Word: fullmer
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...leaked blood. "Rip 'at eye wide open, Gene, rip it open," pleaded an ex-Robinson rooter in the 19th row. Sugar Ray fought back with a tired, sometimes frenzied grace, but he was punched out. No one could quarrel with the judges' unanimous decision that Gene Fullmer was winner of at least eight of the 15 rounds and the new middleweight champion of the world...
Jensen's Gym. Afterward came the expected promise that Sugar Ray will try again in a return match with Fullmer. But only stubborn pride can suggest that he will ever do any better against the tireless young elder of the Mormon Church who, true to his faith, has never touched tobacco or whisky. Gene Fullmer was named for his parents' idol, gentleman Gene Tunney (whose real name is James Joseph), but he grew up to admire a different type of heavyweight, man-eater Jack Dempsey. At the age of eight he decided he wanted to become a prizefighter...
Proud Lawrence ("Tuff") Fullmer taught his muscular son everything he had learned from a short and undistinguished career in the ring (two younger brothers are also learning). Then Tuff turned Gene over to Marv Jenson, a local mink rancher, who had developed the once-promising heavyweight Rex Layne. Young Gene was the kind of willing worker that Jenson had always wanted. Out of high school, he had a job as an apprentice welder, in the repair shop at Kennecott Copper's great open-pit mine, but he still had the energy to get up at five o'clock...
Just getting a crack at Sugar Ray was the toughest scrap of all. Jenson had to settle for 12½% of the gate, or $20.915. Robinson pocketed $78,190 of the gate receipts, plus $60,000 of the TV and radio income, of which Fullmer got none...
...Fullmer, his wife Dolores and his five-month-old daughter Kaye, there will now be some bigger payoffs. The new champion is not an exciting fighter or remotely as great as the one he succeeded. But he promises to be a diligent one, and there ought to be some lively Donnybrooks in the middleweight division before Gene Fullmer runs into anyone tough and smart enough to dethrone...