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THE IMMORTALS OF AMERICAN BOXING
by Don Stradley
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Mike McCallum died in Las Vegas the other day, aged 68. The lack of fanfare was unfortunate, though not unusual. He was always a quiet sort of guy, and even in death he played things close to the vest.
The obits were respectful, though reports of his death were limited to short pieces on boxing sites and slightly longer pieces on Jamaican news sites. All in all, it was as good a sendoff as a fighter from the 1980s can get in these times. McCallum is virtually unknown to younger fans, but he was a great fighter. He was smart and versatile, and in bouts against supposed knockout artists, he was usually the guy who scored the knockout.
One thing boxing fans do, aside from complain about scoring, is to look back at the 1980s through rose-colored glasses. They'll insist it was a golden era, with all the great ones fighting each other. Fans don't realize there was as much political nonsense going on in the 1980s as there is today. Fans old enough to remember will always say it was a crime that McCallum didn't get his shot at those superstars who were so busy fighting each other: Hagler, Hearns, Leonard, and Duran. I remember talking to trainers from that period, and they all agreed that those big names avoided McCallum. They had reasons, of course. He possessed the two main ingredients to keep him on the "must avoid" list: he wasn't famous, and he was good enough to give them all hell.
But if McCallum was boxing's odd man out, he was formidable in his own quiet way.
Thirty-five years ago, I happened to be at the Heinz Convention Center in Boston where McCallum defended his WBA middleweight title against Stevie Collins, an Irish lad who had relocated to Massachusetts and was treated as a local. That's what McCallum did in those days while the superstars were all busy fighting each other. He came to places like Boston, a boxing backwater, and fought guys like Collins, who had talent but wasn't yet the fighter he'd be in a few years.
Though I knew McCallum had scored big wins over Donald Curry, Julian Jackson and others, most of the Boston crowd had no clue about him. Boston fans knew about Hagler, and they probably knew about Rocky Marciano, though I'm sure half the crowd thought Marciano was a retired placekicker for the Patriots. The customers, mostly white, turned red with hatred at the site of McCallum as he strolled toward the ring. I won't quote the nasty words they yelled, but I can assure you the rabid locals weren't saying, "Welcome to Boston."
It would be silly to say the Boston crowd had no effect on McCallum, because I don't know for certain how he felt. But to look at him was to see a cool character, utterly unbothered. Calling someone like this a gunslinger is a cliche, but any gunslinger would admire the nerves of steel McCallum showed that afternoon.
He sauntered with incredible ease through that storm of hostile white faces, and the way his black robe fit over his slender frame made him look wraith-like. There was very little security separating McCallum from the crowd, but no one dared touch him. His little old trainer, the legendary Eddie Futch, went all the way back to Joe Louis and was enjoying a renaissance among the smarter fans. I don't know how Futch did it, but the old man seemed to create a force field between McCallum and the rowdy spectators.
There were rumors that McCallum, who had learned some of his craft at the Kronk gym in Detroit, had held his own with Tommy Hearns during impromptu sparring sessions. The two never fought because the timing of their careers never meshed, but Hearns' trainer, the late Emanuel Steward, once told me McCallum should've been a bigger star in the business.
"When McCallum was young and in his prime," Steward said, "Leonard and Hagler looked the other way." As far as McCallum's bouts with James Toney and Roy Jones Jr., Steward called them "too late. He didn't get the big fights when he should have."
By the time of this fight with Collins in 1990, McCallum had won 38 times, and lost only once (he'd avenge the loss, too). He'd held the WBA super welter title and had defended it six times, and now owned the WBA's middleweight belt, which he would defend three times.
Though he was nicknamed "The Bodysnatcher" for his ability to pound cracks in a man's torso, McCallum was a good all-around fighter. He'd beaten Curry with a perfect left hook that sprang out of nowhere as Curry was moving back. It left Curry out cold, flatter than Wiley Coyote after encountering an ACME steamroller. That convincing win over Curry is probably what put McCallum in the International Boxing Hall of Fame, which is where he belongs. If a fighter can't say he earned millions of dollars, a picture book knockout of someone like Curry is a mighty fine calling card.
As for Collins, McCallum gave him a boxing lesson for the first three rounds, and hurt him badly in the fourth. To Collins' credit, he kept the fight close from the fifth to the 10th. Knowing he might lose a hometown decision, McCallum boxed smartly in the final two rounds, jabbing and landing combinations. It was nothing fancy, just effective boxing. All three scorecards went his way. The audience jeered.
Futch put the black robe on McCallum and the two walked back through the crowd. For McCallum, it was just another day at the office.
McCallum was an excellent fighter, and from everything I've heard, a decent fellow. May he rest in peace, and finally get a shot at the big money.
*
Don Stradley is the author of The War: Hagler, Hearns, and Three Rounds for The Ages, plus the recently released, The Immortals of American Boxing. He writes regularly for The Ring.
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It wasn't exactly Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson. It may not have been Andy Ruiz shocking Anthony Joshua. But Caleb Plant coming up short on a split decision to the feisty but unknown Armando Resendiz was a balm for anyone who roots for an upset.
It was the ages old story of a younger, less-experienced fighter simply wanting it more. Though Plant will hardly be remembered as the greatest super middleweight of this era, he is certainly a skilled fighter who was penciled in to beat Resendiz and go on to a bigger payday with Jermall Charlo later this year. In fact, for the first few rounds it appeared Plant was following the script, though Resendiz rocked him in the third and again in the fifth. By then, the tide of the fight was turning and Plant could do nothing about it.
When it was over, Plant was philosophical. "I felt it was a close fight," he said, "and in close fights, sometimes it swings the other way."
To his credit, Plant didn't complain about the decision, though he stopped short of overpraising his young conqueror. "I felt like I did good. I was patient. I wasn't the better man tonight, I guess."
Two judges scored the contest for Resendiz 116-12, while the third called it for Plant, 115-113.
"I felt like I had enough control, using my jab," Plant said. "The judges saw it the other way. What can you do?"
Plant's camp didn't squawk, and no one in the Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas doubted the scoring. All it took was one look at Plant's bruised face and torso, and you knew who the loser was. The winner was unmarked.
Resendiz, a 25-1 betting underdog, fought with a sort of controlled fury from the sixth round on, throwing hard shots with both hands. Using short, crunching hooks and a murderous body attack, he dominated Plant. It was as if Resendiz decided at some point that this was his night. Once that decision was made, Plant was doomed.
As if to punctuate his performance, Resendiz opened a cut over Plant's right eye in the later rounds, adding some color to the dramatic story that was unfolding. Though Plant's corner implored him to finish strong, it appeared Plant was simply overwhelmed, unable to cope with his rival's attack.
Realizing the fight was his for the taking, Resendiz took command in the closing rounds with power shot after power shot. Resendiz, whose record is now 16-2 with 11 KOs, was all energy and enthusiasm. Sometimes that's all you need.
"I knew everybody was going to be against me," Resendiz said through an interpreter. "On paper, of course, it was like that. But I believed in myself and my corner believed in me."
Whether 26-year-old Resendiz can build upon the WBA interim belt he won last night is unknown, though there is talk that he may end up fighting Charlo in Plant's place. Charlo is a notch above Plant, and Resendiz will have to be even better if he hopes to contend with the undefeated two-division titlist. Charlo scored an easy TKO win over Thomas LaManna in last night's co-feature, but as good as Charlo looked, all anyone could talk about was Resendiz' impeccable performance.
It has been a month of upsets, with Ryan Garcia losing a few weeks ago in New York, but Resendez' win over Plant may be the upset of the year. The Mexican native who now lives in South Gate, California had lost two of his last five fights, and wasn't expected to be anything more than a tune-up for 32-year-old Plant, whose record now stands at 23-3.
The problem with Cinderella stories is that midnight always comes too soon. All of boxing's Cinderella men eventually turn back into pumpkins, from Jim Braddock to Buster Douglas to Andy Ruiz. Watching Resendiz' magnificent win put me in mind of another great upset from many years ago, one that took place at Caesars Palace, just about 30 minutes away from the Michelob venue where Resendiz scored so big. It involved another young Mexican underdog, Stevie Cruz, who scored an even bigger upset over the celebrated featherweight champion, Barry McGuigan. In 100 degree heat, Cruz, a plumber's assistant, dropped the Irishman twice in the final round to take the title on points. Though McGuigan was a likable fighter, there was something magical about seeing the unknown youngster beat him.
Perhaps we like underdogs because we all feel like underdogs. Cruz lost the title soon after and is forgotten to history, but he'd thrilled those who saw him win that night. Part of the fascination with upsets is the mystery of them. What sort of lightning hit Cruz to fire him up that night long ago? And what, for that matter, fired up Resendiz?
"I left it all to God," Resendiz said after the bout. "I didn't worry at all."
Perhaps Resendiz, who goes by the nickname "Toro," can keep the fairy tale going a while. In the meantime, boxing fans can revel in what they saw Saturday night. Cinderella stories never end well, but they serve a purpose. They prove that the unexpected can happen. They inspire any of us who might be facing impossible odds. Best of all, they keep us watching fights we might otherwise ignore.
*
Don Stradley is the author of The War: Hagler, Hearns, and Three Rounds for The Ages, plus the soon to be released, The Immortals of American Boxing. He writes regularly for The Ring.
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By the time I met Goody Petronelli in 2006, the Brockton gym where he had trained Marvelous Marvin Hagler had seen better days. It was on Ward Street, now “Petronelli Way.” The block was lonely at sundown, made lonelier by the sound of empty beer cans rolling across the pavement, and chain link fences rattling in the wind.
Inside, the gym was still daunting. It felt hard, unforgiving. The walls were an homage to Hagler: 1970s fight posters, framed newspaper clippings, a colorful wall-sized mural of Hagler in his glory. Yet at night, with no fighters around, the place had the feel of a long-neglected barracks. Intensely bright lights illuminated the barrenness of the place.
Meanwhile, white-haired men shuffled in and out of Goody’s office. “If my wife calls,” one of them said, “tell her I’m not here.” I recognized one of the guys as Tiger Moore, one of Hagler’s old sparring partners. He looked jolly in a faded red warmup suit. When the phone rang, it wasn’t anyone’s wife, but a local matchmaker looking for a female featherweight to fill an undercard slot. After this hiccup of activity, the old gym went silent as a monastery. The only sound was the humming of an electric clock.
I was writing a magazine story about Goody, and there he was, sitting behind a desk, his big-knuckled hands folded in front of him. The walls of his small office were covered in framed pictures of Hagler, black and white scenes from his amateur days.
Goody had a gentle voice and a thick New England accent, giving everything he said a warm, homey feel. When I told him I had lived in Brockton as a kid, his eyes brightened up.
“You should’ve stopped by,” he said. “I’d teach you how to fight.”
It was the kind of no-nonsense, straightforward offer that had once caught the attention of a teenager named Marvin, a sullen boy who simply stopped by one day. He’d been clumsy at first, with no apparent aptitude for fighting, but he returned a few days later with a vow that he could do better.
“He was a hard-working kid,” Goody said. “And very precise. Even just lacing up his shoes, he wanted things perfect. And he learned fast. I’d show him things, then he’d go home and practice all night in front of a mirror.”
Goody’s boxing philosophy was simple: take care of the basics. Therefore, Goody schooled Marvin in the fundamentals. Marvin treated them like holy scripture. Because Marvin was short, Goody nicknamed him “Short stuff,” which eventually became just “Stuff.”
Go and get him, Stuff…remember the basics, Stuff…
“I don’t think Marvin had been around many white people,” Goody said. “One time he got angry about something, he says, ‘Why should I listen to you, whitey?’ My brother Pat and I just laughed at him. But Marvin got used to us.”
If Goody was an authority figure, his brother Pat was the playful uncle, sneaking Marvin a candy bar after a rough day. Neither Goody nor Marvin enjoyed press conferences, so Pat shined as Marvin’s mouthpiece and became his business manager. Marvin would later ask Pat to be the godfather of one of his children. Once, when Marvin was preparing to fight in San Remo, a reporter asked, “Marvin, how is your Italian?” Marvin said, “Which one? Goody or Pat?”
During my first visit to Goody’s gym, he handed me a business card. Underneath his name it read: “The Sole Trainer of Marvelous Marvin Hagler.” He’d had it made because he disliked the way journalists referred to him and Pat as Marvin’s “co-trainers.” In fact, Pat was the businessman. Goody was the boxing man. Goody’s rare distinction was that he’d trained Marvin from the first time he put on gloves to his final fight. “Be sure to say that in the article,” he said. “I was Marvin’s only trainer.”
Goody was 82 when I met him, but he still worked with fighters. He looked frail when he held the pads for some oversized kid. Yet he was immovable, an old tree refusing to bend. “Just say I’m 26,” Goody said. “When you tell people your age, that’s all they talk about.”
I had heard a rumor that the gym was struggling. Even those who admired Goody were doubtful that young fighters wanted to work with a man his age, in a gym that creaked like an old attic. Goody admitted that business was slow, but he wasn’t concerned. Things would pick up, he said.
Goody spent most nights in his office with a few of his cronies. They rarely talked boxing. They talked about Brockton, people they knew, their favorite restaurants. One of them carried a sketch pad and drew passable caricatures of fighters. Pat wasn’t part of the gym anymore. Goody explained that Pat was ill and had “trouble getting around.” More recently, Goody’s wife underwent an operation and was home recovering. Hagler’s half-brother, Robbie Simms, dropped by now and then to do some shadowboxing and work up a sweat, late at night when no one was around.
The gym felt like a clubhouse, and these were the last dues-paying members.
“Every day I look at the front door,” he said. “I’m still waiting for another Marvin Hagler to walk in.”
At the end of our first session, Goody raced out of the place with his pals, three old men sprinting to their cars. It had become a rotten neighborhood.
Guarino “Goody” Petronelli had fought professionally back in the 1940s, until a broken wrist forced him to quit. After a long hitch in the U.S. Navy, Goody planned to open a gym in Brockton with Pat and a friend, fellow Brockton native and retired heavyweight champion, Rocky Marciano. When Rocky died in a plane crash in 1969, Goody and Pat went ahead and opened a gym above a hardware store downtown.
Success eluded them, even when Marvin turned pro. Talented as he was, Marvin toiled in high school gymnasium shows and half empty arenas. Throughout this difficult period, Goody and Pat wouldn’t take a cut from Marvin’s small paydays, saying he could pay them later. “We knew what we had in Marvin,” Goody said.
During those lean years, boxing insiders mocked the brothers as a couple of rubes holding Marvin back. Yet the Patronellis were suited to handling Marvin and his many moods. Opponents often praised Marvin for the accuracy of his punches and his conditioning, the results of Goody’s old-school methods. And though the Petronellis were unproven businessmen, Marvin eventually topped Sport magazine’s list of the highest paid athletes for 1983, 1984, and 1987. Unscrupulous types often promised him the world if only he’d leave the Petronellis, but Marvin’s bond with the brothers was shatterproof. Marvin called the arrangement, “the unbreakable triangle.”
I wondered if all that money changed Marvin.
“I don’t think money changed him,” Goody said. “What changed him was just fighting for a long time. When a fighter gets older, he starts to worry about things. For his last couple of fights, he felt a bit off. That bothered him.”
I ask about Marvin’s partying days, which included a lot of cocaine and domestic problems. Goody deflected it all.
“When it was time to work, he was always professional. That other stuff, I think he kept it hidden from Pat and me.”
And what was it like when Marvin said he was retiring from the business? “I gave him a hug,” Goody said. “I told him he’d done a good job.”
Goody must’ve known there’d never be another Marvin but admitting such a thing was like admitting his real age.
There were some other fighters. There was a pretty good one who was making real progress, but he decided to move to Europe where he thought he’d get more endorsement deals. There was also a has-been former middleweight titleholder who lived in a nearby state. His father called Goody and asked, Will you train my son? Goody said sure, but he’d have to come to Brockton. That was the end of the conversation. Here was some jerk Marvin would’ve cut in half, and he’s playing stubborn, as if Goody’s wisdom wasn’t worth a 40-mile drive.
Just a year earlier Goody had trained Kevin McBride, an unheralded young heavyweight who scored an upset win over a faded Mike Tyson. It was Goody’s last moment in a spotlight. Unable to capitalize on beating Tyson, McBride had vanished from the scene.
“I heard his wife didn’t want him to fight anymore,” Goody said with a shrug.
Clearly, Marvin was Goody’s masterpiece. Everyone else paled in comparison. Yet when I tried to steer the conversation to Marvin’s big money fights with Tommy Hearns and Ray Leonard, Goody gave the impression that the fun had ended by then when everybody got rich. Or maybe he felt enough had been said about those fights, which he said were “overhyped,” and was more interested in the early years, when each of Marvin’s victories felt like a big one.
I asked Goody to name his proudest achievement with Marvin. Without hesitation, Goody said it was when Marvin won the Nationals in 1973.
“To watch him go from being a chubby 16-year-old to the best amateur in the country in just a couple years, that was the highlight for me,” Goody said.
With a hint of regret in his voice, Goody said there was something that bothered him.
“People never got to know Marvin,” Goody said. “They knew him as the fighter. But he was such a great guy. I wish there were more like him.”
When the magazine story came out, Goody called and thanked me. In all my years as a writer, he is the only person to do that. This, I imagined, was why Marvin adored him, why he still called Goody once a month from his home in Milan, phone calls that I know the old man treasured.
Goody died in 2012 at 88. Pat died four months earlier. The gym was shuttered in 2011 and has been replaced by an 18-unit luxury apartment complex. Though it’s difficult to believe, Marvin is gone, too.
On my final visit to Goody’s office, we talked about Marvin’s induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Goody was thrilled that the scarlet robe Marvin wore for his title-winning fight with Alan Minter was on display in a glass case. That was the night British fans threw bottles and debris into the ring, and the Petronellis used their bodies to shield Marvin and hustle him back to the dressing room. Minter’s fans also broke the windshield on Marvin’s limousine. The new champion rode back to the hotel sitting on glass shards. On a night they should’ve celebrated, the little crew from Brockton was dodging bottles and sitting on broken glass. But they did it together. That was the story being told to me. It was one of loyalty.
When I’d set out to interview Goody, I was half-hoping to learn about secret deals made in the backrooms of Las Vegas casinos. Instead, Goody talked about devotion, commitment. He was still teaching the basics.
And then we were done, and the lights were turned out, and we all left together. Behind us was a room with some old boxing equipment, and a mural of Marvelous Marvin Hagler, gazing out across an empty, cold gym. In 2024, the city unveiled a statue of Marvin. But it seemed incomplete. There should’ve been bronze figures of Goody and Pat, too, standing with their champion, the unbreakable triangle still intact.
* * *
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There were no injuries when the Hartford Civic Center’s roof collapsed in 1978, though the incident mirrored the breakdown of a city that had been crumbling since the 1950s. The state capital that had once been home to Mark Twain and Wallace Stevens had become one of the most dangerous spots in the country. Groups were formed to study the ongoing squalor and propose solutions. Federal grants were sought to help battle the escalating crime problems. Meanwhile, Hartford youths snatched purses and burglarized the city’s housing projects.
Charlie Newell had been one of those kids. He was one of six siblings raised by a single mother in Hartford’s North End, a slow-motion riot of drugs, prostitution, and violent street crime. By age 15 Newell had a police record. In 1977 he robbed a couple at gunpoint, getting away with $239. This earned him a six-to-12-year sentence at Somers State Prison. Newell immediately joined the prison’s boxing program.
The Somers boxing coach, Dave Musco, had created a furlough program where fighters on the prison team could compete on professional boxing shows. “A man has to know he’s something more than a number,” Musco told the Hartford Courant. “I’m not trying to make champion boxers. I’m trying to make better human beings.”
Newell was a quiet type, withdrawn, but serious about boxing. In 1979 he transferred to the minimum-security Enfield Correctional Institute. A strongly built welterweight, Newell was one of only two ECI fighters allowed to fight outside the prison. He probably thought his time had come. Crime and poverty may have brought Hartford to its knees, but it was fine fertilizer in which to grow fighters.
Newell’s pro debut was in June of 1979 against Miguel Sanchez of Bridgeport. They fought at the Civic Center Assembly Hall, a 2,000-seat extension of the rickety main arena. The hall had been busy since the Civic Center’s roof fell in, hosting anything from “Italian nights” to Steve Martin lookalike contests. No doubt thinking this was the beginning of a better life, Newell danced out of his corner. Sanchez KO’d him at 1:22 of the first. The Courant ran a photo of Sanchez hitting Newell in the face.
Meanwhile, another North End boxer was establishing himself. Marlon Starling was 22 years old and seemed special. He was mature, businesslike – by day he managed a Hartford gas station – and appeared destined for great things. As the Civic Center readied for its reopening, Hartford promoters saw Starling as a potential champion who could make them all rich.
Starling had grown up in a North End housing project called Bellevue Square. He’d known Newell. Starling would say Newell had been a bully on the street, but they’d always gotten along. Like a storyline dreamed up by a Warner Bros. screenwriter in the 1930s, Starling won a championship from the Junior Olympics, while Newell ended up in prison.
Starling was 5-0 when he was matched against Newell. Set for January 9, 1980, Starling-Newell was an eight-round semi-final of an assembly hall show. Newell was set to make a cool $350 bucks, a shade more than he’d made for the robbery that landed him at Somers.
At the press conference announcing the event, Newell wandered off to the buffet table. Starling joined him. The Courant noted how Starling and Newell “exchanged an intricate and prolonged handshake,” like a couple of buddies having fun on the street. Starling recalled later that they hadn’t discussed boxing. “We knew we had to fight, but we didn’t talk about it,” Starling said. “We just talked about old friends.”
Once they were in the ring, the two North Enders put on a boring fight. The sparse Wednesday night crowd started booing early. Starling would say Newell acted strangely during the contest. He kept smiling and wouldn’t cover up.
In the seventh round, Starling landed a punch to the side of Newell’s head. Newell fell. He didn’t get up.
Newell died nine days later. He was 26.
***
No one could agree on what had happened. The truth may have been that no one on press row was paying attention.
They couldn’t agree on what sort of punch knocked Newell down, or whether he fell face first or was counted out on his back. There were even disputes over whether Newel’s head struck the canvas. One official told the Meridan Record-Journal that Newell got to his feet but fell again, a circus stunt no one else seemed to see. Courant reporter George Smith hadn’t been there but sought details from his colleagues. “People who were there have tried to tell me what they saw,” Smith wrote, “but I still don’t understand.” A state boxing inspector admitted that the fight had been so dull that he left ringside to do some paperwork.
Referee Lou Bogash Jr. recalled counting over Newell, and how the downed fighter’s eyes opened between the count of seven and eight. Then Newell’s eyes closed again. Within a few minutes Newell was being carried out through the crowd. Starling made his way back to the dressing room where he saw Newell lying on a stretcher, unconscious. “I went over,” said Starling, “and touched him on the head.”
Newell died on the fourth floor of St. Francis Hospital. According to neurosurgeon John X.R. Basile, Newell died from injuries to his brain stem. Basile had been hired by the state to attend bouts because there’d been two recent boxing deaths, including a high-profile New York event where middleweight Willie Classen died after a bout with Wilford Scypion. Basile had even given classes to Connecticut referees where he explained the warning signs that might indicate a fighter is injured. Basile’s first night on the job found him trying to remove a blood clot from Newell’s brain.
Starling’s manager, F. Mac Buckley, applied some spin control. He said Starling had broken his right hand early in the bout, which was why there was such little action. That Starling fought again in 50 days suggests Buckley was lying. He added that he didn’t think a punch had killed Newell. He didn’t elaborate but announced that neither he nor Starling would discuss what happened. Buckley also managed a gym, the Nelson Memorial Club in Charter Oak Terrace. He encouraged the fighters who trained there to keep their mouths shut about Newell.
Buckley, who died in 2022, was one of the main players behind Hartford’s boxing rebirth, credited with keeping many different fight venues going. Moreover, he oversaw Starling. If Buckley wanted to keep things quiet, it was probably to protect a suddenly thriving fight business, and a young man who looked like a future star.
A colorful loudmouth with a cultish following in the city, Buckley wasn’t an especially noble character. He was a Mafia lawyer who would eventually do prison time for embezzling. He and Starling would fall out long before that. But in 1980, Buckley’s objective was protecting the image of Starling. And he wasn’t acting alone. There appeared to be a concerted effort among the city’s boxing people to circle the wagons around Hartford’s potential rainmaker.
Connecticut’s first ring death in nearly 30 years came at a bad time, and local officials stepped carefully in its aftermath. They acknowledged the usual rituals that follow all boxing fatalities: meaningless noise about a “full investigation,” and a possible ban on boxing. There was even talk of an “indefinite suspension” of boxing in Connecticut while the sport’s regulations were probed, which of course went nowhere. Only the prison suffered - the boxing furlough program ended immediately, and the boxing program at Somers was halted for three years. Meanwhile, the Civic Center was already selling tickets for its next boxing show.
Officials advised the public to stay calm. Willie Pep, the great featherweight who was now a state boxing inspector, joined the other authorities to downplay the tragedy. It was as if they’d all emerged from a secret huddle with the same rehearsed speech about Newell’s death being no more than a freak accident. The Civic Center’s Executive Director, Frank E. Russo, called Newell’s fatal injury, “more or less fate.” The event was being depicted as a death without violence. It was not one of those disastrous bouts where a hapless fighter is pummeled until he collapses, while bloodthirsty fans screamed for a knockout. Indeed, the public was assured that Newell’s death was a fluke. Nothing to see here, folks. Please move along…
As Newell lay in a coma, rumors about him were rampant at ECI, everything from his having drug problems to having a head injury. Musco played down the rumors, insisting Newell had been in good shape and ready to fight.
Yet there was mystery surrounding Newell in regards to the number of fights he’d had. His record was alternately given as 2-2, 3-3 and 3-4. In the final month of his life, he’d had four fights in 43 days. Just weeks before he fought Starling, the Courant wrote up Newell’s bout with a New York kid named Joe Fryer at Ottavio’s, a Fairfield restaurant known for hosting wedding receptions. Before a supper crowd of 500, Newell won a four-round split decision. The bout didn’t make it into the 1981 Ring Record Book, which suggests not all of Newell’s fights were being reported through the proper channels.
Strangest of all, the January bout that resulted in Newell’s death wasn’t even the first time he’d fought Starling. Connecticut newspapers had covered a previous meeting in September 1979 at the Bristol Polish Center where Starling defeated Newell on points. Hartford sportswriter Jim Shea called it a “ho-hum decision.” Inexplicably, boxrec.com says Starling’s opponent that September night was a man named “Jerry North,” who had no record and is listed only as a male from Connecticut. (Was “North” a reference to the North End?) Meanwhile, The Ring Record Book of 1981 declares Starling fought “Jerry Worth.” This is curious because several Courant articles mention Starling beating Newell that night, and printings of Starling’s record during his heyday mention it as well. Starling, too, claimed he fought Newell more than once as a pro.
There is the possibility that not all prison-furlough bout were recorded, and the Connecticut commission was lax in keeping track of these bouts. It is also possible that Newell sometimes fought under a different name.
A 1987 investigation into fighters using aliases in several states turned up nearly 800 people. All used fake names to either help fatten the records of up-and-coming boxers, or to circumvent medical suspensions, most notably the recommended 30-day suspension after being knocked out. Could Newell have sometimes fought under a false name, explaining the “Jerry North/Jerry Worth” who appears in some records?
The rumor that Newell had a head injury, and Starling’s claim that he had
acted strangely during the fight, makes one wonder if he was hurt going
into the ring.
And why was he fighting Starling a second time, anyway?
Had desperate promoters and matchmakers simply contacted the prison
during the final weeks of 1979 and said, Send us a welterweight, any welterweight, to fill out our next show? Is that why Newell, rumored to be hurt, fought so often in the last
weeks of his life? Is it why a couple of his fights seemed to disappear
and go unrecorded? Was that why the furlough program was shut down?
The stories piled up, including one where Newell was injured while sparring at ECI, and one where he’d been smashed in the head during a prison yard scuffle. Had he done some fighting under an assumed name to shield an injury?
There were many rumors attached to Newell. One of them might be true.
*
Starling attended the funeral and then left Hartford for 10 days, visiting relatives in Georgia. He would tell the Courant that he feared being called a “killer.” Starling insisted his final punch hadn’t been hard and wouldn’t have caused a man’s death. “There wasn’t enough force,” Starling said.
It was as if he were trying to convince people, or himself, that he hadn’t been responsible for Newell’s death.
Even Newell’s mother seemed to feel that way. At the funeral she gave Starling a rose from her son’s grave and encouraged him to keep fighting.
Starling fought again soon and scored a KO over Frank Minnigan in the same venue where he’d fought Newell. The customers cheered him. The Courant wrote that the tragedy had made Starling, “a sudden celebrity.” Hartford fans may have been influenced by the portrayal of Newell’s death as an accident, as if he’d slipped in a bathtub. Whether to help preserve the image of a rising young star, or to keep Hartford hot as a boxing center, the local officials had successfully convinced the customers that Newell’s end had been caused by something other than Starling’s hands. The prevailing attitude in Hartford was that Newell had loved boxing, and he’d died in his favorite place: a boxing ring.
Over time, Starling said less and less about the tragedy. “Charlie had heavy hands,” he once said. “It’s a shame.”
Starling didn’t become a superstar, but he had a couple of brief turns as a welterweight titlist and an eventual induction into the Connecticut Boxing Hall of Fame. He trains fighters now and works odd jobs. Newell’s death still baffles him. “I never got into this sport to kill nobody,” Starling told the Courant in 2020. “That scared me for a long time. I mean, dying? And I’m still here? That’s not a good fit.”
The North End still struggles with crime, but it has improved in recent years. The Civic Center was demolished in 2004 and rebuilt as the XL Center.
Hardly anyone in Hartford remembers Charlie Newell. His story is from another time, back when the North End was a sweltering, dangerous place, back when teen hoodlums robbed their neighbors for laughs, and the universe seemed so indifferent that it might swat a man down even as he reached for redemption. That’s how it must’ve seemed to Charlie Newell as his eyes fluttered between the count of seven and eight, and the last thing he saw on this sad sweet earth was a referee counting him out.
Did Newell really open his eyes? Or was it just an involuntarily reflex of a man nearing death?
Well, for the romantics among us, of which boxing has no shortage, let’s say he really did open his eyes. Let’s say he saw the referee counting. And let’s say Charlie Newell’s final thought was that the count wasn’t over yet. He still had a chance.
- Don Stradley
follow on X @DonStradley
He spent his final days in a Los Angeles hospital barely able to breathe. That's how it ended for Israel Vazquez. He'd been one of the best little men the boxing business has ever produced, a fighter whose work should be preserved in a vault on Mount Olympus. Now he was dead at 46, chewed up by an illness that left him struggling to walk and speak.
Boxing people mourned. They remembered Izzy as a warrior, an overused word but one that fits perfectly in his case. Indeed, there was something magnificent about him, the way he'd storm out of his corner for the late rounds of a close fight. In those moments, as he chopped away at opponents, it looked as if sparks flew from his gloves.
The last time most of us saw Vazquez was when he lost to Rafael Marquez 14 years ago. Vazquez had won two of their first three fights, all hair-raising classics, and proved that he was a sort of star. But in this fourth bout, the seemingly inexhaustible battery inside him had finally run out. He didn't make it out of the third round. That wasn't the way his career should've ended. He and Marquez should've kept fighting each other throughout eternity. But by 2010, he seemed done after 49 professional fights. There had already been talk of eye problems, and his endless reserve of energy seemed not so endless, after all. Just when we were falling in love with Izzy, he was out of boxing.
There are a lot of excellent names on his record, hard-hitting, aggressive 122-pounders, most of them Mexican, for his career coincided with arguably the heyday of Mexican boxing. Those of us who were smart enough to pay attention in that first decade of the new century saw Izzy use his quick hands and ring smarts against Oscar Larios, from whom he won two of three, Jhonny Gonzalez, Osvaldo Guerrero, Jorge Julio, Ivan Hernandez, Hector Velazquez, and the aforementioned Marquez. They were all smallish men, but in some ways, Izzy was the smallest. He was listed as 5' 5", but he appeared tiny, and always seemed to be punching up. Or maybe that's just how I remember him.
He was one of the great super bantams, winning portions of that title three times, but it was an era where belts were won and lost rapidly, with so many names and faces in those lighter divisions that keeping them in order was an impossible task. Who remembers that Izzy won the IBF super bantam belt by beating Jose Luis Valbuena in Los Angeles in 2004? Or that he did at it at the Olympic Auditorium, the dusky old place where Rocky and Raging Bull were filmed? Somehow, I remember isolated moments of his fights more than the actual fights - Izzy sitting in his corner between rounds, leaning forward like a bulldog straining at his leash, or smiling mischievously after throwing a perfect combination. He was such a gutsy little brawler that we forget how good he was as a craftsman.
He did most of his fighting in California, with occasional sorties into Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Izzy didn't seem right for those big gambling towns, as if he were too small for the bright lights and big spenders. After beginning his career in Mexico, he became a California fighter. His biggest wins and his biggest losses were there. But win or lose, big arena or small, Izzy was Izzy.
We didn't know anything about him. He didn't come from a famous fighting family, didn't mingle with celebrities, didn't brag about his expensive cars. He didn't record hip-hop tracks or have a YouTube channel, or talk trash on social media. He wasn't covered in tattoos and jewelry, and he didn't talk much about God, or how he was being screwed by the business. He didn't want to be a promoter or a mogul or a politician. He just came to fight. Lots of boxers say that about themselves, but with Izzy it sounded true.
It was easy to love him. Yet, and this is the troublesome part, we quickly forgot him once he was gone. Some fighters vanish in retirement, and that's how it was with Izzy. He was gone. He moved on. And we moved on.
The next we thing we heard was that doctors had removed his right eye. And we shook our heads, and talked about boxing being a brutal sport, and we wished him well. He was so tough that losing his eye didn't seem to bother him much. He shrugged it off the way most of us shrug off a parking ticket. It was an accident, he said.
Then we heard he was sick, and then we learned he died a few days ago. This wasn't the way his life should've ended, with his loved ones scrambling to raise money for his medical bills, and the internet buzzing briefly with hastily written tributes. But Izzy never asked for much, just a fair wage for his efforts, and he wouldn't have wanted us to say too much now that he's gone. Still, it's unsettling when fighters die young. Especially the ones who entertained us so much. We all start wondering, Who the hell can replace Izzy?
Izzy's passing puts a spotlight on how much boxing has changed in just the short time since he retired 14 years ago. Showtime, the network that showed most of Izzy's great fights, dropped boxing from its schedule. Most of the big fights take place in Saudi Arabia now. Very few of today's fighters walk with Izzy's quiet dignity. Now they're rude, cartoonish, desperate for attention. The most famous name in the business these days is Jake Paul, a YouTube celebrity. Of course, 14 years is a long time in boxing. Think of Muhammad Ali in 1966. Now think of him in 1980. Things can change a lot in 14 years.
Arenas around the world, and especially in California, should give him ten bells the next time they host boxing. People should stand and bow their heads. At the 10th bell they should all cheer wildly and rattle the roof. They should cheer as if the sound will bring us another Izzy Vazquez to light things up for a while. And this time we'd pay more attention, and he wouldn't have to fight Marquez four times before we showed him some respect. Now we'd let him ride out of the arena on our shoulders as we saluted "El Magnifico." Or maybe we'd just take him for granted all over again, the way we often do with fighters.
Izzy didn't accept many visitors in his final days. He knew how he looked and didn't want to be seen that way. Remember me as a champion, was his unspoken message, remember the way I moved you. Did
the medical staff realize a giant was in
their midst? Or was he just another sick little man? The hospital where Izzy died is only 13 minutes from the Olympic where he'd defeated Valbuena. Except it's not the Olympic, anymore. New owners bought it a year after Izzy won the title. Now it's a Korean church.
At a time when there were bigger stars than Israel Vazquez, he was a perfect garnishment for the business, the side dish that was often better than the main course. He was no-nonsense. He lived for boxing. When he died this week, he took a lot with him.
