Two-ton Tony
Taki
In 1970, while solipsism reigned supreme among students of the Western world, and campuses burned down in protest against a war that could possibly curtail the drug and good times for an unfortunate few, a group calling itself Jocks Against The War In Vietnam came into being. The group was mostly made out of failed athletes, a large proportion of them 'gay', all of them taking overdoses of mind drugs and media exposure.
In view of the times the jock ploy for attention was not surprising. The fact, however, that athletes once expected to embody heroism and the finer things of life, had joined the great unwashed. Jane Fonda brigades, was. So, while Jane Fonda prepared to go to North Vietnam to give comfort to the people who were torturing American pilots, and get some pretty good publicity for herself, I went looking, like Diogenes, for an honest man. 1 found him in New Jersey, part of the silent majority but hardly silent. His name was Tony Galento; he died two weeks ago.
Galento was called 'The Grotesque Gladiator' but to the same newpaPermen who labelled him that. Tony Galento was beautiful. He was a columnist's and car-. toonist's dream, but not when the subject of war and war protesters came up. He was a poor boy who fought all his life to survive, had survived because of the classless American system, and hated the spoiled kids who thought America was the most fascist, oppressive country in the world. Galento hardly articulate, possessed the type of heroic virtue that today's modern psychologists and Marxist professors speak of as obsession or selfdestructing. The last two years of life he suffered terribly. Both of his legs were amputated. Needless to say he never complained. He died without tears. Although I am a Christian there are times when I begin to doubt. Why should Galento have suffered ?
The five foot nine inch roly-poly with the powerful left hook had a total of 114 fights taking on any and all corners from 1929 until 1944 when he called it a career with a three round KO win over Jack Suzek in Kansas City. Now, 40 years later, the image remains. Two-ton Tony Galento. a beer-bellied, beer-guzzling street fighter. It wasn't until 13 June 1935, when Galento was fighting in a prelim to the Jimmy Braddock — Max Baer title fight for the heavyweight championship of the world that he gained prominence. This was the night that Jimmy Braddock was to stun the world by taking the title away from the favourite. Galento fought a six foot six inch giant called Young Hippo. The bell sounded and the little round man came out swaggering. Wham. One left hook by two-ton Tony and Hippo was out cold. After that everyone kept away. Except for Louis.
The greatest ever gave Tony a title fight which no one took seriously. Except for Galento. Not that he trained for it. He kept up his drinking while announcing that he would 'moider da bum.' And he almost did. On 28 June 1939, the little round man, who, incidentally, was the first man to say 'I've brung the title back to Jersey', uncorked a beaut of a left hook which deposited the great Louis on the floor.
It proved to be his undoing, however, because Louis for the second time in his life got angry and hammered away like a man possessed. The referee had to stop it because Tony would not go down. He was bleeding from every part of his face. Afterwards in his dressing room, Galento said, 'I woulda licked him if I foughta de way I wanted but he wouldn't lemme; Two-ton Tony ran a bar until the end. , He volunteered in the war, and became a wrestler afterwards. He once wrestled an octopus which died after a week. Tony felt embarrassed. He thought his manager had done the octopus wrong. He didn't keep much money, but enough to send his kids to a good school. When he became sick he refused welfare, or a testimonial charity affair. Two-ton Tony, who could have been champ if they had no Queensberry rules, left a vivid impression on all men. He was beautiful.
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