Taking very little chance in his return to the ring, Acelino “Popo” Freitas stopped thirty-eight-year-old Panamanian journeyman Fabian Salazar inside of a minute in a lightweight battle on Saturday. The fight, held in Freitas’ home of Salvador, Brazil, held absolutely no suspense, as Freitas bulled forward throwing haymakers in the style of his early career,…
I still have very little trouble listing off the linear heavyweight champions all the way back to John L. Sullivan. Sullivan, James J. Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons, Jim Jeffries, Marvin Hart, Tommy Burns, Jack Johnson, Jess Willard, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Max Schmeling, Jack Sharkey, Primo Carnera, Max Baer, James Braddock, Joe Louis, Ezzard Charles, Joe…
The year was 1913 and Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the modern era, fled his country, the United States of America, after he was convicted of a violation of the Mann Act. What was Johnson’s violation? According to the Mann Act, it is the transportation of an individual across state lines for…
As far as television is concerned, the Golden Age of boxing was in the1950s. There was boxing on every night, with fighters like Sugar Ray Robinson, Jake LaMotta, Archie Moore and countless others headlining the cards. Being born in the late- 1960s, I missed it, but I can’t help imagining it was nirvana. Of course,…
Walking through Barnes & Noble with my wife, we happened upon a boxing record book. My wife, having listened to my pontifications on boxing for many years, decided to put me to the test. “What boxer suffered the most knockdowns in a title fight?†she asked smugly. “Danny O’Sullivan was dropped fourteen times by Vic…