Fury-Usyk: Undisputed For Now

Late in the ninth round, when the fight still seemed up for grabs, Oleksandr Usyk landed a left on Tyson Fury's jaw. The punch had a nasty effect, as if Usyk had hit him with a sweat-sock full of ball bearings. Fury has been hurt many times in his career, but this time it looked worse than usual.

The 6' 9" Brit reeled from one side of the ring to the other as Usyk followed up with more punches. After one particular shot, Fury tottered along the ropes, holding his gloves out, but where he might've clinched Usyk to kill the round's few remaining seconds, his body and mind weren't working together. His mind wanted to hold on, but his body wanted to fall.  

Finally, Fury stumbled into a corner. He was still on his feet, but referee Mark Nelson stepped in and started a count. Boxing's clown prince seemed despondent, woozy, and concerned.

It seemed the fight was over there and then. Granted, Fury went on to fight rounds 10, 11, and 12, and he actually stunned Usyk a few times in those rounds, but the sight of the Gypsy giant wavering around the ring would be the fight's takeaway image. 

The other lasting memory of the fight would be Usyk's steady comportment all during the buildup and during the 12 heated rounds of competition, no small feat considering the hype that went into this thing being for the "undisputed: heavyweight championship," with both having having legit claims to the title.

Though Fury had tried his best to ruffle Usyk with his usual bawdy behavior - Fury's father actually headbutted one of Usyk's camp members last week, and Fury started a shoving match at the weigh-in, and did his usual clowning all during the fight - Usyk went on to win a 12-round split decision, going about his business in the quiet, professional manner that has been his trademark. 

Fury's career has been anything but quiet and professional. Even as he reached his middle 30s and should've been acquiring some kind of dignity or decorum, he's remained clownish. But even as his silliness remained, many were wondering how much he had left as a boxer. Did the 35-year-old  behemoth still have  the desire? Or was it all being siphoned off by too much stardom, too many reality shows, too much celebrity posturing?

We got an answer of sorts. He was in good shape, and he fought hard for 12 rounds. When he was hurt, he shook it off and came back. He has all the championship qualities that his detractors don't wish to acknowledge. All he lacks, it seems, is the championship. 

It was the most anticipated heavyweight bout in quite some time, with the four organizational belts spread out between the two fighters, three of which were owned by Usyk, and one by Fury. The Brit  had previously owned a bunch more, but had toyed with retiring, which allowed Usyk to step in and grab some belts. With both men undefeated and with a boxing audience clamoring for one undisputed titleholder in the heavyweight class, the fight had juice. 

There was even an effort among boxing writers to proclaim it as an "important" fight,  that for the first time in a quarter century there would be a single man atop boxing's so-called "glamor division," the last one being Lennox Lewis, a good but not very glamorous fighter who was never particularly popular. 

It's hard to say if the fight was important, but it was entertaining. And it did seem to mark something in the boxing time frame, with a Brit versus a Ukrainian in the middle of Saudi Arabia. In another era, an important heavyweight fight would feature two Americans fighting in New York or Las Vegas. Those days are gone, though, along with Fury's undefeated record. 

It might've been important for Usyk, but with the sanctioning bodies being the way they are, he won't be undisputed for long. The IBF, less than 24 hours after the bout, is already making noise about Usyk's next mandatory defense, saying he'll be stripped of that belt if he goes through with a contractually obligated rematch with Fury, which Fury has already penciled into his October calendar. There may not have been an undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999, but the boxing organizations haven't cared about such things in twice that time. As for Fury, he's acting as if the rematch is a done deal. He doesn't think he lost last night, anyway.

“I was having fun in there," Fury said after the bout. "I was loving it. I thought it was great.”

Though he showed good sportsmanship in the bout's immediate aftermath, Fury showed a snarky side when discussing the judges' split verdict. He cited politics as the reason for the judges voting against him, but not boxing politics:

"I believe I won that fight, I believe he won some rounds but I won the majority of them...We both put on a good fight, best we could do. His country's at war, so people are siding with the country at war, but make no mistake, I won that fight and I'll be back. I've got a rematch clause."

Approximately a century before Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was a boxing capital, and long before there were such things as a WBC or WBO,  a retired heavyweight champion named James J. Corbett was discussing the sport. Even though he fought at a time before America had 50 states, he offered as poignant a fact as has ever been said about the sweet science, and what he said still stands today. He said, "Every fighter has a night where they are better than they ever were in the past, and better than they will ever be in the future."  It's a bittersweet idea to think our peak may be a harbinger of our downfall. But "Gentleman Jim" was probably right.

Oleksandr Usyk is now undefeated in 22 professional fights. He also had 350 amateur bouts.  Prior to beating Fury, he'd scored  two wins over Anthony Joshua and had beaten some other reputable heavyweights. At 37, he's older than Fury, though maybe not as weather-beaten.

There's a sameness to his bouts. He's a steady operator. You'd never know if he lost a step, because he is never especially flashy or quick, just steady. That's part of what makes him a likeable champion. He may not be magnetic, but he's dependable. 

Though there will be much written about Usyk being the first undisputed heavyweight champion in this ridiculous "four belt era," the real achievement of the weekend is that he defeated Tyson Fury, who'd never lost a bout, and for all of his clowning, has been viewed as one of the legitimately great heavyweights of this century, a big man with charisma who can move around the ring. Usyk isn't the class clown, and he'll never star in a reality show, but he has the kind of mental toughness that can trump a man like Fury. 

After the bout he looked damaged, more busted up than the man he'd beaten. A butterfly patch was over Usyk's right eye, and he wept during his post-fight interview, talking about the sacrifices he'd made to reach the top of his profession. He talked about the war between his country and Russia. It was stirring stuff. 

Yet we wonder if we've seen Usyk at his best, and if he'll ever be this good again. He needed to be extraordinary in Riyadh against Fury. The bigger man was actually dominating in the first part of the fight, landing hard uppercuts on Usyk, hurting him, out-boxing him. There were rumors that Usyk had a broken jaw, such was the battering he took. It turned out to be his greatest night, but can he do it again?

It's not an easy thing, this slaying of giants. Some of them don't die right away. We'll find out if Usyk is indeed a giant killer, or if he was merely having a peak performance on the night he beat boxing's best big man. 

- Don Stradley

 

 

 

 

BERSERK: The shocking life and death of Edwin Valero

 

"THE STORY IS CHILLING AND AMAZING!

Don Stradley is a super writer...

Outstanding!"

—Steve Farhood, Showtime boxing analyst, and International Boxing Hall of Fame member

 "A GRITTY, ABSORBING ACCOUNT OF A BOXER WHO COULDN'T DEFEAT HIS INNER DEMONS." 

—Kirkus Reviews

Did he kill his wife?

Did he kill himself?

Will we ever solve the mysteries of Edwin Valero?

"Stradley does well to separate fact from fiction and to dismiss conspiracy theories while recognizing the limits of what we can really know about Valero and his relationships. It is a short sharp captivating read and one any boxing fan will find interesting. The punchy style of the book neatly matches Valero’s own relentless fighting style."

—All Sports Books Reviews

Available through Amazon, as well as Hamilcar Publications.

FISTFUL OF MURDER - ANOTHER BOOK YOU NEED THIS SUMMER

 

 "COMPELLING"               "ABSORBING"

Thomas Hauser,The Sweet Science                       Jack Porter, The Sportsman

 

 The death of Alicia Muniz wasn’t a complete surprise to anyone who knew Carlos Monzon. The surprise was that no one else had died in his company.

He had a volcanic temper. He drank heavily and used cocaine. He drove recklessly, had a fascination with guns, and had been arrested many times for physical assaults. In February of 1988, with his personal life in shreds, Monzon had finally reached the nadir of an existence defined by hostility, with nothing to obstruct his most savage instincts.

 "Sports fans will be drawn to the work thanks to Stradley's considerable powers of description: he is probably one of the best fight writers operating today...A Fistful Of Murder manages to be several things at once: a character study of a brooding, malevolent archetype; a simple but absorbing boxing biography; and a pulpy story of a hideous crime..."--Ronnie McCluskey, The Fight City

Buy it on Amazon:  https://shorturl.at/acnN4

Boston Tabloid - The Book You Need This Summer

 "A RIVETING READ FROM COVER TO COVER"

Midwest Book Review

 

 

"an intriguing story of fatal obsession"

 Kirkus Reviews

                    

"Everything a top-notch true-crime book should be and more.”

—Linda Rosencrance, 

author of Murder at Morses Pond

 

Don Stradley's Boston Tabloid: The Killing of Robin Benedict, is a tantalizing look back at a 1983 murder case that rocked the city of Boston. Did a well-respected MIT scientist really murder a young woman? And was she really a sex worker from the city's infamous Combat Zone district? 

"takes true crime to the next level"

—M. William Phelps, former host of ID's DARK MINDS, New York Times bestselling author, and host of iHeartMedia's podcasts Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps and Paper Ghosts

 

Buy it from Amazon - rb.gy/awrami

 

Nate Siegel: Marked for Death

 He survived World War One, but was no match for Boston’s Underworld…

 by Don Stradley

 

 

Nate Siegel in his prime, circa 1920

 

On August 13, 1934, at approximately 2:00 AM, Nate Siegel was in the living room of his home on 64 Endicott Ave in Revere. His wife and two children were sleeping, but he was up late, tending to business. He was looking at receipts from the Clover Leaf Cafe, a tavern on North Shore Road of which he was part owner. 

 

He’d been a professional boxer a decade earlier and was a hero in his neighborhood; being a tavern owner was a natural progression for the former welterweight champ of New England. In the stillness of the early morning hours, he ruffled through the day’s receipts. At one point he drew the curtain of the front window; as he did so an assassin with a shotgun fired at him through the glass. 

 

The horrible blast woke his wife, Clara. She rushed out to find her husband on the floor, his face, neck and shoulders torn apart, his café receipts scattered around him. Siegel had died instantly. Police would find the abandoned getaway car a half-mile away in East Boston’s Orient Heights neighborhood. They described it as a “cheap sedan” fitted with orange Maine number plates. Wrapped in brown paper and jammed under the rear seat was a .12-gauge automatic shotgun. The killer, though, had vanished like one of those shadowy gunmen in an old-time radio serial.

 

Conflicting stories emerged. His wife said Siegel had no enemies. Yet his friends and the café staff said he’d had run-ins with people all the time. Some members of his inner circle claimed Siegel had talked about being marked for death. He’d spoken about a gangland plot to “get” him, yet he’d given no specific reasons and made no effort to conceal his movements or get out of Revere.

 

The café had been in the news a few times that year. A young man had tried committing suicide in the men’s room. He’d been upset after being spurned by a girlfriend. On another occasion, a night watchman foiled a burglary attempt. Later, burglars successfully broke in and robbed a peanut vending machine. Revere was going through a rash of burglaries at the time. Desperate young men at the height of the Great Depression were resorting to petty crimes. Yet despite police questioning everyone connected with the place, the Clover Leaf Café couldn’t be connected to Siegel’s murder.

 

Police speculated that Siegel had come between rival gangs of liquor distributors. There was talk of an impending gang war, and local authorities made a lot of noise about breaking up Revere’s “racket conditions.” Even the Federal Government took an interest.  The case was feared to have broader ramifications than just the death of a tavern owner, and city authorities felt the local police were ill equipped to handle the investigation. A city councilman declared, “The police here are so used to gang conditions and practices that they have become inoculated to them.”  He believed outside aid was needed, “in cleaning up the city.”

 

 

Police examine the supposed getaway car.

 

  

The automobile with the shotgun in it had been reported stolen many months earlier. The trail reached all the way to Providence, RI, though both the car and the weapon were registered to fictitious Maine persons. Both the car and the gun were clean of fingerprints, suggesting to police that the job was done by professionals, not punks.

 

The weapon, an automatic shotgun, lent further credence to Siegel’s murder being a gangland crime. It was the same type of weapon used in a pair of recent gang murders in Boston, as well as a botched attack on a store on Boston’s Washington Street. Police believed a killer, or killers, were being hired by mobsters for what they called “spot jobs.” The guns were expensive new models, but the police surmised that if a hit man was being paid a good amount to kill someone, there was no loss in buying a new gun for the job and discarding it. Like the piece used to kill Siegel, an abandoned shotgun found after the failed store shooting was registered to a fictional Mainer.

 

As more information was gathered, the police only grew frustrated. None of the pieces fit together. In time, investigators couldn’t settle on whether the murder was gang related, or merely a personal incident that had escalated into violence. Siegel was, his friends said, a bold man who didn’t back down from anyone.

 

It also seemed the area’s boxers were getting whacked on a regular basis. George Brogna, who fought as “Johnny DeLano,” was a featherweight with a record of 12-9-5. He’d also been deeply involved in gangland activity and had allegedly killed a local bootlegger, “Big Mike” Richardi (who had been suspected of killing another fighter, Johnny Vito, in a similar hit.). In 1933, Brogna’s body was found in Revere. Beaten about the head and shot three times, 26-year-old Brogna was dumped three miles from his East Boston home. 

 

George Brogna

That same year saw the murder of Joseph Wolf, a petty criminal with gang ties who fought as “Charley ‘KO’ Elkins.” His ring resume was 15-9-2, plus 72 arrests and 11 appeals. He was found dead on a South End sidewalk. It was believed that the owner of a local barroom had killed him. Wolf, a 34 year-old still living with his mother on Harrison Avenue, had tried to shake the owner down for “protection” money. Big mistake.

 

In December of 1937, David “Beano” Breen, a former boxer who became a big name in the Boston rackets, was fatally shot in the lobby of the Metropolitan Hotel on Tremont Street. Breen was popular in South Boston, particularly for his donations to local charities, but he also had a lengthy criminal record, including four arrests for assaulting police officers. “Breen was big, belligerent, and used his fists,” reported the Globe. As Breen lay dying at City Hospital, orderlies rifled his pockets and made out with $15.00. It was also noted by the Globe that an unnamed boxing promoter visited police headquarters to discuss Breen’s murder, and an ex-pugilist from the North End who had recently served a term for manslaughter was brought in for questioning and released.

 

Brogna. Wolf. Siegel. Vito. Breen. Five area fighters killed in a short time span. This doesn’t even consider the number of Boston fighters killed accidentally by guns “they didn’t know were loaded,” or in drunken street fights that intensified into knife murders. The difference between Nate Siegel and the others was that he’d been a main event fighter, and a damned good one.

 

He’d grown up in Boston’s West End, where he was said to have had “a good many scraps.” Siegel began his professional boxing career in 1916, winning several bouts in Boston before joining the war effort in 1917. After serving 13 months overseas in the 82^nd Division (and suffering shrapnel wounds in the right arm) he resumed fighting in the ring. By this time his family had settled into Revere’s Beachmont neighborhood, and Siegel often stayed at their home on the corner of Shirley Avenue and Nahant Street. It made him a favorite among the locals. Boxing was soaring in popularity, and Revere had its very own fighter to admire.

 

A 21 bout undefeated streak was highlighted by a points win over a shopworn Ted “Kid” Lewis of Britain, and a decision over Tommy Corcoran (aka “Young Kloby”) in front of 15,000 at Braves Field. The Globe declared the Siegel-Corcoran bout was, “one of the best battles ever held in Boston.” It also earned Siegel the welterweight championship of New England, a minor title that no doubt filled its winner and his loved ones with pride.

 

Siegel, circa 1921

 

Siegel was a celebrity, known for speeding around Boston and Revere in his Cadillac. He was colorful, a capable trash talker. He could also tell entertaining stories about the war. His popularity was at its peak in 1922 when his bout with Dave Shade at the Boston Arena was filmed, making it the first Boston bout captured on celluloid.

 

He was especially proud of his Jewish heritage, always sticking it to promoters who had once tried to saddle him with an Irish gimmick. “Why should I change my name and put on green tights?” Siegel said. “Can’t the Irish do their own fighting?” The irony was that his tavern had an Irish motif – the cloverleaf – and most of the clientele was Irish.

 

If Siegel wasn’t willing to become Irish, he was more than happy to compete against the area’s many Irish brawlers, particularly Patrick J. “Paddy” Flynn of Everett. The Siegel - Flynn series had everything – not only was it a Jewish fighter versus an Irishman (one of boxing’s hot ethnic rivalries of the period), but their respective hometowns, Revere and Everett, had always been competitive in amateur tournaments. Moreover, the camps of Siegel and Flynn had a rather loud rivalry in the press, hurling insults back and forth. Promoters had a small goldmine in Siegel and Flynn. They fought twice at the Boston Armory in 1920, and once at the Boston Arena in 1921.

 

Siegel won the first two bouts on points, but they were close enough that another meeting was called for. The third bout, which headlined the first boxing show at the Arena after it had been damaged by a fire in 1918, turned out to be a dud. Both fighters showed up overweight, and Flynn was so listless that the referee stopped the fight in the eighth and gave it to the Revere man. “He had every round,” the Boston Post wrote of Siegel, “but gained little prestige from the fray.”

 

Siegel’s time at the top was fleeting. He lost several bouts, including a pair to future Hall of Famer Mickey Walker, the second of which saw Siegel knocked cold for several minutes. On May 27, 1924, immediately after a loss to Rocky Smith at Boston’s Grand Opera House, Siegel retired from fighting. He left the boxing business with a record of 39-16-14 with 17 wins by KO and two no-decisions.

 

Siegel settled down with Clara, became a father, and occasionally offered his services as a boxing trainer. He was a well-liked man in the Beachmont neighborhood. His café was popular. Life was nice.

 

His murder at age 38 left the police baffled. State Detective John F. Stokes wondered aloud for the Globe at Siegel’s carelessness on the night of his death. If, as his associates claimed, Siegel knew gangsters were after him, why was he so cavalier about standing in front of his window? Did he think his pursuers had been called off? Or was Siegel merely acting in what his friends described as his “courageous and defiant manner?”

 

Chances are, this fighting man who had been in the ring as well as the front lines of World War One felt there was nothing to fear.

 

Siegel’s funeral was a major event. More than 7,000 mourners gathered along the streets of Revere as a cortege of 165 cars proceeded to a nearby synagogue.

 

The Siegel case remained unsolved. There were attempts to link it to other unsolved Revere killings in the next few years, particularly for shooting victims involved in the city’s underground gambling racket. Whether Siegel had been involved in gambling was never established.

 

Siegel’s old rival Paddy Flynn also came to a grisly end. Four years after Siegel’s death, an unknown assailant murdered Flynn at a Malden gaming house. Flynn died as doctors tried to remove a .22 slug from his brain.

 

What are the chances that Siegel and Flynn, who had battled each other three times, would both be shot and killed, and both of their murders would go unsolved? Those who saw them fight at the old Boston Armory thought it was just another local rivalry. They couldn’t have known they were watching two doomed men.  

 

***

My book, Slaughter in the Streets,  explores a period of time where many Boston area boxers were killed in what appeared to be mob-related ambushes. Most went unsolved. For reasons of length, the section on Nate Siegel was cut. I've always wanted to share it.  

If you'd like to read the book, look for it on Amazon.  https://rb.gy/2qfxin

 

 

 

RICHARD CRENNA IN THE COMBAT ZONE

When a Hollywood Nice Guy Played a Sicko

 by Don Stradley

 

Richard Crenna as Prof. William Douglas in The High Price of Passion

It didn't sound right. Richard Crenna, an actor known best for playing upstanding, intelligent characters, was cast in an NBC movie as a sex-addicted college professor who murdered a young woman.

 

Anyone who had followed the infamous William Douglas case in 1983 thought it was an odd casting choice. Douglas was a well-known professor from Tufts University who became embroiled with a 21-year-old sex worker named Robin Benedict. When she tried to end their ongoing "affair," he bashed her head in with a hammer and disposed of the body. 

 

Those who had seen pictures of Douglas knew he was a grossly overweight clod  who frequented Boston's red light district. He was a stalker, an embezzler, and an all-around creep. Crenna seemed too  charismatic for such a role. Of course, if you weren't familiar with the case,  you could just accept it as another cheesy, made-for-TV crime movie of the week. The networks were grinding them out in those days.

 

But even Crenna knew it was unusual to see him as a villain. He generally played good guys.

 

"This latest role gave me the opportunity to go 180 degrees in the other direction," he told the New York Daily News. "It was a pathetic sexual relationship."

 

"There were so many facets to this character. When he was teaching at college, he had tremendous command, lots of charm, and was in control of the people he taught. But in his relationship with the prostitute, she controlled him. She totally dominated him. He became childlike, a boy. That's how I played him."

 

The High Price of Passion (1986) was aired on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 1986. It was given a high profile slot, with ads blaring in advance. The case was already a few years old, but it had received nationwide attention and was still hot. To his credit, Crenna promoted the hell out of the movie. 

 

"These kinds of roles are terrific to play," he said. "It gives me a chance to find out what I can do."

 

###

 

The real William Douglas

When I was writing my book, Boston Tabloid: The Killing of Robin Benedict, I had a chance to watch the movie again. My memories of it were vague, only that it came out in the heyday of made-for-television true crime movies. Frankly, I had more vivid memories of Mark Harmon playing Ted Bundy in The Deliberate Stranger, and Tommy Lee Jones as Gary Gilmore in The Executioner's Song. When I rewatched The High Price of Passion,  I saw a standard TV drama that was filmed in Toronto, not Boston, and Crenna doing his best to look like a rumpled professor. The movie wasn't terrible, but from my research of the case I knew it  was missing the target.

 

The main issue was Crenna. He was a 60-year-old man, while Douglas had been 41 at the time of the murder. Douglas weighed 300 pounds, while Crenna was probably less than 200. And Douglas was known for his his high-pitched voice, while Crenna had a strong, actor's voice.  

 

For that matter, no one in the movie looked like the characters they were playing. The Benedict family was portrayed by mostly Irish, or Anglo actors, when the father was actually from South America, and dark-haired Robin Benedict looked much like her Latino dad. Fair-skinned and fair-haired Karen Young portrayed Benedict, and played her as a callow, not too bright young woman.  

 

Benedict's Black pimp was written out of the story completely. Instead, she had a white boyfriend. There was even a scene where Robin showed up at her parent's house to announce that she was done with the street life, and ready to live happily ever after. None of this happened, but that's a TV movie for you. Facts were not important. It was just a way to spend a Sunday evening in front of the tube. 

 

Furthermore, the TV-movie stripped away the edges of the story. Where was the cocaine? Much of the money Douglas embezzled was to help feed Benedict's drug habit. There's not a single line of the stuff to be seen in the movie. And while many Boston area prostitutes claimed Douglas as a client, the movie makes it seem as if Benedict was the first sex worker he ever met, and that he simply mewled around her like a puppy. Strangest of all, Douglas' wife and children go unseen in the movie. He doesn't even admit to having a family until the movie's end.

At the time of the movie's release, the Benedict's declared it was good to see their daughter portrayed in a nice way (the media of the time tended to depict her as hardhearted and greedy, while the movie made her more of a sweet girl who had made some bad choices). The family, however, thought Crenna was too nice as Douglas, and that the violent murder of their daughter was glossed over. They were correct about that - we see Douglas and Benedict scuffling in silhouette, but we don't see the bloodbath that must've taken place.

 

Sate trooper Paul Landry, who was one of the key investigators, thought the movie was laughable. He told me, "When they raided Douglas' house, they knocked on the door and said, 'Boston City Police.' There's no such thing." 

 

It was also odd that Crenna sat by while the investigators went through his house. In real life, Douglas was a nervous wreck, acting strange the whole time the troopers were there.

 

Moreover, since it was a TV movie, the sordid milieu of Boston's red light district - the notorious "Combat Zone" - was downplayed. Then again, it was unlikely anyone could've recreated the boiling cauldron of sleaze that Boston was in that period. The High Price of Passion was an R-rated story squashed into a PG-rated script. "That movie was crap," said Landry. "Not even close." 

Ultimately, the movie was a very basic version of the story. It seemed to be simplified for people with limited attention spans. 

 

Yet The High Price of Passion was a success. It drew an 18.9 in the Nielson ratings, finishing an impressive 15th for the week, well ahead of such popular programs as Moonlighting, ALF, and a repeat of Miami Vice. In its own time slot, it whipped the other competing programs, including a showing of Clint Eastwood's Escape from Alcatraz on ABC. NBC had to be pleased. The network had gambled that the Douglas-Benedict story would pull in viewers, and that Crenna could play the professor.

 

Along with solid ratings, The High Price of Passion did well with  critics. The Boston Globe called it "not a bad movie," and despite his not being right for the role, praised Crenna. He "manages to capture the nuances of the professor who could not control his obsession," reported the Globe's TV critic. 

 
Most of the reviews around the country were positive. Some reviewers noted the many holes in the plot, but that's how the case was: full of holes and unanswered questions. 

 

Generally, Crenna was applauded. But by that time in his career, Crenna was a reliable journeyman actor.  Even if he wasn't the perfect Douglas, Crenna was always a solid, watchable performer. People liked the guy. Douglas, a selfish nutjob, was too well-served. 

 

###

 

You can read more about this case in my book, Boston Tabloid: The Killing of Robin Benedict.

 

"an intriguing story of fatal obsession" - Kirkus Reviews

 

Pick it up from Amazon  https://rb.gy/ofvem6

 

You can also purchase it from Hamilcar Publications. https://hamilcarpubs.com/books/boston-tabloid-the-killing-of-robin-benedict/

 

 

 

Another Tainted Star in the IBHOF

 

He stood five feet, ten inches tall, which was enormous for a featherweight. Compare him to, say, Sandy Saddler, who was considered freakish at five feet eight, and you understand the size of Diego Corrales. Even as a lightweight, he was taller than most. This, possibly, was why opponents came at him so hard. He once said to me, “I can box a lot of different ways, but I always end up in a brawl.” He was a physical anomaly. At full height in the center of the ring, he looked like a King Cobra rising to strike.

Yet he was hardly snakelike. The fact is that Corrales, who will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame next June, was more like a junkyard dog, willing to fight with his ears and tail torn off. Alas, it wasn’t until the later days of his career that we truly appreciated Corrales’ fighting spirit. He’d always been a fighter we wanted to see, but near the end, he was a fighter we had to see.

He was always smiling. Smiling at how he had lived his boyhood dream to become a professional fighter; smiling at how he became a titleholder at 23; and absolutely beaming after any of the 40 wins on his record. He reacted to each of his victories like a kid who had been surprised by an unexpected birthday gift.

That’s why it was always hard to reconcile this likable, oversized boy with the fact that he had a history of violence against women and once served 14 months in a state prison for felony spouse abuse. What went on in his mind? We’ll never know.

He was 29 when it all ended. He’d lost three fights in a row, which is hard to come back from. He was on his third marriage, and it, too, was falling apart. He had problems with the IRS and was running out of money. Friends said he was optimistic about his career and his troubled marriage, but Corrales seemed like a man with an uncertain future.  Just weeks after his most recent loss, he was riding his Suzuki motorcycle northbound on Fort Apache Road in the Las Vegas Valley. He was drunk. Along with hitting women, he had a history of drunk driving arrests. On this night he rammed into the back of a car. The impact left the Suzuki looking like a crushed Coke can, and sent Corrales hurtling 100 feet. When Corrales landed, he was struck by another car. He died hard.

He had become a legend of sorts by then, all because of one fight – and it is largely because of that one fight that he has been selected for enshrinement in Canastota – a stunning, 10th round come-from-behind knockout of Jose Luis Castillo in 2005. It was contested in a half-empty Mandalay Bay Center for alphabet belts that no one remembers, but a generation of boxing fans considered it the best fight in history. Who could argue? Corrales and Castillo had battered each other. Their faces and torsos were beaten into colors we’d never seen on human flesh. The bruises weren’t black and blue; they were grey, or muddy brown. It was as if the contusions were in pain, screaming for mercy.

Castillo was about to win, having sent Corrales to the canvas twice in the 10^th, but somehow Corrales landed a right on Castillo’s cast-iron jaw. Jose Luis sagged into the ropes unable to defend himself. Corrales threw a few more punches until referee Tony Weeks stepped in. It was instantly an all-time classic.

“We were going to box,” Corrales said later, “but I kind of shredded that game plan once the fight started. I was just in the mood to fight.”

That gritty side had existed in Corrales all along. There was a bout with Joel Casamayor where Corrales was bleeding so badly from a cut in his mouth that the ringside doctor called for the fight to be stopped. Corrales argued, wanting to continue even as gore spurted from his lips.

The same was true of his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. Corrales had been dropped five times and was so far behind on points that his step-father/trainer stopped the fight. Again, Corrales was outraged. There were still two rounds left. When a man can punch like Corrales, he always believes his fortunes can change.

His time at the top was brief. He met Castillo for a rematch five months later and was stopped in four. Two more losses followed. The first war with Castillo made Corrales the toast of boxing, but it also ruined him. He was never the same.

It is possible that Corrales could’ve achieved more in boxing. He always had that urge to show the world what he could do. After his second bout with Casamayor, in which he had boxed with finesse and won by split decision, Corrales turned to the cameras and smiled. He said, “See? I told you I could fight like that.” As much as he loved a good rumble, he wanted us to know he was more than a brawler.

Corrales wasn’t a great fighter, but he was a good one. He was gutsy and he could punch. There was his bout with Acelino Freitas, a strange one that saw Freitas simply stop fighting in the middle of a round and walk to his corner. It was a mystery as to why Freitas surrendered, though his manager later told me the reason. “He said Corrales hit him so hard that he was seeing triple; there were three Corraleses in front of him and he didn’t know what to do.” Such was Corrales’ power.

There were stories of Corrales’ gentler side. He was a gourmet cook who loved TV soap operas and designer clothing. When reporters made fun of him early in his career for having too many piercings, he felt embarrassed and removed them all. He seemed eager to please. He could charm you. I recall his mild voice, excitable but friendly, like a teen. Our few conversations had been nice. He was personable, happy to talk about his career and upcoming fights. But as LA writer Bill Dwyer said of Corrales many years ago, he was “a con artist with a twinkle in his eye.”

Corrales was pleasant to me, but was I just another person taken in by the Corrales con?

“Face to face, he was a wonderful kid,” said publicist Bill Caplan at the time of Corrales’ death.

But when no one was looking, Corrales became something less than wonderful.

Corrales put his second wife in the hospital with a broken collarbone, bruised ribs, and other injuries. She was pregnant at the time. On another occasion she was seen with Corrales’ handprints on her neck. Choke marks. The powerful hands that had made him a champion were used to strangle a woman who was nearly a foot shorter than him, and weighed less than 100 pounds. You don’t put your hands on a woman’s throat unless you mean to kill her. How close did he come to snuffing her out? He’d beaten up his first wife, too, so you can’t say it was just bad chemistry between Corrales and wife number two. The man was a serial abuser.

Corrales hadn’t been a shoe-in for the IBHOF. It took 16 years for him to be inducted. The IBHOF didn’t return calls for this story, but one can imagine the response would be typical of his defenders, something about his personal life not having an effect on his being selected. But one wonders if 16 years were needed because it took that much time for people to forget the worst things about Corrales, and to just remember the fights.

Corrales has always had supporters. Contemporaries who knew him from California gyms will smile and say, “My man, Chico!” Loved ones will cry at his memory. Journalists will try to put a romantic spin on him, saying that he lived recklessly and died recklessly, that he was a thrill seeker. They’ve always done that for Corrales, idealizing him as a “Raging Bull” type of character, a man of extreme emotions, a man with a dark side. They will say his misdeeds are unfortunate because they taint his legacy. I think they’re unfortunate because a couple of women are probably still having nightmares about him.

There’s a history of fighters being given a pass for abusing women. There seems to be an unspoken deal, in that the fighter entertains us, so we forgive his wrongdoings. In that way, boxing fans aren’t much different than the folks in Ozone Park who revered John Gotti, a Mob killer, because on Independence Day he supplied them with fireworks and sausages.

Corrales will be honored this spring. Hardcore fans who make the yearly trek to upstate New York for the inductions will cheer his name. Why not? His fight with Castillo made us all love boxing again, and that may be reason enough to place him among the great ones. And he’s certainly not the only wife beater in the hall. He’s just the latest.

Inducting Corrales gives people a chance to recall his best moments in the ring, but it will also give us a chance to think about the way we continue to glorify these men who hurt women. To say Corrales served his time is far too simplistic, as is the tendency to glamorize him as a man tortured by demons. The tough guy who thrives in a violent profession but beats his wife is an archetype that has been around too long, and one we no longer need.

 

- Don Stradley