Via Ken Hissner: One of the deadliest plane crashes to rock the boxing world occurred on October 27, 1949. Former French middleweight champion Marcel Cerdan was on his way to the US for a rematch with Jake “Bronx Bull” LaMotta when his plane crashed in the Azores mountains causing his death at the age of 33.
Cerdan lost the title to LaMotta on 16 June 1949 due to a shoulder injury late in the ninth inning. He and LaMotta fell to the canvas during a scuffle in the first round, and he fought one-on-one until retreating in his corner after the tenth inning. He finished 110-4 with 65 stops.
Back in 1981, when meeting IBHOF coach Cus D’Amato and his boxer Kevin Rooney in Scranton, PA, this writer was invited to the Catskills by D’Amato. When I arrived in New York, I met my manager Jim Jacobs, who had worked with D’Amato, and we had lunch.
Jacobs, known for “The Greatest Fighting Movie of the Century,” told me, “out of all the movies I’ve seen and watched, the worst decision was Willie Pastrano taking the title. from world champion Harold Johnson by split decision.”
Oddly enough, Johnson never fought again, but D’Amato’s Jose “Chegui” Torres managed to do and destroy Pastrano, knocking him out in the sixth round, and he was out of the field in the second round. ten.
On that trip to the Catskills, D’Amato told me how he wouldn’t allow his boxer Floyd Patterson to fight Johnson. He also said that the crowd had Pastrano and told him the only way for them to fight Torres was if he didn’t take the corner.
That’s when he set up a dial-up system for coaches to fill in how Torres does.
This writer told Jacobs that the worst decision I have ever witnessed and firsthand seen was in November 1976 when undefeated men’s tennis player Tyrone Everett of Philadelphia lost a world title match in front of home. WBC world lightweight champion Alfredo “Petro” Escalera of Puerto Rico, indoors. record with 16,019 spectators attending the Philadelphia Spectrum.
This writer scored it 13-2 in innings for Everett. Mexican referee for Everett while Puerto Rican referee for Escalera and Philadelphia judge Lou Tress for Escalera. Stress will never judge a fight again. I know he was paid enough to retire.
Four months later, in March 1977, Escalera defended her title against Ronnie McGarvey, while two months later, Everett was shot and killed in May after posting a winning pair. He was never able to get a second leg against Escalera.
Another Philadelphia boxer, Joey Giardello, attempted to take the NBA middleweight title from champion Gene Fullmer, ending in a decisive draw in April 1960 in Bozeman, Montana. Fullmer, known for his rough tactics, will not allow Giardello to rematch.
In December 1962, Fullmer lost the title to Dick Tiger. In a rematch, they fought a tie, and in the third, Tiger stopped Fullmer, ending his career.
That August, Giardello lost to Philly boxer George Benton. Four wins later, he took the title from Tiger in December 1963. This writer remembers Benton being introduced in the ring before his fight with Giardello as if putting money in his pocket for a rematch he won’t ever get.
After a pair of non-title wins, Giardello, nearly a year to the day after winning the title, defeated Rubin “Hurricane” Carter in December 1964.
Carter defeated Benton by split decision in May 1963, ruining his chance to fight Giardello for the title. Though Carter later lost to Joey Archer a number of skirmishes, he scored three wins and secured a title match with Giardello losing the decisive match.
In September 2017, WBC, WBA and IBF world middleweight champion Gennadiy “GGG” Golovkin was held to a draw in a decisive match against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Golovkin, in this writer’s opinion, took a 3-2 lead in rounds as he chased an Alvarez running around the ring for seven laps he should have won decisively. Judge Adalaide Byrd gave Alvarez 118-110 and was suspended for a month.
While Alvarez was restless, Golovkin eight months later knocked out Vanes Martirosyan waiting for Alvarez to be ready for their rematch. Four months later, Alvarez won a decisive majority in September 2018, a year after their first game.
Instead of Alvarez giving Golovkin a rematch as was offered, he opted to move up to super-middleweight in December three months later, stopping Rocky Fielding for his WBA title.
In May, Alvarez dropped to middleweight. Instead of giving Golovkin a rematch in May 2019, he defended against Daniel “Miracle Man” Jacobs, whom Golovkin defeated before his first match against Alvarez. Why not rematch Golovkin instead of one of his victims?
The following month in June after Alvarez beat Jacobs, Golovkin stopped Steve Rolls in 163. In October, he again won the vacant IBF middleweight belt by defeating Sergiy Derevyancheko.
The following November, Alvarez decided to forgo two middleweight titles and jump up two weight divisions to knock out Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev in November for the WBO lightweight belt.
A year later, he was back in super-middle class making 4 defenses never consider a rematch with Golovkin.
We could go on about rematches and I’m sure there was a worse one but the previous one is still fresh in this writer’s mind.
