More Than a Gym Fighter

Summary

Podcast Summary: Total Fighter – “More Than a Gym Fighter”
Host: Ricky Mulvey
Date: May 5, 2020
Episode: Part 1 of a 5-part series on Ezzard Charles

---

Overview

The first installment of Total Fighter’s Ezzard Charles series dives into the life and legacy of the underappreciated heavyweight and Cincinnati native, Ezzard Charles. The episode paints a vivid picture of Charles's journey from the segregated South to boxing stardom, exploring the hardships he faced, his early development as a fighter, and the factors contributing to his overlooked cultural status. Through a blend of personal recollections, archival materials, and expert analysis, the podcast lays the foundation for understanding Charles as more than just a “gym fighter.”

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Complete Fighter

• Boxing Archetypes:
  Buddy La Rosa distinguishes between "boxers," "punchers," and those rare few—like Ezzard Charles and Joe Louis—who are both. But a true champion also needs resilience: “If you got a jaw like a Mack truck… you got something. Then you got a complete fighter.” ([00:00])

• Ezzard’s Style:
  Ezzard Charles is celebrated for blending skill, speed, and tenacity. Often underestimated as a middleweight competing with heavyweights, Charles used his agility to his advantage—defying conventions about size in boxing ([01:22]).

2. Ezzard Charles’s Underappreciated Greatness

• Local Fame, National Obscurity:
  Ricky Mulvey notes, “If you live in Cincinnati, you may know the name Ezzard Charles… [but] you probably don’t know that Ezzard Charles was hated when he was the undisputed heavyweight champion in 1950.” ([00:43])

• Personality and Style:
  Charles’s humble, sportsmanlike demeanor ran counter to the flash and brashness favored in boxing. “He wasn’t a show off yet. He was good.” ([02:12] – Frank Wentoncamp)

• Difficult Biography:
  William Dettlaff, Charles's biographer, is noted as the only person to tackle an in-depth biography, underscoring how challenging and overlooked Charles’s story has been. ([01:44])

3. Boxing’s Social and Racial Fabric

• Community and Opportunity:
  Boxing served as a cultural crossroads for marginalized communities—African Americans, Irish, Italians, and Jews all found belonging and opportunity in the sport. “Boxing was another family to everybody that boxed… Jews, Irish, Italian, and the Blacks. That’s what made up boxing.” ([09:38] – Buddy La Rosa)

• Race and Mobility:
  While overtly racist, boxing was “the least racist” of major sports, allowing Black fighters to test themselves against White opponents years before other sports integrated. ([11:11] – Kevin Grace)

• Mob Influence:
  The era’s intertwining of organized crime and boxing is discussed openly. Kevin Grace bluntly states, “You didn’t get big fights unless you were owned by to some degree or had some involvement or paying some money to the mob. And that includes Ezzard.” ([12:56])

4. Ezzard’s Childhood – Hardship and Ambition

• Early Life in Georgia:
  Ezzard Charles grew up in poverty, the son of a sharecropper in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Charles’s unique first name came as payment to the doctor who delivered him, Dr. Webster Pierce Ezzard. ([04:04])

• Fragmented Family:
  After his father left, his mother moved north, leaving Ezzard with his grandmother. Family letters highlight the instability and loss that colored Charles’s early years ([06:04] – read by Bud Buczowski).

• First Fights and “Battle Royales”:
  Ezzard’s first boxing experiences came amid the brutal, degrading “battle royales,” a common, racially charged spectacle where Black boys fought blindfolded for white spectators’ entertainment ([07:41], [08:22]).

5. Cincinnati’s West End and the Drive to Box

• A New Start in Cincinnati:
  Like many African Americans during the Great Migration, Ezzard’s family relocated to Cincinnati’s West End in search of work and stability ([14:01]).

• Boxing Venues:
  The podcast vividly evokes Cincinnati’s vibrant boxing culture—smoke-filled rings, ethnic markets, and community ties, painting a picture of the city’s complexity during Charles’s youth ([14:45] – Buddy La Rosa’s Findlay Market stories).

• Inspiration:
  A childhood brush with Cuban boxing star Kid Chocolate left a powerful impression—Ezzard aspired to the celebrity, sharp dress, and financial security that boxing could offer ([16:37]).

6. Gym Life and First Fights

• Mentorship:
  Ezzard found a mentor in gym owner Bert Williams, who gave the scrawny, shy newcomer a chance. “He just became his initial coach, his amateur coach.” ([20:07] – Kevin Grace)

• First Amateur Fight:
  Ezzard’s debut mirrored his journey: knocked down early by Al Jackson, he rallied to win by knockout, revealing the resilience that would define his career ([23:18]-[23:32]).

• Outgrowing the “Gym Fighter” Label:
  There’s a moving thread about “gym fighters”—boxers who look great training but freeze under the lights. Ezzard proved he belonged in the ring, not just the gym ([21:17], [23:22]).

7. Dignity and Aspiration

• Impeccable Image:
  Even as a high school student—older than his peers—Ezzard became known for his dignified bearing, always wearing a suit (helped by his job at a clothing store) ([25:23]).

• Role Model:
  Ezzard’s friend Frank recalls, “As when he would box, he would let me carry a bucket, like, as part of his entourage, and then I could get in free.” ([26:18])

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Complete Fighter:
  “If you got a jaw like a Mack truck… you got something. Then you got a complete fighter.”
  — Buddy La Rosa ([00:00])

• On Outgrowing the Gym:
  “…they look like champions in the gym. And then you put them in the ring, they just freeze up…”
  — Buddy La Rosa ([21:17])

• On the Mob:
  “You didn’t get big fights unless you were owned by to some degree or had some involvement or paying some money to the mob. And that includes Ezzard.”
  — Kevin Grace ([12:56])

• On Boxing as a Social Melting Pot:
  “The Jews, the Irish, the Italian and the blacks. That’s what made up boxing.”
  — Buddy La Rosa ([09:38])

• On “Battle Royales”:
  “It was a very common practice, especially in the south, but also in other parts of the country.”
  — Kevin Grace ([08:22])

• On Lost Childhood and Tough Beginnings:
  “All the children Charles played with died out and others left home at an early age…”
  — Excerpt from Bonnie Kate Reese’s letter ([06:04])

• On Respect and Survival:
  “Everybody is special. Nobody is junk. I’d name a male junk. Everybody’s got a skill or a talent. It’s up to me as a coach to find that skill or talent.”
  — Buddy La Rosa ([22:05])

---

Timestamps of Important Segments

• [00:00] Buddy La Rosa defines “the complete fighter.”
• [01:22] Discussion of Charles’s style and why smaller fighters can excel.
• [04:04] Ezzard’s birth, family, and hardship in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
• [09:38] Boxing as a family and social equalizer.
• [12:56] The mob’s infiltration of boxing; Ezzard’s unavoidable involvement.
• [14:01] Ezzard’s move to Cincinnati’s dynamic West End.
• [16:37] Childhood encounter with Kid Chocolate—early inspiration.
• [20:07] Ezzard meets Bert Williams; the beginning of real training.
• [23:18] First amateur fight: knocked down, gets up at 8, wins by KO.
• [25:23] Ezzard’s high school years; always sharply dressed.
• [26:18] Memories from a high school friend about running and being in Ezzard’s ring entourage.

---

Final Thoughts & Set Up for Next Episode

The episode closes with the promise of exploring the darker sides of boxing—including the psychological toll it takes on those involved—teasing Charles’s infamous in-ring tragedy and life as a “black boxer in World War II.” The storytelling is rich, nuanced, and driven by both personal memory and historical context, offering a compelling look at the cultural forces shaping Ezzard Charles’s rise.

---

Transcript

[Buddy La Rosa]

And in boxing, you got the same thing. You have boxers and then you have punchers. And then you have guys like Ezra Charles, who was a boxer and a puncher. Then you have guys like Joe Lewis, a boxer and a puncher. And then if the guy can take a punch, if you got a good jaw structure, you know, you got a jaw like a Mack truck. Where you not only can box when you have to. And then when the guy's in trouble. Or you can really punch and get him out of there. And you're gonna get hit once in a while. Now, if you can take a punch, then you got something. Then you got a complete fighter.

[Ricky Mulvey]

If you live in Cincinnati, you may know the name Ezzard Charles. You may know that he was a boxer. And you probably know him as the namesake for the road that connects the i75 to Music Hall. You may know that his nickname was the Cincinnati Cobra. From his mural in over the Rhine. But you may not know that he was the greatest light heavyweight boxer of all time. And you probably don't know that Ezzard Charles was hated. When he was the undisputed heavyweight champion in 1950. We don't really talk about the reasons why he was so great or even his story. Ezzard read minds in the boxing ring. At his best, he was unpunchable. And at his worst, he was one of your toughest opponents. He was a middleweight who fought heavyweights.

[Kevin Grace]

He was just too fast for those guys at heavyweight. Which is the advantage that most smaller guys have. When they move up against bigger guys. Which is kind of counterintuitive, right? So many boxing fans today just think, well, he's a smaller guy. So he's going to get beat up by the bigger, stronger guy. When in many cases, if the skill is there. The smaller guy uses his skill and his speed to his advantage.

[Ricky Mulvey]

That was William Dettlaff, author of Ezra A Boxing Life. This guy is the first person to really do an in depth biography about Ezzard Charles. He's the only person to ever do

[Bud Buczowski]

it, which I found impressive.

[Ricky Mulvey]

It'd be a lot easier to do another book about Rocky Marciano or Joe Louis.

[Bud Buczowski]

But his biography.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Precisely because it was difficult to make. Precisely because he was the first person to do that biography. It offers a significant historical value.

[Frank Wentoncamp]

What I knew about as is he was really a clean cut guy. He lived with his grandma. And most of the people that met him really liked him. He wasn't a show off yet. He was good.

[Ricky Mulvey]

You know, that's Frank Wentoncamp. He is one of the people you're gonna meet who actually knew Ezzard Charles. Ezzard was a gentleman. He defied expectations. Cincinnati fans even booed him when he won a unanimous decision over Teddy Yarose to in Music hall arena when he was just showing mercy to the washed up middleweight. In later rounds, he knew he'd already won because Ezzard wasn't trying to look pretty or put his all in one punch. He just wanted to win. There was a time in America when boxing was more important than football is today. When Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling for the title in 1938, 70 million people listened to that broadcast on radio. It was like the super bowl multiplied by two. And yeah, today a big heavyweight fight, Deontay Wilder versus Tyson Fury, that gets some attention. But even those kind of feel like a blip on the cultural radar.

[Buddy La Rosa]

Didn't have TV back in those days, so it was all radio. If you listen to any of the heavyweight fights, I'd listen to all the Joe Lewis fights. You know, they always were on the radio. Boxing was big.

[Frank Wentoncamp]

They had an arena where my dad fought. They had an arena on Central Parkway was called the Parkway Arena. And every Wednesday they had wrestling. And then every Friday night they had fights once a week. In fact, a lot of the guys that Joji Smith gave me, they used to fight every week and they would change their name so that people wouldn't get tired of seeing the same fighter.

[Ricky Mulvey]

The reasons Ezzard's story was swept aside is complex. It's a mixture of timing, race, style and personality. He belongs to the club of boxers who were almost cultural forces. But in this podcast, we're going to look at why Ezzard Charles is worth paying attention to, why he is the peak of masculinity, why his story deserves to be monitored a little bit more closely, and why you should pay attention to him. This episode is part one of a five part series. My name is Ricky Mulvey. In this show we're going to go over Charles's early career when he went from the son of a sharecropper to a top contender. Lawrenceville, Georgia had one doctor who cared for black people in 1920. Webster Pierce Ezzard. Dr. Ezzard and Ezzard's parents didn't have any money to pay the good doc to birth him. So they made the doctor's last name their son's first name. Ezzard wasn't the only Ezzard running around Lawrenceville, Georgia in the 1920s.

[Frank Wentoncamp]

He didn't learn to read until he

[Burt Williams]

was 10 years old. And it's only because he was sent up here to live with his grandmother and great grandmother. His mother tried the best she could. His father was largely absent. But he didn't start going to school

[Buddy La Rosa]

until he was 10.

[Burt Williams]

So he had no education in the South. So that didn't really figure into. Into any aspect of his life as a student.

[Ricky Mulvey]

That's Kevin Grace, the author of Cincinnati Boxing and an archivist at the University of Cincinnati. Ezra did not have an easy childhood in Georgia. Dad was in and out of the house and his mom was trying to make ends meet. The California author and playwright Bud Buzowski was kind enough to share a letter with me that Ezzard's paternal aunt, Ms. Bonnie Kate Reese, wrote to him in 1975. The following has been edited for length

[Bud Buczowski]

and Lawrenceville, Georgia, 167 Branson St. July 17, 1975. As Ezzard grew older, his mother would leave him with her mother because she worked every day. Sometime later, he began living with his grandmother because she had children to play with. I could not think of all the kids he played with at the time. His best pal name was Leroy Witherspoon. All the children Charles played with died out and others left home at an early age. By the time he was six years old, his great grandmother was keeping him. She would take him to work with her every day. And his play pal was white. Those kids ran all over town. They are all dead now. Ezzard's mother had a baby girl and she lived about three months. My brother lived with Charles mother about a year and a half. My brother's name is Willie Charles. I'm going to tell you a truth about this small town that was a made marriage. Things didn't work out too well, so my brother left Georgia to move to Pennsylvania rather than have trouble. He didn't know any of Ezzard's boyhood days. And his mother left him here when he was very small and left him with his grandmother and great grandmother. I'm a poor writer and I wish I could give you more on Charles. All the people that could tell me anything has died out. Ms. Bonnie Kate Reese, the aunt of Ezra Charles.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Did Ezzard ever talk to you about his childhood?

[Frank Wentoncamp]

No, but I read him the letters.

[Burt Williams]

You know, I read him the letters

[Frank Wentoncamp]

and he was kind of, you know,

[Burt Williams]

shook up a little bit.

[Frank Wentoncamp]

But, you know, we.

[Burt Williams]

We didn't dwell on it. No, we didn't dwell on it at all.

[Ricky Mulvey]

That's Bud Buczowski the California author and professor, playwright. We're gonna hear from him a little later on. As he knew Charles primarily when he lived in Chicago in the 1960s, Ezra spent his summer days fighting. No TVs, not too many radios. What else are you gonna do in the Georgia Heat? And every summer in Lawrenceville, the old guys in town would rope off a section of dirt as a makeshift boxing ring in the downtown area for the kids to fight in this bizarre game called a battle royale. Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, fought in these battle royales as a kid. And Ezra did later in the 20th century.

[Kevin Grace]

Yeah, there's a long history of battle royales. It's not like it happened only occasionally or during a short period. All fighters, especially black fighters from the south during that era, and not even just the south, by the way, Also the North. It was. Battle royales were fairly popular as a kind of a sideshow to a regular boxing match. And included on the card to be a bunch of guys who were just blindfolded and swinging at each other. In many cases, it was fairly common. And they were put together by regular boxing promoters. Now, I'm sure there wasn't a boxing promoter, per se, putting them together in Gainesville after it was 10 or 11 years old, but. But that would be just somebody in the neighborhood, just for entertainment. A bunch of kids would get together and just pummel each other in a ring. Blindfold them in some cases. And that's just. That was Ezzard's first exposure to, you know, having gloves on and fighting guys. It was a very common practice, especially in the south, but also in other parts of the country.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Ezzard quickly understood that knocking around kids his own age was the first step to really being rich and famous. Because if you were a black kid in Georgia or anywhere in the United States, States, boxing was the only sport where black people competed against white people on a somewhat regular basis.

[Buddy La Rosa]

Like I say, boxing was another family to everybody that boxed. You had your biological family and then you had your boxing family. And race wasn't a factor. I mean, blacks always were in boxing right from the get go. That wasn't biased. And the Irish, they were kind of ostracized by society. When they came over here. They were the low class. They were active in boxing. Italians, the same thing. We were low class coming here from third worlds and taking them jobs nobody else wanted. And so actually, back in the day, the Jews, the same way. The Jews, the Irish, the Italian and the blacks. That's what made up boxing.

[Ricky Mulvey]

That's Buddy La Rosa. He is one of the most colorful guests that you're gonna hear in this series. You also heard him, to start off

[Bud Buczowski]

the episode, this man is the American dream. He went from being the son of an immigrant to going to World War II and fighting for the United States, coming back, and then straight starting a restaurant that became more than 60 locations today.

[Ricky Mulvey]

He also, as a side note, as

[Bud Buczowski]

if that wasn't enough, had a hand in training, managing, or being a part

[Ricky Mulvey]

of every boxer, every champion boxer from Cincinnati for the past five decades.

[Kevin Grace]

Boxing was very racist then, okay? There's no question about that. But of all the major sports, it was clearly the least racist. There were guys, professional black boxers fighting professional white guys. Way before basketball, for example, was integrated, or baseball or football.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Boxing was always a popular sport for

[Bud Buczowski]

those who had to adapt to live again. Here's Buddy Larissa.

[Buddy La Rosa]

And then if you were Irish and

[Burt Williams]

if you were

[Buddy La Rosa]

Jewish or Italian and you went into the pros, many of them changed their name. Like some people when they go in the show business, they have a stage name. Well, some of them fought under different names because promoters were. Might have been a little prejudice. They didn't particularly like Jews or didn't like Irish or Italian. So if they were booking fighters out of town, they necessarily didn't say, what's his ethnic background. They'd see the name. Well, when my dad fought, he fought under Tony Rose. R O S E.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Prohibition also reigned during Ezzard's childhood. The constitutional ban on the production and sale of alcohol helped give rise to the mob in the United States. And therefore the mobs involved involvement in boxing, the drinking, the gambling and the general debauchery proved to be a magnet for gangsters. And when EZ was a preteen, the age he first entered a boxing gym, the Mafia literally bought off the heavyweight championship and gave it to an Italian strongman named Primo Carnera. But that's a story for another time.

[Kevin Grace]

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 paying some money to the mob. And that includes Ezzard.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Jake LaMotta, the Raging Bull, the Martin Scorsese movie, said in his autobiography, quote, I also noticed that around the gym all the time, there were the mob guys for the very simple reason that there's always betting on fights, and betting means money. And wherever there's money, there's the mob. If you paste that inside your hat, it will maybe explain a lot of things to you and maybe even save you some trouble. After Ezzard's dad left, his mom joined the great migration up north. She went to New York city and dropped Ezzard off with his grandmother, Maude Foster, in Cincinnati's west end. She decided that New York city was no place to raise a child right. Many black people in unstable sharecropping jobs came to the west end to find work in Cincinnati's slaughterhouses, breweries, and the railroad station at union terminal.

[Burt Williams]

So it was everything from poor to working class to middle class African Americans living in the west end. And it was almost a community in and of itself. The stores there that were frequented, the shops, the local businesses, the funeral parlors, the nightclubs, everything like that. It was almost a self contained community.

[Ricky Mulvey]

That's Kevin Grace. The smell of pork fat and open sewers reeked. When ezzard was a teenager, the Ohio river's great flood submerged his neighborhood. Cincinnati's attitudes were very different in the early 20th century. Buddy Larosa remembers selling produce at Findlay market, which is still a bustling gathering place where you can find vendors selling

[Bud Buczowski]

meat, dairy products and vegetables.

[Buddy La Rosa]

My dad, he had a couple stands in Finley market and I worked there. I joined the navy to get away from him in that business. Because after a while, you, hey, there's more to selling bananas. And somebody stole the hand of bananas, then I'd have to run after them and take the bananas away from them. And if they try to, you know, wouldn't give me to me. And then maybe they were bigger than me. Then I used my boxing skill and I hit them two or three times. Then they wouldn't mess with you. Then they got a little respect. But once you're fighting with somebody trained, they can throw five, six punches and you don't know where they came from. And you always finish with one to the head, but to the nose. You try to hit the nose because that usually takes their spirit away. Then they run and you bring the bananas back. One day I did that, and the guy's father came back and he said to my dad, he said, my son said that you did this to him. He says, no, my son did, but if you don't get away from here, I'll do it to you. And then he turned around and got down in Finley Market. They're not too proper, you Know, what do you want? What do you want? Ladies out in the suburbs? Can I help you, please? You know, what would you like today, ma'?

[Frank Wentoncamp]

Am?

[Buddy La Rosa]

Down in Philly Market? Well, I don't know how it is now. What do you want, lady? Don't touch them tomatoes, lady. I'll, I'll get them for you.

[Bud Buczowski]

Finley Market is Cincinnati's ethnic and economic

[Ricky Mulvey]

mixing pot still, but. And you may find kinder service today

[Bud Buczowski]

if you go to buy a $10

[Ricky Mulvey]

chocolate bar, sushi grade tuna or aged balsamic vinegar. A childhood highlight came when the great Cuban featherweight Kid Chocolate came to Cincinnati. The promoter drove Chocolate around in the West End in an open convertible, hoping that would build excitement for the fight at Music Hall Sports Arena. Charles followed, paying close attention to Kid Chocolate's beautifully tailored suit. Pictures of Jack Johnson, a rising boxing prospect named Joe Louis and Kid Chocolate were the rare instances where Ezzard would see a person of color dressed in beautifully tailored clothes. One kid ran up to Kid Chocolate's car and asked Chocolate, how many suits you got, man? Kid Chocolate said, I got suits for every day of the year. I got 365. The fight's promoter found Ezzard in the crowd. He, he asked him and some of Ezzard's friends if they'd set up chairs for the event. They'd get free tickets if they did. Charles jumped at the chance, and he spent hours walking the floor of Music hall arena to make sure that every chair was in place on the floor and the balcony. Now, when I say Cincinnati Music hall, you may be imagining the Springer Auditorium. Music Hall Sports arena was a very different place.

[Burt Williams]

Well, Music hall was a major boxing venue. This was before Cincinnati Gardens was built. But even afterwards it attracted a lot of the top fights. So, you know, it was, was a smaller arena when you compare it to something like the Gardens, but it was smoke filled, a lot of cigars. The people who attended were, were generally a mix of, you know, probably 90% men who were wearing their fedoras and their suits and everything else. But it was a mixture of social class and economic class because boxing was so incredibly popular here in the 1940s and 1950s. So when you had an arena like Music hall and, you know, we call it Music hall, but at that time it was more or less a multi purpose facility. They had track meets there, they had roller skating, they had dances. It wasn't just for ballet and opera and symphony concerts. It was a little bit of everything. They had trade shows in Music Hall. So the fact that there Was a boxing arena. There was only natural.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Again, that's Kevin Grace. He is an archivist at the University of Cincinnati.

[Bud Buczowski]

Also wrote

[Ricky Mulvey]

on fight Night. The tickets in the promoter, though, were nowhere to be seen. And Charles went home and listened to Kid Chocolate's mismatched victory on the radio. But that experience only grew Charles desire to be a famous boxer. He wanted to wear those slick suits and give money to his family. Ezzard at the time, did not look like a heavyweight. He didn't look like the photos you've seen of him. He was a stringy, mild mannered kid, and he wanted to fight for real. But Grandma Maude kept Ezzard out of trouble, Making him read his Bible every day and. And encouraged a clean Christian life. When Ezzard asked if he could have 50 cents to join a boxing gym, she hesitated. But the next day, it gave him the money. She figured that boxing wasn't the most wholesome activity, but it was better than sitting idle after school. In between shifts at the clothing store, Ezzard met a small Welshman named Bert Williams. Many of the gyms he first visited kicked him out. Williams later described Ezzard as a skinny, undernourished kid who could barely stand and let alone box. But he showed some spirit, and he let him train in his gym.

[Kevin Grace]

Burt happened to be the proprietor or at least one of the main coaches or trainers in the gym where young Ezzard showed up. And he went up to Burt Williams and he just said, I want to be a fighter. And Burt Williams looked at him and observed that he was very skinny and undernourished and very shy, which runs counter to what many people's perceptions of fighters are. But Burt Williams is a very respected fight guy in the community. Cincinnati had a very robust and large boxing community. He just became his initial coach, his amateur coach. And Burt Williams has to be credited to some degree, by the way, and he gets none at all with having taught Ezzard a lot of what he came to use as a fighter. And a very professional one, or a very successful one, I should say.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Ezzard took his fair share of beatings at Williams Gym. The first day, a more experienced amateur knocked him around the ring and he left bleeding and bruised. But he showed up the next day and the following one, too. Ezzard slowly got better. He stuck and moved. He kept his chin down when he threw his jab and breathed through his nose. He learned the fundamentals that don't come naturally to a person in a street fight.

[Buddy La Rosa]

And some guys are that way in the gym. But then they put them in the ring. Then they forget everything and they become stage fright. Then he can't perform. They call them gym fighters. Gym fighters look like champions in the gym. And then when you put them in the ring, they just freeze up. They just don't ever. And they don't ever get out of it.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Burt Williams booked Ezzard for a match at the American Legion hall in Newport, Kentucky, just across the river from Cincinnati. Today ivy runs up and down the building. They hosted bingo on Fridays. But in 1936, the American Legion hall was humming with fight fans. The room stunk with smoke. Smoke and the boxing ring barely fit between the pool tables and the bar. Did Ezzard really have promise in him? Would Ezzard get scared under the bright lights? Would he freeze up when he was hit with a real punch? Was he destined to be a gym fighter?

[Buddy La Rosa]

Everybody is special. Nobody is junk. I'd name a male junk. Everybody's got a skill or a talent. It's up to me as a coach to find that skill or talent. I tell the kid, hey, you're a nice kid. You're working hard, but take up another sport. My dad did the same thing to me. He said, hey, take up another sport. You're not cut out to be a boxer. If you stay in here, you're going to wind up with scrambled eggs for brains.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Ezzard's opponent was Al Jackson, another new kid on the amateur circuit, and he was beatable, but not easy. The fight was probably early in the card. The observers, mostly men, mostly gamblers and mostly smokers, got their drinks and placed their bets. The two amateurs rushed each other. Ezzard threw winging punches and glanced off of Jackson's forearms. Ezzard's opponent bobbed and weaved and hugged inside, slipping under Ezzard's crooked jabs. The lights in the crowd shocked Ezzard, and he forgot his fundamentals. In the first round, they started fighting in a phone booth, punching through the cigarette smoke, refusing to step backward and grabbing onto the dear life when they got tired. Midway through round one, though, Jackson popped up from a flurry and stung as a with the left hook. The lights went out and the referee counted.

[Kevin Grace]

One, two, three.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Al Jackson backpedaled to a neutral corner, and Ezzard's trainer, Burt Williams, asked himself if Ezzard was destined to be a gym fighter.

[Kevin Grace]

6, 7, 8.

[Ricky Mulvey]

The ring lights blurred for Ezzard, but at least the lights were on. Ezzard took a knee on the canvas and got up on the count of eight, Burt shouted over the din. The gamblers who bet a dollar or two on Jackson elbowed their friends in the crowd. Just survive the round, Ezzard thought. Ezzard kept Jackson at bay with a series of jabs for the remaining minute. In the second round, he came out with a renewed energy against his opponent. He punished Al Jackson with a flurry of hooks and uppercuts. He pushed him against the ropes. He fended off punches with his glove. A sharp hook to the liver put Jackson on the canvas. And Al Jackson, he couldn't get up. Before the count of 10, Burt Williams had his answer. This kid, Ezzard Charles, was going to be better than a gym fighter. Burt Williams was going to make Ezzard a great boxer and maybe get a piece of those winnings, too.

[Kevin Grace]

But suffice to say that Ezzard owed something to Burt Williams for the fighter that he became. And Williams, by the way, became very bitter later on when Ezzard started, quote, unquote, getting into the money. As used to be said, when a fighter started getting successful. And I don't really blame him, but I don't know exactly why they split.

[Ricky Mulvey]

After his fight against Jackson, Ezzard went home and looked at his scrapbook of Joe Louis clippings, photos of him smiling, and endorsing products, food that Ezzard didn't eat, and medicine that he didn't take. Lewis wore suits. He flashed smiles and sat close, but not too close, with white Hollywood actresses. Ezzard saw this as his inspiration. He went on to win 42 straight times in his amateur career, thanks primarily to his tireless work ethic. He steamrolled his early opponents with his signature slashing punches. Even as Charles was a professional fighter and even working shifts at the clothing store, he still attended high school today. Try to picture a high school kid boxing against serious opponents and then going to school the next day in a suit. Yep, Ezzard wore a suit to school every day. I mean, he wanted to look good with the purses he picked up. And plus that, that's one of the benefits of working at a clothing store.

[Burt Williams]

Well, when he went to school, went to Woodward, you know, his home life, made sure that he was well dressed when he went out in the world, that he was clean and neat. But he was also a little older than some of the students, you know,

[Frank Wentoncamp]

not by a whole lot, but, you

[Burt Williams]

know, enough to make a difference. And of course, by the time he was in high school, he was boxing as an amateur, and so building a reputation among the other students as a boxer. And so it was a big deal for kids, especially younger kids, to kind of, you know, be friends with him, mess with him a little bit. And there is that old story to where he put his hands in his pockets and had them throw punches at him, and he ducked every one of them.

[Ricky Mulvey]

That's Kevin Grace. This is Frank Wentoncamp. He went to high school with Ezzard Charles, and this is how he remembers him.

[Frank Wentoncamp]

I had hurt my leg, and I was a gymnast, so I was trying to build my leg up, and I start running at the track after school, and EZ was running, and there was a fellow. There was three boxers who were running. There was as and Lloyd Seals and Sylvester Salter. So I ran with them, and we became acquainted, and we had a lot of fun, a lot of laugh together. So as when he would box, he would let me carry a bucket, like, as part of his entourage, and then I could get in free.

[Ricky Mulvey]

But that nice kid from Cincinnati would soon learn that the violent delights of boxing also had violent ends. That's the show. Hey, I had a good time making this. Hope you had a good time listening. Please do me a big favor. If you made it this far. Just a couple of seconds. Leave a five star rating. Leave a review if you're so inclined. That really, really helps me out, helps other people find this show. And it really only takes a few seconds. On next week's episode, episode, we're gonna get a little bit closer to Charles's matchup with the great Joe Louis. We're gonna talk about the time Charles killed a man in the ring, how that affects a guy like that, and what it's like to be an almost, almost famous star black boxer In World War II and a whole, whole lot more. Appreciate you guys hanging out.

[Bud Buczowski]

I'll see you soon.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Sa.