History of California Boxing in Photos

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

Sitting (L.to.R) Count Billy Varga, Sugar Ray Robinson & his wife Millie Robinson...1987

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

Monday, Nov. 26, 1951 Article.
In California, Lightweight Art Aragon is known as the "Golden Boy." He has a handsome profile, a flashy boxing style, and a smashing left that has knocked out half of his opponents. In Harlem, Lightweight Jimmy Carter is known by no nickname, has the plug-ugly looks of a club fighter, and has about as much crowd appeal as a store-window dummy in the rush hour. But Carter has some assets of his own: a deep pride in the lightweight title he took from Ike Williams in an upset last May, and, as the boxers say, "a pair of good hands." Last summer Carter met Aragon in a nontitle bout, and lost. Last week Jimmy Carter put his title on the line.*

The Golden Boy, 24, and three years younger than the champion, forced the fight for the first five rounds. He bobbed, jabbed, danced and feinted while Carter stolidly accepted his lumps, tossed back only a few retaliatory licks. But in Round 6, Carter opened up. A jarring left sent Golden Boy tumbling to the canvas for a count of three. Carter's slashing, two-fisted attack drove him from corner to corner. Aragon never won another round.

At the end of the fight, his left eye clamped tight, his right slashed, his lips swollen and his body a patchwork of welts, Golden Boy was a slightly tarnished matinee idol. Carter had also taken a beating: a cut over his eye took seven stitches, and may keep him out of action for a year. The $32,000 purse, most lucrative of his obscure career, would help heal the wound. But more important to Jimmy Carter was his title. In his first defense of it, he had come through like a real champion.


* Held in Los Angeles, it was the first "twilight" (7 p.m.) title fight in modern ring history, gave Eastern televiewers a chance to see the result before bedtime.

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

Standing (L-to-R)
Ruben Olivares,Chucho Castillo, Evan Armstrong & Jose Medel...1968

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[dongee]

Just a note to complement:

The doctor shown with Robinson and Bobo Olson is the Hollywood Legion Stadium's regular doctor in weekly attendance, Dr. John Fahey.

And the shot of Wrigley Field stirred a memory.....yours truly was in charge of the Bobo Olson camp at the request of Bobo's manager for almost a month for that blockbuster show put on by the International Boxing Club in 1956. The event drew a terrific gate for those days, something totalling more then $230,000. Don Fraser handled the Robinson camp out at San Jacinto, thus we were reunited after having worked together at the Legion Stadium, he in my old job of Publicity and I as Matchmaker just one year earlier.

hap navarro

hap navarro

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

Hap

Its always nice to read what you have to say about the old days in Los Angeles boxing, I just love it when you see a photos and point things to us. (As to who is who on the photos.)

Frank

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

Canela, was my son Tony's last amateur opponent, Tony was not to fight again until a year later when he turn pro because I couldn't fine an amateur in Southen California that was willing to get in the ring with him.

Frank

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

Monday, Aug. 01, 1949; The fight, in effect, was for charity. Referee Jack Dempsey gave his services free. Film Comedians Bud Abbott & Lou Costello promoted it as a benefit in aid of the youth foundation established by Costello after his infant son died in 1943. Lightweight Champion Ike Williams, a cool, sharpshooting Negro from New Jersey, whose manager is a good friend of Costello's, took only 7½% of the gate, although Enrique Bolanos, the Mexican-born challenger, got 17½%.

The buildup was satisfying and 19,000 people paid $108,000 to get into Los Angeles' Wrigley Field. The question was whether it would be a show or a contest. Champion Williams had beaten Bolanos twice before—but the second time Williams had absorbed a stomach pounding and had won on a split decision. Last week there seemed to be an outside chance that Bolanos, an earnest, resourceful fighter, might tag Williams with a damaging shot or shade him on points.

Williams, who was voted 1948-8 "Fighter of the Year" by New York boxing writers, answered all questions in the first minute of the first round. He launched a whistling left that staggered Bolanos and drew blood from his mouth. In the second round, a jolting overhand right almost closed the challenger's left eye. Thereafter, Bolanos stumbled around the ring, as helpless against Williams as a matador fighting a bull with a knife & fork.

In the fourth, with Bolanos still on his feet, his manager jumped into the ring waving a towel. A moment later, the challenger slumped to the canvas and Referee Dempsey stopped the fight. The show would probably not have made an edifying spectacle for Costello's foundation kids, but it proved that Ike Williams still had the lightweight division well in hand.

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[dongee]

Thanks, Frank:

And yes, that's a photo of the original Main St. Gym that burned in 1951. It was also used as a boxing venue off and on, from 1926 through the early 1940s. I saw Baby Sal Soria box Hrman Ritterhaus in one of their many meetings back in 1930 as a guest of my uncles.

take care

hap navarro