Henry Armstrong to Bill Kelly: "I won a million and lost a million. That's more than I thought I would ever do."

HENRY ARMSTRONG: A BOXING IMMORTAL

by Bill Kelly

When Boxing's Hall of Fame opened in 1954, three fighters of the "modern era" were inducted: Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey and Henry Armstrong.

Henry Armstrong was more than a boxing champion to me. Armstrong was a mythic. A legend. We kids growing up in New Jersey worshiped him. Revered him. "Skill, "determination" and "courage" doesn't begin to describe the hold Armstrong had on our imaginations. On the boxing public's.

We called him a variety of nicknames: "Hammering Hank," "Homicide Hank," "Hurricane Hank," Human Buzz Saw," "Little Perpetual Motion." We lifted him above the rest of the sports world. If he got caught in a flagrante delicto with a Harlem floozy, picked up for drunk driving, caught cheating on his income tax, we could shrug that off. But if Henry Armstong quit in his corner, say like, Bonecrusher Smith or Roberto Duran, we would be physically ill. We couldn't live with that.

Gratefully, he never did. But that is the kind of grip Armstrong had on us. To us, he was like the Hapalong Cassidy hero of a hundred Saturday afternoon chapter plays. He could do no wrong. Like John Wayne, he never let you down.

Even his losses were epic: Lou Ambers won the World Lightweight Title from him on a 15 round decision in 1938; Fritzie Zivic took his welterweight crown via a 15 round decision in 1940; In 1941 Zivic stopped him in the 12th when he tried to retain that title; In 1943 he lost to Willie Joyce, Beau Jack, and Sugar Ray Robinson. He retired in 1945 with a final record of 150-21-9, 1 ND, 100 knockouts.

From 1937 through 1939 he won 46 bouts in a row, 27 by knockout, ranking him third for the most consecutive knockouts in pro boxing history behind Lamar Clark and Billy Fox, both with 43.

Armstrong learned to fight almost in his infancy -- on the streets of St. Louis. He started fighting professionally in 1931. In his first fight, against Al Iovino in Braddock, Pa., he was KO'd in 3 sessions. But he was grim, stubborn, relentless. He trained till he sweated blood. Disappointed after failing to earn a spot on the 1932 U.S. Olympic team, by 1937 he was as unstoppable as flood waters. Forget Sugar Ray, Beau Jack, Ambers and Zivic. Looking up into the ring, you imagine a swarm of Africanized Bees swarming across Brazil looked like this. He was as uncontrolled as Australia's rabbit population. Everybody got excited. His fights were quite simply, as one-sided as Christians tossed to starving lions.

Alexis Arguello, Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns and Roberto Duran later held three world titles. But they won theirs in an age when there were not only more weight divisions but more sanctioning bodies that handed out world championships like wine at an Italian wedding. In 1937 he beat Petey Sarron via 6th round KO to win the featherweight crown - which won him the Fighter of the Year award from Ring Magazine. Seven months later he took the welterweight crown from the immortal Barney Ross. Three months later Armstrong completed the "triple crown" by whipping "The Herkimer Hustler," Lou Ambers via 15-round decision and gaining the lightweight belt. No longer wishing to make the 126 pound limit, he vacated his featherweight title to concentrate on defending his welterweight crown, which he successfully defended it six times, beating the likes of Ceferino Garcia and Baby Arizmendi, before losing his lightweight title to Lou Ambers on August 22, 1939. His attempt to wrestle the middleweight title from Ceferino Garcia in 1940 was a bitter disappointment.

"I beat Garcia eight out of 10 rounds," said Armstrong. "It was one of my easier fights. I had beaten Garcia a couple of years before when I was the welterweight champion. But there was no way I was going to be allowed to win the middleweight title.

"Before the fight, I was offered a lot of money to throw the fight. I refused to do it. I found out later the guys who talked to me worked for Bugsy Siegel. Only one man, the referee, a guy named George Blake, scored the fight. When it was over, he threw up his hands to signify a draw. And then he ran out of the ring like his ass was on fire. When news reporters asked him for his score card he said some kids stole it. That was the last time Blake ever worked a fight in California."

One of this writer's finest hours came when I met, and interviewed Armstrong at the Banquet of Champions in Los Angeles, in 1982. I asked him to pose for a picture with Lou Ambers, who was also being honored, but he refused. Ambers also refused to pose with Armstrong. The distrain they held for one another after 43 years made Watergate look like a kindergarten exercise.

When Armstrong challenged Ambers for his Lightweight crown tickets sold for $16.50 ringside, $250 reserved and $1 general admission. Armstrong won a split nod but at the end of 15 rounds Ambers was virtually unmarked while Armstrong needed 10 stitches around his mouth. His left eye was a plumb.

"I beat him good," Ambers told me. "When the bell sounded ending the fight my own handlers had to steer him to his corner." Armstong said he won because of his two early knockdowns of Ambers - "one in the fifth the other in the sixth." Seeking revenge, Ambers won his title back in 15 rounds in 1939.

"I never weighed over 135 pounds even when I was fighting middleweights," said Armstrong. "When I fought Barney Ross for the welterweight title, they allowed me to wear my robe at the weigh-in. I also had weights hidden in my hands. I weighed in at 142, but I was about 135."

Armstrong hated Fritzie Zivic even more than he did Lou Ambers. "I lost a lot of fights I know I won," Henry told me. "I remember when I lost the welterweight title to Fritzie Zivic in 1940 I thought I won easily. Zivic was the dirtiest fighter I ever met. He kept thumbing the whole fight. He hit low and elbowed me. On the same card that evening, Ray Robinson had his first fight, a four rounder. Afterwards, he came to my dressing room and said, "Henry, you're my idol and someday I'm going to knock out Zivic for you.' Two years later, he did."

In 1943 Robinson won a 10-round decision over Armstrong. In a later interview with Robinson, he told this writer he held Armstrong up for 10 rounds out of respect. This didn't jive with what Armstrong told me.

"I almost knocked Ray out," said Henry. "He kept throwing those bolo punches at me. Well, I'd mastered how to defend myself against bolos from Ceferino Garcia. Ray threw one to many and I hit him with a right hand that sent him across the ring. But the bell saved him and he ran from me the rest of the fight. I couldn't catch him. I kept taunting him, 'Come on in and fight.' He just kept shaking his head and running like a scared rabbit."

He was born Henry Jackson on December 12, 1912, in Columbus, Miss., the 11th of 15 children of an Irish-Negro father and a Negro-Cherokee Indian mother. He graduated from Vachon High School in St. Louis, during the Depression. His first job was working on the railroad for $1.50 a day. One day he read in the newspapers where a fighter named Kid Chocolate made $75,000 fighting at the Polo Grounds in New York.

"I decided then and there to become a fighter," he said. "I told the boys I was gonna be champ, and they laughed at me. Seven years later, I was."

Henry said he was accompanied westward by a friend named Harry Armstrong. Henry adopted Harry's last name when they got to California because they had been through thick and thin together. Harry became Henry's trainer. When Henry wasn't working out in the gym, he shined shoes on the corner of 7th and San Julian. To gain experience as an amateur, Henry fought as many as four fights in one night at various clubs. With the eyesight of a hovering hawk, the reflexes of a crouched lion, and the speed of a gazelle, he won almost all of his 60 amature fights.

"I heard about a fight manager named Tom Cox," said Henry, "so I walked ten miles from the Midnight Mission to his house to persuade him to sign me to a contract. He gave me a $5 bill and told me to find a decent place to stay. That 20-mile walk was the beginning of my career as a professional fighter."

His first major fight was against a tough featherweight named Baby Arizmendi on Aug. 4, 1936. Over 16,000 fans packed old Wrigley Field at 42nd and Avalon to see Armstrong win a 10-round decision. "I got $2,000," said Henry, "more money than I ever dreamed of having."

Among those at Wrigley ringside that night was featherweight champion Petey Sarron. An enterprising reporter described the scene:

"Petey Sarron, featherweight champion of the world, his face an ashen white, an empty ache in the pit of his stomach, squirmed in his seat and choked as he watched Henry Armstrong, the chocolate lancer, hammer Baby Arizmendi into the most brutal, ruthless defeat of his brilliant 11-year stretch of ring warfare last night at Wrigley Field.

"Paling perceptibly as he blinked with frightened eyes that saw Armstrong, the infernal machine, smoke the idol of Mexico out of the ring with burning, searing leather to take every one of the 10 rounds and with it recognition in California as the world's featherweight champion, Sarron aptly expressed the sentiments of the 16,000 hysterical, stunned spectators when he said: "I'm glad I'm not the one in there with Armstrong tonight."

Shortly after that, Armstrong changed managers from Cox to Wirt Ross, who sold his contract to entertainers Al Jolson and George Raft for $10,000. A fight was quickly made between Armstrong and Sarron for Oct. 29, 1937, at New York's Madison Square Garden. Armstrong was behind on points when he knocked Sarron out in the sixth round. By 1938 Armstrong had earned $90,000. One of his most memorable fights was covered by Grantland Rice: "Barney Ross, game to the last drop of blood, fighting the last ten rounds on instinct and condition, went the limit of 15 rounds. He finished with his right eye completely closed -- with blood running from his nose and mouth in a steady stream -- with his face badly battered and his kidneys as raw and red as if Armstrong used a battle-ax. So Henry Armstrong jumped from the featherweight to the lightweight thrown, spotting his rival nine pounds as his flailing fists beat a merciless tattoo on head and body."

Ray Arcel, who was in Ross's corner that night, later said "Henry Armstrong could be classified with the greatest fighters of all time. The fighters today, most of them he would chase right out of the ring."

"I took 20% of the gate for that fight," Armstrong said. "I think it was $33,000."

After he retired at age 31, Henry said he took to drinking. "I'd get drunk and drive my big car, roaring up and down the highways, and I didn't care about anything. I blacked out once. When I came to I was in the car heading north out of Malibu at 80 m.p.h. When I sobered up I lost my taste for whiskey and it's never came back."

Willie Mae Armstrong divorced Henry in 1959 after 25 years of marriage. She said he left her home alone and never showed her any affection. By the mid-60s, Armstrong was dead broke. He had more attachments on him than a vacuum cleaner. He became a minister at Mt. Olive Baptist Church and married Velma. She died, leaving him with two girls.

By 1988 Henry Armstrong was bedridden, legally blind, broke and dying. His third wife, Gussie Armstrong cared for him at their tiny, fly-trap dwelling on East 55th Street in South Central L.A. It was a section of town where even Dracula wouldn't want to be caught after dark. All of the champ's boxing trophies and championship belts had been hocked or sold so they could pay the rent, or eat. This is where Hammering Hank fought his last battle, in a dingy room with rubbish stacked along the wall and curtains drawn to make the room look as dim as Mike Tyson's future.

When Ike Williams and I went to visit him in 1988 Gussie said she was afraid to put him in a nursing home because she would lose their only income -- a monthly $800 Social Security check. "We need something to live on," she said gloomily.

The old warrior was admitted six times that year to Century City Hospital and treated for infections, malnutrition, pneumonia, anemia, dehydration, and poor vision attributed to cataracts and glaucoma. Most of his problems were irreversible, principally dementia, the loss of intellectual ability. He was fed through a tube in his stomach after he refused to eat, He dropped to 95 pounds.

On October 23, 1988, the only man to ever hold championship belts in three weight divisions simultaneously was carried by paramedics from his dingy bungalow in South Central Los Angeles to the California Medical Center.

He never came back. He was 75. *********

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