Summer 1970
"Are you going to let this guy hang around?"
With that, Bev gave me a sharp crack across my thigh as I had just taken a seat in my corner. His comment was accompanied by the corner assistant pouring a half bucket of cold water over my head.
The locale was Madison Square Gardens in New York, and it was August 1970. Bev, my boxing trainer, was admonishing me for not finishing off my opponent, a local heavyweight Brian O’Melia. Despite being an 8-to-5 favorite according to the bookies, I had dominated the previous round, putting him on the verge of a knockout.
But as this was my first fight in Madison Square Gardens, and I was just two months out of my teens and four years from being homeless on the streets of Toronto, it was all a bit much.
This scenario began transpiring a few months prior, in late May when I began sparring with George Chuvalo, the legendary Canadian heavyweight champion, to help him prepare for an upcoming fight with the rising star George Foreman, booked at the Garden for August 4.
Standardly, sparring partners are paid by the round, but Bertie, my fight manager, looking to build my reputation, came up with the idea of having Irv Ungerman arrange for me to fight a preliminary in lieu of being paid for sparring. Chuvalo, always looking to save a buck, agreed and lobbied Irv to press Teddy Brenner, the Garden’s boxing director, to have Duke Stefano, the Garden’s matchmaker, find me a suitable opponent.
A short period passed until we got the call that Stefano, informed of my brawling style, felt a bout with O’Melia, who apparently was a punch-for-punch guy, would warm up the crowd.
In early July, a few of my former high school friends, presently in college, possibly more excited than me, arranged to make the seven-hour drive to see the fight, with the intention of driving back the same night.
A couple of days before the fight, Bev and I checked into adjoining rooms at the New Yorker Hotel at 34th Street and Seventh Avenue. At the time, this was unofficially the southern boundary of the seediest and most dangerous neighborhood in the United States—between 34th Street and 45th Street, north and south, and between Seventh and Ninth Avenues, east to west. Overrun with porn shops, strip joints, greasy hot dog stands, cheap chain restaurants such as Tad’s steaks and Howard Johnsons, and into the west 40’s, a smattering of theaters. The gaps between the streets were democratically populated: equal parts hookers and drug dealers proportionate to tourists making their way to their hotels or whatever. The main drag, 42nd Street, was a gauntlet of pickpockets and purse snatchers eyeing future prey to follow before applying their skills on some side street or subway platform. Like all city people, even I, a prizefighter, learned the survival skills for the Big Apple: avoid direct eye contact and walk with an air of confidence.
On the morning of the fight, I, at the press conference, was more or less ignored as the reporters focused on Chuvalo and Foreman. As things began to wind down, a couple of Canadian reporters expressed some interest, but only one American from Jersey City approached me after talking to Brian. His questions implied that I was merely fodder to fatten up O'Melia's record, as evidenced by my being the underdog. Surprisingly, Chuvalo, a ranked and respected heavyweight, was a massive 3-1 underdog.
Following the press conference, after I took a walk up to Central Park South and a quick tour of the zoo with a peek at the famous unfortunate polar bears bouncing about in their pool, I returned to my hotel. After joining my friends for a mid-afternoon prefight steak, I returned to my hotel room until Bev, a couple of hours later, knocked on my door, saying, "It's time."
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