Professional boxing classics is a series of video’s of some of the greatest champions of the ring. You will find great fighting action from Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali, Sonny Liston, Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Gene Tunny and many others.
I would not consider most of the more recent heavy weight division champion to be worthy of such all time greats. So I have added several more recent champions from the Middle weight and Light Heavy weight divisions such as Sergei Kovalev, Andre Ward, and Gennady Golovkin.
Having been an somewhat of an amateur boxer myself, I was inspired at a young age by Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, and by the time I was 14, I became a fan of Muhammad Ali.
When he was given virtually no chance of beating the terrifying Sonny Liston.
My step grandfather George Timmerman had a gym back in those days. Where I l learned how to keep the speed bag going with my elbows. And sparred with my friends. While hanging out at George Timmerman’s gym I got into constant discussions over how would Ali have fared against Joe Louis when both were in their prime. And how could Tunny beat the ferocious Jack Dempsey?
Today there’s a lot of discussion on Quora Digest about how much smaller world champion boxers would do against the giants in the current heavyweight division.
The answer can be found here in Professional Boxing Classics in just a single fight between Jack Dempsey and Jess Willard. With Dempsey weighting just 188 pounds, and Willard at 245 pounds, Dempsey just took Willard apart.
Back in those days there were a lot more boxers training on a serious level than there are today. My grandpa Timmerman used to spare a few rounds with his pals and then they would job 18 miles and he was just an amateur.
Harry Greb, one of the greatest Middleweight champions of all time had 298 professional fights in 13 years for an average of 23 fights a year.
In Professional boxing classics you will learn about the real Max Baer.
I’m sure you have all seen the movie “Cinderella Man” staring Russel Crowe as James Braddock and Craig Bierko as Max Baer. Craig Bierko is both hilarious and terrifying. Cinderella Man’s Max Baer has killed two men in the ring and he’s proud of it. But the real Max Baer was nothing like Bierko’s Max Baer at all.
In Professional boxing classics you will see a lot of great fights during boxing’s golden years during the 1960s and 1970s. When some of the greatest champions of all time fought against each other. And when Muhamad Ali showed the world that he was the greatest of them all.
In the upcoming months I will be adding more fights to this list of all time classic professional boxing matches. So stay tuned to the Jack Corbett Video Channel.
We saw the Tunisian whirlwind Fadi Khaled, put on one of the most exciting Muay Thai performances ever, from ringside, at Pattaya Max Muay Thai Stadium.
The Intensity of Tunisian whirlwind Fadi Khaled
An hour later, I would be videoing the unforgettable Jonathan Lecat Dorian Price double knockout, a fight that’s destined to become one of the most memorable classics of all time.
In this bout against Nueamek Sityaymeaw the Tunisian whirlwind Fadi Khaled demonstrates a full range of devastating martial arts weapons, including a full array of powerful kicks along with the punching power of a light heavy weight. Keep in mind that this little guy weighs just 140 pounds while light heavyweights are between 168 and 175 pounds. Notice too, how he flings his entire torso into the body of his opponent.
Harry Greb training.
Big Daddy sitting next to me, put it this way, “I really don’t like the looks of him, but you gotta give him credit. He’s a very good fighter.”
I’ll give him more than that. This Tunisian whirlwind Fadi Khaled represents what true fighting is all about. I’m sure Harry Greb would concur.
If you are interested in learning more about Harry Greb check this out.
You’d expect the preliminary bout between Fadi Khaled and Nueamek Sityaymeaw to fade away into the obscure dustbins of ring forgetathons. How could I even think about putting the two videos up side by side on you tube? Am I out of my mind?
I’ve thought about that before. Many times. I am out of my mind. No, I’m not. Although both Khaled and Nueamek have far less than perfect records as Muay Thai boxers, this was in its own right a classic fight.
The scorecards for both fighters show a mixed record. Nevertheless, in this fight, the Tunisian whirlwind Fadi Khaled proves that he’s a force to be reckoned with
I had never seen either boxer fight before. But here I’m coining a new nickname, a moniker that should live on as the Tunisian whirlwind Fadi Khaled to extol the Tunisian whirlwind as a fighting man’s fighter. And because I think Fadi embodies even more than what Muay Thai boxing is all about. For me Fadi represents the true spirit of mano a mano fighting the same way Harry Greb did nearly 100 years ago.
Harry Greb the Pittsburgh Whirlwind
Enshrined for nearly a century as the Pittsburgh whirlwind in boxing legend, Harry Greb was perhaps the greatest middleweight of all time. This is saying a lot due to so many outstanding Middleweights who one could easily call, the greatest Middleweight in the history of the ring. Men like Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard, and the most devastating Middleweight puncher of all time, Gennadi Golovkin. And yet there’s not a single film of Harry Greb’s epic fights. He once beat the unbeatable future Heavy weight champion, Gene Tunney in a historic bloodbath that began a series of epic encounters between the two finest boxing tacticians the ring had ever seen.
But Greb was a true Middleweight, whose normal weight stood at around 160 pounds. Whereas Tunney wound up as the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world at 190. As for Jack Dempsey who was quite possibly the hardest puncher of all time, some have said that Tunney could never beat the Manassas Mauler in his prime. Others have claimed that Tunney was so good that Jack Dempsey could never have beat him.
We will never know the answer of whether a much younger Jack Dempsey could have defeated Tunney or not.
It is well known, however, that Greb totally dominated Dempsey as Dempsey’s sparring partner. Even though Dempsey outweighed the five foot eight Greb by 30 pounds, several times the pair almost met in the ring.
Jack Dempsey on the left with Harry Greb to his right. Greb defeating Dempsey, one of the most feriocious punchers of all time? You kidding? NOPE
Greb would wind up fighting 298 professional fights, yet not one of them survives today on video.
Harry Greb won his first fight with Gene Tunney in a blood bath. Greb was about the only man to ever defeat Tunney who later beat Jack Dempsey for the world Heavyweight title and then defeated Dempsey in the rematch. Some say in his prime Dempsey would have won while others claim Dempsey could never have beat Tunney whose ring generalship was without parallel for his time. In many ways Tunney was like Andre Ward the current Light Heavyweight champion who hardly ever makes a mistake. But as the bloody matches with Harry Greb proved, Tunney could be a brawler when he wanted to be.
A Boxing Legend for all time
Greb remains today as one of boxing legend’s most unforgettable mystery men of all time. His untimely death at 32 on the operating table when he failed to wake up from the anesthetic hasn’t hurt his enigmatic image. But although the movie cameras never captured him in a real fight, there still exists at least one video of him training.Back to the Tunisian whirlwind Fadi Khaled
The Andre Ward Sergei Kovalev fight was a draw, the way I see it. But after losing the decision by just 1 point, Kovalev, cried foul. “I’ll beat Ward’s ass in the rematch,” he vowed.
On the beach only 150 meters from our condo with my girl friend and two Russian friends. Five Russian families own 5 out of the 62 condos here. 3 of the 5 are from Siberia. I really have to watch it here to stop the Russian friends from picking up my tab under my nose so that they can treat us to free food and drink. I used to view Russians as the bad guys inhabiting the evil empire (the Soviet Union). Well, believe me, my opinion on Russians has completely changed. If anything I would have preferred the Andre Ward Sergei Kovalev fight going to the Russian. But not by much.
After it was over, most commentators, felt that Kovalev had won, and since the fight had been held in Las Vegas, the judges were biased for their fellow American. I say forget the bias be it Russian bias for the Russian fighter had this fight been held in Russia or for the American. Make me the judge. I always thought that Ward would win, but sentimentally I favored the Russian.
So why would I root for Kovalev over Ward?
I like both men, and I really didn’t want either man to lose. I’m not anti black and I’m not anti Russian. I live here in Thailand in a 62 unit condo where I’m the chairmen over a 5 man committee that runs our building. 5 of them have Russian owners. About one month before the Andre Ward, Sergei Kovalev fight, while I was drinking at our favorite beach restaurant with several of my Russian friends, I asked the Russians which fighter they wanted to win.
After a few Guiness Stouts I told the Russians what my brain and my heart were telling me. “I like both men,” I told the Russians and I hate to see either one lose because both of them deserve to win. But I prefer Kovalev’s style. Andre Ward is boring by comparison. Kovalev comes right at his opponent. His record is 30-0-1 with 27 of his 30 wins by knockout. “But I believe Andre Ward will win and when he does, I will really be sad.”
After the Andre Ward Sergei Kovalev fight was over, I read that
Kovalev had finally proved that he was an excellent boxer.
But I knew that already after watching a number of Kovalev’s fights on you tube. I had also learned from watching his fights on you tube that Kovalev was very smart. I also enjoyed listening to Kovalev being interviewed on you tube finding him to be honest, to the point and very incisive. But as fast as he is, ring savvy, and his commanding power, I just didn’t think he would win against Ward, who I believed was slightly faster and nearly incapable of making mistakes.
I expected Ward to win by decision. And although Ward is not known for his knockout ability I would not have been surprised if Ward knocked Kovalev out. What I didn’t expect was for the Andre Ward Sergei Kovalev fight to be so close.
Living in Pattaya, Thailand, I couldn’t find a way to actually watch the fight on television.
I would gladly have paid the Sixty dollar pay per view that HBO was charging. But I was not a subscriber to HBO. I couldn’t find any bars advertising the fight. And I got the date wrong. Thinking that the fight was on November 27th, I’d purposely avoid news coverage of the fight until a couple days after the fight. That way I could view it on you tube without knowing the final outcome.
But suppose that Kovalev or Ward had injured himself in training and the fight had been postponed. I had to know. So I googled Andre Ward vs Sergei Kovalev. The first results I saw had Kovalev defeating Ward. Not by knockout but by decision. This I found to be odd because I even though I felt Kovalev was underrated as a boxer, I felt there was no way Kovalev could win a decision over Andre Ward who was an even better boxer.
I went directly to the fight on you tube.
When Kovalev floored Ward in the 2nd round I believed that there would be no way that Ward could survive past the 4th round. But he did, and the fight went to the 5th, then the 6th round. Then the 7th and the 8th. By this time I truly felt that Kovalev had established beyond any doubt that he was Andre Ward’s master. But Ward was hanging in there. For the first few rounds Kovalev dominated the fight. But by the time the fight had gone past the sixth round I could not see either fighter dominating the other.
It was proving to be a good fight after all. By the middle of the fight Kovalev was well ahead in points but I could also see that Ward was slowly closing the gap. In the closing rounds it also seemed to me that Kovalev was weakening whereas Ward was getting stronger and landing far more punches.
But remember. I already knew that Kovalev had won the fight. So I now imagined myself as the only judge. Okay, Kovalev is the champion while Ward’s the challenger. I had learned from my study of boxing that a challenger had to clearly take the title away from the champion before he could be crowned as the new champion. This meant by knockout, tko or by demonstrating convincingly that he had clearly dominated the fight.
Certainly Ward could not be awarded the decision by proving himself to be dominant.
But neither could Kovalev had Ward been the champion and Kovalev were the challenger. Based on this criteria neither man would have dethroned the champion. In the end the two men had proven to be an even match.
Then another idea crossed my mind. Back in the old days of boxing, in the bare knuckle days of John L. Sullivan, fights often went well past the 20th round. And it was the 26th round of a scheduled 45 round fight that Jack Johnson finally lost the heavyweight title to Jess Willard in the hot Cuban sun. Had the fight gone just 12 or 15 rounds, Johnson would have probably kept the championship belt by decision. But by the 20th round he was showing signs of past his prime tiring.
As Ward was steadily closing the point gap, there was little doubt that he’d win the decision if the Andre Ward Sergei Kovalev fight were to go a full 15 rounds instead of the scheduled 12 rounds. Kovalev could no longer match Ward’s speed. He was also losing the ability to connect with his punches. I had also noticed that Ward had snapped Kovalev’s head back several times in the latter rounds. If the fight were to go on long enough, Ward would clearly be the dominant fighter by a mile.
The way I see it,
the decision in the Andre Ward Sergei Kovalev fight could have gone either way.
But to contend that Kovalev had been robbed is utter fallacy. If there is to be a rematch, I’ll be betting on Ward.
Big Bad Sonny Liston would go down as the unwanted champion of the mob and #1 ogre of the ring. I hated him. But now I wish I had been nice to him. But how could I have ever hated a man I had never met?
Man. Sonny sure looks like evil incarnate in this picture which is exactly the way I saw him as an 11 year old boy as he sat directly behind me during the Virgil Atkins welterweight title fight at Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis
In a way I did meet him. That was on June 6, 1958, and I was 11 years old that night Big Bad Sonny Liston glowered over me. That was the night Virgil Atkins knocked out Victor Martinez for the Welterweight boxing title at Kiel Auditorium . My step grandfather had been teaching me how box since I was 10. So I had a year of practice trying to spin a speed bag with my elbows before he took me to St. Louis to watch the title fight. Atkins was a hometown boy from St. Louis. Since Grandpa Timmerman and I were both living just 40 miles from St. Louis and Kiel Auditorium was hosting professional fights in those days, my seventy year old mentor had decided he just had to take me to the Atkins–Martinez fight.
Big Bad Sonny Liston scared me to death
Sitting directly behind me was a big black man. The man did not smile. He had no friends near him. It took just one look from his impassive eyes to scare the hell out of me. Grandpa soon explained that the big monster sitting just three feet behind me was none other than Big Bad Sonny Liston. “He will be the next heavyweight champion of the world,” Grandpa told me.
Eldridge Clever’s Field Niggers and House Niggers
Back in those days to my unschooled eleven year old brain there were two kinds of black men in the U.S. There were the bad guy black men who Eldridge Clever would call field niggers in his masterpiece, “Soul on Ice” and there were the house niggers. To some Eldridge Clever was akin to a terrorist. But so was Malcom X and it was Malcom X who first started the field nigger house nigger comparisons. Later I’d love them both–Eldridge Clever and Malcom X.
However, my new attitude would not come until much later when I got into my twenties and started having a few black friends. But when I was 11 there were only two kinds of blacks. The polite ones who knew their place and the rebellious blacks, who didn’t. In other words–field niggers. And Big Bad Sonny Liston was most definitely the most terrifying field nigger of them all.
That night when Atkins knocked out Victor Martinez, Liston nearly knocked me down as he got up to leave Kiel in a big hurry. Anyway, it seemed to me that he almost knocked me down. But that was my simpleton 11 year old mind telling me that. Much later on I’d learn to truly appreciate men like Eldridge Clever and Malcom X.
Only a few months later Virgil Atkins would lose his welterweight title to Don Jordan as I watched the whole sorry episode on television. Compared to Liston, Atkins was pretty clean cut. I’d start to explore the singularities between the two boxers only one week ago. But I’ll get into such similarities later.
Floyd Patterson had virtually no chance at defeating the super strong seemingly indestructible Sonny Liston
Floyd Patterson was a much more acceptable black man than Big Bad Sonny Liston
But in 1962, it would be Floyd Patterson (who a lot of Eldridge Clever types would call an Uncle Tom black man) and Big Bad Sonny Liston, who later Muhammad Ali would call “the Big Ugly Bear”. To me, Floyd Patterson was an acceptable black man. Floyd Patterson was polite and as heavyweight champions go, small, weighing just 190 pounds. He was essentially a slightly beefed up light heavyweight. Patterson had been good enough to knock out the legendary Archie Moore who is oftentimes called the greatest light heavyweight of all time, and he had beaten several other good fighters. But a true heavyweight he wasn’t.
But Big Bad Sonny Liston was. And whereas Floyd Patterson was often accused of ducking the best heavyweights to preserve his heavyweight crown, Liston took them all on. There was no way Patterson could beat Liston Grandpa Timmerman kept telling me.
Back then Liston had just about the longest reach in boxing. He had the biggest fists on record. At his prime fighting weight he fought at around 215 so right there he had 25 pounds over Patterson.
He got his initial boxing training at the Missouri State Penitentiary, after becoming infamous throughout St Louis as a hoodlum who was much hated by the police.
Henry Cooper, the British champion, said he would be interested in a title fight if Clay won, but he was not going to get in the ring with Liston. Cooper’s manager, Jim Wicks, said, “We don’t even want to meet Liston walking down the same street.” (Wikipedia Muhammad Ali vs Sonny Liston)
Big Bad Sonny Liston could just look at a man and make him feel 2 feet tall
Boxing promoter Harold Conrad said, “People talked about [Mike] Tyson before he got beat, but Liston was more ferocious, more indestructible….When Sonny gave you the evil eye—I don’t care who you were—you shrunk to two feet tall. (Wikipedia Muhammad Ali vs Sonny Liston)
Which is exactly how I felt that night I was 11 years old and met Liston. Liston was Count Dracula, the man eating Anaconda, and the Terminator all rolled into one. Nothing could stop him, Grandfather Timmerman kept telling me. By the time Sonny knocked Floyd Patterson out in the first round and knocked out Patterson a second time in the first round of the rematch I knew that my grandfather was right.
And then along came Clay
But a new heavyweight rapidly came onto the boxing scene. The new man taking the limelight was Cassius Clay, a gifted, tremendously fast loudmouth known as the Louisville Lip. Patterson had proven to be hopelessly outclassed by the unstoppable Big Bad Sonny Liston human wrecking machine. But at a mere 190 pounds he just wasn’t big enough to have a fighting chance against one of the heaviest punchers the ring had ever known. And Liston wasn’t too slow either, having one of the best jabs in the fight game. But Clay was three inches taller than Patterson, who at six foot three was even taller than Liston. At his prime Clay fought at 210 which was within 5 pounds of Liston’s best fighting weight.
Hardly anyone thought Clay had a chance. The odds makers pitted him as a 7 to 1 underdog. What the world didn’t know back then was that Clay had an iron jaw, unequaled courage, an unquenchable desire to win, and the fastest hand speed the heavyweight division had ever seen.
Big Bad Sonny Liston was owned by the mob
But Liston had been a hoodlum. He had been owned by the mob. This is something he had in common with the other homegrown St. Louis boxer, Virgil Atkins. Was he still owned by the mob? He had reputedly been owned by the worse names in organized crime. Men such as Frank Carbo of Murder Incorporated for example.
Clay won the fight with Liston mysteriously quitting after the sixth round. Liston claimed he had injured his shoulder in the first round and that by the end of the sixth round he could no longer fight. Also…a couple of rounds earlier something got into Clay’s eyes. It is said that Liston’s ring handlers had put ointment on either his gloves or shoulders. Whatever happened, Clay fought more than an entire round almost blind, and Liston was unable to capitalize on his nearly helpless opponent.
Perhaps this is why Liston never came out after the sixth round. He couldn’t even put away a blind man. But the blind man was Cassius Clay who would soon announce his membership in the Islam nation and become Muhammad Ali. I will always contend that Ali was the greatest.
Liston knocked out by mysterious Phantom Punch
The rematch ended in the first round with Ali scoring a knockout against the indestructible Liston. The punch that took Liston out was so fast that many didn’t see it. Rocky Marciano, who observed the fight from ringside later said that the punch that many felt would hardly hurt a bantamweight, was delivered so fast that even the camera could not pick up how Ali had accelerated the blow in its last 6 inches of travel. The punch whether really hard enough to take a tough guy like Liston out or not became infamously known as the Phantom Punch.
So let’s take all the horseshit out about organized crime paying Liston to make a dive or Liston betting against himself to make an easy million or two. I’ll tell you what I really think. Muhammad Ali really was the greatest. I don’t think he ever was credited with having all the punching power that he possessed. There’s many fights I’ve seen on you tube where I can’t see the knockout blow actually being delivered, even in slow motion. I can also say that I’ve been in a few fights myself when I’ve knocked down my opponent but I felt he had slipped. I’d have people around me tell me I had knocked the man down with my fists but I had never felt a thing and had believed I had never punched my opponent at all.
Death of Big Bad Sonny Liston
Things would not end well for Liston. A few years later he was found dead in a hotel room with syringes and heroin scattered throughout the room. Obviously he had been a heroin addict. The problem was, Liston had always been deathly afraid of needles.
Recently my opinion of Sonny Liston has changed. For one thing, I have learned that he loved children. So I’m sure that had I been friendly that night I saw him at the Atkins fight, he would have made a very positive impression on me. He was given a lot of bad press as Big Bad Sonny Liston. Among other things he was constantly in trouble with the St. Louis Police department. But I had gotten it all turned around. It was the police who were constantly the instigators. They persecuted him mercilessly.
And he had a wonderful sense of humor
Once he said, “If I ever get the electric chair, I want my manager to get half the juice.”
He couldn’t read, but he was a common sense kind of guy, with a direct way of putting things. After he knocked out Patterson the second time in the first round, a reporter asked Liston: “Did Patterson fight better the second time?”
Liston replied, “Didn’t you see the fight?”
When he was asked whether nor not Patterson should retire, Liston replied:
“Who am I to tell a bird he can’t fly.”
Another time he was asked how long he hoped to retain the title. Liston replied,
“That’s like asking God how long you want to live–as long as I can.”
In an event leading up to his first fight with Cassius Clay, Liston urinated on a copy of “Time Magazine” that had Clay’s picture on the front cover. In the middle of Las Vegas in broad daylight no less.
Now I don’t know about the rest of you reading this, but the more I read about Liston, the more I like his particular brand of humor.
Anticipating his upcoming first fight with Clay, Liston remarked,
“I’m liable to be locked up for murder if I fight him.”
He was an inveterate practical joker. Once he used an electrical buzzer on a cop as he started to shake the officer’s hand. He had to pay hundreds of dollars of fines and court costs afterwards but for Sonny, the prank had been well worth it. He used to carry a double headed quarter with him at all times.
But Big Bad Sonny Liston was still an ex con who kept getting in scrapes with the police,
and that’s what I kept hearing in the media.
The more I keep reading about him the more I like him. Then of course there’s all those links to organized crime. But back in his time, professional boxing was nearly totally controlled by organized crime. In those times about the only way you could get to the top was to go through the mob. Very few top fighters were able to escape being connected on one level or another with the underworld.
Then there’s that last enduring image of him dying from a heroin overdose. Except practically everyone who knew him said he was afraid of needles. Some say he had a heart attack. Others claim he was murdered by either his mob connections or other unsavory types he might have crossed.
Joe Louis called Big Bad Sonny Liston the greatest heavyweight of them all. But he lost twice to Muhammad Ali who fought Liston under his slave name Cassius Clay. There’s a lot of controversy about both fights. And even if he hadn’t thrown either one, he was still forty at the time of his rematch although his given age was more like 32. And forty year old fighters very rarely win heavyweight titles nor do they successfully defend them. So how good was Liston really?
Just watch the you tube videos I’ve listed below and judge for yourself.
Liston vs Eddie Machen–September 7, 1960 Eddie Machen was one of the few fighters to go the distance with Liston. Machen felt that he had Liston’s number and knew how to beat him. Well–almost. But almost only counts in horse shoes.
He would have been a great fighter had he been a light heavyweight. But after allegedly ducking the cream of the heavyweight division, Floyd finally had to face reality in the form of Sonny Liston–a reality that had most likely been Floyd’s worse nightmare.
Sonny Liston vs Floyd Patterson fight number 1 as Patterson defends his title
The rematch Once again Liston demolishes Patterson in just one round. This time it takes one minute and fifty seconds
Is this the man Joe Louis called, “The Best Heavyweight of all time?”
When for many Joe Louis was the best of all? This is before Big Bad Sonny Liston knocked out Floyd Patterson in their two title fights, twice in the first round. In my opinion Sonny Liston hit his prime during these years before the Patterson bouts that brought him the heavyweight crown. By the time he fought Patterson he was already starting to show his age, which was reputedly around 40 when he first faced Clay.
I wish I had spoken out to him back at Kiel Auditorium. There is too much that has been said about the other side of Sonny Liston. And he loved kids, both white and black.
Knockouts from Sonny Liston.
Living it up in Pattaya Thailand World's Most Exciting City
