?After Galento thumbed him, Lorenzo Pack panhandled around Jack Dempsey?s Restaurant back in the 1960s??
?Nothing is as new as something which has been long forgotten.??German proverb
Fooled ya! No, this is not yet another article on the faded Filipino phenom, his never-to-be match with Floyd Mayweather Jr., or his upcoming bout with pretty boy Chris Algieri.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on August 24, 1916, Lorenzo Pack was a heavyweight who fought out of Detroit, Michigan, from 1935 to 1941, averaging five fights a year. Save for a draw against Eddie Simms and an inexplicable no contest against Frankie Edgren, whom the Pack Man was chastising at will, Lorenzo won his first 13 fights. His first loss came courtesy of Jack Trammell, who kayoed him in the first at Madison Square Garden on December 18, 1936.
Pack was also stopped by Isidoro Gastanaga, Tony Galento, Natie Brown, Jersey Joe Walcott, and Buddy Knox, in what proved to be his last fight. Of his nine losses, he went the distance three times, against Tiger Jack Fox, Jack Trammell in their 1937 rematch, and never-stopped Eddie Wenstob.
But Pack was no pushover, stopping Unknown Winston in the fourth at New York City?s Rockland Palace on May 8, 1937, Leroy Haynes in the second at Shibe Park in Philly on July 27, 1937, and tough Johnny Whiters, stopped only three times in 83 fights (Pack was the first, followed by Tiger Jack Fox and McKinley English), in the sixth at the Arena Gardens in Detroit on January 11, 1938. In fact, all 19 of Lorenzo?s wins came by way of knockout.
According to fellow boxing scribe, Peter Wood, Pack, who died age 64 on February 24, 1981, ?was a Galento ko victim. Pack?s right eye was never the same after Galento thumbed him. Pack panhandled around Jack Dempsey?s Restaurant back in the 1960s.? Galento never met an eye that met with his approval (just ask Lou Nova), so Peter may well be right. But it?s worth noting that Lorenzo had eight fights following his sixth-round KO loss to Tony at Philly?s Convention Hall on September 28, 1937. Though, true, he only won three of them.
Said Galento, ?We had fighters. Louis, Max Baer, Arturo Godoy, Leroy Haynes, Lorenzo Pack. Whole bunches of ?em. And none of ?em ever quit sittin? on a stool.?
High praise indeed from Mr. Two Ton.
