Adeyinka Makinde, author of Dick Tiger: The Life and Times of a
Boxing Immortal, interviewed by Kevin Dawson on GlobalTalkRadio dot com, August
2006
Kevin Dawson: Hello and thanks for tuning in to another edition of
'A Story to Tell' here at GlobalTalkRadio.com. We've got a great show ahead for
you today. If you're a boxing fan, or well actually, if you're a sports fan at
all, you're going to enjoy today's exclusive interview with Ade Makinde. He's
the author of Dick Tiger - The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal.
We're going to find out all about one of boxing finest legends when we come
back in just a moment. Stay tuned.
Station and programme themes.
Kevin Dawson: And welcome back to 'A Story to Tell' here at GlobalTalkRadio
dot com. Our next guest is Ade Makinde. He's the author of Dick Tiger -
The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal. Now he is Nigerian-born and a
British based writer. He trained as a barrister-at-law and works as a law
lecturer in England. He writes about boxing for a number of internet sites such
as the highly esteemed cyberboxingzone dot com and eastsideboxing dot
com. His writings have appeared in African Renaissance, a quarterly
published socio-political journal, and Black Star News, a New York-based
investigative weekly. He grew up in both England and Nigeria and developed a
great interest in boxing and writing. Ade's book, Dick Tiger: The Life and
Times of a Boxing Immortal was published just last year and received
instant acclaim. The book has received excellent reviews already from boxing
trade magazines around the world. The review, for example, in The Ring
magazine, which is known as the 'Bible of Boxing,' commended Ade for his
"exhaustive research." This was reiterated by the English weekly Boxing
News, which described the level of his research as both
"impressive" and the book as been an "inspiring read."
Well, let me give you a little bit of background. Dick Tiger was a Nigerian
world boxing champion at two weight divisions in the 1960s, and then he
tragically died at a young age in 1971. He was for many years a popular
attraction at New York City's Madison Square Garden. He was a national hero in
his native country, but his later years were somewhat clouded by his
involvement in the secessionist movement of Biafra which tried to break away
from Nigeria. A major part of Ade's aim in writing this book was to restore
Dick Tiger's reputation in his native Nigeria, as well as to provide a fitting
remembrance for a great boxer. Well, let's get right to it. Ade, welcome to the
programme.
Adeyinka Makinde: Thank you very much Kevin. Glad to be on your
show.
Kevin Dawson: It is wonderful to have you with us and you are
actually calling us all the way from England.
Adeyinka Makinde: That's right. London, England.
Kevin Dawson: London, England; that's an honour right there! Now
it's evening time there, and morning time here so isn't it amazing what
technology can do for us.
Adeyinka Makinde: Oh, absolutely, wonders will never cease.
Kevin Dawson: (Laughs). Well, let's jump right in. Give us a
little bit of background on yourself first. Now you were born in Nigeria, is
that right?
Adeyinka Makinde: Yes that's right, my father (was) Nigerian; my
mother (is) from the Caribbean and I've lived and been educated in both Nigeria
and the United Kingdom. As you mentioned in the introduction, I turned to the
law, became a barrister and mainly function as a law lecturer these days. But
I've also got into writing; developed an interest in writing mainly in the
field of boxing although I don't intend it to be delimited just to boxing.
Kevin Dawson: Is boxing a premier sport in Nigeria?
Adeyinka Makinde: It used to be; I don't think it is these days.
If you ask me what is the premier sport, I would say it always has been, and
even to a greater extent in today's world, it's football; what you call soccer
over there.
Kevin Dawson: Right. What interested you? I'm gathering that even
as a child you were interested in boxing.
Adeyinka Makinde: Oh yes, oh yes. Even as a child, and as I said
living both England and Nigeria, I remember as a youngster, an eight year old,
in Nigeria hearing about the 'Rumble in the Jungle' between George Foreman and
Muhammad Ali, and all the great fights between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. I
got the boxing magazines and although I didn't see his fights, I was quite
aware of Roberto Duran; 'Hands of Stone.' And I was pretty much interested in
Nigerian boxers of the time. They had a few international bouts that were
staged in Nigeria. I remember they had a local hero, his name was Dele Jonathan
and he beat a Scottish fighter called Jim Watt for the Commonwealth title in
1976. So I would say I've always been a boxing fan for all of my life. It just
developed in the sense that when I got older, I could afford to buy books on
boxing, so I developed an interest in the figures in boxing history like
Muhammad Ali, Jack Johnson, Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson.
Kevin Dawson: Well I suppose it's only natural then that you would
develop an interest in your native Dick Tiger. But what led you to actually
write a book about him?
Adeyinka Makinde: Well, I was fascinated about Dick Tiger because
I'd always known of his name, but didn't know very much about him. One thing
that sparked my interest was later on in the mid-1980s, I saw this picture of
him; a colour picture of him in a Nigerian newsmagazine, and it had Dick Tiger
there posing in a military uniform of a rebel republic named Biafra, which
tried to break away from Nigeria in the 1960s. And I noted how much his
accomplishments were; you know he was a two-time world champion at the
middleweight division and he was once the light heavyweight champion. And for some
reason I felt, how come I don't know much more about this guy? And I think that
picture told a story as to why I didn't know about him as much as I felt I and
others needed to know. I think from that moment I was determined that at some
point I would like to collect as much information about this man, and then
later on it developed into the idea of actually writing a book about him.
Kevin Dawson: And here we are today. So, if I may, let me get some
more information for our listeners about Dick Tiger from you. Let's start early
on in his life. Can you tell us a little about where he came from? Now he was
Nigerian-born and what was his life like and how did he get started in boxing?
I understand he actually put the gloves on as a teenager.
Adeyinka Makinde: That's right. He was born in the Eastern Region
of what was then the protectorate of Nigeria in 1929; the British protectorate,
Nigeria was a British colony and boxing like (other) sports were brought to
Nigeria through missionaries, through the military, through the education
system. He grew up in a rural environment at first, which involved tilling the
field and growing food crops; it was virtually a subsistence kind of living.
Then his father died earlier on in his life when he was barely a teenager, he
was still an adolescent, and he and his elder brothers were fostered out to
uncles by his widowed mother and that's when he went to the city known as Aba
in Nigeria, in the Eastern Region. He did work as a delivery boy, taking goods
and letters to the different businesses in the area. He travelled by pushing a
cart. He also developed some business instincts with his older brothers, they
would go on shopping expeditions to a Delta town known as Ogoni (where) they
would buy animals like parrots, cats and they would train them and sell them in
their local market. It was while he was engaged in all of this that he also
developed a reputation as a street fighter and that sort of led him into
boxing. His first love was football but it was boxing that captured his
imagination. It was very popular in Nigeria and all the newspapers were
(running stories) about these great fighters like Joe Louis, Henry Armstrong
and Sugar Ray Robinson. And I think that opportunity -you had a coalescing of
these particular matters. He had a very strong, robustly developed body, and
that sort of allied to his tenacity and his aggression. And the overall
interest that the community was showing in boxing, I think that's what
basically led him into that field.
Kevin Dawson: Did he become a successful prize-fighter at the
beginning, or did it take sometime for him to get there?
Adeyinka Makinde: Oh no, it took quite a lot of time for him to
get there. He started off really as a very crude fighter. He lacked a lot of
finesse and he sort of made up with his tenacity and determination. He had
many, many setbacks. Even in Nigeria, at no point was he actually officially
recognised as the champion in his weight division. Contrary to a record which
was disseminated continuously until I published my book, it was said that he
won the Nigerian middleweight championship from a man called Tommy West, but
that wasn't true at all. He met Tommy West three times, and Tommy West defeated
him on all three occasions. But somehow, he managed to build a reputation, and
the same thing in England, he encountered many difficulties there, and also
when he went to America and he always managed to overcome.
Kevin Dawson: What do you think it might be about his past, or
about himself that I guess kept him so resilient about those challenges and led
him to be successful?
Adeyinka Makinde: Well, I think those assets of resourcefulness
and determination were products of the culture he came from. Among the Igbo
people, the ethnic group he was born into, they prized the development of self.
When the era of colonisation came through the British, they went hook, line and
sinker for getting an education and becoming business people. They're very
business minded people and he would have been influenced greatly by that pervading
atmosphere of bettering one's self, of this optimism of expanding one's
horizons. For instance, you would find these so-called chapbooks which were
these little pamphlets which instructed people on how to get rich, and how to
become a success in life. They were really based on these traditional modes
mixed up with entrepreneurial and Christian ethic of if you retained a sober
life and you allied that to determination and resilience, you would achieve a
lot in life, no matter what the obstacles are. I think that mentality was his
anchor throughout his life. So later on, when you had his career going not in
the right direction with poor decisions, champions not wanting to fight him,
other fighters avoiding him, I think that played a large part in ensuring that
he did not unravel and that he kept his focus on his eventual goals intact.
Kevin Dawson: Now you mentioned that later he did move to England
and he had a career there, and I believe that he was one of many fighters from
West Africa who emigrated there. Were there any factors that caused so many of
them to emigrate to England?
Adeyinka Makinde: Oh yes. The post-war period, that is (after)
World War Two was a time for reconstruction in Britain. They passed an Act of
Parliament, the British Nationality Act of 1948, which gave rights of residency
to colonial subjects. So they were encouraged to come over to Britain and
settle here to aid in the reconstruction of the war ravaged British economy.
You had these expeditions they would undertake to the Caribbean to encourage
people from the Caribbean to come and work in the hotel industry, in the
National Health Service which had been newly instituted, and in transport. So
it was under those circumstances; the ease of travel amongst other things that
made these fighters, and eventually Dick Tiger, come over, and the place he
went to was Liverpool which is a port city. It had a pre-existing black
population since Elizabethan times. From the boxing perspective, there was a
'golden age' in boxing just after the world war, from about 1945 to 1951, and
after that, the boxing industry went into recession because they had what was
termed the 'entertainment tax law' which doubled the amount of taxes on outdoor
sporting events, and it led to the recession in the boxing industry and so West
African fighters were able to come over here and keep the game alive because
they were accepting purses which were much smaller than other boxers would
usually accept.
Kevin Dawson: And how did they fare in the ring alongside the other
boxers?
Adeyinka Makinde: As I just mentioned, they came over here and a
lot of them fared fairly okay. They could earn a living, but with the
supervening circumstances of the boxing recession, a lot of them were compelled
to hold down day jobs as well as being prizefighters, and a lot of them, their
careers were not strategically developed as an indigenous white fighter's
career -with talent that is- would have been developed. So it was tough going
on the one hand, but on the other hand they were to a great measure accepted;
not just the big ones like Hogan Bassey, who became Nigeria's first world
champion, and later Dick Tiger, but even the run-of-the-mill, average fighters,
they became very, very popular attractions at these sporting halls were they
staged boxing matches all over England.
Kevin Dawson: This is a very fascinating story. Interesting piece
of history that I'm just learning about here for the first time today so I'm
looking forward to speaking to you more, and we're going to take a short break,
but when we come back I want to ask you more about Dick Tiger's career in
England, and then what he did later in his life, so we're going to take a short
break and we'll be right back.
Station and programme themes.
Kevin Dawson: And welcome back to 'A Story to Tell' here on GlobalTalkRadio
dot com. We are in the midst of an exclusive interview with Ade Makinde. He
is the author of Dick Tiger -The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal.
Well, Ade, we were talking about Dick Tiger's career in England before the
break. Tell us now after he got established there, how did his career progress?
Adeyinka Makinde: Before he got established it was quite a lot
that had gone on. The first thing to mention is that it was quite a culture
shock. Of course, Nigerians would have been aware of British traditions being a
British colony, but when they got over there, they had to deal with the
climate, and particularly in the northern part of England, Liverpool was pretty
damp, dreary and rainy -and cold. He never got used to that cold weather. Even
when he later became a star in America, people would notice him in what were
apparently summer months in his coat and hat. There was also the issue of food.
They couldn't get accustomed to the food and he had problems adjusting to the
food, so it was perhaps no surprise that he lost a number of his first bouts,
in fact he lost his first four bouts in Liverpool and he was in danger of
losing his license. So it was not the most auspicious of starts to his
(English) career, but he remained resilient. It wasn't just the culture shock
of everyday life but also adapting to British standards of boxing. He had to
make adjustments to his fighting style. As I mentioned earlier on in Nigeria he
was considered a crude fighter and he re-attuned his strengths and he was soon
on the right path. There was one other large obstacle that he faced which was
that his manager, a man by the name of Peter Banasko; he had been managing
Hogan 'Kid' Bassey who at the time was not yet, but he was well on the way to
becoming a world champion and Hogan Bassey left this gentleman Banasko, who was
also Tiger's manager, and Banasko never got over that. In his disappointment he
dropped a number of his fighters including Dick Tiger, and Dick Tiger on
hearing the news burst into tears. But he collected himself, he got a new
manager and he got a breakthrough fight against a gentleman by the name of
Terry Downes who he beat handily, and from then on he progressed and eventually
won what was then termed the British Empire title, now known as the
Commonwealth title at the middleweight division. He beat a gentleman by the
name of Patrick McAteer. And so at that point in 1958, when he won that title,
he essentially became established.
Kevin Dawson: So that had actually been pretty much an uphill
struggle for many years.
Adeyinka Makinde: Absolutely.
Kevin Dawson: And then it was only a year later, I'm guessing in
1959 he would have been about 30 years old when he relocated to America. Tell
us about that. Why did he move?
Adeyinka Makinde: Well, America is the citadel of boxing. You know
that's where the money is. That's where the titles are. That's where boxers had
to go to, and to a large measure even today, still have to go to prove their
mettle. And I think Dick Tiger knew that he had gone as far as he could in
England. He knew that if he wanted to be recognised as a good fighter, to win
titles, and the prestige that comes with it, he had to journey across the
Atlantic Ocean to America. He'd seen the precedent of his fellow Nigerian,
Hogan Bassey who won the world featherweight championship in 1957. That was in
Paris, but Bassey did relocate to America, and he came under the braintrust of
a guy called Wilfred 'Jersey' Jones; a perennial figure in boxing circles for
many decades in New York, and he was trained by a guy called Jimmy August, and
there was a guy at Madison Square Garden known as Lew Burston; quite an
impressario, he also handled Bassey's career, and Bassey convinced Dick Tiger
that what they had done for him -that is for Bassey, they could also do for
Dick Tiger. So it was for those reasons that he had to go over to America.
Kevin Dawson: Well how did things go for him, both as far as
establishing himself as a professional boxer in America, and was he well
received in general by the public?
Adeyinka Makinde: Oh absolutely. Again, he didn't have the most
auspicious of starts; of debuts. He had a draw in his first fight, and he also
lost the return bout. Both were pretty controversial. But he (did) quickly
establish himself as being a very formidable opponent, and we have to remember
that this was the 'TV age' in boxing, by that I mean boxing received quite a
lot of coverage on the American TV networks like hadn't been the case before
-of course TV was a new medium, and has not been the same since. You had
television fights beamed into your living room if you were American several
days of the week throughout the 1950s. By the time Dick Tiger arrived in 1959,
CBS and ABC were no longer running fights and there was a company called DuMont
that went out of business, but NBC had the 'Friday Night at the Fights'
programme and Dick Tiger became a regular.
Kevin Dawson: So he was becoming like a household name then.
Adeyinka Makinde: Absolutely. That's what really made him to be a
household name. Of course there was his fighting style: he had a strong
resilience, he had a strong 'chin,' he had a very good defence about him. He
was attack-minded, and he had this simple but effective style of combating his
opponents which alot of the audiences could connect to. So he was extremely
well received in America. That was the beginning of his legend among American
fight aficionados.
Kevin Dawson: Two, three years later, he won his first world
title. Can you tell us about that?
Adeyinka Makinde: That's right. He won that title, again through a
lot of persistence. The champions of the day, there was a guy called Paul
Pender and Gene Fullmer, they were the two middleweight champions. That didn't
happen alot in those days; this fragmentation of world titles, but it did at
that particular moment in time. Both Pender and Fullmer basically avoided him,
and so Dick Tiger had to beat all the top contenders. This was an amazing time
in boxing history; the formidability of these contenders with names like Henry
Hank, Florentino Fernandez, Billy Pickett, Gene 'Ace' Armstrong. He beat them
all. He had to go through literally all the contenders to get that title shot.
So when the stage was set to face Fullmer for the world title in San Francisco,
this was supposed to be the denouement of his life's ambition. But even the
build up presented a few obstacles here and there. The date of the fight was
delayed I think at least on three occasions. The climate was going haywire in
California at the time (with) mudslides, landslides, a few deaths here and
there. You had the (Baseball) World Series that was going on at Candlestick
Park and they forgot to give a bit of a respite in time so that you could have
the Tiger-Fullmer fight to be staged there. And even on the eve of the bout,
you had the Cuban missile crises when President Kennedy went on American
television, and most people felt that armageddon was around the corner. So all
of these things were happening in the background and he just managed to keep
his focus and after 15 rounds, he beat Gene Fullmer who was a very tough
contender; Mormon from Utah, he was known as the 'Utah Bully,' but Tiger proved
himself to be the stronger man physically, as well as the better boxer. And he
won that in October 1962.
Kevin Dawson: And that was just the beginning, he went on to win
several additional world titles.
Adeyinka Makinde: Oh absolutely. He regained the title some years
later, at the middleweight division, and then he went up in weight to the light
heavyweight division. Those were very significant wins I must say because when
he regained the middleweight title having been messed around for almost two
years by Joey Giardello who had won it from him on points, when he won that
title, he became at the time the oldest world champion -he was thirty-six years
of age at the time, and in addition to that, at that time in history when it
was very difficult to win these undisputed titles because it was one title, it
was only three people before him, legends like Tony Zale, Stanley Ketchel and
Sugar Ray Robinson who had been able to regain the middleweight title. Again,
when he won the light heavyweight title from Jose Torres, the Puerto Rican
fighter in 1966, again his age was impressive in the sense that Torres
outweighed him, had a longer reach but yet, Dick Tiger overcame. He was only the
second fighter in history at that time to do it other than Bob Fitzsimmons from
earlier on in the 20th Century. So his further achievements in winning world
titles were no mean feats.
Kevin Dawson: As he was making boxing history here in the United States,
how was he being viewed back home in Nigeria?
Adeyinka Makinde: Oh well he was viewed as a hero, I mean he was
the torchbearer leading the light not just in regard to sporting endeavours but
in relation to other fields as well. You have to remember that Nigeria had
become independent. This was the era of the great wave of independence (of) the
British and French colonies in Africa and it was all about building the nation,
and about proving the mettle of Africans who'd been subjugated or colonised by
Europeans, so he got lauded by politicians. Prior to his third fight with Gene
Fullmer, which was the first (world championship) fight to be held in what
would be termed 'Black Africa,' at that time -this was eleven years before 'The
Rumble in the Jungle,' Foreman and Ali, that was a spectacle of immense implications,
because the Nigerian government sponsored that fight. The Federal government
and the regional governments put the resources to have that bout take place. It
was something in which when he retained his title, you had the (Prime Minister)
of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, who is an illustrious figure in African history as the
purveyor of Pan-Africanism, he sent Dick Tiger congratulatory messages after he
defeated Gene Fullmer. So he was viewed as nothing less than a hero in his
nativeland.
Kevin Dawson: Now how about Dick Tiger as a private person. Did he
have a family? Was he a family man?
Adeyinka Makinde: Oh very much so, indeed he had a grand total of
eight children.
Kevin Dawson: Oh you're kidding.
Adeyinka Makinde: By one wife, I may add.
Kevin Dawson: And very busy nonetheless.
Adeyinka Makinde: Nonetheless, yes. He came from those cultural
underpinnings which stressed a lot of family values. At first he lived with his
wife and the first set of children in New York. That was when he came in 1959
and for two or three years afterwards but then he sent them back to Nigeria. In
the mean time, virtually all his fights were in America, so he had to go over
to train in New York and be away for quite a lot of time because if you think
about the preparation being about six weeks to a fight, he might spend three
months in America and the build up to one fight if he fought three times in a
year, that would be nine months away. Nevertheless, he did manage to cultivate
his family life and being a man of the community in his country. He was
obviously quite devoted to his wife, took care of his children, and not just
his children, his extended family paying for their school fees and sending them
to university and in his local area putting money towards building a school and
local post office -that sort of thing. So he was a family orientated, community
orientated person.
Kevin Dawson: Now your book I believe explains that he was also
something of an entrepreneur. Was he creative with how he invested the money
from the purse strings?
Adeyinka Makinde: Oh yes. In Nigeria, the group he comes from, the
Igbo people, they were known as the 'Jews of Africa' and that was a
particularly pronounced issue when the civil war started and they were seen as
a persecuted people. They are renowned for their entrepreneurial endeavours. As
I mentioned earlier on, as a youngster, he and his brothers were trading
people, and so when he started earning these large sums of money, he invested a
lot in properties. So he built houses and he bought one or two blocks which
housed large governmental institutions in the (then) capital city Lagos. And
so, absolutely, he was an entrepreneur to the core. He had being before he
became a boxer.
Kevin Dawson: We have to take another break, but when we come
back, I want to hear more about the latter part of Dick Tiger's career, and
also he got involved politically in what was going on in Nigeria. We're going
to take a quick break and then we'll be back with Ade Makinde in just a moment.
Station and programme themes.
Kevin Dawson: And welcome back to 'A Story to Tell' here at GlobalTalkRadio
dot com. We are speaking today with Ade Makinde. He is the author of Dick
Tiger -The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal, and we've been having a
wonderful chat. I've been learning so much about Dick Tiger both as a person,
and as a world famous boxer. Something Ade you had brought up to me before the
interview, I guess Madison Square Garden plays an important role because he
fought a lot of his bouts there. What was the connection between this venue and
boxing, and what was significant about his appearances there?
Adeyinka Makinde: Madison Square Garden from probably the 1930s to
the 1960s was the premier boxing venue in America. You know it had associations
with Tex Rickard, who was a promoter extraordinaire; aficionados remember his
involvement with the fight between Jack Johnson and Jim Jefferies, and a number
of Jack Dempsey's fights. And in the 1930s you had the illustrious reign of Joe
Louis; he fought a number of his important bouts at the Garden, and also Henry
(Armstrong), the first man to hold three world titles at the same time. And
then through the 1950s particularly with the age of 'TV boxing', you had lots
of fights from there with figures like Kid Gavilan and Johnny Saxton, and
Carmen Basilio and Sugar Ray Robinson. So in those days the Garden was the
place for boxing short and simple. It was particularly significant that he
fought there because it basically underlined the fact that he had 'made it.'
The fact that he was a headliner at the time when a lot of it was beamed into
homes from these TV series,' and even afterwards, in the 1960s, when they
stopped live TV coverage for the most part after the tragedy with Emile
Griffith and Benny 'Kid' Paret, he was still a headliner there because they
knew he was guaranteed to bring people into the Garden (including) those who
had been left in their armchairs during the era of television saturation. So it
is a particularly interesting focal point of his career that he was linked with
this most illustrious of venues.
Kevin Dawson: In your opinion, were there any opponents that stood
out to you as giving him or, giving us especially memorable bouts at the
Garden?
Adeyinka Makinde: Oh absolutely. I think what stands out; one bout
was a fight he had with Henry Hank . As I said, this was a time of the most
formidable of middleweights in boxing history, so there was no easy fight at
all. That was a ten round fight which Tiger actually, from the scorecards you
would imagine he won a lopsided decision, but it was actually a closely fought
bout. These guys knew their trade. They knew how to block punches, they knew
how to slip them, they knew how to throw left hooks, they had endurance and
that is a pretty exciting bout for the discerning aficionado. Another fight
from (1965) he had with Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter whose obviously well known
outside of boxing because of the murder convictions that he received in New
Jersey and then later on he got out of jail. Carter was a fearsome opponent and
Dick Tiger handled him very well. He knocked Carter down three times and
totally put Carter in the shade. Carter actually said after the bout that it
was the worst beating he had received "inside or outside the ring."
And then if I could mention one more fight, it was the fight Tiger had in the
twilight of his career in 1968 against a light heavyweight Italian-American,
Frankie DePaula and both men were on the canvas on two occasions, and Dick
Tiger was particularly hurt with the first knockdown, but somehow within him,
he dug deep into his resources and he came back and again beat an opponent who
was much younger than him, who was heavier than him and won a ten round
decision. I think Ring magazine made that their fight of the year for
1968. So those were his great moments at the Garden.
Kevin Dawson: Yes, those sound like very exciting moments for
anyone interested in boxing. Now let's talk about Biafra. Your book details his
efforts on behalf of the cause of that state. That state I believe wanted to
secede from Nigeria. Can you give the listeners a background into the troubles
of Nigeria, and Biafra in particular and how did Dick Tiger get embroiled in
them?
Adeyinka Makinde: Nigeria is a conglomerate state, in other words,
it's an artificially constituted state put together by colonial powers. Those
of us reminded of our history know about the Berlin Conference when Africa was
divided up and it paid no heed to religious and ethnic differences and that
created the basis for a lot of the troubles which still resonate today. Dick
Tiger's people, the Igbo people were largely Christian and fairly progressive
in terms of education, that was in contrast to the northern part of Nigeria
which was largely Islamic influenced and almost feudal in its social situation.
And so in 1966, you had a concatenation of violence. You had two military
mutinies, you had pogroms visited upon the Igbo people because it was felt that
their military leaders had tried to supplant the Nigerian government and
establish some measure of Igbo hegemony over the rest of Nigeria. And so as a
result of the pogroms and the murders that happened in the military, the
surviving Biafran military figures and the political elite there decided to
secede from Nigeria; they wanted to go alone. Their region was also blessed
with oil resources and they felt they would make a good go out of it. The rest
of Nigeria did not want that to happen. And so you had the Nigerian Civil War
which was fought between 1967 (and) 1970. Dick Tiger had worn the mantle of the
'Nigerian hero' for many years, was nevertheless at the heart of the matter
from the Igbo ethnic group and there were people who warned him not to get
involved in the way he did get involved, but he made an announcement that he
wanted to side with Biafra and that he wanted to represent the new nation of
Biafra. So it was on that basic level that he felt that his people had been
slaughtered and they'd been chased out of the federation and he felt that he
had no choice but to give his weight and prestige to the new republic.
Kevin Dawson: Did he have an effect on the political situation
there?
Adeyinka Makinde: It was a bit of a blow for Nigeria to have this
torchbearer of Nigeria all of a sudden begin to castigate Nigeria; to play this
new (Biafran) national anthem at his fights at Madison Square Garden, to
distribute leaflets to the Garden crowds alleging war crimes and atrocities by
the Nigerian military. He would give interviews to the New York Times, Time
magazine and Newsweek magazine. He joined the Biafran military as a
member of the morale corps. It made him an enemy of the Nigerian state and that
would have consequences which I suppose exist even to this day.
Kevin Dawson: Well tell us about the twilight years of Dick
Tiger's career here in the United States. How did it end? Did it end on a high
note, or like many boxing careers did it seem to end long after the boxer had
already reached his peak?
Adeyinka Makinde: Boxing is replete with athletes who continue
well in advance of what their bodies should be capable of sustaining. In Dick
Tiger's case, I would say it was on a high because he was able to win world
titles. I mean the one he won in 1966 from Jose Torres at light heavyweight, he
was thirty-seven, so even though he was (boxing) at an advanced age, because he
had started at a late stage in his life, because he didn't abuse himself, he
was dedicated to his craft and he lived a clean life, I think he managed to
prolong his career rather successfully. He lost devastatingly to Bob Foster in
1968. He lost his title. Bob Foster was the hardest hitting light heavyweight
of all time no disgrace as such, and he did beat top contenders until he lost
his final bout in 1970 to Emile Griffith, and I think that it was at that
Griffith fight that you finally saw that he had aged and really no longer
belonged in a boxing ring. So to an extent, to a little extent, he probably
fought more bouts than he absolutely needed to fight, on the other hand when
the fights were no longer coming his way, he took a job as a security guard at
a New York Museum and a lot of people have taken that to have been sort of
representative of the downward spiralling of his fortunes but whilst he had
expended a lot of his money and resources on the Biafran cause, he was by no
means broke, but he wasn't a man with formal academic qualifications and he
wanted to keep busy. He had a family, I think he kept them at a secret location
in the Queens district of New York, and when he wasn't getting the fights, he
wouldn't want to stay at home with this large family around, so he did it
really just to keep busy. Nevertheless, there is a tinge of sadness about that
because he couldn't go back to Nigeria at that time, where he could have
developed his businesses without the Nigerian troubles. He could have been in a
more prestigious environment. It was a bittersweet end to his career in that
regard, and to his life.
Kevin Dawson: Well he actually died very shortly thereafter at a
very early age for anyone. How did that happen?
Adeyinka Makinde: He was diagnosed as suffering from cancer of the
liver, that was a terminal illness and that was told to him that he was going
to die. How did he get it? I think he was infected with hepatitis B, he had a
chronic infection. It might have also had something to do with the fact that he
worked in a paint factory in Liverpool in the 1950s, and it could also have had
a dietary element to it. I think there are parts of Africa and the Far East
Asia; China and Japan where people, due their diet, may be susceptible to this
sort of predicament.
Kevin Dawson: Was this unexpected for him?
Adeyinka Makinde: Most definitely; it just came right out of the
blue. It was a culmination of a few bad happenings. His career had ground to a
halt and the Biafran secessionist cause was eventually defeated in 1970. That
was something he'd put his whole heart and soul into and so it just came like a
bolt of lightening. When he did get the news, although in Nigeria, the military
leader had brought upon this theme of 'No victor, no vanquished', and a
re-absorption of the old rebels into Nigeria; and that was largely successful,
nevertheless people like Dick Tiger who had played a prominent role on the
outside; trying to make the cause succeed, I think in no uncertain terms he
knew that he wasn't welcome in Nigeria. nevertheless, he decided it was time to
go back home. He was rather suspicious about it and there's an interesting tale
about him getting Larry Merchant who a number of people might recognise as
being a prominent boxing telecaster on HBO; he got Larry Merchant, then a
journalist for the New York Post to bear witness that the Nigerian government
would not harm him if he returned to Nigeria. He was satisfied with that and he
went back unmolested, and he lived for six more months before his life expired
in December of 1971.
Kevin Dawson: Well we're almost out of time but let me ask you,
thirty-five years past his death, what is his legacy, both among boxing fans
and among Nigerian's?
Adeyinka Makinde: Well I think in Nigeria his great achievements
have been forgotten. That's largely due to his involvement in the Biafran
cause. Among boxing fans, he is well remembered in general. They remember him
as a legend who brought many great moments and set many records in the sport.
And indeed, he was elected in 1991 to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in
Canastota New York. So he's well remembered among boxing aficionados. The task
now is that now this time has elapsed, that his memory is rehabilitated in the
eyes of his countrymen who have suffered from a bit of amnesia which all goes
back to the time when he was shunned at the time of his death; the military
regime did not even send a note of condolence. So overall, I think his memory
is on the up at the moment, and hopefully this book will play a large part in
doing that.
Kevin Dawson: Well Ade what's next for you? Will you continue
working to get the word out about Dick Tiger's legacy?
Adeyinka Makinde: Absolutely, I've been doing a number of radio
interviews. I also did a documentary recently; a radio documentary with the BBC
World Service, and so my next goal will be to get a film documentary
commissioned on Dick Tiger.
Kevin Dawson: Well that would be wonderful. I hope that goes well.
I hope you get that.
Adeyinka Makinde: Thank you very much. And let's hope even beyond
that we can even do a film because I think it has all the elements of a great
story: determination, overcoming obstacles in your life and remaining true to
yourself; being principled. I mean, I think if you remove the facet of him
being a boxer, these issues can be related to any work of life and I think it
could be a story that could transcend him merely been merely been the life
story of a boxer.
Kevin Dawson: I totally agree. Ade, I have so enjoyed our chat
today. I really appreciate you taking the time to visit with us, tell us about
the story and I think again that this is something that a lot of us could have
interest in perhaps more than just boxing fans anyone like you said who likes
to see someone overcome struggles, obstacles and succeed to their fullest
potential. Can you tell us where we can find you on the internet?
Adeyinka Makinde: You could do a search for me. Do a search for
the name Dick Tiger and you'll have my webpages come up. It's not a
straightforward 'Dick Tiger dot com' thing. Do a search for Dick Tiger and you
can buy the book at amazon.com, or you can find and read more about him in my
articles which have appeared on the internet. So 'google' it; and you'll find
him.
Kevin Dawson: Thank you. We've been speaking to Ade Makinde. He's
the author of Dick Tiger -The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal, and
Ade thanks a lot for being part of our programme.
Adeyinka Makinde: Thank you very much for having me Kevin.
Station and programme themes.
Copyright. Adeyinka Makinde (2006)
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