’D approach you to ask for directions and you: how do I get to this street? Oh well, you go there there and I need to take his gun out and bang, and he would do this in garages and late at night, and this is how the mob operated, as the guy said, to Steve Lott um.
This is where I got it originally.
Contact The Hosts