Published May 18, 2013
Ninety-two years ago this month, Johnny Mendelsohn won the biggest fight of his career and simultaneously sealed his fate as, in the words of a sportswriter who covered him, "the most maligned boxer Milwaukee ever had."
Published April 25, 2013
On radio and TV broadcasts, in Twitter posts and blogs, and on news outlet websites, we've had a dirge of drivel that I'm embarrassed to even call journalism.
Published April 17, 2013
The Wisconsin Golden Gloves is required to have a doctor to perform pre-match physicals and to be ringside through its tournament of champions this Saturday, but the doctor originally in place will not be able to attend. Tournament organizers are currently searching for a physician.
Published April 10, 2013
Norman Johnson, the sensational Milwaukee lightweight who won the 1953 and 1954 Golden Gloves at 135 pounds, passed away last Friday about three weeks short of his 78th birthday.
Published April 6, 2013
Far be it from Bob Ranck to suggest that his participation in the 1953 Wisconsin Golden Gloves tournament was responsible for the attendance that is still the high-water mark in the history of the amateur boxing - an event whose 83rd annual run starts April 6 in Racine.
Published Feb. 28, 2013
The cause of civil rights in Wisconsin has been advanced through the years by stalwart trailblazers who weren't afraid of a punch in the mouth. Or, in the case of Bruce Flowers - who ended discrimination against black boxers in the state when he stepped through the ropes at the Milwaukee Auditorium 84 years ago - in the plums.
Published Feb. 2, 2013
Nowadays the groundhog and its accursed shadow get all the attention at this time of year, but back in the 1920s, 30s and 40s people knew it was February when Harry Wills became a shadow of his old self by not eating any food for the entire month.
Published Jan. 13, 2013
In an era of mob-controlled fights, Wisconsin boxer Al Andrews managed to make a name for himself across the country by becoming one of the first faces of boxing on national television.
Published Jan. 7, 2013
After one of the world's most famous athletes showed his stuff in Milwaukee 107 years ago Jan. 5, a newspaper sports reporter pronounced him "a nerveless, brainless, freak of human idiocy." Those were layman's terms, of course, but a few years earlier medical experts came to virtually the same conclusion about boxer Joe Grim.
Published Dec. 11, 2012
Compared to some of the high-profile, self-promoting boxing referees who came after him, Milt Rickun was a shrinking violet. Rickun, who died Dec. 7 at age 85, was properly inconspicuous between the ropes. He didn't preen or showboat, and let his professionalism speak for itself.
Published Dec. 8, 2012
Fifty-nine years ago this month a Milwaukee heavyweight boxer called "Long John" Hubbard got what was coming to him for putting up what a newspaper called "the best fight of his career." Three months in the House of Correction.
Published Nov. 23, 2012
Molly Snyder's paean to Samson the gorilla - "Milwaukee's most celebrated zoo resident of all time" - cries out for a rebuttal on behalf of an animal that not only kicked Samson's big hairy keister as a local zoo attraction, but could've literally done so in a fight under the Marquis of Queensbury rules.
Published Oct. 8, 2012
Sylvester Sims, local African-American boxing legend and one of Milwaukee's foremost artists, died Saturday at his Northwest Side home. He was 83.
Published Sept. 19, 2012
When the fatal 10 count in store for all of us tolls over a boxing champion, the custom is to clang the ringside bell at the next fight card 10 times in honor of the departed. Since boxing in Milwaukee is pretty much dead itself nowadays, fight fans and everyone who admires a never-say-die spirit ought to bang a pot or ring the doorbell 10 times for Fred "The People's Choice" Radmer, who passed away Tuesday at 62.
Published Aug. 22, 2012
On April 24, 1953, a national television audience viewing a world lightweight championship fight in Boston was disgusted when challenger Tommy Collins was knocked down 10 times by champion Jimmy Carter before referee Tommy Rawson got around to stopping the mismatch in the fourth round. Just 10 days later, a well-known Milwaukee referee was driven out of boxing by fans and reporters who thought he stopped a fight too soon.
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