by Jack Tunney
I figured I was winning the battles on the inside, so I tried taking it to the outside with big right hands that got the crowd back on its feet. But Diamond wasn’t ready to give up. He was a pro and came back at me with a furious rally, keeping the crowd on its feet. I caught him with a big right hand, and before he could counter, I hammered a quick upstairs-downstairs combo.
Toward the end of the round Diamond looked like he was fading and his jabs lost their sting as he caught his breath. He came forward with that jab leading the way. His punches got wild and he opened his stance as he fired back at me. That left a can’t-miss target square on his chin.
A huge three punch combo wobbled Diamond and I kept working on him as he covered up. We moved toward the center of the ring and traded punches fast and hard – the crowd had been on its feet the entire round and never sat down. I tagged him with two huge uppercuts. Diamond’s knees wobbled, but he recovered and came back at me. We traded blows for the final twenty seconds until the bell rang.
The ringside timekeeper’s gavel was splattered with my blood.
“That’s the way to do it!” Muldoon said as I came back to the corner. “Bust up those ribs. Make him hurt.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back so they could work on the bleeding. I felt fingers digging into the cut, filling it with Vaseline.
Somebody wiped a towel across my face, but I could still feel the blood drying on my face.
“Keep it up,” Muldoon said. “He ain’t into his rhythm yet.”
I leaned forward. The blood from my cut dripped to the canvas and pooled in a puddle between my feet.
The third round started the same way as the second. I raced across the ring, but Diamond was expecting me. He had his gloves up and moved away from the ropes before I could tag him. I cut off the ring and hit him with a right to the body, but he countered with a quick combination.
His first punch reopened the cut and showered the ring with blood.
I felt a twinge of pain in my shoulder. Every time I flicked a jab or tried a hook the pain intensified.
I landed a right and moved inside. I came at him with an overhand right and a three punch combo. I hoped the shots would take some of the sting out of his punches, but he kept coming. Other fighters might have faded, but he kept using his jab to keep me away. He was a better boxer, and his counters still had enough zip to slow me down whenever I tried getting inside.
We exchanged jabs before I hit him with a four punch combo. I slammed him in the face with a big right, but he shook it off. It was clear, Johnny Diamond could take a punch better than any of the palookas I’d ever faced.
I kept working right hooks into his body and tagging his chin with lefts, and his arms dropped. It wasn’t much, but it gave me an opening. I landed a perfectly placed roundhouse right hook to the side of his head. It was a punch just like Father Tim taught me in that hot, sweaty, Chicago basement.
Johnny Diamond staggered against the ropes, but still didn’t go down.
I moved in for the kill.
I kept going with rights and lefts, letting them fly from all angles. Diamond weathered the barrage and countered with a jab when I slowed down. He tried a lazy jab and I landed a big right hand over the top of it. Diamond stumbled backward into the ropes, but stayed on his feet.
He stuck out his mouthpiece and grinned at me.
I started thinking he would never go down.
A right hand to the head connected, but Diamond shook it off. I feinted another right hand and he brought up his gloves to protect his face. I stepped forward with a short, quick left hook. Johnny Diamond dropped his elbows and tried rolling with the punch, but he left his back open.
I hit him with a liver punch that was a thing of beauty.
A liver punch is the most devastating blow when it connects. The pain is immediate. You can’t breathe. Your body simply quits, and there is no way to recover.
It was a crushing shot, and the effect was swift and brutal.
Diamond never saw it coming.
The color drained out of his face. Diamond’s expression changed, his face twisiting in pain. His hands dropped and he took a step forward, then dropped face first like he had been shot. He was done before he hit the canvas.
Just like that, the fight was over.
R OUND TWENTY-THREE
By the time they raised my hand in the center of the ring, Johnny Diamond was on his knees. Dazed and barely coherent. When I left, they had helped him to his feet, but he was still out of it. I didn’t have time to soak up the applause. I got pushed out of the ring so they could get it ready for the next bout.
“Ain’t seen a shot like that in a long time,” Muldoon said. “It was a thing of beauty.” He put an arm around my shoulder. “Like Marciano and Mickey Walker on their best days,” he told me.
At the top of the aisle Sally was waiting with Mr. and Mrs. Roach. She ran to me and jumped into my arms. “You were great,” she said as she smothered my face with kisses.
“Wow!” Mrs. Roach exclaimed.
Mr. Roach beamed and pumped my hand. “A great fight, son. Truly great fight!”
Sally touched her fingers to my eyebrow. “Does it hurt?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Nah. Just stings a little,” I said. “Might need a couple of stitches.”
“Know a steak house just down the street,” Mr. Roach said. “Thought we’d take you down there for a victory celebration after you get dressed and stitched up.”
I grinned. “Okay if we stay a little longer?” I asked. “Sonny’s on after this next fight, and I’d like to see him go at it.”
“Take as long as you need,” Mr. Roach said.
“But don’t take too long,” Sally whispered in my ear. “The night’s still young and I’d like to celebrate. Just you and me.”
I was still grinning as Muldoon and I wound our way through the concrete corridors underneath the stands. We turned a corner and stopped. Big Mike was standing outside my dressing room doors with one of his goons, rapping a rolled up program against one leg and working a cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Good fight, kid,” he muttered as we approached.
I nodded.
“It was the kind of fight that coould be your meal ticket,” he said.
“That’s what I wanted,” I said. “A first step. Show people what I can do. The kind of fight that can take me places.”
“You ain’t going nowhere,” Big Mike said, shaking his head. “Not until you learn how to do what you’re told.”
I ignored him and started toward the dressing room door, but the goon stopped me with a hand to the chest.
“The man’s still talking to you.”
I looked at the hand on my robe, then back to Big Mike. Then back at the goon. On my other side I could see Muldoon’s shoulders tense as he worked himself closer to the thug, cutting off the angle like a fighter in the ring.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” I said. “You got me the fight. Told me to give it my best shot and I did.”
“Ain’t talking about the fight,” Big Mike said. “I’m talking about the other thing. With your pal, Donny Wayne.”
“Nothing to do with me.”
“Its got everything to do with you,” he said. “Figured you were a stand-up guy. The kind of guy who would do what he was told.”
Muldoon wedged himself between Big Mike and his thug. “He is a stand-up guy,” he said. “Just ain’t your kind of stand-up guy.”
“Back off,” the goon snarled.
Muldoon gave him a hard stare.
“See, things with your pal would’ve gone a lot better if you’d have been a part of it. Instead you took a powder and it cost me a lot of money,” Big Mike said. “And your buddy disappeared into the wind and ain’t been seen since. No telling where he went. You know anything about that?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Can’t help you.”
Big Mike pointed the rolled up program at me. �
��See, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “What we got here is a two-way street. It goes both ways. I do something for you, I expect you to do something for me. No questions asked.” His face got angry. “Don’t matter if it’s me asking you directly, or somebody like Donny Wayne asking for me,” he added. “You didn’t do what you were supposed to do and it cost me money.”
“It’s not my problem.”
“If you want another fight, it is your problem,” he said.
I shrugged and gave him another grin. “I don’t think you’re the one calling the shots no more. Not for me.”
“The kid’s a contender now,” Muldoon put in. “Ain’t under your greedy little thumb no more, no matter what that piece of paper with your signature says.”
The goon turned towards Muldoon. “Think an old goat like you needs to have some respect.”
“Think you need to back off.”
“An old palooka and a young punk,” Big Mike said. “Maybe the two of you need to be taught a lesson.”
Muldoon squared off against Big Mike. I saw something in Muldoon’s expression that I recognized from inside The Walls.
The goon reached for his shoulder, but I pushed his arm away. He turned and stepped towards me. He had seventy-five pounds and five inches on me and a face that had been down a couple of hard roads.
However, he looked like the kind of tough guy who got by on size and a menacing stare every time he went up against somebody in a bar or alley. A guy who had never been taught how to throw a punch – the same way he probably never learned how to take one either.
“I’m gonna bust up your pretty face,” he growled.
He reached out with his left, trying to grab me with one hand so he could hit me with the other. I slapped away his hand and moved quickly to the side. Before he could throw a punch I smacked a right into his forehead that straightened him.
His expression changed. He was no different than most bullies, muscle but no skill. The kind of guy who wasn’t used to being hit.
He charged at me with his head down and I popped two lefts then a hard right on his nose. The blows stopped him in his tracks. Blood exploded from both nostrils. While he was blinking back tears, I pounded a fist right into his kisser. The goon swung a weak, wild right and I buried my fist hard into his gut. I hit him with everything I had.
He dropped to his knees, sucking for breath.
The guy looked up at me, blood streaming from his nose and mouth. There was a puzzled look on his face. I slammed my right into his jaw.
He was lights out before he hit the ground.
Big Mike shook the rolled-up program at me. “This don’t change a thing,” he said. “It ain’t over.”
“Yes, it is.”
“You ain’t heard the last of this...”
Big Mike never finished his sentence. Muldoon rapped him with a right hand so hard and sudden it lifted him off his feet and laid him out on the floor next to the goon. The cigar fell out of his mouth as his eyes rolled back in his head before slowing closing.
“Tired of hearing that guy running his yap,” Muldoon muttered. “Needs to show some respect. No way to be talking to a middleweight contender.”
Muldoon wrapped an arm around my shoulder again.
“Let’s get out of here, kid,” he said. “Got to hurry if you want to catch that Liston fight.”
I smiled. Contender. I liked the sound of that.
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FIGHT CARD: FELONY FISTS
Los Angeles, 1954
Patrick “Felony” Flynn has been fighting all his life. Learning the “sweet science” from Father Tim the fighting priest at St. Vincent’s, the Chicago orphanage where Pat and his older brother Mickey were raised, Pat has battled his way around the world – first with the Navy and now with the Los Angeles Police Department.
Legendary LAPD chief William Parker is on a rampage to clean up both the department and the city. His elite crew of detectives known as The Hat Squad is his blunt instrument – dedicated, honest, and fearless. Promotion from patrol to detective is Pat’s goal, but he also yearns to be one of the elite.
And his fists are going to give him the chance.
Gangster Mickey Cohen runs L.A.’s rackets, and murderous heavyweight Solomon King is Cohen’s key to taking over the fight game. Chief Parker wants Patrick “Felony” Flynn to stop him – a tall order for middleweight ship’s champion with no professional record.
Leading with his chin, and with his partner, L.A.’s first black detective Tombstone Jones, covering his back, Patrick Flynn and his Felony Fists are about to fight for his future, the future of the department, and the future of Los Angeles.
http://tinyurl.com/bwob3qz
FIGHT CARD: THE CUTMAN
Havana, Cuba, 1954
Mickey Flynn is an ex-Korean War vet turned merchant marine. He was born in the ghettos of Chicago and raised in an orphanage with his younger brother, Patrick. He was one of several young men who received an education from the nuns at St. Vincent's.
But he was also taught the "sweet science" by Father Tim, a Golden Gloves boxer and retired police officer who only knew one way to bring a troubled boy to manhood. Father Tim worked with his young charges, taught them how to jab and punch and throw a hook that seemed to come out of nowhere. When the young men left St. Vincent's (Our Lady of the Glass Jaw), they were changed, fit and ready to take on the troubles the encountered around the world, no matter where they found them.
Now Mick's in Havana, working on WIDE BERTHA, his ship. After surviving a fierce storm at sea, the last thing Mick and the crew need to do is get crossways with the Italian organized crime flooding Havana, but it doesn't take much to put him in the cross hairs of a vengeful mob boss working for Lucky Luciano.
Unable to get free of bad luck and unfortunate circumstance, Mick ends up in the ring in an illegal boxing match fighting a human killing machine.
http://tinyurl.com/cjm3s45
FIGHT CARD: SPLIT DECISION
Kansas City, 1954
Jimmy Wyler is a fighter punching his way straight to the middle. All he wants is to make enough dough to buy his girl, Lola, a ring. And maybe make the gang back at St. Vincent’s orphanage proud.
A slick mobster named Cardone has an offer for Jimmy – money, and lots of it – for a fix. Jimmy takes the fight. The ring is almost on Lola’s finger, until Jimmy collides with Whit – another mobster with another up-and-coming fighter.
Whit has an offer of his own. Same fight, different fix. Now Jimmy is caught between two warring factions of the Kansas City underworld. He can’t make a move without someone getting mad, getting even, or getting dead.
From sweat-soaked fight halls to darkened alleyways, the countdown has begun. With his girl and his manager in the crossfire, everything Jimmy ever learned about fancy footwork and keeping his defenses up may not be enough …
Fight night is approaching and nobody is going to be saved by the bell.
http://tinyurl.com/co4elvj
FIGHT CARD: COUNTERPUNCH
Milwaukee, 1954
Danny Dugronski has been a fighter all his life.
As an orphan at St. Vincent's Asylum for Boys, he first learned the "sweet science" of boxing from Father Tim, the battling priest. Then the Marine Corps taught him far more lethal fighting tactics before shipping him off to do battle in the hell of the South Pacific.
Now, with World War II over, Danny "The Duke" has returned home and earned a respectable ranking as a regional heavyweight in the Milwaukee area. But his record, free of KO losses, is jeopardized by a mob front man who tries to push him into a series of rigged fights.
When Danny refuses, hard push comes to deadly shove, and he must call upon all his fighting skills to stand his groun
d. And when Danny comes out swinging, he’s determined to put the mob down for the count.
http://tinyurl.com/brmbwwm
FIGHT CARD: HARD ROAD
Atlantic City, 1957
Professional boxers Roberto Varga and Michael Boyle were once pals growing up at St. Vincent’s Asylum for Boys in Chicago. Under the guidance of Father Tim, the fighting priest, they learned values, respect, responsibility, and how to fight fair.
But those lessons didn’t stick with Boyle. Two years after leaving St. Vincent’s, Boyle and Varga face-off in the ring with Boyle pounding out a bloody, lopsided decision, Varga swore wasn’t on the up and up.
In the seven years since, their careers have taken different paths. Guided by unscrupulous manager Tommy Domino, Boyle is positioned for a title shot against Sugar Ray Robinson. Varga, however, has struggled in a career still haunted by the bloody loss to Boyle.
When the boxer scheduled to fight Boyle in Atlantic City breaks his hand two weeks before the fight, Domino scrambles for a replacement. He finds Varga toiling in a Philadelphia gym and offers him the rematch Varga has been waiting years to get. For Varga, it’s a chance to finally even the score, a chance to get the title shot he’s always dreamed about. But Boyle is not the only formidable foe aligned against Varga.
Redemption comes at a bloody price – a price perhaps too high for Varga to pay …
http://tinyurl.com/c77cmdk
FIGHT CARD: KING OF THE OUTBACK
Outback Australia, 1954
