King of the Outback (Fight Card Book 6)

by Jack Tunney

  I stayed on him, aiming not to give him time to think or even breathe. I kept backing him into corners, hammering him with body blows and in-close uppercuts that would have taken his head off it I'd landed one square.

  In the middle of the round he started coming back a little so I had to ease up a bit and make sure I didn't do anything too reckless. The thing about Big Hank, see, was that he fought like a clumsy damn ape. When Wally called him an "awkward oaf" it hadn't really been a cheap shot because it was accurate. Hank could go into a fighter's stance and throw classic combinations with the best of them … but then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he was just as likely to start flailing and throwing windmill roundhouses like a drunken sailor in some back alley brawl.

  When he started doing that, it was impossible to gauge his rhythm or spot any tells in his body language so you could effectively counterpunch. Counterpunching was one of the things I did best, usually being willing to go in and take a few shots for the sake of finding the right opening for a big punch of my own. But with somebody like Clemson, you had to remember he packed an anvil in each fist so absorbing blows from him came at a real risk.

  And if you got the bright idea to, say, try and slip inside a particularly sloppy-looking roundhouse but mistimed it and instead got tagged by one of those bad boys—no matter how awkwardly the punch was thrown—you could find yourself on Rubberleg Street in a hurry. I'm a pretty heavy hitter myself and can stand and bang with about anybody. But at the same time you've got to respect who you're up against and not do something just plain dumb.

  I was pretty sure I won the eighth round. And then the ninth. But as Art kept reminding me each time I went back to my corner, since this was only a twelve-rounder and I'd frittered away the first seven, I wasn't going to be able to save the fight on points alone. I needed to put Big Hank down for the count.

  I felt really good going out for the tenth. The other thing about Clemson was that, while he was good at dishing out punishment with those big mitts of his and he'd used them to tally up an impressive number of knockouts, he wasn't quite so impressive when it came to taking punishment. The few times somebody had been able to get inside those sledgehammers flailing at the ends of his long arms, he hadn't held up so swell. He'd been knocked cold twice and another time stopped by a TKO.

  Me, I've never been knocked out, either for real or on a technical. I've been beaten, but never that way. Maybe it's only a minor point, but it's something I'm kinda proud of it. The main thing, though, was I knew Big Hank could be gotten to. And I figured I had as good a chance as anybody. Maybe even a little better than some. Like I said, I'm a pretty good banger too.

  At the end of the ninth, I had noticed Clemson was sucking air pretty good and was also showing signs of being somewhat arm weary. Yeah, he'd out-pointed me in those earlier rounds. To do so meant he'd had to throw a lot of leather. But, as already noted, I didn't go down easy—not even when I was out-of-focus and didn't really have my head in the fight. No matter what else, I'm always in top physical shape. Maybe I wasn't mentally sharp at the beginning of this fight, but I wasn't lacking in physical stamina. And, for his part, Big Hank wasn't used to hammering on somebody for as long as he had me without that somebody hitting the canvas. So while I might be behind in points on the judges' scorecards, the way I saw it, as Hank and me squared up once more, we were just about even.

  I went to work right away on his middle, same way I'd finished up the previous round. When he dropped his guard to protect his stomach and ribs, I pounded his already-weary arms some and then shifted upstairs. When his guard lifted, I went back to his middle. Every once in a while he'd try to hold me off with some more jabs or one of those flailing roundhouses. But now I was wading through them, blocking and ducking, working my way inside like I should have been doing a lot sooner.

  I still had to maneuver with caution, though, always keeping in mind the power Hank could pack in his punches. I was lucky enough to duck some real whistlers, blows that—had they landed—would have done some serious damage. A couple others I blocked and the impact was enough to make my arms go momentarily numb all the way back to the shoulder.

  The trick was to let him extend out with those long jabs he liked to throw and then dart in under one of them and bull forward hard, throwing punches with a fury. Hammering him relentlessly, make him worry about my punches instead of thinking about his own. The closer-in I could work, the safer I was. Crowding him so he couldn't stretch out and get some zip behind a big return punch.

  His corner was going nuts, shouting for him to do this or that. I could see on Hank's glistening ebony face that he was exhausted and frustrated, maybe a little desperate.

  Art and Wally were shouting at me, too, but I couldn't really make out much of what they were saying. From the Saturday night Armory crowd I could hear "Duke! Duke!" starting to ring out once in a while.

  I was feeling good. Feeling strong and loose, confident, like I could go all night.

  With about a minute left in the round, I went in for the kill. I sensed the time was right. I backed Hank toward a corner, pounding his arms, trying to break through to his middle, his core. Suddenly I threw a high left hook. It only glanced off the side of his head, just above the ear, but as he jerked his right glove up in a woefully late attempted block, he gave me a beautiful opening to lean in and deliver a hard uppercut with my own right.

  The blow popped so loudly it sounded like two wooden blocks clapping together. Hank's chin snapped up and back and his eyes went wide with surprise and pain. I stepped in immediately, crowding him even more, flicking three quick jabs to his face. He staggered back. And that's when I bulled forward another step and came around with a sizzling right hook, cranking my whole upper body into it. The blow landed square on his temple and I could feel the shiver of impact go all down my arm.

  Hank toppled sideways and crumpled to the canvas.

  I went to a neutral corner and flopped against the ropes, feeling a brief wave of exhaustion but then suddenly having it washed away by huge wave of exhilaration. I didn't bother looking around as I listened to the ref calling out numbers. I knew Hank wasn't getting back up, not in time to beat the count.

  When the bell rang, the crowd cheered enthusiastically. The shouts of "Duke! Duke!" were plentiful and I was grateful to hear them. I waved in response and grinned around my mouthpiece.

  Turning and heading back toward my corner, my grin grew even wider as Art and Wally rushed to meet me. Even the perpetually sour-pussed Art managed a smile as he wrapped me in a bear hug and said, "By God, you did it—You pulled it out of the dumper."

  "Of course he did," said Wally. "I knew he could!"

  I reached out with a gloved hand and ruffled Wally's hair. "You bet I did, kid … I pole-axed the big oaf."

  BONUS PREVIEW

  FIGHT CARD: HARD ROAD

  JACK TUNNEY

  ROUND ONE

  PHILADELPHIA

  1957

  It was the short left hook to the ribs that got my attention.

  I slipped to the side and moved backwards but the guy chased me across the ring with two straight lefts then landed a stiff jab on my forehead before burying another punch in the same spot where he had left the last hook.

  He came at me from all angles and it was impossible to figure out his next move.

  He was a southpaw with a reputation for being an unorthodox fighter and that’s exactly how he went at it in the ring. There was nothing predictable about him or the way he fought. He was an old-time brawler out of some steel town north of Pittsburgh named Jake Krupa – a pug who had over thirteen letters in an unpronounceable last name before somebody got wise and shortened it.

  I’d been around long enough to know how to use the ring to my advantage. At one time or another, most of the reporters who had covered my fights claimed I had great “ring smarts”. That was just a fancy way of saying I could anticipate what other guys were going to do - figuring out their two or three punch combos we
re setting up big rights and knowing most fighters liked to try a couple of weak jabs to the head before burying a short hook to the ribs.

  It shouldn’t have been a problem to figure out what Krupa was going to do.

  But he was different.

  There was no pattern and no style to the way he fought. He led with a jab, followed with a couple of lefts, and came back with another left just when I expected him to use that right.

  Then he would bury that left hook to my ribs when I was thinking he would try a right.

  It made it tough to get into any kind of rhythm and it took the first round just to figure him out.

  And he kept banging his left into my ribs so often in that first minute that I was dropping my right, which left me open for his own right hand. When he connected I could feel my insides explode.

  They called him Big Jake because he was a couple of inches over six feet with a long reach, but he liked to mix it up inside. He was at least ten years older than me with more than two hundred fights under his belt between amateurs and the pros. Big and broad-shouldered with dark hair cut short in the kind of crew cut they gave out in boot camp – I figured he got it when he enlisted and never changed it. He had skin hardened by too many punches and scarred by too many cuts, with more stitches than a Rawlings baseball.

  He’d spent fifteen years working the fight hall circuit, with countless bouts in VFW Halls, National Guard Armories, and small clubs on the side streets of major cities up and down the East Coast – the kinds of places you didn’t go unless you were looking for them, and certainly nowhere you brought your girl for drinks and a good time. He had a couple of fights against guys on their way up, and a few more against guys heading in the other direction. Most of his career, however, was spent fighting in the shadows of the main events against other palookas. He was strictly a preliminary bout fighter – the type of guy who put on a pretty good fight but whose name you forgot by the time the main event started. He was a fighter you wouldn’t remember when you got home unless you kept the program.

  I didn’t want that kind of career. I wanted people to remember my name and talk about me the same way they talked about Elvis. Wanted them to say I was cool.

  I wanted them to know when they saw a story in the sports section about some hot middleweight fighter out of Chicago by way of Philadelphia named Robert Varga they were reading about me.

  Like every other middleweight, I wanted a shot at the title; but first I needed to put food on the table and pay the rent.

  That’s why I took the fight against Big Jake Krupa.

  I feinted and circled left, using my own jab to create some distance between us. Krupa liked to hang close, smothering my arms while he pounded my ribs and kidneys with punches from all directions and used his elbows like weapons. I took a couple of his shots and counterpunched with my own sharp jabs as he moved in close.

  I pumped in two short uppercuts to the chin, knocking Krupa off balance just enough so he dropped his hands. It was only a few inches, but that gave me an opening. When the reporters wrote about me they also pointed out I had fast hands. My jabs found a way through his gloves and peppered his face. After laying the leather on his eye a couple of times, I could see the skin redden and swell. I moved in close and hit him with a combination of lefts and rights to the head. As Krupa tried pushing away I connected with a left to the nose then a right to the kisser. At the bell I was dancing backwards on my toes like Sugar Ray Robinson and shooting my jab at his head. Krupa lunged forward, but missed with his own roundhouse left.

  “Ain’t got nothing,” Big Jake growled as he shouldered past me. “Just a punk kid.”

  I returned to my corner and settled on the stool, spitting my mouthpiece into the bucket while one of the corner men wiped the sweat off my chest and face.

  “Good round,” my trainer Frankie said. Frankie worked the corner like a beat cop, and everybody knew he was in charge. A small, wiry lightweight back in the Twenties, he had weathered skin, white hair, and ears that had taken their fair share of shots in the ring. “You came on at the end. Keep working your hook to his body.”

  I nodded. “Got it.”

  “Stay off the ropes and out of the corners,” he added. “Saw him back you up a couple of times. The guy’s too unpredictable. Don’t need no lucky one punch knockout.”

  I swished a mouthful of water before spitting it in the bucket by the stool. “That won’t happen.”

  “Don’t get cocky. You ain’t won nothing yet,” Frankie said. He had been up and down and all around the block – spent a lifetime in smoke-filled arenas just like this one. He knew not to count on anything until the referee counted ten or the time keeper rang the bell.

  Even then there were no guarantees the result was going to come out the way you figured.

  “Stick that jab,” Frankie said as he slipped my mouthpiece back between my teeth. Somebody called out, “ten seconds.” I stood and the stool was yanked out from beneath me as the corner guys hurried through the ropes. “That eye is looking puffy,” Frankie added. “Get to work on it.”

  Friday night fights at the Philadelphia Ice Palace and Arena were the kind that brought out the real boxing fans. The crowd was already divided into sides. Although I was the local fighter, Krupa had a number of people cheering him on. At the bell, I banged my gloves together and moved across the ring – focused and determined.

  In that second round, I found my range, moving away from Krupa and shifting from left to right when he came at me, leaving him flailing helplessly with every punch he threw. I had learned defense from Father Tim, the fighting priest at St. Vincent’s Asylum for Boys in Chicago. Learned how to slip punches from Frankie. He spent a year working in Joe Louis’ corner in the late Thirties and taught me the technique when I first hooked up with him.

  My confidence was growing as the second round went on. I still couldn’t predict what Krupa was going to do, but I settled into a comfortable groove. It was all about taking charge of the fight and dictating the pace – you never let the other guy control the action if you wanted to win. Learned that from listening to Joe Louis fights on the radio when I was a kid, and watching Rocky Marciano on Friday Night Fights.

  Krupa threw a right to the body and a left that glanced off my ear. He then tried wrapping his arms around me. He bum’s rushed me towards the ropes, using a forearm against the chest to pin me in place, with his back turned so the referee couldn’t see what was going on. He smacked two sneaky shots to the back of my head and tried punching my kidneys, but I landed a jab to his eye and slipped away, ducking under a right then coming back with my own jab.

  Two hard hooks jerked back Krupa’s head and a straight right flattened his nose, sending blood trickling over his lips and down his chin.

  He missed with a wild left, giving me a chance to unleash a rapid succession of jabs that quickly puffed up his right eye. A short left to the side of the head opened a small cut in the corner of his right eye, and two more jabs split open the cut.

  “Stick it in there!” Frankie yelled.

  I jabbed at the eye and pushed the glove into the gash. Leather and sweat mixed together with blood that ran into Krupa’s eye. He retreated towards a neutral corner, showing the first signs of concern as he shook his head and blinked away the blood. I stalked him across the ring and nailed him with a right hand and hard hooks to the body. When he dropped his elbows to protect his ribs, I popped my jab back in the eye and ripped open more skin. Krupa covered up, so I buried a hard combination to his gut.

  Near the end of the round, I jerked his head back again with a thunderous right cross, then doubled him over with two hooks that found a tender spot in his ribs. The cut above his right eye split wider and more blood streamed down his face.

  “Still think I got nothing?” I asked as he pulled me into a clinch. I leaned close to him and pressed my forehead hard against the cut. “Got any more names you want to call me?”

  “You fight like a man instead of dancing l
ike a fairy, maybe I can see what you got,” Krupa said, forcing out the words.

  The referee stepped in and pushed us each in different directions. I closed the distance and landed jabs to the top of Krupa’s head and banged my gloves into his arms. Krupa had twenty years’ worth of experience – a lifetime of dirty tricks he could use to slow me down. He leaned a hard shoulder into my chest and wrapped those long arms around me. He stepped on my feet and tried bringing a knee into my thigh. Elbowed me in the ribs. A couple of rabbit punches to the back of the head. He tried digging a thumb in my eye then rubbed the laces of his gloves against my skin, but I turned my head to the side and got a hand inside his glove to protect my face.

  Krupa clinched once more and banged his head into my face before wrapping his arms around me again.

  His mouth was close to my ear. “Ain’t showed me nothing yet.”

  The referee wedged a shoulder between us. “Break,” he said.

  Krupa came right back at me with his head down, gunning with that left and looking to land a lucky shot. He could feel the fight turning with each punch I landed. He had to know hope, along with opportunity, was fading fast. Desperation set in.

  I used my best Sugar Ray moves and danced backwards. I threw a left, a right, another left, another right. My breathing got heavier and sweat dripped down my face. Krupa brought up his forearm, pushing it into my chest as he lumbered us towards the ropes again. A few boos came from the crowd as I ducked under his haymaker right.

  I dug my own right into his ribs and slid sideways along the ropes, using Krupa’s momentum to carry me out of the way and leaving him off balance when I popped a jab on his ear.

  Krupa used a lot of energy shoving me around the ring – he was spending more time pushing me to the ropes and less time throwing punches. Most of the punches missed badly. Sooner or later that caught up to every fighter, no matter how hard they trained. I hoped that wasted movement would come back to haunt him in later rounds.