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Ezzard Charles: A Boxing Life
Greatness is often overlooked in its own time. For Ezzard Charles--one of boxing's most skilled practitioners, with a record of 93-25-1 (52 KO)--recognition took decades. Named by The Ring magazine as the greatest light heavyweight of all time, Charles was frustrated in his attempts to get a shot at the 175-pound title, and as World Heavyweight Champion (1949-1951) struggled to win the respect of boxing fans captivated by Joe Louis' power and charisma. This first-ever biography of "The Cincinnati Cobra" covers his early life in a small country town and his career in the glamorously dirty business of prizefighting in the 1950s, one of the sport's Golden Ages. Charles' fights with Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott, Rocky Marciano and his three wins over the legendary Archie Moore are detailed.
232 pages, Paperback
First published March 15, 2015
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July 8, 2021
Visit my YouTube channel for more details from Ezzard Charles's life, please!
Link: https://youtu.be/Bscoe0MKBd4
Ezzard Charles was a boxer of paradoxes. He was recognized as the greatest light heavyweight fighter of all times, but he never won the light heavyweight title — that no-man’s division between the glamor classes of middleweight and heavyweight. He earned his well-deserved place in the Boxing Hall of Fame, but otherwise remained obscure especially if compared with Joey Maxim, Jimmy Bivins, Lloyd Marshall, Charley Burley, and many other hard, great, black fighters he had whipped multiple times. Some boxers had a thunderous punch, or a great back story, or unusual charisma or presence. Ezzard Charles had none of these. He was never anyone's hero — he simply did not fit the image of a hero the American public demanded. When he died, they named a highway after him in Cincinnati, the way they do for heroes; while alive and fighting, though, he was never appreciated by the general public. Only the guys who knew what they were talking about looked at films of him and asked: “Christ, how could they not see he was a genius?” Indeed, how could they not? In his compelling book, William Detloff aims to finally do this legend justice.
There was nothing in the circumstances around Ezzard Charles's birth and childhood to suggest he would become a legendary prizefighter. He was just a poor kid from an American slum, no different than other poor kids from other American slums. However, there was much in those circumstances to ignite the natural, desperate hunger needed to make a kid fight like hell. He grew up in the Rocky Knob section of Lawrenceville, Georgia, on July 7, 1921. Like all the neighborhood boys, Ezzard imagined himself as someday rich and famous, or at least famous, because rich was something no black man in his right mind within a hundred miles of Lawrenceville was fool enough to dream. He imagined himself as a star basketball player or a champion prizefighter. In his fantasies he’d be known as “Jack” Charles, or “Kid” Charles, something like that. "Ezzard" Charles — he was named after the corner drug store owner who helped Alberta deliver him — was no good. No hero in history had ever been called Ezzard.
In the 1920s prizefighting was the biggest sport in the world, and about the only sport in America where a poor black boy could compete against a poor white boy, and if he was good enough and could beat him, and kept winning, he eventually could be the champion of the whole world — not just the colored world. Prizefighters were treated like movie stars, or even as kings of the state.
Long before Charles was born, the people of Lawrenceville had put together a makeshift boxing ring, and all summer long the neighborhood boys would box one another. Although he was one of the smallest kids in the neighborhood, Ezzard had little trouble running through other kids around his age — a great and welcome surprise for him. Soon he was standing in the backyard, punching away at an old canvas sack filled with rags and sand for hours and hours. The more he punched at it the better he got. And the better he got the more he punched at it. All thoughts of becoming a baseball or football player were forgotten. He thought mostly about boxing.
When Ezzard's mother, Alberta, decided to head North for better work opportunities, she dropped him at her mother's house in Cincinnati. Charles’ grandmother, Maude Foster, lived in Cincinnati’s West End, where all the black folks lived. She was a petite woman, yet a formidable matriarch, who instilled in her kids, and especially in Ezzard, the importance of living a good, clean Christian life. As long as a man led such a life, no harm could come to him, she said, and Ezzard believed her. Due to her influence, he would turn out to be a good boy — not a genius with books but hard-working.
The Cincinnati West End was not a place for cowards and boys who had no interest in streetfights, but Ezzard, despite his many successful backyard boxing matches in Lawrenceville, was a timid boy and froze in terror at the mere thought of fist-fighting. And since there were always guys ready to pick up a fight, he became skilled in avoiding them by charting new ways to get home. It may seem that those skills and qualities of his did not betray his prizefighting future, but in reality it takes patience, discipline, and a certain kind of smarts to become a good boxer — all qualities the guys who simply enjoy beating up people do not possess. The streetfighters let it all – the anger, the hunger — out on the streets, and by the time they reach the ring there is nothing left in them to fuel the energy for a match. Charles, on the other hand, kept all this frustration bottled up inside himself.
Timid Ezzard had not resumed his makeshift boxing practices in Cincinnati, and maybe he wouldn't have turned to boxing again at all if in August 1932 Kid Chocolate, the great Cuban featherweight boxer, had not arrived in Cincinnati to fight Cleveland-based journeyman Johnny Farr. As all the neighborhood kids crowded around Chocolate's car, Ezzard heard one of them ask: “Chocolate, how many suits ya got?” “Man, I got suits for every day in the year. I got 365," Kid Chocolate replied. This answer stuck with Ezzard Mack Charles, who was as dirt poor as all the other kids on the West End. He thought: “I’m gonna be a fighter and have clothes like that.” He’d be the boy to make his grandmother proud, the boy who would stand out among all the other poor boys on the West End.
Soon he started boxing other boys in backyards and parking lots, and just like in Lawrenceville, he went through them like they weren’t there. A sensational black heavyweight named Joe Louis had come out of Detroit and whipped almost every fighter he’d faced. The whites admired him, but it was for blacks that he was something extraordinary — the proof that a black man could come from the slums and reach the top of the world. He became Ezzard's new inspiration.
When boxing his friends and other neighborhood kids, he imagined himself as Louis, landing punches and dodging counters. And after he had whipped them all, bloodied their noses, and sent them home bruised and dizzy, a couple of them told him he was wasting his time with them. If he loved Joe Louis so much and was so good at boxing, why didn’t he go to a gym already and do it right? So Ezzard Charles did.
With his fine manners, spindly arms, and barely audible voice, he was turned down at Danny Davis' gym, told he would never become a boxer. Fortunately, a friend introduced him to Bert Williams, a diminutive Welshman and WWI veteran, who saw the earnestness in Ezzard. The boy was always there for practice, always right on time. When Williams put him against one of his experienced boys, Sam Rutledge, just to see how Ezzard would react to being hit, Ezzard took such a beating the Welshman doubted he would show up for practice again at all. But the next day, there he was, right on time. When Williams made a match for Charles against a boy named Al Jackson at an American Legion show in Newport to check if Ezzard was a real fighter or just a “gym fighter," Ezzard tore into poor Al Jackson like no one’s business and stopped him in the third round. Bert Williams had his answer. The kid was a fighter.
Soon Ezzard was winning every tournament he entered. Nobody could remember the last time they’d seen a kid like Ezzard Charles. To Ezzard himself, however, trophies and medals didn’t mean all that much after a while — the amateurs was merely a training ground to prepare him for a professional career where his trophies and medals would be apartment buildings, suits, nice cars, beautiful women, a full stomach, and a life without struggle.
Charles received national attention for the first time after he agreed to fight a much-avoided Pittsburgh middleweight named Charlie Burley, whom everyone avoided because he was "too good." Soon he outboxed Joey Maxim, who was nicknamed after the Maxim machine gun because of how fast he could jab and had won several Golden Gloves titles and an AAU championship as a middleweight.
However, Charles had also begun to grow disillusioned with boxing. He was a world-class fighter, yet he was making peanuts fighting tough, hungry guys like Maxim. He had a car and some nice things back home, things he’d never had before, but it seemed to him that everyone else was making real money, while he was the one taking punches. He wasn’t getting anywhere. So when he found out he was going to be drafted into the U.S. Army, Ezzard Charles was at the lowest point of his career and ready to quit boxing.
As a private, Charles made about $50 a month, most of which he sent back to Cincinnati to his grandmother and great-grandmother. It was a long way from the purses he’d earned fighting every month, and it was a shock to his system. He thought he’d been making peanuts fighting, but it was more than a lot better than fifty bucks a month. On top of that, sleeping and eating quarters for the black soldiers in camp were separate and awful. The camp horses were treated better than the black soldiers.
Charles had no intention of using his meager celebrity as a top-rated prizefighter to get special treatment while in the military, but an army buddy blurted out to their commander that Ezzard was one of the best fighters around, and Charles joined the Fifth Army boxing team in the special services unit. After the allies liberated Rome in June 1944, he shipped out to Italy and spent the rest of his war days boxing in inter-allied tournaments and wooing the daughter of an Italian shipbuilder. He also realized his heart was still in boxing and in boxing only.
He started training again as soon as he got back home and was again winning fights like it was nothing. He even belted Archie Moore, who was thirty years old and one of the best fighters in the world, around the ring like he owned him. Everything that Charles had been before the Bivins fight he was again: fast, powerful, hungry and indefatigable. The army had improved him. He also got his rematch with Bivins and whipped him in front of a crowd of 11,519, scoring an electrifying fourth-round knockout. For the first time in his career, Jimmy Bivins was counted out.
Joe Louis retired before Charles could challenge him for the heavyweight title, which was in fact a relief for Ezzard. He had no desire to fight his idol. But he still wanted the title. That meant he had to face Jersey Joe Walcott, who had once managed to give Joe Louis a hard time. Charles won, but ever the timid one missed a chance to start his reign as heavyweight champion of the world with a convincing knockout. This provoked the scorn not only of the public, but also of the press: “The Charles-Walcott bout was billed as a championship affair and as it turned out it was an insult to the No.1 division in boxing.” Now Ezzard Charles was officially the heavyweight champion, but unofficially he was considered a coward.
And a year later Ezzard Charles dared to do the unforgivable: he fought Joe Louis, who had made a comeback, at Yankee Stadium and won. He thought that this win was all it took for him to be finally accepted. But when Louis was half-carried to the dressing room after their match, all the black folks who had grown up and grown strong listening to Louis on the radio in the early days, when every victory of his in the ring was a victory for them outside of it, were crying for Joe Louis. Joe Louis had spoiled American fight fans by being everything they had ever wanted in a superhero — outside of being white, of course — and in comparison Ezzard Charles looked like a school kid. They hated him for not being Louis, who was everything they wanted in a heavyweight champion. Charles was everything they didn’t want. In his own neighborhood in Cincinnati, where he had grown up dirt poor and hungry, the slum kids booed him.
It would take him a proud loss against the indefatigable Rocky Marciano, not a win, to finally gain the American public's admiration. But not for long. Although Charles would give Marciano the hardest time the Italian has ever had, in their subsequent rematch the public would again see the Ezzard Charles it had come to disdain — Ezzard Charles the Coward, Ezzard Charles who did not want to hurt anybody and did not want anybody to hurt him. There was none of the sense of moral victory he’d had after the first Marciano fight. He’d fought his heart out that night, thought he won it, and even the folks back home who thought he’d lost looked at him like he was a god. The fight he had showed! The second time there was none of that. A lot of folks had a hard time looking him in the eye — unless they were asking for money.
From that moment on, crowds showed at Charles's fights just to boo him. Soon he retired. And just like that, Ezzard Charles, the fighter who gave Rocky Marciano the hardest time, the fighter who whipped the great Joe Louis, was done. It was over for him. Forgotten.
This biography is so well-written and compelling I can't help to be amazed. I had never been a boxing fan and I was sure I would get lost among the crowd of names of boxers, coaches, managers etc. However, Willaim Detloff had managed to organize the materiel in such a clear way that I did not feel confused for a second. On top of that, this book is an absolute page-turner. I could not stop reading! I just had to know whether Charles had won his next fight or not. This is a book that makes you care for its main character. Most definitely worth a read.
Link: https://youtu.be/Bscoe0MKBd4
Ezzard Charles was a boxer of paradoxes. He was recognized as the greatest light heavyweight fighter of all times, but he never won the light heavyweight title — that no-man’s division between the glamor classes of middleweight and heavyweight. He earned his well-deserved place in the Boxing Hall of Fame, but otherwise remained obscure especially if compared with Joey Maxim, Jimmy Bivins, Lloyd Marshall, Charley Burley, and many other hard, great, black fighters he had whipped multiple times. Some boxers had a thunderous punch, or a great back story, or unusual charisma or presence. Ezzard Charles had none of these. He was never anyone's hero — he simply did not fit the image of a hero the American public demanded. When he died, they named a highway after him in Cincinnati, the way they do for heroes; while alive and fighting, though, he was never appreciated by the general public. Only the guys who knew what they were talking about looked at films of him and asked: “Christ, how could they not see he was a genius?” Indeed, how could they not? In his compelling book, William Detloff aims to finally do this legend justice.
There was nothing in the circumstances around Ezzard Charles's birth and childhood to suggest he would become a legendary prizefighter. He was just a poor kid from an American slum, no different than other poor kids from other American slums. However, there was much in those circumstances to ignite the natural, desperate hunger needed to make a kid fight like hell. He grew up in the Rocky Knob section of Lawrenceville, Georgia, on July 7, 1921. Like all the neighborhood boys, Ezzard imagined himself as someday rich and famous, or at least famous, because rich was something no black man in his right mind within a hundred miles of Lawrenceville was fool enough to dream. He imagined himself as a star basketball player or a champion prizefighter. In his fantasies he’d be known as “Jack” Charles, or “Kid” Charles, something like that. "Ezzard" Charles — he was named after the corner drug store owner who helped Alberta deliver him — was no good. No hero in history had ever been called Ezzard.
In the 1920s prizefighting was the biggest sport in the world, and about the only sport in America where a poor black boy could compete against a poor white boy, and if he was good enough and could beat him, and kept winning, he eventually could be the champion of the whole world — not just the colored world. Prizefighters were treated like movie stars, or even as kings of the state.
Long before Charles was born, the people of Lawrenceville had put together a makeshift boxing ring, and all summer long the neighborhood boys would box one another. Although he was one of the smallest kids in the neighborhood, Ezzard had little trouble running through other kids around his age — a great and welcome surprise for him. Soon he was standing in the backyard, punching away at an old canvas sack filled with rags and sand for hours and hours. The more he punched at it the better he got. And the better he got the more he punched at it. All thoughts of becoming a baseball or football player were forgotten. He thought mostly about boxing.
When Ezzard's mother, Alberta, decided to head North for better work opportunities, she dropped him at her mother's house in Cincinnati. Charles’ grandmother, Maude Foster, lived in Cincinnati’s West End, where all the black folks lived. She was a petite woman, yet a formidable matriarch, who instilled in her kids, and especially in Ezzard, the importance of living a good, clean Christian life. As long as a man led such a life, no harm could come to him, she said, and Ezzard believed her. Due to her influence, he would turn out to be a good boy — not a genius with books but hard-working.
The Cincinnati West End was not a place for cowards and boys who had no interest in streetfights, but Ezzard, despite his many successful backyard boxing matches in Lawrenceville, was a timid boy and froze in terror at the mere thought of fist-fighting. And since there were always guys ready to pick up a fight, he became skilled in avoiding them by charting new ways to get home. It may seem that those skills and qualities of his did not betray his prizefighting future, but in reality it takes patience, discipline, and a certain kind of smarts to become a good boxer — all qualities the guys who simply enjoy beating up people do not possess. The streetfighters let it all – the anger, the hunger — out on the streets, and by the time they reach the ring there is nothing left in them to fuel the energy for a match. Charles, on the other hand, kept all this frustration bottled up inside himself.
Timid Ezzard had not resumed his makeshift boxing practices in Cincinnati, and maybe he wouldn't have turned to boxing again at all if in August 1932 Kid Chocolate, the great Cuban featherweight boxer, had not arrived in Cincinnati to fight Cleveland-based journeyman Johnny Farr. As all the neighborhood kids crowded around Chocolate's car, Ezzard heard one of them ask: “Chocolate, how many suits ya got?” “Man, I got suits for every day in the year. I got 365," Kid Chocolate replied. This answer stuck with Ezzard Mack Charles, who was as dirt poor as all the other kids on the West End. He thought: “I’m gonna be a fighter and have clothes like that.” He’d be the boy to make his grandmother proud, the boy who would stand out among all the other poor boys on the West End.
Soon he started boxing other boys in backyards and parking lots, and just like in Lawrenceville, he went through them like they weren’t there. A sensational black heavyweight named Joe Louis had come out of Detroit and whipped almost every fighter he’d faced. The whites admired him, but it was for blacks that he was something extraordinary — the proof that a black man could come from the slums and reach the top of the world. He became Ezzard's new inspiration.
When boxing his friends and other neighborhood kids, he imagined himself as Louis, landing punches and dodging counters. And after he had whipped them all, bloodied their noses, and sent them home bruised and dizzy, a couple of them told him he was wasting his time with them. If he loved Joe Louis so much and was so good at boxing, why didn’t he go to a gym already and do it right? So Ezzard Charles did.
With his fine manners, spindly arms, and barely audible voice, he was turned down at Danny Davis' gym, told he would never become a boxer. Fortunately, a friend introduced him to Bert Williams, a diminutive Welshman and WWI veteran, who saw the earnestness in Ezzard. The boy was always there for practice, always right on time. When Williams put him against one of his experienced boys, Sam Rutledge, just to see how Ezzard would react to being hit, Ezzard took such a beating the Welshman doubted he would show up for practice again at all. But the next day, there he was, right on time. When Williams made a match for Charles against a boy named Al Jackson at an American Legion show in Newport to check if Ezzard was a real fighter or just a “gym fighter," Ezzard tore into poor Al Jackson like no one’s business and stopped him in the third round. Bert Williams had his answer. The kid was a fighter.
Soon Ezzard was winning every tournament he entered. Nobody could remember the last time they’d seen a kid like Ezzard Charles. To Ezzard himself, however, trophies and medals didn’t mean all that much after a while — the amateurs was merely a training ground to prepare him for a professional career where his trophies and medals would be apartment buildings, suits, nice cars, beautiful women, a full stomach, and a life without struggle.
Charles received national attention for the first time after he agreed to fight a much-avoided Pittsburgh middleweight named Charlie Burley, whom everyone avoided because he was "too good." Soon he outboxed Joey Maxim, who was nicknamed after the Maxim machine gun because of how fast he could jab and had won several Golden Gloves titles and an AAU championship as a middleweight.
However, Charles had also begun to grow disillusioned with boxing. He was a world-class fighter, yet he was making peanuts fighting tough, hungry guys like Maxim. He had a car and some nice things back home, things he’d never had before, but it seemed to him that everyone else was making real money, while he was the one taking punches. He wasn’t getting anywhere. So when he found out he was going to be drafted into the U.S. Army, Ezzard Charles was at the lowest point of his career and ready to quit boxing.
As a private, Charles made about $50 a month, most of which he sent back to Cincinnati to his grandmother and great-grandmother. It was a long way from the purses he’d earned fighting every month, and it was a shock to his system. He thought he’d been making peanuts fighting, but it was more than a lot better than fifty bucks a month. On top of that, sleeping and eating quarters for the black soldiers in camp were separate and awful. The camp horses were treated better than the black soldiers.
Charles had no intention of using his meager celebrity as a top-rated prizefighter to get special treatment while in the military, but an army buddy blurted out to their commander that Ezzard was one of the best fighters around, and Charles joined the Fifth Army boxing team in the special services unit. After the allies liberated Rome in June 1944, he shipped out to Italy and spent the rest of his war days boxing in inter-allied tournaments and wooing the daughter of an Italian shipbuilder. He also realized his heart was still in boxing and in boxing only.
He started training again as soon as he got back home and was again winning fights like it was nothing. He even belted Archie Moore, who was thirty years old and one of the best fighters in the world, around the ring like he owned him. Everything that Charles had been before the Bivins fight he was again: fast, powerful, hungry and indefatigable. The army had improved him. He also got his rematch with Bivins and whipped him in front of a crowd of 11,519, scoring an electrifying fourth-round knockout. For the first time in his career, Jimmy Bivins was counted out.
Joe Louis retired before Charles could challenge him for the heavyweight title, which was in fact a relief for Ezzard. He had no desire to fight his idol. But he still wanted the title. That meant he had to face Jersey Joe Walcott, who had once managed to give Joe Louis a hard time. Charles won, but ever the timid one missed a chance to start his reign as heavyweight champion of the world with a convincing knockout. This provoked the scorn not only of the public, but also of the press: “The Charles-Walcott bout was billed as a championship affair and as it turned out it was an insult to the No.1 division in boxing.” Now Ezzard Charles was officially the heavyweight champion, but unofficially he was considered a coward.
And a year later Ezzard Charles dared to do the unforgivable: he fought Joe Louis, who had made a comeback, at Yankee Stadium and won. He thought that this win was all it took for him to be finally accepted. But when Louis was half-carried to the dressing room after their match, all the black folks who had grown up and grown strong listening to Louis on the radio in the early days, when every victory of his in the ring was a victory for them outside of it, were crying for Joe Louis. Joe Louis had spoiled American fight fans by being everything they had ever wanted in a superhero — outside of being white, of course — and in comparison Ezzard Charles looked like a school kid. They hated him for not being Louis, who was everything they wanted in a heavyweight champion. Charles was everything they didn’t want. In his own neighborhood in Cincinnati, where he had grown up dirt poor and hungry, the slum kids booed him.
It would take him a proud loss against the indefatigable Rocky Marciano, not a win, to finally gain the American public's admiration. But not for long. Although Charles would give Marciano the hardest time the Italian has ever had, in their subsequent rematch the public would again see the Ezzard Charles it had come to disdain — Ezzard Charles the Coward, Ezzard Charles who did not want to hurt anybody and did not want anybody to hurt him. There was none of the sense of moral victory he’d had after the first Marciano fight. He’d fought his heart out that night, thought he won it, and even the folks back home who thought he’d lost looked at him like he was a god. The fight he had showed! The second time there was none of that. A lot of folks had a hard time looking him in the eye — unless they were asking for money.
From that moment on, crowds showed at Charles's fights just to boo him. Soon he retired. And just like that, Ezzard Charles, the fighter who gave Rocky Marciano the hardest time, the fighter who whipped the great Joe Louis, was done. It was over for him. Forgotten.
This biography is so well-written and compelling I can't help to be amazed. I had never been a boxing fan and I was sure I would get lost among the crowd of names of boxers, coaches, managers etc. However, Willaim Detloff had managed to organize the materiel in such a clear way that I did not feel confused for a second. On top of that, this book is an absolute page-turner. I could not stop reading! I just had to know whether Charles had won his next fight or not. This is a book that makes you care for its main character. Most definitely worth a read.
December 24, 2018
Nice boxing history bio on a great and very underappreciated Champion. Concentrates on his boxing career more than his personal life. Makes me happy there is a well done biography on Ezzard Charles.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
July 13, 2015
When you get disgusted with the four quarreling alphabet groups that control the major belts, it’s worthwhile to look at how things worked back in the forties and fifties, when there was only one title in each division and it was controlled by gangsters.
Ezzard Charles beat all the best light heavyweights of his time but couldn’t get a title shot. Frustrated, he moved up to heavyweight and in June 1949 won the vacant championship by beating formidable Jersey Joe Walcott at the Chicago White Sox’s Comiskey Park. It was one month before Charles’s 28th birthday.
He competed at a time when prizefighting vied with baseball as the nation’s most popular sport. His life and career are skillfully chronicled by William Dettloff. You always want to read the next page.
Why a book about Charles? The author explains that right away. Because he was “one of the best prizefighters who ever lived.” Also, like so many fighters, he had plenty going on beneath the surface of his athletic activity. He painted in oils, read psychology books, and played an upright bass.
Dettloff, a former senior writer at The Ring, is one-half of the irreverent, often hilarious “Ring Theory” podcast team made up of him and Eric Raskin, another refugee from Ring (Full disclosure: so am I). One of the more popular staples in their astute commentary is the genteel naming of Asshole of the Month.
Dettloff’s chronicle is a kind of social history. You get a good feel for the times as you trail after the fighter’s wily manager Jake Mintz, gangsters Franky Carbo and Blinky Palermo, and trainers Ray Arcel and Jimmy Brown. There are plenty of pretty females and flashy convertibles, also tough times and tragedy.
Along the way we meet Sammy Crandall, a blown-up middleweight who fought under the name Sam Baroudi, and went 41-11-2, 21 KOs. He died of injuries suffered in a February 20, 1948 contest with Charles. Baroudi was 21 years old.
Afterward Charles became a more cautious fighter, less willing to drive in and punish. He acknowledged the style change but claimed it wasn’t motivated by the Baroudi fight. He’d moved up to face heavyweights and had to be more careful. Or so he said.
Charles is perhaps best known for beating Joe Louis. When they competed for the heavyweight title in 1950 it seemed the entire nation was cheering for its beloved Brown Bomber, who at 36 was not the same Louis. Sugar Ray Robinson has a pretty good idea of what was coming, but when asked to predict a winner, told the press, “It would be treason to pick any other than Joe.”
Louis weighed in at 218, Charles at slightly over 184. It was no walkover. Louis put lumps all over Charles but had been counting on scoring an early kayo against his lighter, quicker opponent and couldn’t keep it up for fifteen rounds. Charles, proving his durability as he had so many times before, won on points.
Charles gave Rocky Marciano one of his toughest fights. Marciano, a small heavyweight by today’s standards, was bigger than Charles, and wore him down with clubbing, fierce shots. Marciano won by decision in June 1954 and three months later stopped him in eight. They met both times in Yankee Stadium.
Like so many fighters, Charles stayed in the game too long. He’d tried retirement, but it didn’t stick. It wasn’t just the money. When no one was trying to knock his head off life got boring. He missed that adrenaline rush. But he lost seven of his last ten, and by then he was fighting in tank towns and high school auditoriums. He wrapped it up at age 38 and like almost every fighter you’ll ever see, lost his last bout.
Before his career ended Charles enjoyed plenty of good times, even bought his beautiful wife a mink coat, which she showed off at his fights.
One year after losing to unheralded Alvin Green, he was flat broke in hometown Cincinnati, the utilities cut off for lack of payment. The cars were gone and so were most of his friends. Sometimes bars paid him to make appearances. And yes, he also did some wrestling, just like Mountain McClintock in Rod Serling’s great Requiem for a Heavyweight.
By 1966, Charles, now living in Chicago, was suffering from lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Mayor Richard Daley gave him a job counseling children. Even after he was in a wheelchair and no longer able to work, Daley kept him on the payroll. Gladys stuck with him too, taking him to the bathroom and feeding him like an infant.
Charles, a World War II veteran, died in a VA hospital in Chicago at age 51 after living a boxing life so carefully and exquisitely recorded by Dettloff.
This review originally appeared on boxinginsider.com at http://www.boxinginsider.com/book-rev...
Ezzard Charles beat all the best light heavyweights of his time but couldn’t get a title shot. Frustrated, he moved up to heavyweight and in June 1949 won the vacant championship by beating formidable Jersey Joe Walcott at the Chicago White Sox’s Comiskey Park. It was one month before Charles’s 28th birthday.
He competed at a time when prizefighting vied with baseball as the nation’s most popular sport. His life and career are skillfully chronicled by William Dettloff. You always want to read the next page.
Why a book about Charles? The author explains that right away. Because he was “one of the best prizefighters who ever lived.” Also, like so many fighters, he had plenty going on beneath the surface of his athletic activity. He painted in oils, read psychology books, and played an upright bass.
Dettloff, a former senior writer at The Ring, is one-half of the irreverent, often hilarious “Ring Theory” podcast team made up of him and Eric Raskin, another refugee from Ring (Full disclosure: so am I). One of the more popular staples in their astute commentary is the genteel naming of Asshole of the Month.
Dettloff’s chronicle is a kind of social history. You get a good feel for the times as you trail after the fighter’s wily manager Jake Mintz, gangsters Franky Carbo and Blinky Palermo, and trainers Ray Arcel and Jimmy Brown. There are plenty of pretty females and flashy convertibles, also tough times and tragedy.
Along the way we meet Sammy Crandall, a blown-up middleweight who fought under the name Sam Baroudi, and went 41-11-2, 21 KOs. He died of injuries suffered in a February 20, 1948 contest with Charles. Baroudi was 21 years old.
Afterward Charles became a more cautious fighter, less willing to drive in and punish. He acknowledged the style change but claimed it wasn’t motivated by the Baroudi fight. He’d moved up to face heavyweights and had to be more careful. Or so he said.
Charles is perhaps best known for beating Joe Louis. When they competed for the heavyweight title in 1950 it seemed the entire nation was cheering for its beloved Brown Bomber, who at 36 was not the same Louis. Sugar Ray Robinson has a pretty good idea of what was coming, but when asked to predict a winner, told the press, “It would be treason to pick any other than Joe.”
Louis weighed in at 218, Charles at slightly over 184. It was no walkover. Louis put lumps all over Charles but had been counting on scoring an early kayo against his lighter, quicker opponent and couldn’t keep it up for fifteen rounds. Charles, proving his durability as he had so many times before, won on points.
Charles gave Rocky Marciano one of his toughest fights. Marciano, a small heavyweight by today’s standards, was bigger than Charles, and wore him down with clubbing, fierce shots. Marciano won by decision in June 1954 and three months later stopped him in eight. They met both times in Yankee Stadium.
Like so many fighters, Charles stayed in the game too long. He’d tried retirement, but it didn’t stick. It wasn’t just the money. When no one was trying to knock his head off life got boring. He missed that adrenaline rush. But he lost seven of his last ten, and by then he was fighting in tank towns and high school auditoriums. He wrapped it up at age 38 and like almost every fighter you’ll ever see, lost his last bout.
Before his career ended Charles enjoyed plenty of good times, even bought his beautiful wife a mink coat, which she showed off at his fights.
One year after losing to unheralded Alvin Green, he was flat broke in hometown Cincinnati, the utilities cut off for lack of payment. The cars were gone and so were most of his friends. Sometimes bars paid him to make appearances. And yes, he also did some wrestling, just like Mountain McClintock in Rod Serling’s great Requiem for a Heavyweight.
By 1966, Charles, now living in Chicago, was suffering from lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Mayor Richard Daley gave him a job counseling children. Even after he was in a wheelchair and no longer able to work, Daley kept him on the payroll. Gladys stuck with him too, taking him to the bathroom and feeding him like an infant.
Charles, a World War II veteran, died in a VA hospital in Chicago at age 51 after living a boxing life so carefully and exquisitely recorded by Dettloff.
This review originally appeared on boxinginsider.com at http://www.boxinginsider.com/book-rev...
January 9, 2023
Ezzard Charles: I gained a lot of respect for his fighting skills and tenacity as a human. However, it’s shameful how rotten the world of boxing is. There are many, many victims, both physically & financially, with no retirement or medical benefits. I have never understood the crowds cheering for a man to be bruised & bloodied in the name of sports. I only read this because Ezzard Charles is a hometown hero, about whom, nothing much is publicized. However, a statue & memorial was recently erected in his honor.
September 5, 2015
Ezzard Charles: A Boxing Life accomplishes the not exiguous feat of being compelling for aficionados without alienating the causally curious, of providing the uninitiated with the all they need without becoming tedious to the already informed. Written in a conversational style - replete with purposefully and appropriately placed expletives, schoolyard language, and anachronisms - EC:ABL reads as the work of a fan, without being, thankfully, fan-writing. Dettloff captures the language of the period without cliche, and very often crafts sentences rich in the poetry of a press row that once was populated by professional writers (and not, say, videographers or YouTube boobs).
A name that often appears only in the context (and shadows) of his more popular, and until now, more celebrated peers, Ezzard Charles need no longer be simply the fighter who gave Rocky Marciano his greatest test, the fighter who had Archie Moore in his pocket (and what does it say of those who curate the sport that such accomplishments are so often glossed over or treated as meagre?) Nor, thankfully, must Charles any longer be the underappreciated master whose only real crime was not being Joe Louis. He is, of course, all of these things, and will remain so. But he is far more, and because of this book, what constitutes this "more" is now collected and conveyed with a talent and class befitting of its subject.
A name that often appears only in the context (and shadows) of his more popular, and until now, more celebrated peers, Ezzard Charles need no longer be simply the fighter who gave Rocky Marciano his greatest test, the fighter who had Archie Moore in his pocket (and what does it say of those who curate the sport that such accomplishments are so often glossed over or treated as meagre?) Nor, thankfully, must Charles any longer be the underappreciated master whose only real crime was not being Joe Louis. He is, of course, all of these things, and will remain so. But he is far more, and because of this book, what constitutes this "more" is now collected and conveyed with a talent and class befitting of its subject.
July 13, 2015
A Tragic Ending to an Underrated Boxing Legend
Lou Gehrig and Ezzard Charles were great athletes who had major things in common. Both followed larger than life legends in their sport (Gehrig following Babe Ruth, Charles following Joe Louis) who, in the public's mind were never able to fill their shoes when it came to charisma, personality and style. And both were stricken by the same crippling disease that took their lives. It's possible that these two athletes could have gotten more acclaim in their primes if it wasn't for bad timing. Ezzard Charles was one of the best boxers who ever lived. His only crime was following the Joe Louis as heavyweight champion. Louis was the darling,mainly because the way he finished opponents, his charisma, and what he represented for America in World War II against the Hitler regime. Then along came Ezzard who couldn't carry the torch in most people's eyes. He never got he respect he deserved. This book tells how great he was. It tells of all the great fighters he defeated and the unfair struggle for him to obtain a world title. From his poor and humble beginnings to his sad life after boxing, William Dettloff gives a superb tale of Ezzard Charles, the dirty politics of boxing in the 40s and 50s, a boxer's mentality, and how the mind thinks when faced with a dilemma outside a boxing ring.
Lou Gehrig and Ezzard Charles were great athletes who had major things in common. Both followed larger than life legends in their sport (Gehrig following Babe Ruth, Charles following Joe Louis) who, in the public's mind were never able to fill their shoes when it came to charisma, personality and style. And both were stricken by the same crippling disease that took their lives. It's possible that these two athletes could have gotten more acclaim in their primes if it wasn't for bad timing. Ezzard Charles was one of the best boxers who ever lived. His only crime was following the Joe Louis as heavyweight champion. Louis was the darling,mainly because the way he finished opponents, his charisma, and what he represented for America in World War II against the Hitler regime. Then along came Ezzard who couldn't carry the torch in most people's eyes. He never got he respect he deserved. This book tells how great he was. It tells of all the great fighters he defeated and the unfair struggle for him to obtain a world title. From his poor and humble beginnings to his sad life after boxing, William Dettloff gives a superb tale of Ezzard Charles, the dirty politics of boxing in the 40s and 50s, a boxer's mentality, and how the mind thinks when faced with a dilemma outside a boxing ring.
April 27, 2019
With a record of 93 wins 25 losses and one draw it should get you into Boxing's Hall of Fame and it
did for Ezzard Charles. But Charles and his fellow pugilist Jersey Joe Walcott both had the misfortune
of having their reigns as heavyweight champions sandwiched between a pair of legends, Joe Louis and
Rocky Marciano. Especially Charles who was a skilled technician in the ring with a powerful punch,
but not real colorful.
Charles was born in rural Georgia in 1921, but his family moved to Cincinnati hence his ring nickname, the Cincinnati Cobra. Like Louis and Walcott, Charles saw boxing as a way out of poverty.
For most of his career Charles fought as a light heavyweight until war service kind of built him up in
physical stature. After 1945 he was mostly a heavyweight.
Post World War II for the next 15 years or so boxing was controlled by the International Boxing Club
whose front man was sportsman James D. Norris. The guys really behind it were made Mafia guys
Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo. Both Walcott and Charles had mobbed managers, Walcott one
Nick Bocchicchio and Charles a pair named Tom Tennas and Jacob Mintz. You did as they told
you and you got the matches that you needed to advance into contender ranks. Both Walcott and
Charles faced each other four times from 1949 to 1951 and both faced Joe Louis.
Walcott did it first and he lost in a 15 round split decision in 1947 that was most unpopular. Louis
who heard boos for the first time in his career with that win needed a redemption rematch. He got
it in 1948 and knocked Walcott out in the 8th round. But decided that after a reign of 11 years Joe
Louis would retire.
The IBC did an elimination tournament and Walcott and Ezzard Charles were named the top two
contenders and fought in 1949 and Charles won. Charles never really was accepted by the public
as champion. He fought Walcott and beat him again and then when Joe Louis decided to come back
because of tax and divorce troubles Charles gave him a match and beat him pretty well in a 15 round
decision. Yet Louis, the man who conquered Max Schmeling was an American folk hero at that
point and Ezzard Charles was the man who killed Santa Claus.
Charles was good about defending his title he had many matches in 1950-51 and a third against
Joe Walcott who knocked him out and got the heavyweight championship. He gave Ezzard a rematch and retained the title in their 4th fight.
And then along comes Rocky Marciano who in a memorable contest where Walcott was leading on
points knocks him out in the 13th round and becomes champ. Rocky had also knocked out an aging
Joe Louis in 1951 before his championship bout. In his career Marciano was 49-0.
And two of his title defenses were against Ezzard Charles, winning a decision the first time and
knocking him out the second. Charles was a spent force by that time, but he also didn't save well.
He kept fighting until 1959 and most of his career losses were in this last part of his career.
In 1965 Charles who was having difficulty walking had a neurology consult and it was determined
he had Lou Gehrig's disease. The last 10 years of his life marked the slow deterioration of an athletic body.
He was a skilled fighter and sad he's ignored and sad he ended up the way he did. But Ezzard
Charles was quite a man in the ring and this deserved biography will tell you why.
did for Ezzard Charles. But Charles and his fellow pugilist Jersey Joe Walcott both had the misfortune
of having their reigns as heavyweight champions sandwiched between a pair of legends, Joe Louis and
Rocky Marciano. Especially Charles who was a skilled technician in the ring with a powerful punch,
but not real colorful.
Charles was born in rural Georgia in 1921, but his family moved to Cincinnati hence his ring nickname, the Cincinnati Cobra. Like Louis and Walcott, Charles saw boxing as a way out of poverty.
For most of his career Charles fought as a light heavyweight until war service kind of built him up in
physical stature. After 1945 he was mostly a heavyweight.
Post World War II for the next 15 years or so boxing was controlled by the International Boxing Club
whose front man was sportsman James D. Norris. The guys really behind it were made Mafia guys
Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo. Both Walcott and Charles had mobbed managers, Walcott one
Nick Bocchicchio and Charles a pair named Tom Tennas and Jacob Mintz. You did as they told
you and you got the matches that you needed to advance into contender ranks. Both Walcott and
Charles faced each other four times from 1949 to 1951 and both faced Joe Louis.
Walcott did it first and he lost in a 15 round split decision in 1947 that was most unpopular. Louis
who heard boos for the first time in his career with that win needed a redemption rematch. He got
it in 1948 and knocked Walcott out in the 8th round. But decided that after a reign of 11 years Joe
Louis would retire.
The IBC did an elimination tournament and Walcott and Ezzard Charles were named the top two
contenders and fought in 1949 and Charles won. Charles never really was accepted by the public
as champion. He fought Walcott and beat him again and then when Joe Louis decided to come back
because of tax and divorce troubles Charles gave him a match and beat him pretty well in a 15 round
decision. Yet Louis, the man who conquered Max Schmeling was an American folk hero at that
point and Ezzard Charles was the man who killed Santa Claus.
Charles was good about defending his title he had many matches in 1950-51 and a third against
Joe Walcott who knocked him out and got the heavyweight championship. He gave Ezzard a rematch and retained the title in their 4th fight.
And then along comes Rocky Marciano who in a memorable contest where Walcott was leading on
points knocks him out in the 13th round and becomes champ. Rocky had also knocked out an aging
Joe Louis in 1951 before his championship bout. In his career Marciano was 49-0.
And two of his title defenses were against Ezzard Charles, winning a decision the first time and
knocking him out the second. Charles was a spent force by that time, but he also didn't save well.
He kept fighting until 1959 and most of his career losses were in this last part of his career.
In 1965 Charles who was having difficulty walking had a neurology consult and it was determined
he had Lou Gehrig's disease. The last 10 years of his life marked the slow deterioration of an athletic body.
He was a skilled fighter and sad he's ignored and sad he ended up the way he did. But Ezzard
Charles was quite a man in the ring and this deserved biography will tell you why.
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