Although the insinuation is that few white boxers would fight the members of the ?Black Murderers? Row? the numbers prove otherwise?
A few years back, Springs Toledo wrote an outstanding series on some great black fighters who never got their deserved shots at a title. The only problem, though, in stating his case Mr. Toledo left out some facts that didn?t fit the agenda.
In telling the story of Cocoa Kid, he seems to really pick on Jimmy Leto, who was one of the most rugged and craftiest contenders in history. First the innuendo is that the light hitting Cocoa could have knocked out Leto in the eighth round of their first match but held back to allow Jimmy to recover. This is the same Leto that was only stopped three times in his some 150 fights against the hardest hitters of his era. And then to make his point he mentions that Paul Gallico ?insisted? that eight out of ten matches between blacks and whites were ?tainted?. This is the same Gallico who disliked boxing, was never seen at a club show, only at a high profile, world-class match to be seen and give his ?expert? commentary. Gallico only real contribution to boxing was allowing his name to be used to inaugurate the ?Golden Gloves? Tournament. I?m not sure what Gallico?s observation has to do with the first Cocoa Kid-Jimmy Leto fight.
Still not done with Leto, Toledo then tells how Leto?s manager Lou Viscusi tried to intimidate Cocoa into losing the rematch. I do believe his account of this incident, but most of the powerful managers in boxing at the time were incorrigible gamblers who were always looking for an edge. Fritzie Zivic, who was white, relayed a similar episode to writer Myron Cope (BOXING YEARBOOK, 1959). He said degenerate gambler Eddie Mead, manager of (Black) Henry Armstrong, ?called me up to an office in the RCA Building. I went up to the office with three friends? They waited outside the office while I talked to Mead.
??You know you can?t win this fight,? Mead says to me, and I says, ?What do you mean, I can?t win this fight??
?He says, ?Well, Armstrong will probably knock you out and you?ll get all busted up and cut up and you won?t get too much money anyhow.?
?I says, ?What do you expect me to do? ?Anyway, I think I can lick him in spite of what you say. What are you getting at??
?Well, he says he will give me $15,000 in small bills the day before the fight, just to make sure I don?t hurt myself in trying to win. ?Nobody will know anything about it,? Mead says??
Jimmy Leto ended his series with Cocoa Kid at Baltimore (Nov. 11, 1940) by flattening the Kid for the first ten-count of his career in the third round of an important welterweight elimination bout.
The Cocoa Kid was truly a great fighter and when he was at his prime ranking at welter Henry Armstrong was the champ that dodged a title match with him. Izzy Jannazzo and Jimmy Leto were the ones that risked their high ranking to fight the Cocoa Kid.
Although the insinuation is that few white boxers would fight the members of the ?Black Murderers? Row? the numbers prove otherwise. In 245 bouts in his career Cocoa Kid engaged in 155 matches against white fighters. World War 2 changed everything. With so many white boxers serving, most of the promoters panicked and tried to preserve what was left of the top white fighters still around. And by the end of the war with incentives like the GI Bill, fewer whites returned to or entered boxing as a profession.
It appears that is wasn?t until the heavy war year of 1942 that things drastically began to change. Holman Williams boxed 58 whites before the war and only boxed nine the rest of his career. Charley Burley boxed 30 white opponents pre-war. Lloyd Marshall met only two black foes in his first 42 matches before boxing Eddie Booker on Sept. 28, 1942. Booker, too, had only engaged a literal handful of black fighters in his previous 70 bouts.
Bert Lytell was, indeed, sidestepped by white opponents (and many black ones as well) but as far as we know, he didn?t begin until 1944. Springs? incorrectly stated that after meeting LaMotta he could not get a top ranking white fighter in the ring. His fights with Popeye Woods were after the LaMotta match. Walter Woods is really a strange case, if Frankie Carbo was his protector, as Springs? article alluded to, he had a strange way of showing it. Woods had always taken on all comers (black and white) and was a terrific drawing card in New York before temporarily retiring in 1939. When he made his comeback in 1944 he was froze out of New York and seemed to be in the same boat as the feared black boxers of the era and only boxed three white fighters in his last 24 matches (one being LaMotta) and every fight on the road.
I am not trying to diminish the accomplishments and the tribulations that these great black boxers endured, only trying to get people to respect many of the impoverished sons of immigrants and hard white men of the Depression who took on all comers in order to provide for their families. Check the records of Maxie Rosenbloom, George Nichols, Al Ettore, Lou Brouillard, Ken Overlin, Lee Savold, Teddy Yarosz, Gus Dorazio, Melio Bettina, Buddy Knox, Bob Pastor, Shorty and Big Boy Hogue, Wicky Harkins, Joe Curcio, and so many more and tell me what black fighters these courageous warriors hid from.
Check out phillyboxinghistory.com for countless facts and photos. Follow us on Twitter@boxing_com to continue the discussion
