Boxing News and History

The former world light-heavyweight champion who nearly dethroned heavyweight champion Joe Louis in 1941, Billy Conn, died of pneumonia in 1993 at a Veterans Affairs hospital in his native Pittsburgh. He was 75 years old.

Conn was leading Louis by a wide margin when he made the mistake that was to haunt him for the rest of his life. After stunning Louis in the twelfth round he tried to slug it out with the fearsome champion.

Louis knocked him out in the 13th round.

"I couldn't knock out anybody," Conn recalled. "And I tried to knock out Joe Louis.”

Former world middleweight champion ‘Man of Steel' Tony Zale was born on in 1913, as Anthony Florian Zaleski, he changed his last name to Zale and quit his day job in the steel mills of Gary, Indiana when his career took off in the 1930's.

One opponent, Billy Soose, once described Zale's punches by saying that when he "hits you in the belly, it's like someone stuck a hot poker in you and left it there."

Though he turned professional at 21 years old in 1934, it was over a two-year span in the late 1940's – when he was well past 30 – when Zale helped make Graziano-Zale as famous a combo in boxing lore as Ali-Frazier or Dempsey-Tunney or Louis-Schmeling.

"We gave those people their money's worth, didn't we?" Zale said of his ferocious trilogy with Rocky Graziano years later.

Former three-weight world champion Jeff Fenech is one of Australia’s most celebrated boxers, renowned for his relentless fighting style, toughness, and remarkable rise through multiple weight divisions. Born in Sydney in 1964 to Maltese parents, Fenech began boxing at the Newtown Police Boys Club under legendary trainer Johnny Lewis after a troubled childhood. His outstanding amateur career saw him captain Australia’s boxing team at the 1984 Olympics before turning professional later that year.

Nicknamed the “Marrickville Mauler,” Fenech quickly became a knockout sensation, winning his first eleven fights by stoppage. In just his seventh professional bout, he captured the IBF bantamweight title, becoming one of the fastest fighters ever to win a world championship. He later claimed world titles at super-bantamweight and featherweight, defeating champions including Satoshi Shingaki, Samart Payakaroon, and Victor Callejas.

Fenech’s rivalry with Ghana’s Azumah Nelson defined part of his career. Their controversial 1991 draw was retrospectively overturned in 2022, officially awarding Fenech a fourth world title. Inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2002, Fenech remains an iconic figure in Australian sport as both a champion boxer and respected trainer.

Former light-heavyweight great and world heavyweight champion Ezzard Charles died at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Chicago in 1975. He was stricken in 1966 with arnyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a muscle-debilitating disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, and had been confined to a wheelchair. He was 53 years old.

Charles said he first noticed the ailment in 1955. "After a guy hit me, I didn't seem to be able to get away," he recalled. "I didn't have the same coordination."

“Just a simple, square sort of fellow, who believed in playing the game by the rules,” was how he once described himself. “But if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't change a thing.”

With a vintage performance, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, proving he was still the undisputed middleweight champion no matter what the WBC or WBC said in 1983 when stopped Wilford Scypion in the fourth round with a brilliant performance.

Hagler, fighting without the blessing of either international sanctioning body, stopped Scypion in four rounds at the Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island. The end came after Hagler had dominated the 24-year-old challenger with those skills that Weldon, Scypion's trainer, had said the champion did not possess.

The fight was sanctioned only by the newly formed United States Boxing Association-International, which later became the IBF.

"I can't find anybody to bring out the best in me,'' said the 29-year-old Hagler.

Cuba's ill-fated Benny 'Kid' Paret was crowned world welterweight champion in 1960 when he outpoined Don Jordan over 15 rounds at the Convention Center in Las Vegas.

United Press International reported: "Paret, whose wilting body attack won the world welterweight championship from Jordan Friday night, probably will defend his new 147 pound crown in New York on Oct. 15. Jordan was unimpressive in Friday night's nationally televised 15 rounder as he lost a unanimous decision before a disappointing crowd estimated at 3,500. Don, who weakened under Paret's persistent body barrages, suffered his third straight defeat. During the comparatively dull fight, Jordan suffered a five stitch cut on his left eyebrow. He was bleeding from the nose at the finish, and his left cheekbone was swollen."

Roy Jones Jr (26-0, 23 knockouts) retained his IBF middleweight championship in 1994 with a second-round knockout of the No. 1 contender Thomas Tate at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

He hammered Tate.

Jones entered the ring wearing a dog collar, furious about not being billed in the evening's main event, even though he was making $750,000 to $500,000 for top of the bill Oscar De La Hoya who stopped Italy's Giorgio Campanella in three rounds.

But Jones proved he is worthy of top billing. "I came here to do a job," Jones said. "I made my statement."

Also on the Top Rank show billed 'Rising Stars' Rafael Ruelas kept his IBF lightweight championship with a third-round knockout of Mike Evgen, and Danny Romero retained his NABF flyweight belt with a sixth-round knockout of Hugo Torres.

Oscar De La Hoya suffered a scare in 1994 when he was floored little over 10 seconds into the first defence of his WBO super-featherweight title by Giorgio Campanella. De La Hoya got up to deck the Italian late in the second round and ended matters in the third.

"I started out trying to be that big, macho fighter, bang with this great banger," De La Hoya said. "By the second round, I realized that I could easily outbox him, get him from the outside using my reach advantage, and stay away from that left hook.”

It was the second first-round knockdown De La Hoya has suffered in his last three fights. Narcisco Valenzuela scored a flash knockdown the previous October in Phoenix.