Dick Tiger (right) clashing with Henry Hank at
the Garden in 1962
The
‘Bare Knuckle’ era and the transitory period before the advent of the Marquis
of Queensberry Rules form distinct epochs as do, say, the eras referred to
respectively as pertaining to that of the so-called ‘White Hopes’ and the
‘Television Era’.
The
game in America also reflected many aspects of the shifts and changes in the
nation’s social evolution so much so that boxing has at certain junctures
formed the reference point for trends regarding attitudes to race and ethnicity,
social morality, technology, and even business sales and marketing models.
It
was probably boxing’s inherent value in terms of the purity of its elemental form
of combat and the decisive nature of a potential definitive finish via the
route of a knockout which shaped the fight between the American Joe Louis and
the German Max Schemeling into a metaphorical morality play of an impending
worldwide duel between the forces of democracy on the one hand and totalitarianism
on the other.
When
Dick Tiger fought Henry Hank on March 31st 1962, boxing had been
firmly in its ‘Television Era’; this the period of regular coverage of bouts on
major American television networks.
It
was an era approaching its end. CBS and ABC had dropped their broadcasts respectively
in 1955 and 1960, while the groundbreaking DuMont Network, which had featured
bouts from New York’s St. Nicholas Arena, had gone out of business.
In
fact, Tiger would fight the last of the weekly televised fights run by the
Madison Square Garden Organisation in association with the Gillette Corporation
two years later at the Cleveland Arena against Don Fullmer.
Boxing
also was now in something of a phase which American fans acknowledged to be one
of a marked internationalization of the sport, and the career of Dick Tiger was
emblematic of this.
A
Nigerian who had emigrated to Liverpool; the port city in the north west of England,
he had in 1958 become the British Empire middleweight champion and the following
year would transfer his base to the United States where his avowed goal was to
capture the world title.
Successfully
seeing through his task would be no mean feat as he happened to arrive on
American shores during what must be described as a ‘golden age’ of middleweight
boxing. Doubtless, it is not as celebrated as the frequently referred to golden
era of heavyweight boxers of the 1970s which consisted of Muhammad Ali, Joe
Frazier, George Foreman, Ken Norton, Larry Holmes along with the gate-keeping group
of talent such as Jerry Quarry, Earnie Shavers, Ron Lyle and others.
Their
names were not as widely known to the American public as they might arguably
have been had they fought in the 1920s or 1930s, and their rivalries, when
narrowed down to those involving a series as say Tiger and Joey Giardello and
later on, Emile Griffith and Nino Benvenuti, did not capture the imagination in
the manner that the confrontations between Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano did.
Nonetheless,
from a period of roughly between the later part of the 1950s to the middle
portion of the 1960s, boxing produced a group of formidable, well-schooled and
highly competitive middleweight boxers.
Who
were these men? A random list would have to mention Rubin Carter, George Benton,
Gene Fullmer, Florentino Fernandez, Holley Mims, Jose ‘Monon’ Gonzalez, and
Henry Hank. And it would be seriously remiss not add the likes of Gene ‘Ace’
Armstrong, Billy Pickett and Jesse Smith.
They
were formidable because to quote Ron Lipton, whom Joey Giardello once described
as knowing “all the styles of the 1960s middleweights pretty well”, they were
“cast in a mould which is not of this world today.”
They
were well-schooled because they trained at old style boxing gymnasiums and
under the actual tutelage of or in the recommended training methods that were proselytized
by icons such as Charlie Goldman, Jimmy August, Freddie Brown, and Chickie
Ferrara.
They
were competitive because they were matched competitively from their starts in
the neighborhood arenas to when they fought on the bills put on by Teddy Brenner
and Harry Markson at Madison Square Garden, the acknowledged ‘Mecca of Boxing’.
Can
anyone doubt the formidability of the bull-like, awkward Fullmer who would cut
you to ribbons by fair means and occasionally foul or the skill of Joey
Giardello, a slip in and slide out master box-puncher replete with all the
tricks of the trade?
For
instance, if you got him into a tight-spot, Giardello did not bite you or
head-butt you. He would push both of his thumbs into an opponent’s arms and
apply pressure to the inner part of the biceps until this discomfit inducing distraction
enabled him to move out of trouble and reposition himself in a more
advantageous part of the ring.
The
brutally constructed physiques respectively of Fernandez and Gonzalez spoke volumes
of their work ethic as indeed it did about Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter whose level
of ring craft was enough to propel him to title contender status less than two
years after turning professional soon after his release from prison.
Take
George Benton for example. A fighter blessed with a tremendous skill-set and one
worthy of bearing the mantle of champion, but who was unfortunate never to
fight for the title.
He
was a slick, relaxed and perfectly balanced performer who could ‘read’ his
opponent and anticipate the delivery of his opponent’s punches. That he was
never knocked down and rarely stopped is a testament to an elusiveness borne
out of an unerring talent for strategic movement and the efficient navigating
of ring space.
Many
modern fans who drool, or at least, marvel at the sight of the defensive skills
of Floyd Mayweather Jr would appreciate Benton’s stratagem of precision
movements of evasion and blocking while in a stationary stance.
He
kept his balance while tilted to the right which functioned as both a defensive
and an offensive mechanism. A movement of the shoulder and a glove held high
protecting his head would be the precursor to an attack by way of hooks to the
body.
These
were the fighters who were contemporaries of both Dick Tiger and Henry Hank.
Hank
himself could best be described as a box-puncher. He was cool and studied in
his motions; fighting orthodox-style off a jab, he could whip out fearsome
punches whether short rights or left hooks or lunge in, head bobbing, to
exchange punches in a brawl. He was, like many of his contemporaries, also
proficient at the now lost art of inside fighting.
Twenty
seven years old at the time he came up against Dick Tiger, he had been born
Joseph Harrison in Greenville, Mississippi but fought out of Detriot City. He
had competed in 67 bouts of which he had won 52, lost 14 and drawn thrice. His
36 knockout victories was evidence of his punching ability which he had put to
good use two months earlier by stopping Jesse Bowdry, a light heavyweight
contender, in New Orleans.
Dick
Tiger, the number one contender, was 32 and worried that he would not get a
crack at the middleweight championship. He’d endured a false start of sorts to his
American campaign by drawing and then losing a disputed decision to Rory
Calhoun. He had also got through a distracting saga with the Canadian, Wilf
Greaves, who had temporarily relieved him of his British Empire title.
Tiger
had been declared the winner in their first bout only to be told that he had
lost it in a retabulation of the match officials’ scorecards. The expected
immediate rematch was delayed by the prevarications of Greaves who then decided
to take a non-title fight in America.
Tiger
won his title back and set himself on a course which saw him stop Gene
Armstrong and Ellsworth ‘Spider’ Webb. Then he outpointed both Hank Casey and
Billy Pickett before stopping Florentino Fernandez in Miami two months earlier.
So
it was that both Tiger and Hank were matched by Teddy Brenner to meet on a
Saturday night before television cameras on ABC’s ‘Fight of the Week’.
It
was a ten round non-title bout before 7, 500 spectators gathered around a
squared ring in the Garden where puffs of cigar smoke set roof-bound trails that
lingered in the air amid the bright and scorching klieg lights.
It
would have been as much business as usual for the fighters as it was for the television
audience who were treated to the distinctive staccato tones of Don Dolphy calling
the bout and Johnny Addie, the resident ring announcer, introducing boxing
cognoscenti of past and present as well as the participants.
Tiger
versus Hank was a typical example of the superb level of matchmaking which is
an extremely rare occurrence in contemporary boxing where the fear of losing an
undefeated record of a prospect contributes to the unevenly matched and tedious-to-view
under-the-main-bill bouts. This phenomenon also impacts on many supposedly
championship level bouts which are staged under the auspices of the many
‘world’ governing bodies and their multiplicity of ‘title’ belts.
The
audience which cheered Addie’s announcement of Dick Tiger’s name with a roar of
approval had accepted this African-born, England-sojourning foreigner and taken
him to their hearts because like the home-nurtured Hank, he was bound to offer and
display nothing less than an unadulterated quotient of commitment, maximum fitness,
high levels of skill, a high degree of resilience and an exemplary demonstration
of sportsmanship.
At
the din of the bell signalling the commencement of the first round, Hank was
the quicker of the two in leaving his corner. He bounded towards his opponent, immediately
assailing Tiger with three jabs and then pressed in closer to dig in a right
upper cut to the side of the body in combination with a follow up left hook.
A
short exchange followed with Hank aggressively clinching on to Tiger and forcefully
pushing him into the ropes.
Would
this be the Tiger who some were wont to consider a slow starter? The methodical
‘plodder’ who would allow Griffith to ‘steal’ his middleweight title in 1966? A hesitant combatant who would burden himself
with the unnecessary and pernickety analysis of his foe as he would be accused
in his drawn world title rematch with Gene Fullmer in Las Vegas? These sorts of
accusations had been made in his first fight against Wilf Greaves and in his
bouts with Rory Calhoun.
Not
in this fight.
If
Hank thought that he could unsettle Tiger by attempting to physically bully
him, he was sorely mistaken. Two stiff hooks arced from the left side of his
body and launched from a crouched, defensive posture with gloves held high, caught
Hank squarely in the face.
The
rhythm of the attack and the distance between them suggested a pause as Tiger
repositioned the direction of his stance and Hank adjusted his gait, but Tiger suddenly
exploded, sweeping out a right and then pressing on with two further left hooks
which caused Hank to retreat on to the ropes off of which he bounced back into
the path of Tiger who offloaded yet another hook, this one wild and venomous in
intent, but which luckily for Hank, scraped past his skull.
Both
men stood off for a short while before resuming hostilities. Hank, at five feet
ten, was the taller man by two inches. He tried to establish a rhythm by
leading with a ramrod jab before coming in close with his feet firmly planted
to land solidly to the body. Tiger, on the other hand, occasionally felt Hank out
with what could be termed a measuring left before unleashing his damaging hook.
Defensively,
both men moved their heads well, Tiger had his left glove high as Hank stepped
in, and would counter or even lead with a stinging left hook. But he would
crouch down quickly, shoulder angled in self-protection, in order to absorb or
evade Hank’s counters.
The
ringside microphones TV captured the sound of the grunts which accompanied the
efforts of each man’s power shots, with Hank being the more expressive of the
two in this department. There was much give and take and a fair share of thrust
and parry, but it was Hank who appeared to be jolted more often; his processed
hair visibly bouncing from its roots as Tiger bulled forward and made him,
consistently fight while on the back foot.
In
the second Tiger scored more cleanly than Hank. He continued the pattern
developed in the first by outworking his opponent and beating him to the punch
with his preferred choice of weapon: the precision guided left hook.
Who
was proving the more physically stronger and tenacious of the two? This was without
question Tiger. Hank was game for sure, but as the round was about to end, both
stood toe-to-toe and traded blows; an episode which lead to Hank retreating into
a corner before scurrying out of this tight spot towards the centre of the ring
while the advancing Tiger reigned in blow after blow until the bell sounded to
end the round.
Round
three. Hank came out with a probing left, but stung by a stern left, he decided
to make adjustments to his approach. He had up to this point used his jab as a
precursor to stepping in and planting his feet to load up and fire in power
shots accompanied by huge and heavy grunts.
Now,
he began boxing looser. Tiger, on his
part, defended well from a coiled stance and continued to counter with great
force and effectiveness; his well-angled counters thudded into Hank with great
violence.
When
Tiger advanced, Hank managed to reply with scoring counters, but Tiger’s
tighter defence, which involved him enveloping his more compact frame at close
range with his arms and elbows along with the swift movement and adjustment of
his head, meant he could nullify most of his opponent’s retorts.
It
is worth remembering that Dick Tiger was in fact a defensively sound fighter.
This was achieved through a variety of methods: shoulder movement, head
movement, and an Archie Moore-style cross armed stance from which to defend or
uncoil from with an offensive consisting of single or double hooks.
The
pace slowed down in the middle rounds, but both men’s work rates maintained a
level of beguiling intensity. There was, for instance little or no clinching.
Tiger began ratcheting up the points; he threw more punches, while Hank threw
less. And when Hank did land, many of his punches were blocked or smothered by
Tiger.
With
the heart and persistence of the brave and committed pugilist that he was, Hank
kept jabbing, hoping to open Tiger’s defences. But Tiger continued to better
him. When there was a lull and Hank contrived to pick up the pace, Tiger would
again rise to meet the challenge and inflict retribution.
Even
in round eight, when he might have sensed that it was all a lost cause, Hank
did not visibly lose heart. He was prepared to absorb punishing blows in order
to plant his feet and hit Tiger with clubbing overhead rights.
And
what to say of sportsmanship? The bout did not feature an excessive level of clinching
or any bouts of ill-temperedness. In the ninth round, Tiger in a fit of over
eagerness, accidentally hit Hank on the break.
A
bark from Mercante in admonition was met with an elaborately orchestrated but
genuine mea culpa: a quickly executed
bow and a salute in the direction of Hank which the crowd acknowledged with a
cheer of approval and a short round of applause.
Hank’s
jab in the final round continued to probe as he attempted to pick spots when
Tiger was within range. But mid-way during the round, Tiger scored a walloping
hook and again applied unrelenting pressure on Hank until finally the bell rang
to bring an end to the proceedings.
When
Johnny Addie read the scores, each was an overwhelming record of Tiger’s
dominance. Bill Recht scored it eight rounds to one with one round even, the
other judge, Leo Birnbaum, had it nine rounds and an even round, while referee
Mercante adjudged every single one of the ten rounds to be in Tiger’s favour.
Hank
graciously went over to congratulate his conqueror. His career would last for a
further decade during which he would defeat a middleweight Jimmy Ellis, draw
with Johnny Persol and lose to Harold Johnson and Bob Foster.
For
Dick Tiger, it proved to be the final eliminator before challenging and
defeating Gene Fullmer for the world middleweight championship. His career
would run for eight more years during which he would lose and regain the
middleweight title and also win the world light heavyweight title.
Ahead
of him was the adulation of the Nigerian nation which was crowned by a winning
title defense against Gene Fullmer in the city of Ibadan; black Africa’s first staged
world title bout fully eleven years before 1974’s ‘Rumble in the Jungle.’
There
would of course be the tragedy of Biafra and a diminution of his wealth and
finally the loss of his life through cancer.
But
he left a rich legacy through fights such as the one which pitted him against
Henry Hank, a fight for fans to savor because of its entertaining display of
the essence of the noble art. It is a fight for posterity; one which each
generation of practitioners of the boxing trade can watch to seek both
instruction and inspiration as they attempt master the fundamentals of the
sport of boxing.
(C)
Adeyinka Makinde (2012)
Adeyinka
Makinde is the author of DICK TIGER: The
Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal. His latest book is JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of
Frankie DePaula.
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