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Disappointing
Decisions Not sour grapes as I love all my former opponents in the
ring
Les
Dunn in Melbourne 6 rounds July 7 1960
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The stopping of my fight with Les Dunn in the fifth was wrong as we were both the
same for wear and tear and not quite like indicated by some news writers, I was ok. (
Al Basten for some reason did not want to see a 6th. round. )
The Stadium crowd were in disagreement showing
this by the Golden Boy's only booing I know of.
It
was the the way spectators showed their opinions, nobody had been knocked down
and it was a great fight. Al Basten was the referee.
Les
of course ( Les, has a fantastic
personality ) tells me he does not remember heh ( I think I know why
he can't remember ), I speak to him for hours over the
phone these days, he is always laughing, he is a great guy.
Later on when I
was training at Laurie's gym for what ended up to be my last fight Les allowed Lynette, my future wife,
his car to wait in, while we trained until I bought a new one.
Problems
like this discourage boxers and they give the game away :
Kevin
Bell in Sydney 12 rounds Sept 3 1961
I
discovered very early that Kevin Bell did not have much to worry me with
so I started getting smart with dominating him with flashy boxing and had
him down on the canvas fairly easily a couple of times until I went too far and he landed
one on my chin as I was dropping my hands as if to tease him.
Well
"yes" he landed a sharp punch on my chin and all I wanted to do
was get out of the road as my mind was spinning and went down on "ONE
KNEE" as I reached for my mouthguard, Vic
Patrick took a glance at my face (with one of his hands open on my head
and the other ready to count) he looked closely at my eyes and immediately stopped the fight without
counting and I bounced up straight away complaining. This also to
much of the crowd's
surprise.
Vic
Patrick, when
asked straight away why he stopped the fight he said "look at his
eyes"
**
Snowy Sullivan had not accompanied me to this fight due to a small purse,
Somebody
up there acted as my second and he applied ladies fingernail polish around
my eyes recommending it for safety.
On
my way to the ring from the rooms was a mirror on the wall in which I
looked and remember looking like a woman under the towel over my head with
very wide eyes (largely round)
When
I talked about it in Melbourne I was told that polish had acetone in it
and obviously effected my eyes appearance and I had felt the fumes too.
Really
Bell didn't have a chance but was very lucky.
But
as people, I always liked my opponents very respectfully regardless of the
outcome so no grudges were ever held, I always considered boxing as a
sport.
Curcio
in Melbourne 12 rounds Aug 25 1961
I
had intended to look like a main event boxer,
I
took a girl to see this fight as snowy kept reminding me during the fight.
After
a few rounds I wondered how to hit this man with his head just two
feet above the floor level, Snowy went bananas and started calling me
names I had never expected, so by trying to make me mad enough to get rough
with Curcio it had an opposite effect and the fight went on with me at the
end of 12 rounds being able to do it all over again.
I
found Curcio to be a very light puncher but difficult to fight the
conventional way as he was very short and continuously fought with his
knees bent which left his head about waist high with roundarm punches
thrown mainly to the left and right side of the body region.
If
Snowy instead of upsetting me with insults had told me what I figured
later, that I should have been aiming punches from waist high upwards,
like rips to the head, it would have been Goodnight Pasquale.
Cec
Rogers in Benalla 10
rounds Feb
15 1961
Max
Carlos was the referee, Maxie did not count while Cec Rogers ended up on
the amateurs judges table beside the ring from a left hook, he had also
been down for a count before that.
During
one of the rounds later I scored a knockout blow and Cec went down to get
well counted out,
one of the posts in the neutral corner fell over and half the ring ropes
fell to the ground and half the ring disappeared for about 5 min. or
longer giving Cec time to recover, Carlos
helped reconstructing the ring and didn't count again while Cec was down
all that time.
I
had acquired a broken right hand during the second round and fought on but could not continue
after round nine so we gave it away.
However I do give credit to Cec as he was not like a lot
of fighters that would not even enter the ring with me or reduce the
rounds to 6 from 8 or 10 because of my right, especially after getting
ko'd sensationally in our first fight in 1960.
At 22 years of age (still a puppy) I
decided to give up boxing, marry Lynette, go back to night school and
continue with engineering.
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