Abie Bain must be considered among the most durable and toughest Jews to ever fight out of the Garden State?
?Do you know why I talk so funny? Because I?ve been hit a million times.??Mountain Rivera in Requiem for a Heavyweight
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on August 10, 1906, middleweight Abie Bain fought out of Newark, New Jersey, from 1923 to 1936. With an official record of 48 wins, 24 by knockout, 27 losses, 12 by knockout, and five draws, as well as 31 newspaper bouts (18-10-3), Bain must be considered among the most durable and toughest Jews to ever fight out of the Garden State.
He three times fought the ?Pride of Harlem,? Jack McVey, winning by disqualification at Newark?s Laurel Garden on July 12, 1926, losing on points in Newark on December 17, 1928, and drawing against him at Laurel Garden on February 24, 1930, and four times fought iron-chinned Vince Dundee, drawing against him at the Velodrome in Newark on August 19 and September 16, 1929, and losing to him on points at Newark?s Dreamland Park on August 27, 1930, and June 15, 1932.
Other worthy opponents include Phil Kaplan, who knocked Bain out in the fifth at the Arena in Philly on February 27, 1928; Hermann Herse, kayoed in the third at Laurel Garden on January 21, 1929; Phil Krug, who won on points at the same venue that November 4; Pal Silvers, outpointed at Madison Square Garden on March 28, 1930; durable Rene De Vos (206 bouts over 17 years), outpointed at the Velodrome that September 29; Al Ettore, who won on points at the New Broadway A.C. in Philly on February 18, 1932; Freddie Fiducia, outpointing him in Newark that August 9; Roy Lazer, who won on points in Paterson, New Jersey, that November 3; Jack Kilbourne, who won by unanimous decision at the Auditorium in Wilmington, Delaware, that November 24; brutish Frank Zamoris, who won on points at Laurel Garden on April 1, 1935; and Al McCoy, who won by second-round KO at the Forum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, that October 24 (at stake, the Montreal Athletic Commission world light heavyweight title).
Bain was scheduled to face middleweight champ Teddy Yarosz at the Public Hall in Cleveland, Ohio, that March 25, but after the champ pulled out with an injured foot, no-nonsense Carmen Barth took his place, ?pummeling? Bain before knocking him out in the first.
Demonstrating a massive lack of judgment, if no end of guts, Bain heeded the nothing-short-of-crazy advice of his manager to take on ?Two Ton? Tony Galento, who weighed 234 to Bain?s 163. ?Tony?s a bum, he can?t hurt us,? said the manager. Us? Maybe Galento couldn?t hurt the manager, I don?t know, but he did indeed hurt Bain, stopping him by fourth-round TKO at Dreamland Park on September 30, 1931. According to the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame, ?Abie wound up in a hospital for seven weeks after Tony accidentally hit him on the leg and gave him a blood clot.? Accidentally.
?It was a vicious, free-punching fight until Galento battered and weakened Bain with body punches,? writes Joseph G. Donovan in Galento the Great. ?Bain finally sunk to the canvas, exhausted, in the fourth round. It ruined the career of a promising boy.?
Bain engaged in 23 bouts following the Galento debacle, losing 14, six by KO or TKO.
He participated in the NBA light heavyweight elimination tournament (?Maxie Rosenbloom was recognized as [NBA] champion until he permitted the six-month time limit to lapse without defending his title,? reported the Chicago Tribune of November 5, 1931. ?The NBA promptly declared his throne vacant?), outpointing Harry Fuller at Chicago Stadium three months after the Two Ton thrashing, on December 18, 1931, only to get stopped by Dave Maier via first-round TKO at the same venue on January 15, 1932. But the Jewish jolter did indeed fight for a world championship, taking on Maxie Rosenbloom in the first defense of his NYSAC light heavyweight title (which he?d won by beating Jimmy Slattery via split decision at Bison Stadium in Buffalo, New York, on June 25, 1930), ?Slapsie Maxie? winning by 11th-round TKO at the Garden that October 22.
In Patrimony, a memoir of his dying father, Philip Roth asks Papa Herman if he knew ?that Slapsie Maxie fought another Jew for the light heavyweight title. He fought a guy named Abie Bain.? Mercifully uncontaminated by political correctness, Roth the Elder launched into a memorable tirade: ?Sure. Abie Bain. He was a nut from Jersey here ? Newark, Hillside, around these parts. And he was a bum. They were all bums. You know how it was: These kids grew up, they had a tough life, the slums, no money, and they always had an adversary. The Christian religion was an adversary. They fought two battles. They fought because they were fighters, and they fought because they were Jews. They?d put two guys in the ring, an Italian and a Jew, an Irishman and a Jew, and they fought like they meant it, they fought to hurt. There was always a certain amount of hatred in it. Trying to show who was superior.?
(Neither father nor son mention that Rosenbloom lost his title to Bob Olin, who won by unanimous decision at the Garden on November 16, 1934, the last time two Jews fought for a world title. Understandable, perhaps, given that the fight was so dull. Sportswriter Dan Parker?s wicked parody of Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin?s hit song, ?Love in Bloom? ? think Jack Benny ? pretty much says it all: ?Can it be the cheese that fills the breeze with rare and deadly perfume? Oh, no, it isn?t the cheese, it?s Rosenbloom.?)
Stephen H. Norwood ? in his article, ??American Jewish Muscle?: Forging a New Masculinity in the Streets and in the Ring, 1890-1940? ? appears to agree with Herman Roth, writing that Jews? ?prowess in the ring helped undermine hoary stereotypes of Jewish males? physical incapacity, cowardice, and effeminacy that dated almost from the beginning of the Second Diaspora.? Furthermore, ?American Jews? success in boxing, a sport in which they were heavily represented, came to symbolize working- and lower-middle-class Jews? determination to challenge antisemitism and, in the 1930s, Nazism.?
In fairness, there are those who question if Jews ?fought because they were Jews,? taking on ?adversarial? Christianity. For instance, while Warren Grover, in Nazis in Newark, doesn?t dispute that men like Bain ?did not retreat from their Jewish identity, Jewish boxers fought because they loved it, hoped to become champions, and needed to make money. They didn?t fight to prove Jewish masculinity or to defend their heritage, despite the romantic notion of the Jewish boxer as a fighter against anti-Semitism.?
That said, Bain belonged to the Minutemen, a group founded by ?legitimate businessman? (and Jean Harlow sugar daddy) Longy Zwillman, led by lightweight Nat Arno, and made up of Jewish boxers who sought to discourage Nazi shenanigans in Newark ?with iron pipes, baseball bats, rubber truncheons, and their fists.? As mob hit man Harold ?Kayo? Konigsberg, who died age 89 on November 23, 2014, in a Florida nursing home after making his fellow residents? lives miserable, put it, Longy ?used to send us in to disrupt these guys ? and I mean disrupt them. We were instructed never to hit them in the head, sometimes they got hit in the head.? Did Kayo actually participate in these ?disruptions?? Maybe, but he was only a kid at the time. Abie, who was no kid, was experienced in such activities, having been one of the many Jewish fighters (the Third Ward Gang) who protected Zwillman?s Prohibition-era business interests. As Arnie Bernstein rather colorfully puts it in Swastika Nation: Fritz Kuhn and the Rise and Fall of the German-American Bund, ?You don?t want to buy Zwillman?s booze? Bam! You haven?t paid Zwillman protection fees? Bam! You don?t do whatever Zwillman wants? Bam! Bam! Bam!? One of the chief ?bammers? was boxer Puddy Hinkes, who ?took both pride and pleasure in cracking heads? and who once demonstrated his displeasure with an anti-Jewish boxing fan by putting a lit cigar out in his eye.
Third Ward muscle was well paid (protecting a bootleg shipment got you at least $450 in today?s money). In addition, ?Zwillman also supplied them with corned beef or pastrami sandwiches from a nearby Prince Street delicatessen.? Maybe Kaplan?s or Zwillman partner Joseph Reinfeld?s joint. According to Newark historian Nat Bodian, a CB or a pistol went for a dime. That?s not much, even by today?s standards ? maybe a buck and a quarter.
Following a draw against Rudy Mendez at Eastside Arena in Los Angeles, California, on November 16, 1936, Bain quit the ring to become a technical advisor on such boxing films as Kid Galahad (the original, 1937, version, which is a big favorite of Buster Douglas). He should be best remembered, however, for the key role he played in bringing Anthony Quinn?s Mountain Rivera to life in the movie version of Rod Serling?s Requiem for a Heavyweight.
In an article for Turner Classic Movies, Felicia Feaster writes that ?Quinn initially struggled with how to play Mountain? until Abie, who was one of the film?s fight coordinators, spoke to him ?in a soft wheeze.?
?He was eerily soft-spoken; there was power to his voice, but also pain and uncertainty and tenderness,? said Quinn. ?This was just what I was looking for.?
?Quinn actually lived with my father for months and studied him,? says daughter Riselle Bain, who caught the acting bug from her father. Billed as Babette Bain (her middle name), she appeared as a young Miriam in Cecil B. DeMille?s The Ten Commandments.
Director Ralph Nelson ?only caved in to Quinn?s husky delivery after much prodding from producer David Susskind,? writes Feaster. Jackie Gleason (Maish Rennick) is another one who didn?t much care for Quinn. ?I pushed Gleason?s buttons at every turn,? said Quinn. ?The slightest thing would set him off.?
Inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame on October 17, 1976, Abie retired from films in 1984 and moved to Florida, dying in Ormond Beach at age 86 on April 9, 1993.
