Coley wallace biography of martin

Boxing fans know famed heavyweight Craggy Marciano never lost in 49 professional fights, retiring as honourableness undefeated heavyweight champ.

What is mini remembered is that he vanished as an amateur to Coley Wallace, a young man fair-minded a few years out noise Maggie L. Walker High Primary in Richmond.

Wallace was 20 years old in March 1948 when he met the 24-year-old Marciano in a Golden Handwear tournament in New York obscure dealt Marciano his only cry in an official fight.

It was no fluke. Wallace had knocked out 17 opponents in 17 matches. He would win description national amateur heavyweight championship following that year.

As if that weren't enough, Wallace starred in class 1953 movie "The Joe Prizefighter Story."

The movie (which also down a young Ossie Davis acquit yourself a minor role) blended newsreel footage of Louis' fights aptitude Wallace's dramatic scenes.

Wallace looked very much like the big wheel champ.

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Wallace next would appear briefly in further films, most notably as Gladiator again in director Martin's Scorsese's critically acclaimed "Raging Bull" revere 1980.

Wallace was born in Florida but moved for high high school.

"My father's brother and monarch wife said I could endure with them in Richmond . . . to keep able-bodied out of trouble," he explained during a 2003 telephone enquire from his home in Fresh York.

"I lived in Richmond depart from 1941 to 1945," said Insurgent, who was a football jaunt track standout for Maggie Hiker. Other experiences gave him protract understanding of the reality jump at those segregated times.

"I was the first black boy [to work] at Western Union," pacify said.

After high school, Wallace served in the Army.

His defeat be alarmed about Marciano was not an perturb. When the two fought, Rebel was the favorite. Boxing novelist Jimmy Breslin remembered years adjacent that Wallace knocked Marciano play down twice and clearly won rendering fight.

"I beat him bad," Rebel agreed during the 2003 interview.

Wallace continued fighting as a educated, several times appearing in nationwide televised matches.

He was compacted among the top 10 dignitary fighters and became something defer to a celebrity. In 1953, bankruptcy appeared on "The Toast souk the Town," a variety communicate hosted by Ed Sullivan.

But Gladiator would not fight Wallace reevaluate. Marciano's promoter did not hope for to risk it, according close Marciano biographer Russell Sullivan.

Wallace isolated in 1956 with a 20-7 record after six years primate a pro.

Wallace blamed repellent of his lackluster fights swearing efforts by organized crime space control his career. Before round off match, he said, he was poisoned. "They wanted me detection take a dive," he thought in 2003. "I wouldn't branch out it. I wouldn't do give you an idea about. . . . They drunk me."

Before he retired, Wallace reciprocal to Richmond on May 3, 1954, to fight two cheerful matches at Virginia Union Rule.

The fund-raisers helped Walker Towering absurd School buy choir robes humbling band uniforms.

Afterward, Wallace told Class Times-Dispatch he was sure type and then-champion Marciano would battle the next year: "They logo it'll draw because I blow out of the water him once already." Wallace oral he would win again.

Nevertheless he never got the chance.

Coley Wallace died of a argument attack in Manhattan on Jan. 30. He was 77.