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- [00:00]
Daryl P. Man Jones
But he didn't. He didn't really.
- [00:01]
Ezra Charles II
He didn't really get into all the people he knocked out. See, the thing with my father, he killed a guy named Baroody. Young guy, African American fighter. He killed this guy. But see, Ezra, they told me how he was when he got you weak. He wouldn't. He wouldn't let up. And he killed this guy. He didn't do anything illegal, you know, he killed the guy. And he was going to quit boxing, and people talked him out of it. Baroody's mother and father talked to him, said, no, it's all right, you know, because he was going to stop boxing. You know, he was that type of guy. And that's what kept him back after he killed Baroody. He was a light heavyweight when he did that.
- [00:47]
Narrator / Host
Before Ezzard met Beruti, though, Sam Baroody met a fighter named Newton Smith. A few thousand fight fans sat outside to watch their local young prospect Newton Smith fight Sam Baruti, a more experienced fighter from Akron, Ohio. It was a summer afternoon in Massachusetts in the 1940s. The stadium had the vibe of a minor league baseball game. Fans were sitting on wooden bleachers, drinking Pilsner beer and smoking cigars. Baroody was a tough kid. He lied about his age to fight full grown men. And by the time he was out of his teen years, he. He had fought professionally more than 40 times. Jesse Linthicum of the Baltimore sun wrote, sam is a handyman with the leather, according to the boys and gals who have a line on his fistic ability. The fans whistled with casual interest when Baroody and Smith made their way through the bleachers. The fighters were coated in sweat when the ring announcer introduced them. Baroody had never been knocked out. He ate Newton Smith's punches and continued to walk forward. Smith, meanwhile, tried to maneuver around Baroody's power punches, but. But the two boxers were at completely different levels. Burudy saw where Smith was going before he could dodge. As the fight progressed, the crowd grew disinterested at this junior varsity versus freshman matchup. Smith was simply taking a beating, and he covered up for three minutes in the seventh round just trying to get through Baroody's punishment and maybe, maybe throw something in return. In the eighth, though, the crowd was just restless. Stop the fight. Some of them yelled. The referee refused and Newton Smith's corner would not throw in the towel, so Baroody kept going. He stopped Smith in the next round with sharp punches to the liver in the head. The Lights in Smith's mind clicked off when he hit the canvas, and blood sloshed into the left and right hemispheres of his brain. Fight fans, myself included, root for the knockout. It's the most decisive finish in any competition, and the possibility of a knockout is why you hold on, hope that your favorite fighter might be able to pull off a victory, even if. Even if he's down by four rounds with just one to go. But the reality of a knockout is less romantic. The brain accelerates through protective cerebral spinal fluid and slams against the base of a skull. It's like a mold of Jello, shaking and twisting too much. Then your body rushes blood to your head and tries to repair the damage. Your brain cells are purging out chemicals. The part of your brain stem which controls consciousness may twist. The knockout is also a mysterious reaction. Why does your brain go unconscious when it needs to protect you the most? So I asked Michael Tiso, a medical doctor at the Ohio State University, if a knockout was something that the brain was reacting to or if it was a state that it decided to go into.
- [03:19]
Dr. Michael Tiso
I think this is probably some speculations. I don't think we know the exact reason, but I think it's more of a just an innate reaction as like a physiologic mechanism from the body that just. The cells themselves just kind of like go into a stunned mode, I would say, where the. Where those. At the small level, it's just. It's something that just happens rather than the brain conscious saying, like, we need to stop, or, like, shut down. Similar to, like, even if you get a bruise on your leg, it's obviously much different than a concussion, but you bump your leg, you get a bruise. Those things just happen. Like, the blood vessels may be broken, the clotting cascade stars and helps to stop the bleeding. You get inflammatory cells that come in. You get some swelling. There's no conscious thought.
- [04:10]
Narrator / Host
Usually you wake up with a headache. Some fighters say they see stars when they blink for weeks after. But Newton Smith didn't wake up on the count of 10. His pupils didn't contract when a doctor shined a light in his eyes. Smith didn't wake up when they put him on a stretcher after he arrived at a hospital. Newton Smith died of a brain hemorrhage after that boxing match against Sam Baruti. Newspapers gave the event a passing mention, but Smith, he became One of the 1604 boxers who died in the ring. Newton Smith died because there are levels to this dangerous game, and Sam Baroody was on a Higher level. Here's something to think about. What would you do if you killed someone while you were doing your job? Would you keep at it? Cause Beruti kept fighting. That's all Sam Beruti knew.
- [04:52]
Ezra Charles II
For all we know, we may never meet again. Before you go make this moment sweet again. We won't.
- [05:08]
Daryl P. Man Jones
Hey, good night.
- [05:11]
Narrator / Host
This episode of Total Fighter is part two of a five part series on Ezzard Charles. If you have not listened to part one, I highly encourage you to do that first. But in this episode, we're going to go over Charles continued rise as one of the baddest middleweights and light heavyweights on the planet, his journey through World War II, and and ultimately his meeting with Sam Baruti. A group of Cincinnati businessmen took Ezzard under their wing. Those businessmen later said they never took a dime from one of Ezzard's early fight purses. I personally found that hard to believe. However, William Dettloff, author of Ezzard A Boxing Life, said he would not have been surprised.
- [05:59]
William Dettlaff
You know, I don't know. I didn't find any information in my research to indicate whether or not that was true. You know, it wouldn't really surprise me if they didn't. There were guys in his hometown, local business guys, who didn't know boxing at all, right? Just these local. It would be like, you know, a guy owning a pizza, one guy owns a pizzeria, the other guy owns a bakery, and the other guy owns a clothing store. And they say, hey, this kid wants to go pro and he needs some sponsorship, let's do it. That's where the equivalent of that would be that today.
- [06:27]
Narrator / Host
Ezzard also gained a powerful ally when Theodore Berry started to look after him. Barry was a powerhouse in Cincinnati. He worked in the steel mills at Newport, Kentucky to put himself through law school at uc and he would later become Cincinnati's first black mayor. He also came on as Charles legal guardian early in the boxer's career.
- [06:45]
Daryl P. Man Jones
Chet Barry, of course, was the perfect father figure for him. He, and in addition to that, Ted Berry, being an attorney, could look out for his interests. Then he made some attempt to keep Hazard out of the draft during the war, but of course. Or out of the military. But of course, Charles finally went and he tried to help Charles maintain his finances, too. And Ezra Charles wasn't always really good at that when he was a young man. But Ted Berry and the others kept him on an even keel. But they weren't boxing people.
- [07:26]
Narrator / Host
That's Kevin Grace, the author of Cincinnati Boxing, one of Ezzard's closest associates was Richard Christmas. Richard Christmas was Ezzard's friend from high school, and he had the very important job of making sure that Ezzard got paid. He would later be a boxing manager for many others, including Darrell Pe Man Jones, who fought professionally as a bantamweight and today runs the Finley street neighborhood youth boxing program.
- [07:50]
Daryl P. Man Jones
And this is one of the things he used to talk about. If you gave me a figure and we signed a contract in that figure, and then. Then the dead and fight, you said, well, as a listen, we don't think we're gonna get the crowd we're gonna have, but we're going to cut your. Your contract. No, you can't cut my contract because this is what we agreed on, you know. So Richard was trying to tell me to say, some fight, the promoter gonna tell you they can't pay you, but I want you to know whatever you sign for that contract, you tell them that's what you want, or they ain't gonna get no fight. It's just as simple as that. I don't care if you're fighting the mate. And Mason basically came. If you was a main event fighter and you already signed a contract for a certain amount of money, and the promoters say, well, Mr. Daryl Jones, we may not be able to give you the money that you want because we don't think we're going to get the crowd. But if we get the crowd, we can leave the money and we sign the contract. He said, you got to. You got to stand as a man and stand up for yourself and say, well, you ain't gonna get no fight out of me. Just as simple as that.
- [09:01]
Narrator / Host
Charles. Early matches in Cincinnati, many of them at Music hall arena, some of them actually at Crosley Field, would draw a few thousand fans. Here's what Buddy LaRosa, the founder of LaRosa's Pizza, remembers about those fights at the ballpark.
- [09:14]
Daryl P. Man Jones
And when they fought at Crosley Field, they just put a ring up, you know, in the infield around, like where the pitcher's box would be. And they have ringside around. You paid extra for those.
- [09:27]
Ezra Charles II
And then naturally, everybody else would sit
- [09:29]
Daryl P. Man Jones
where the baseball spirit spectators would sit in.
- [09:32]
Narrator / Host
Crosley Field would be where Ezzard experienced his first professional loss against Ken Overland. Later, he would fight Steve Mamikos there. A hair under 2000 Cincinnati fans showed up to see the fight. The promoter, Sam Becker, asked the Post not to publish how much it cost him to even put on the fight. And Charles was making Relatively good money in these. He wore blue satin to the ring. He could make about a thousand dollars or $17,000 today. For headlining those fights at Crosley Field. But he could get bigger and better matchups. But to do that, he would need partners outside of the Cincinnati group. And one of the first things that he did as he moved up the ranks was get rid of his first boxing trainer, Burt Williams.
- [10:13]
William Dettlaff
It's almost like today, if a young. If a high school kid really excels in football. And suddenly he's being recruited by a lot of college coaches, that kind of thing. That doesn't happen much in boxing today like it used to. But I think that was kind of the case there. So there were a lot of people pulling Ezzard in different directions and wanting him to do different things. And sooner or later, eventually, one of them convinced him that it wasn't in his best interests to stay with Burt Williams. And that might have been the correct move. I don't know. Maybe Williams was doing things he shouldn't have. Maybe he had a contract with Ezzer that stipulated that when he turned pro, Bert had to get X amount of money. I don't know. That's. I couldn't find information, any of that level of detail anywhere.
- [10:58]
Narrator / Host
That's. William Dettlaff, author of Ezzard A Boxing Life. Jake Mintz, a chameleon, wanted Ezzard all to himself. He would gain fame as Ezzard's manager. Jake Mintz was, at points, a carnival barker, a hustler, a police officer, and a boxing manager and promoter. When he was an amateur boxer, he changed names based on the venue. At Jewish joints, he stayed Mintz. But at Irish places, he went by Jacob Boyle. Mintz believed that Ezzard was losing out by staying in Cincinnati and just being a local celebrity. He wanted to take him to the boxing capital of the world, New York City.
- [11:36]
William Dettlaff
But I love the character that is Jake Mintz in the research that I did. Not only the way he mangled the English language.
- [11:45]
Narrator / Host
He called bouts classical. A loss was a catastrophe. And he heard stories through the grape line. Late in Ezra's career, there were rumors that he would take a fight in Europe. So one reporter asked Mintz, is Ezzard gonna fight abroad? Mintz said, no, not unless she hits first.
- [12:05]
William Dettlaff
He was a real loudmouth and kind of obnoxious, but a charmer. And he was great with the press, which is exactly what Ezra Charles needed. Because Ezzard wasn't that way at all.
- [12:21]
Narrator / Host
When Jake Mintz was a cop, a Pittsburgh sheriff sent him to break up a local craps game. When Mintz arrived at the table, the dice were hot, so he asked for a turn. He said to a newspaper later, quote, I made Those babies sing. $5,500 in the game and I got it all. The sheriff asked me later, did you break up the game? I said, I sure did. End quote. And he got his start as a boxing promoter when an old arena went up for sale in a sheriff's auction. He wrote a 9:30am start time in the advertisements and then held the auction a half hour earlier where he was the sole bidder. And though it's easy to see Jake Mintz's delightful, in retrospect, not everyone who knew him at the time thought the same thing, including Frank Wettenkamp, who was. Was a high school friend of Ezzard Charles.
- [13:04]
Daryl P. Man Jones
He. He's typical, you know, I know I'm being taped, but he was a typical New Yorker.
- [13:14]
Narrator / Host
And I should also note that Frank Wenkamp's father was a professional boxer as well.
- [13:19]
Daryl P. Man Jones
I just thought that, I don't know, my dad used to. Would not go to New York to fight. And he said, they controlled you too much.
- [13:30]
Ezra Charles II
And I have no idea what he meant.
- [13:41]
William Dettlaff
I can tell you what the research shows, and then I can tell you what I think was happening at the same time. Okay? The research shows that Mintz was just a genius that. Fooling around with the contracts and one by one plucking the power out of the hands of the three businessmen, right, who had originally sponsored Ezzard. He was a clever guy in that respect. And he was so hungry and so single minded, right, to get his. Get his hooks into Ezzard on a individual basis, that he would have done anything. And those guys, again, were not boxing guys. And for three guys who weren't boxing guys to try to keep paper on a guy who's a successful fighter against a guy who's in the business and has been for 30 years like Mintz was, forget about it. They're gonna get outwitted. Every time it happened then, it would happen today. It's just that simple. And so that's the first part of my answer. The research was pretty clear about how he. How he did it. And I cover that in a book. I think what's also was going on was the mob, whose influence during this era cannot be overstated. When people ask me, how can you tell if somebody was connected to the mob at all during that era? I say, did they have any big fights? And if the Answer is yes, they were connected to the mob. As simple as that. You didn't get big fights unless you were owned by to some degree or had some involvement or were paying some money to the mob. And that includes Ezzard. So while I think that it's true that Mintz outfoxed the business owners from Cincinnati, I think that it's also probably partially true that maybe they were made an offer they couldn't refuse as well.
- [15:41]
Narrator / Host
When Mintz first met Charles, though, he was not too excited about the talent he represented. A fighter named Charlie Burley. Burley's opponent had pulled out of the fight, and Mintz had to quickly find an alternate. A writer suggests the young Ezzard Charles is a replacement. Mintz told the writer, Burley's a hell of a fighter. And no high school kid should get near him outside of asking for an autograph. They fought in the co main event at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in front of a packed house. This was Charles first away game from Cincinnati. Far from the friendly confines of Crosley Field or Music Hall Arena. Ezzard performed, though he whipped Charlie Burley in a decision victory. And Pittsburgh fight fans gave him a standing ovation. They loved the 160 pound, hard punching Cincinnati Cobra. He dominated with flair and dropped Charlie burley in the first, fourth and seventh rounds. Charles accelerated in the 10th and final round. He dropped his opponent for a four count. Not really for the judges, but just for the delight of the fans who were hungry to see a knockout. And when Burley was down on one knee, Charles delivered just one more punch. The fans cheered louder. Reporters asked Charles to stick around after the match to answer some questions. But he told them, I can't. I got my high school graduation tomorrow, end quote. And while Ezzard may have been shy with the press, he really did graduate from high school. That was very uncommon for an athlete, especially of his stature, to do at the time. His son, Ezra Charles ii, told me, as such.
- [17:01]
Ezra Charles II
And I remember when I worked at the steel mill, guys were shocked when I told them my father graduated high school. You know, being a boxer and from that era, they were surprised.
- [17:12]
Daryl P. Man Jones
Yesterday he graduated Woodwood High School.
- [17:15]
Ezra Charles II
Yeah, I said I didn't know that, that he graduated high school because so many of them, like Joe Lewis, they
- [17:22]
Daryl P. Man Jones
didn't go to high school.
- [17:23]
Narrator / Host
You also heard the minister, Ezzard Charles, at the beginning of the show. While Ezzard never really spoke about the shady characters, he was a sharp and quiet judge.
- [17:32]
Ezra Charles II
He waited to see your character. Because I remember being out with him. I would be with him in little Italian places and guys, I'm gonna talk to that guy. Here he gone and he. Whereas everybody else, he's glad to say, hey man, you know, he's glad to see him. But certain people, I guess, you know, he knew, he knew what they were about. And even in Little Italy, some of those guys were mobsters. So, you know, maybe he knew this guy was doing something else that he doesn't agree with, you know what I'm saying? He didn't even want to talk to that guy. So, you know, that's the way he was. He was honest and he loved people.
- [18:08]
Narrator / Host
The 20 year old Ezzard Charles followed up his performance against Charlie Burley with a rematch, which he then won by decision. His then managers kept him busy and he responded by working quickly. Four knockout victories in a row. But Ezzard could not position himself for a crack at the middleweight or light heavyweight title. World War II started plucking top boxers from competition. Joe Louis traveled on morale tours and donated championship fight purses to army and Navy relief funds. But many top boxers served in more active duty roles. Tony Zale, the middleweight champion, enlisted in the Navy and served as a physical instructor. Gus Lesnevich, the light heavyweight champion, already had no desire to fight Charles and enlisted in the Coast Guard. Ezzard kept busy until Uncle Sam called his number and his technical skill improved.
- [18:56]
Daryl P. Man Jones
Well, what I learned from Ezra was Ezra was a smart fighter. He was very smart and you would never catch Ezra standing in front of you trying to fight. And these are some of the trademarks that I was watching about him being such a fast handed fighter and a smart fighter. He had good foot movement. I liked his foot movement because I was a boxer. Ezra was a boxer and he was a puncher too. And he would use his punching skills to keep you off of him. But when he find a shot that he thought that would hurt you, that would be the shot that he would work around to get you with. But he would, Ezra would never a fighter that stayed in front of you.
- [19:45]
William Dettlaff
He just understood the craft of boxing and where he was in the ring at every second of the round more than most guys. You'll see the level of skill during that era was really high. Not even just compared to today, maybe higher than it has ever been in the history of the game. Because fighters fought so often and they really had to be good and they fought. Ezra fought times, three or four times a month, even at a very high level. So his skill level was really very high.
- [20:24]
Narrator / Host
You first heard from boxing coach Darrell P. Man Jones. Second was William Dettlaff. While much of the world was at war, Ezzard became a bona fide local star. Newspaper writers covered him more often. They said he had dynamite in his right hand and a whip snake in his left. Ezrid bought a car and sat slick suits and started discovering nightlife. He became a regular at Cincinnati's Cotton Club, the only racially integrated nightclub in town. And on any given evening, you could hear national stars like Duke Ellington or Nat King Cole. And local greats like Christopher Wallace Perkins on the trumpet. Ezzard's ego grew, and plenty were there to check him. His grandmother, Maude Foster, confiscated his car keys after a loss against Kid Tonero, a boxer he should have beaten. Theodore Berry, who went on to become Cincinnati's first African American mayor, admonished the boxer for dressing with flair during World War II.
- [21:14]
Daryl P. Man Jones
But it was Barry who corresponded with Ezzard and, you know, told him such things as, no, you don't need two new suits. You're fine with the clothes you have. You don't need to buy a brand new car. And sometimes when a young man is told that he. He bridles against it. So that was partly the case with Ezra Charles and Ted Barry. But he was the perfect person at the perfect time to help guide Charles in his initial boxing career.
- [21:48]
Narrator / Host
That's Kevin Grace, an archivist at the University of Cincinnati and the author of Cincinnati Boxing. Make up your mind to be satisfied with one suit. Barry wrote. Remember, we are at war, and there are material shortages. And all citizens are required to make sacrifices. End quote. So after an incredible 30 win, two loss and one draw start to his career, Ezzard started to slip. Because while frequency improved skill, it also took a toll on Ezzard's body. He fought 20 times in the two years leading up to World War II. And many of these were 10 round battles. Today, most top boxers compete about twice a year.
- [22:27]
William Dettlaff
The research I did and the material I found indicated that he was pretty dispirited and discouraged at that point and was thinking about not even fighting anymore. If I remember the passage correctly, he was quoted as saying he was tired of fighting and fighting and fighting and working and working. And he was not getting any of the money, which is kind of remarkable because he was fighting against good guys very frequently in and around Cincinnati and especially Pittsburgh. And being really busy and not getting any money or not making any money, at least in his eyes. And that's probably because, you know, at that time he was a, you know, a lower level, lower level guy, meaning he wasn't a heavyweight. Right. And at that time, also, unless you were a champion, a lot of the middleweight and welterweight, the divisions weren't. They didn't have as many eyes on them as a heavyweight at heavyweight. And he lost a big fight right before going into the army, got knocked down a bunch of times. And he seemed, right before the start of the war, to be discouraged and dispirited and was thinking about again, not even fighting anymore, which is curious again, because he was doing a great job, beating a lot of guys again.
- [23:36]
Narrator / Host
That's William Dettloff, author of Ezzard A Boxing Life. Ezzard lost his final two fights before his service in devastating fashion. Jimmy Bivens knocked him down four times in a unanimous decision. Lloyd Marshall knocked him down eight times before the ref stopped the fight in Cleveland. Ezzard was likely injured in pain, and later rumors floated that manager Jake Mintz doped him up and sent him to the wolves for one last payday before the war. World War II might have been the height of then heavyweight champion Joe Louis fame. Americans loved Joe Louis for going overseas, for putting his boxing proceeds to the war effort and his unbridled patriotism. Joe Louis even appeared in videos from the War Department.
- [24:20]
Ezra Charles II
I wish I could talk face to face to all you folks who are working for the war. I've got an interesting job in this army. I go around to army camp and give boxing exhibition. Then I talk to our soldiers about training. I try to tell them all about building up big muscles. I've gone into some hard fights, but these soldiers are going into the toughest fight of all. They got to be good.
- [24:48]
Narrator / Host
We'll win, Lewis said, because we're on God's side. Lewis sparred against soldiers and took a private salary of $21 a month and batted around troops who could tell their buddies that they won a few rounds with the heavyweight champ. Lewis staged about 100 of these exhibitions. Theodore Barry Charles, lawyer at the time, tried to keep him in the States by claiming that Charles was the primary financial support for his grandmother. But the government denied that request. I asked Ezra Charles, son, the minister Ezra Charles, if his father ever told him about his experience during the war.
- [25:18]
Ezra Charles II
No, no, he really didn't. He didn't. He didn't talk a lot about that. I know he had a dagger that he took off an Italian guy. I don't know if that was during a skirmish or something, but he had this dagger and he took it from this Italian guy, because he was. He was in the 92nd Division, the Negro Division. He was in North North Africa, in Italy. So, you know, he was drafted in 1943. He graduated high school. But, no, he never talked about that. You know, he didn't get into all that. And I can understand why.
- [25:58]
Narrator / Host
And when Ezzard packed his bags for basic training in Texas, he seemed happy to leave boxing in Cincinnati behind. For a while, Ezrad went to work with his head down. And outside of a few army buddies, nobody knew that he was a star boxer. Ezra did not advertise that he was filling arenas and fighting some of the best middleweights and light heavyweights of the day. He was a wiry, quiet soldier who took orders and didn't complain. But his anonymity among his buddies would soon vanish. When Joe Louis came to his base in Texas for an exhibition, Ezzard was in a tough spot. His friends were goading him into fighting his idol. And Charles did not want to reveal himself, stand out as a hot shot. Plus, the army rations had slimmed ezra down to 160 pounds, 40 less than the heavyweight champ.
- [26:37]
William Dettlaff
And his friends chided him into it. Kind of like how Ezzard, you're such a big guy in a boxer. Go up there and spar. Joe Louis. And Ezzard being Hazard and Joe Louis being Joe Louis. Hazard wanted no part of it. Lewis was revered. He was like a God. It'd be like somebody saying, go up and spar with Muhammad Ali when Muhammad Ali was, you know, 30 years old. Had to be a huge thrill, but also terribly scary because Lewis was a good guy and treated people well. But he didn't go easy on sparring partners, and he didn't go easy in exhibitions. So although I can't say that I've got documentation that indicates he beat people up. My impression is, from other material that I have, that he probably didn't go real easy on these guys as long as they stayed in line during these exhibitions in the Army. You know, if they stepped out of line a little bit, which I think Ezzard did at one point and caught him with a shot, he let them know who was in charge. And you can't blame him for that. He's Joe Louis.
- [27:36]
Narrator / Host
Imagine being in that mess hall in Texas. Watching the quiet nobody in your brigade stick and move against the great Joe Louis. Charles circled Lewis in the first round. He threw an occasional jab and kept a respectful distance from his hero. But really, in the second, Ezra grew more confident. And he bounced a left hook off the Champ's jaw.
- [28:02]
William Dettlaff
Sure. And when you're a high level boxer like Ezra was, it's not like you decide those things, you know, I'm saying you've trained your whole life to do that. So when the opening appears, it's not like you can say, okay, do I throw it or not? You just throw it. That's what you're trained to do.
- [28:16]
Narrator / Host
The crowd of soldiers erupted. Lewis dug into him for the rest of the round, not really going for a finish, but just to re establish his dominance. And that would be the last time that Lewis and Charles met in the ring until they fought for the heavyweight championship in Yankee Stadium. White soldiers shot at Nazis and dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese. Ezra Charles and other black soldiers dug latrines and drove trucks. Charles eventually made his way to being a corporal but received a demotion after he drove a supply truck off limits with some buddies. This demotion struck Charles harder than many of his losses in the boxing ring. He missed his family, he missed the nights at the Cotton Club and he missed the money, which didn't seem so bad now. Ezzard later said, I had tried taking the easy way out as far as fighting was concerned and saw it didn't pay off. Now in the army I realized what it was like again when I wasn't making the big money. End quote. After World War II, the boxers manager Jake Mintz was eager to get Ezzard, who he often called his Tiger, back in the ring. And he continued to carve out a higher percentage of his contract. Ezzard went on a tear winning 15 straight fights and beating all time greats some multiple times, including Archie Moore in his rematches with Jimmy Bivens and Lloyd Marshall. But one post war win would forever change Ezzard Charles. His match against Sam Baruti. The fight was not supposed to be career defining. It was just to sell Ezzard Charles to a Chicago audience and get him in another large market. The Cincinnati Post wrote, quote Baroody is not expected to offer too much resistance yet promoters are expecting a gate of more than $50,000. Sambarudi was just 21 years old, which was the minimum age to fight in a contest longer than six rounds. He was a former prep athletic star in baseball, football and basketball. Chicago Stadium, the madhouse on Madison was absolutely beautiful, buzzing, ready to watch the number one light heavyweight in the world come to their hometown for the first time. And 11,000 rowdy fight fans mostly filled up that triple tiered arena. When Ezzard was introduced, the fans cheers bounced off of the fabled pipe organ inside of that barn of Chicago Stadium. But the crowd started to grow quieter when the fight actually started. Baroody started the fight backpedaling, as he would do for much of it. The fight was not competitive. Ezzard was just on a higher level. Ezra fainted. Berodi's faints. He could see where Berodi was going and kept him close to inflict withering punishment, principally to the body. And though Baroody had never been knocked out, the punishment started to mount. A newswire from the United Press wrote, quote, baroody was overmatched against Charles, and except for a brief period in the fourth round, he was on the defensive all the way. From the sixth round on, Charles was able to hit him almost at will. And the bout ended in the 10, 10th and final round when Charles connected three savage blows to the head and a hard left to the midsection. Baroodi fell. He laid unresponsive on the canvas. Dr. Shined a light in his eyes, but the boxer did not react. An inhalator put air in his lungs, but the machine couldn't take the blood out of Sam Beruti's brain.
- [31:35]
Ezra Charles II
But see, Ezra, they told me how
- [31:37]
Daryl P. Man Jones
he was when he got you weak.
- [31:39]
Ezra Charles II
He wouldn't. He wouldn't let up.
- [31:41]
Daryl P. Man Jones
He killed this guy.
- [31:42]
Ezra Charles II
He didn't do anything illegal.
- [31:45]
Daryl P. Man Jones
He killed the guy.
- [31:46]
William Dettlaff
And in that particular fight, Charles was really. Every account I read of it was, wow, really pounding broodie throughout the fight and interestingly, hit him with a lot of low blows, which wouldn't contribute to his death necessarily directly. Right. But also a lot of rapid punches. And, wow, he really lit Baroody up. And it's. I don't know if maybe it was. There's no video of it that I've ever seen. And it might be a case where the writers were taking that position in response to what happened to Beirudi. But every account I've read relates that Charles has really beat the hell out of all night. And the fight in today's atmosphere would have been stopped much earlier.
- [32:32]
Narrator / Host
Jake Mintz jumped in the ring, though, and paraded around with Climbing Lee. His fighter had just scored a knockout. That is the show I'd like to really thank William Dettlaff, the Minister, Ezra, Charles Hamad Yousef, Buddy LaRosa, Kevin Grace, Dr. Michael Tiso and Daryl P. Man Jones. I found out, interviewing him, that he was managed by Marvin Gay. So we will hear about that in the next episode a little bit. We're also going to talk more about Ezzard, his love story, meeting his wife Gladys, the Mafia's influence in boxing and Cincinnati Cobra's transition to heavyweight. I'll see you guys in about two weeks. Thanks for listening. Of course. Please subscribe to the show so you can find out about new episodes. And also please leave a rating. 5 stars really helps other people find the show. Helps me out as well. Thanks,
- [33:51]
William Dettlaff
Sa.