Throughout the history of sports,
there have been heroes of sorts handed down from generation to
generation. For example, Babe Ruth was Gargantura in human form.
Millions of people were influenced by Jack Dempsey and felt the
impact of his
individuality. In the littler world of golf Bobby Jones invoked
the same effect. Helen Wills was the Mardi Gras of Tennis. Knute
Rockne was football's high priest. As a kid growing up in Tom's
River and Orange, N. J., my hero was Domenick Anthony "Two-Ton"
Tony Galento. He was the local martyr. Jersey was agog.
My mom never had to look for
my dad in those days. Just part the bat wings of Tony's bar and
there he'd be, sitting on a stool talking to Tony or Tony's
"fight doctor," Doc Max Stern, who was also a New Jersey Boxing
Commission doctor. Maybe it was because we kids were never
subjected to his gruff side that we all idolized him. We cheered
when he won and we cried when Joe Louis and Max Baer punished
him in a way only Hitler would enjoy.
"I was only twelve when I
waited with my dad and a large group of people for Tony to
return to Doc Stern's office at two in the morning to get
patched up after the Louis fight. My dad told him, "Tony, for
two seconds you were the Heavyweight Champion of the World."
"Next time I'll moider da bum," he smiled through swollen lips.
But the next time's were over for Tony. The bludgeon proved to
much for the fat man.
I went into the Marines and
lost track of Tony until many years later when I read in the
papers he was to referee an Ernie Dusik wrestling match in
Lancaster, Pa. I approached him at the bar and introduced
myself. I was flattered that he remembered me as a kid from the
old block. He made them give me back my general admission money
and took me and my agog girlfriend down to the front row. He and
Dusik (of course) got into a skirmish, and Dusik tore his shirt
off. Tony reached over the ropes and tossed the shirt into my
enthralled girlfriend's lap. It was still hanging on a wall in
her bedroom along with his autographed picture when she gave me
the brush-off.
Tony and I talked about his
career. We talked about the fighters of the day -- the late
'60s. He boasted about how he would have "moidered da bums
today." A prototypical dock-brawler, he stood 5-foot-9 and
weighed 235-240, depending on how much beer and spaghetti he
wolfed down before he entered the ring. "Did you ever see a beer
barrel walking, well I did," wrote one reporter covering an
early fight.
No disrespect, but if Galento
was starting his career in the year 2000, he would rule over the
heavyweight division like Ben Hogan ruled golf. None of today's
top contenders, or the champ himself, could have stood up under
Two Ton's lambasting. The fat man was a bus accident. Geronimo
terrorizing one fort after another in old Arizona. The greatest
charge of the light brigade the ring has ever known.
Okay, so he was fat, vulgar
and uncouth. As far as insulting someone, he made Don Rickles
look like Pope John XXIII. Joe Louis told me Galento was the
only man alive he ever hated. He didn't hate Max Schmeling. He
didn't Joseph Stalin. He hated Tony Galento. Louis could chuckle
about it now that the bitterness between the two former
combatants had ended in a great friendship. In retrospect, Joe
said he was hurt because of the following conversation.
Listen:
Reporter: Tony, what do you think your chances are against Joe
Louis?
Galento: Joe who?
Reporter: Joe Louis.
Galento: I never hoid of da bum.
It sold tickets, but Louis's
pride was hurt. The final insult came when Tony dropped Louis
for the count of 2 in the second round. Louis felt humiliated.
People couldn't believe it. Picture if you can, Fuzzy Knight
saving the fort. George Foreman met a hamburger he didn't like.
Tony Tucker showed up in shape to fight. It was that
unbelievable.
Galento's pulverizing
round-house left hook and total disregard for the Marquess of
Queensbury made him one of the most feared heavyweights of the
1930s. Born on March 12, 1910 in Orange, N. J., he began
fighting in 1928 and he fought almost every month. He lost his
fourth pro fight to a club house fighter named James Jay Lawless
by repeatedly fouling him until the referee stopped it in the in
the 5th round. From June 25, 1930 to April 8, 1931 he mowed down
ten opponents in a row like grass before the sickle.
If Tony needed a friend in
those days he would have to buy a dog. Ray Arcel, who worked
across the ring from him in his fights with Max Baer, Lou Nova
and Nathan Mann, said "Nobody really like him except maybe the
guys who hung out in his saloon. "He was a crude guy, to put it
mildly, who would resort to all sorts of foul tactics to win a
fight."
Yeah, but in those days, it
was the survival of the fittest. There's no hospitalization
benefits on the bomb squad.
For dirty fighting, next to
Galento, Mike Tyson was a member of the House of Lords. Willie
Pep an alter boy. Fritzie Zivic sang in the choir at St.
Anthony's. During his 15 year career Galento got away with more
heists than Dillinger. He would butt. Use his elbows. Gouge
eyes. Aim for the gonads. Look out, he has a gun!
His fight with Lou Nova on
September 15, 1939 in Filthydelphia was the dirtiest fight on
record. Mills Lane would have stopped it. Richard Steele would
have called the cops. It was like a walk through South Central
L.A. after midnight. You won't be around for breakfast.
Pugilism was at its highest
point by the time Galento mauled his way into a championship
fight with Joe Louis. They called it "The Bum of the Month"
club, but how many fighters today could have matched Galento's
record of 74-22-6 with 51 knockouts? And the numbers do not
begin to tell the story of his fabulous career. In 1931 he
kayoed three Detroit opponents in one night, stopping Frankie
Kits and Joe Brian in one round each and disposing of Paul
Thierman in three. In between rounds he quaffed his favorite
brew.
In 1932 he won a $10 bet that
he could eat 50 hot dogs. 10 minutes later he climbed into the
ring and pulverized Arthur DeKuh in 4 rounds. That same year he
was disqualified in a fight with Jack Gagnon. It was like
watching a shark eat.
Galento even won on a
disqualification in 1934. Battling Bozo heard of Galento's
reputation as a dirty fighter and decided to foul him first. The
referee stopped the fight in the first round. Galento followed
that one up with a 3 round KO over Italian Jack Herman. He lost
twice on TKO's, once to Marty Gallagher in 13 rounds, and once
to a light-heavyweight named Al Gainer in 4 rounds. From there
he ran up a streak of stoppages of leading contenders including
Nathan Mann (KO 4), Al Ettore ( TKO 8), Jorge Brescia ( KO 1),
Abe Feldman (KO 3) and Natie Brown ( KO 4).
His TKO of Harry Thomas in the
3rd round in Filthydelphia on December 7, 1938, was highly booed
by fans who shouted "fake!" and tossed trash into the ring. Said
one old timer, "They threw everything but the stature of William
Penn from the top of the arena into the ring." Well, if there
was a joker in the deck, it wouldn't be the first time Jackie
Robinson got caught stealing bases. Or Ma Barker dragged her
sons off to a drugstore and treated them to a bottle of pungent
crabocide.
Two Ton went through managers
like Elizabeth Taylor went through bridesmaids. He trained on
beer and Italian food. He hated the country and refused to go
into the mountains to a training camp. He defended his
queer-potato methods by saying "They work for me." He did his
roadwork after dark because, he said, "I fight at night, don't
I?"
This was the reason his list
of managers read like a chapter of Lamparski's "Whatever Became
Of...?" Elmer Flynn (1928) Harry Kinney (1928-1929), Johnny
Scavone (1929-1931) Max Waxman (1931-1932), Pete Dodd
(1932-1933), Jack Dempsey (1933-1934), Joe Jacobs and Harry
Mendel (1935-1941), Willie Gilzenberg (1943).
He was already one of the most
picturesque characters in American ring history when he got his
"Bum of the Month" shot at the title in Yankee Stadium on June
28, 1939. More shocking than Tyson munching on Holyfield's ear,
Joe Jacobs and Tony Galento were at their sleazy worst. In the
days before the fight, Jacobs drummed up a phony charge against
Louis, accusing the Brown Bomber of having concealed a metal bar
in his right glove the night he blitzkrieged Max Schmeling.
Fight promoter Mike Jacobs and the New York State Athletic
Commission came unglued. Sparks flew upward and they demanded a
retraction, which they got.
Galento wouldn't give up.
Louis, you must consider, didn't go for clowning. He was as
serious as a heart attack. So Galento's customary, "I'll moider
da bum," annoyed him like sweats and jeans on Sunset Plaza
Drive. As the fight approached Galento's taunts became uglier.
He called Louis on the phone at all hours of the night,
belaboring his race and his family. During the pre-fight
introductions, Galento made sexual remarks about Louis' wife,
including some on-camera crotch-polishing. The usually clam
Louis lost his composure -- and it almost cost him his title.
"Tony berated me something
terrible before the fight," Louis whispered to me during our
interview. "He got to me, and I hated him for it. I never hated
anybody before. I decided to punish him before I knocked him
out. I wanted it to go into later rounds, but he kept calling me
dirty names during the fight. So I ended it."
Over 30,000 fans jammed the
stadium on the night of the fight. Galento was a 6-1 underdog
with as much of a chance of winning as a Wigwam has in a
hurricane. It was even money it would not last 5 rounds. Yet, a
Gallop poll published by the New York Times said 47% of the
people were in Galento's corner -- fight fans love an underdog.
Ringside seats went for $27.50. Cheap seats in the balcony sold
for $2.50.
Here's a story that has never
been printed. Remember you heard it here first. It was told to
me by my departed father, and everyone knows an Irishman will
never tell a lie.
The night before the Louis
fight, Tony's brother walked into his bar and asked Tony for a
couple if free tickets for the fight. Tony told him to stand in
line like everybody else. His brother hit him over the head with
a beer bottle. Doc Stern quickly stitched up a three-inch gash
in Tony's head and the ordeal was hushed up, for fear the fight
would be cancelled. So Tony fought Louis with a raw gash in his
head. Today a fight is canceled on a sneeze.
"The first good punch I hit
him with will put him on the floor," Galento told his listener's
at the bar. He was almost right. At 233-3/4 pounds, Galento
bullied the 33-pound lighter Louis around the ring in the first
round, and nearly flattened him with a stunning left hook that
glazed the eyes of the champ. Louis returned to his corner on
wobbly legs. Galento staggered Louis again in the second, but
near the bell Galento was knocked down for the first time in his
pugilistic career. His face looked like slumgullion, but his
finest moment was yet to come.
Louis was picking him apart
with jabs, when suddenly, Galento's dreaded left hook appeared
like Haley's Comet out of nowhere. An embarrassed and mortified
Louis went down. The rafters shook with excitement. Louis jumped
up at the count to two, but his legs were Jello. In his effort
to finish Louis off, Galento's punches fanned the air and Louis
weathered the round.
In the fourth round Louis
began running Galento's face through a thrashing machine. He
battered Tony so badly that referee Arthur Donovan stopped the
slaughter at 2:29 of the round with only the ropes keeping the
blimp-like Galento up.
The following morning's
newspaper quoted Galento as saying, "He's not as good as they
rate him. He can't take a punch. I would have won. He pushed me
and I went down. They shouldn't have stopped the fight."
He didn't speak about the 23
stitches needed to close his wounds. He failed to mention that
he was hanging on the ropes like a jumble of sausages in the
window of Mario's delicatessen when referee Donovan pulled Louis
off him.
From there, everything went
Chinese for Galento. Although he gave Lou Nova the licking of
his life before stopping him in the 14th round, Galento, himself
took the worst beating he ever took in his next two fights with
the Baer brothers, Max and Buddy. Max always said he got more
pleasure out of beating up Galento than he did winning the
heavyweight title from Primo Carnera in 1934.
Ray Arcel said Max Baer was a
good-natured clown who never disliked anyone, "..but he hated
Galento with a vengeance. He really wanted to kill him. In the
ring, the two of them were cursing so much, people in the cheap
seats could hear the most vile obscenities."
Tony's face looked like a bag
of plums when Max stopped him in the 8th round in Jersey City on
July 2, 1940. Brother Buddy stopped Galento in the 7th round on
April 8, 1941 in Washington. The fight was as one-sided as an
airliner crash. Small, dumpy, Tony was no match for the towering
6-foot-6 Buddy Baer.
Throughout 1942 Galento
scrambled for a living, refereeing wrestling matches and
slugging it out with the wrestlers to the delight of the crowd.
In 1943 he returned to the
ring and knocked out Herbie Katz in one round, then in 1944 he
kayoed Jack Suzek in Wichita. Finally, after a 15-career and a
82-26-6 with 59 knockouts record, he quit.
He tried acting; he appeared
as a thug along with fellow Bum of the Month club members, Abe
Simon and Tami Mauriello in the Academy Award Winner, On the
Waterfront. And, like Jake LaMotta, he did stand-up comedy. He
even became friends with Joe Louis and they appeared on TV
together watching the film of their age-old fight and commenting
on the ballyhoo with light-hearted good humor.
Louis told me, "Really, I got
to like the son-of-a-bitch. He had something these guys lack
today -- charisma. He could have taken most of these fighters
today and would have been a millionaire ten times over. He was
either born too soon or too late. He was a throw back to John L.
Sullivan. He would have been a great bare-knuckle fighter. The
man was absolutely fearless."
Two Ton Tony Galento died on
July 22, 1979 after a three-year battle against diabetes that
cost him the amputation of a foot, then later both legs. We kids
who knew him better than anybody else while growing up in
Orange. We never got to know the gruff Tony. We only saw the
gentle, good-hearted and happy-go-lucky side of the man.
Tony Galento is still my hero.
I can still see him rising from the rosin canvas, eager to
absorb more punishment. I can still hear him saying, "Next time
I'll moider da bum."
They didn't come any tougher
than Tony Galento.
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