Word: heavyweights
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Jack ("Doc") Kearns, 67, knows how it feels to manage real champions; he handled both Jack Dempsey* and Mickey Walker. He dismisses all the big fellows fighting today with one word-"Bums"-but adds quickly that he is handling "the best bum of the lot." His bum is Light Heavyweight Joey Maxim (real name: Joseph Antonio Berardinelli), 26, a clever, stand-up boxer from Cleveland with a machine-gun left and an accurate right...
...month ago, when the two of them arrived in Britain for Maxim's go at the light-heavyweight title, Kearns got on his soapbox as soon as the Queen Elizabeth docked at Southampton. "Joey," he proclaimed, "takes a punch better than any fighter I ever handled, and that goes for both Dempsey and Walker." Without much doubt, 174-lb. Joey Maxim had been underrated too long. What the trade knows as a "spoiler," i.e., a clever boxer who enjoys making less refined punchers look like chumps, he has taken a lot of the bounce out of better-known heavyweights...
London gym, Joey belted sparring partners with a crispness that belied his onetime reputation as a cream-puff puncher. By last week, as he climbed into the ring at Earl's Court to fight Champion Freddie Mills for the light-heavyweight championship of the world, he was the 1-to-2 favorite...
There was a sporting British cheer for the new light-heavyweight champion. The loudest voice of all was that of Manager Kearns, who felt so good he decided he might as well claim the heavyweight championship too. He told London: "The N.B.A. calls Ezzard Charles the champion. You guys call Bruce Woodcock the champ. So why shouldn't I call my guy the champ? Let 'em all be champs...
Which leaves only the heavyweight job unfilled. Last year Jordan gave the assignment to Howie Houston and that was that. This winter he has used Claflin and Larry Johansen at heavy but Claflin is more effective at 175 and Johansen recently broke a bone in his hand. Now Butch is depending on Will Davis, who should fill the bill admirably once he sharpens up his timing...