Gleason?s sat in the Fort Apache section of the South Bronx, streets so violent and depraved that Hollywood made them into a movie?
Before he became one of the best-known refs on the East Coast, New Jersey native Randy Neumann was a heavyweight contender?ranked No. 9 in the world at a time when the world only ranked 10.
He was a slick cutie who fought Jerry Quarry, Jimmy Young, Duane Bobick, Boone Kirkman, Pedro Agosto, and Chuck Wepner three times. (Four if you count the night they pounded on each other?s flabby torsos in a benefit for the families of 911 victims.)
He trained at Gleason?s Gym in war-torn South Bronx under the legendary Freddie Brown, a flat-nosed, cigar-chomping, no-nonsense Damon Runyon character who had studied at the knee of Ray Arcel. Later on, Neumann?s cornerman was Chickie Ferrara, a trainer steeped in similar lore.
By the time Neumann arrived, Gleason?s was splattered with the DNA of Jake LaMotta, Rocky Graziano, Benny ?Kid? Paret, and Cassius Clay, and would soon host Roberto Duran, Saoul Mamby, Vito Antuofermo, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Julio Cesar Chavez, ?Macho? Camacho, Mike McCallum, Oscar Bonavena, Eusebio Pedroza ?
If you were a New York fighter, or a visiting stud, Gleason?s was the place, particularly after Stillman?s Gym closed its doors at 919 Eighth Avenue.
?Gleason?s was intimidating to walk into. It was a tough place,? remembers Neumann, 67, who still lives in Cliffside, N.J., where he grew up alongside the sons of his idol, former light heavyweight contender Gus Lesnevich.
?You?d climb these metal stairs to get up there, and one day Bobby Gleason kicked this bum all the way down those stairs for panhandling. Bobby was 83 at the time.?
Gleason?s had one ring?one?and ducking through those ropes was a privilege only bestowed upon the worthy.
?That ring was real estate that had to be won,? Neumann says. ?A lot of guys, especially the small, Hispanic guys, would do their boxing on the floor, right in front of a ceiling-to-floor window. I?m shocked that nobody ever went out that window.?
Gleason?s sat in the Fort Apache section of the South Bronx, streets so violent and depraved that Hollywood made them into a movie. Neumann drove there every day from New Jersey, but most New York fighters rode the subway.
?They?d come up out of that subway hole, look three ways, then run all the way to the gym,? he says. ?They?d climb the stairs, beat the hell out of each other, then try to get back to the subway safely. Fort Apache was a bad place.?
Neumann has disturbing memories of a place outside Gleason?s called The Butcher Bar, from which he once saw two guys come tumbling onto the street in a vicious fight. One stabbed the other. The victim staggered onto a bus and was gone, fate unknown. The bartender came out, sprinkled sawdust over the blood, and everybody went back inside to finish their highballs.
Freddie Brown never lit his chubby stogie as he trained Neumann?he only chewed it. Nobody smoked at Gleason?s, but maybe it would have helped if they had. Neumann fought 13 times at Madison Square Garden, where the ring was perpetually engulfed by a cloud of smoke so thick that it obstructed the view from the cheap seats.
?I had a friend who tried to shoot some photos once from the mezzanine, but his camera couldn?t pick up the ring through all of that smoke,? he says. ?So he tried to sneak down to ringside and got kicked out.
?I also had a college professor who was friend, and a mentor, and a fan. He also was a habitual cigarette smoker,? he recalls. ?People would see him smoking around me and say, ?Hey, don?t smoke around Randy! He?s got to stay in shape!? And he?d say, ?No, no ? I?m getting him in shape to fight at Madison Square Garden.?
?We?d breathe in all of that smoke when we were fighting, but didn?t think much about it back then,? Neumann says. ?At the time, we didn?t know any better. It was just accepted.?
The Garden, in those days, sat on Eighth Avenue, between 49th and 50th streets in Manhattan. The office of the boxing commission also was on 50th Street. It was a short walk to Jack Dempsey?s on 48th Street, the restaurant where the legendary champ held court.
?I used to hang out there all the time. Dempsey liked me, probably because I was a big, Irish-looking heavyweight,? Neumann says with a laugh.
?The place was famous for his cheesecake, and one day I ordered 10 of them?two boxes of five. They tied the boxes up with string, and they were so heavy that my hands were bleeding by the time I got them home. It was like carrying a bag of rocks, but they were great. And just having Jack in the joint was so cool.?
Neumann was 31-7 as a pro (he lost three of his last five)?including victories over Jimmy Young, Pedro Agosto, Boone Kirkman and Wepner. He had a signed contract in his pocket to fight Muhammad Ali for the world championship when he took on Wepner for the third time, this one at Madison Square Garden for the New Jersey State heavyweight championship, in March of 1974.
Two judges had him leading 4-2, and the other had him up 5-1, when a collision of heads opened an arterial artery on Neumann?s forehead.
?Every time my heart pumped, blood would squirt out?there was no way to for my corner to stop the bleeding?so Arthur Mercante just stopped the fight. Chuck won by TKO, wound up getting the Ali fight that became the basis for ?Rocky,? Neumann says with an ironic laugh. ?Now, they?re making a movie about Chuck called ?The Bleeder,? starring Liev Schreiber as Chuck.?
Fate can be cruel, of course, but there?s no need to weep for Neumann, who graduated from Farleigh Dickinson University, became an independent financial planner, and evolved into a world-class ref who has had the closest-possible view of Pernell Whitaker, Roy Jones Jr., Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Iran Barkley, Arturo Gatti, Miguel Cotto, and Nigel Benn. He?s worked more than 50 world title fights since 1983.
He?s a writer who has penned articles for Sports Illustrated, the New York Post, and the New York Daily News. And, yeah, he once posed for ITALICViva, a beefcake magazine created by Bob Guccione as a female version of Penthouse.
?Burt Reynolds was the first centerfold for Playgirl. I was the first one for Viva,? he muses.
That?s something neither Wepner nor Ali can claim.
