OLD FOGEY
06-11-2008, 06:18 PM
I saw in the TV listings in the paper which are generally accurate that the ESPN classic fight tonight at 9 PM mountain time will be the 1951 lightheavyweight bout between Harry Matthews and Danny Nardico.
ESPN has been running some interesting and unusual fights lately, and certainly this one I want to see. I have only seen Matthews against Marciano and a couple of brief clips of Nardico.
I have the Ring Magazine report on the fight and they describe an action-packed fight with the "classy" Matthews winning by a fairly wide margin, his wide decision victory perhaps a more impressive showing against Nardico than LaMotta, whom Nardico stopped in 8 in 1952, in the process handing Jake his only career knockdown, or Maxim, who survived a knockdown by Nardico to peck out a close but unanimous decision in 1953, could muster.
Nardico won a Silver Star at Okinawa in 1945 and later described boxing as a "cakewalk" next to what he had gone through. I saw Jake LaMotta in an interview list Nardico along with Bob Satterfield as the strongest punchers he had ever met.
A few months after this bout, Matthews was picked in the Feb, 1952 issue of the Ring as the best p4p fighter in the world, replacing the allegedly slipping Sugar Ray Robinson.
ESPN has been running some interesting and unusual fights lately, and certainly this one I want to see. I have only seen Matthews against Marciano and a couple of brief clips of Nardico.
I have the Ring Magazine report on the fight and they describe an action-packed fight with the "classy" Matthews winning by a fairly wide margin, his wide decision victory perhaps a more impressive showing against Nardico than LaMotta, whom Nardico stopped in 8 in 1952, in the process handing Jake his only career knockdown, or Maxim, who survived a knockdown by Nardico to peck out a close but unanimous decision in 1953, could muster.
Nardico won a Silver Star at Okinawa in 1945 and later described boxing as a "cakewalk" next to what he had gone through. I saw Jake LaMotta in an interview list Nardico along with Bob Satterfield as the strongest punchers he had ever met.
A few months after this bout, Matthews was picked in the Feb, 1952 issue of the Ring as the best p4p fighter in the world, replacing the allegedly slipping Sugar Ray Robinson.