HBO Boxing:Khan vs Judah

Khan made Judah quit. That was pretty embarrassing especially the post fight interview by Judah. Man screw Bradley, I want to see Khan mayweather. Khan is a pretty big guy so I don't think 147 should be a problem. I wouldn't mind a khan pacman, but that might be an issue since they are trained by Freddy Roach.

 

I still think he can't take a direct hit to the head by a heavy hitter. I watched his fight against Maidana and he got hit real bad in the 10th, his knees buckled. You can't really teach anyone to take a hit.

 

Berto has a better chance than Khan to hurt Floyd.

 

As for guarding a fighter's genitals, the invention of the athletic supporter in 1874 was a major advance. Perhaps boxers wore jockstraps with some added underwear. That changed after the heavyweight title fight between Jack Sharkey and Max Schmeling in June 1930. Sharkey was ahead on points when he accidentally landed a punch on Schmeling's crotch. After falling to the canvas and writhing in agony, Schmeling was awarded the decision. It was the first time a fight was won on a foul.

It was in that year, I read in a newspaper article, that an enterprising man decided to prevent another such mishap. His name has been forgotten by me, but the article told me this is what he did. He designed a leather groin protector or protective cup. To test it, he went into barrooms with a baseball bat. There he offered to pay any man there ten dollars if he would hit him with the bat as hard as he could while he wore the protector he had designed. That was the beginning of the protective cup, or as the British call it, the foul protector.

 

THE OTHER DAY at the All-Star Cafe on W. 45th St., Howie Albert swung a bat at Chris Fox, employed by Dino Duva's Main Events. Fox was wearing the same kind of protective cup Riddick Bowe wore the night he lay on his back from Andrew Golota's low blows that memorable night when all hell broke loose at the Garden.

Anyway, these bat swings were supposed to demonstrate that a whack in the cup, even with a baseball bat, couldn't hurt anybody. The stunt was to prove that Bowe was, in essence, putting on an act when he fell to the canvas from the blows.
The three swings by Albert were not mighty, and that was good. Nobody wanted to see young Chris Fox walking out of the cafe singing soprano. In any event, the little sideshow proved nothing.

The question whether Bowe was hurt or just faking it does not alter the fact that he was hit low lots of times by Golota.

It may be an easy assumption for anybody there to say that those punches could not hurt Bowe because of that metal cup all fighters now wear. True, it is supposed to be foul-proof, but I, for one, am not going to tell Bowe it didn't hurt. How can anybody say it when it wasn't them getting hit?

The foul-proof thing, though, reminded me of a guy called Foulproof Taylor. This was his name, and before I go any further I must apologize to my friend, Sidney Zion, who wrote the name Herman Taylor in his column last Monday. I had mistakenly told him this was the man who invented a foul-proof cup. Herman Taylor, from Philadelphia, was a noted promoter from the 1920s to 1960. He was one of the men who promoted the first Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney fight in 1926.

Anyway, the Taylor I was referring to was the one and only Foulproof. This guy was a character, and for years you'd see him at ringside wearing a jacket with the words, "I am Foulproof Taylor" on the back. He was a popular guy with boxing people, so well-liked that he never had to pay his way in to a fight. We all figured that it was boxing's way of saying, "thanks for the contribution."

Harry Markson, who was the Garden's head boxing man during its heyday, remembers that Taylor did have a patent on the cup but never knew if he had made any money from it. "He seemed content just knowing everyone knew he was the inventor."

In any event, Foulproof, who lived in Brooklyn and worked for the Postal Telegraph Company, gets credit for the cup fighters wear today. This guy was ahead of his time because in the late 1930s he fashioned a crude forerunner of the baseball safety helmet. Ever aware of safety features in sports, he later invented the cup.
To market his invention, he would visit Stillman's Gym on Eighth Ave. or the Pioneer Gym, also in Manhattan, and, wearing the cup himself, would stand, his feet planted wide apart, and invite anyone to punch or kick him in the area south of the belt.
Offers were accepted, and often some big heavyweight would shoot terrific left hooks (like the ones Golota let go on Bowe). Foulproof would be knocked down, but always bounced up, proclaiming he was unhurt.

There are many stories about Foulproof. Here's one from an old crony, boxing man Irving Rudd:

"Once at Madam Bey's (a fight camp in New Jersey one hour from New York), Foulproof asked the Hearst newspapers' ace boxing writer, Hype Igoe, to test the Foulproof Taylor cup. Igoe did but with a baseball bat. Igoe gave it one great swat and Taylor crashed into a baseboard wall, from which it took several men some time to extricate him.

"A makeshift plaque was put over the hole in the wall that read: 'Hypus Igoe through this wall knocked Foulproof Taylor Cup and all!"

I don't know whatever happened to Ol' Foulproof, but I do remember seeing him strutting along the ringside with that famous jacket of his, the one spelling "I Am Foulproof Taylor." It didn't feel like a Friday night fight without seeing this guy with his accomplishment advertised on the back of his jacket.

So, anyway, Foulproof, wherever you are, today we hoist a drink and say, "To you, Foulproof, you made your mark. And may your cup floweth over."

 

Since the 1980s, Las Vegas has been known as the boxing capital of the world. Perhaps it’s fitting, therefore, that this reporter moved to Las Vegas. I, my brothers and my cousins are the great nieces and nephews of “the man who saved boxing”.

You’ve never heard of Foulproof Taylor? True, he was before most readers’ time. True, he wasn’t a Westerner; he was a New Yorker (Brooklyn, actually). He was also quite the character. Because of an unusual “personality,” his story often remained on the back pages, but he really did save boxing.

I was reminded of Foulproof Taylor a few weeks ago when a distant cousin sent me a faded newspaper article about our relative. Sportswriter Robert L. Burnes had interviewed James “Foulproof “ Taylor when he visited his St. Louis, MO family in 1961.

As kids, we always knew about “Uncle Foulproof” because we’d see him on TV at the Friday night fights. He’d be sitting ringside wearing a jacket blaring his name and the words, “Fouled 30,000 times”. We loved the “Foulproof” name, even if we didn’t really know what it meant. Eventually we were told that “Foulproof “ evolved from an invention our great-uncle had made: a protective cup for boxers in case they were hit below the belt.

The invention story began in 1926. James Taylor was a cable-company employee by day. Proud of his tenor voice, he was also in the Metropolitan Opera chorus, and in particular, he appeared in the American premier of Puccini’s Turandot. At the end of the first act, everybody was to rush off stage. As they hastened off, a spear carrier kneed Taylor in the groin. “I went from second tenor to baritone to boy soprano with the yelp I let out when he gave me the knee,” Taylor told Burnes.

Nothing would have come of that incident had the spear carrier apologized, but he didn’t. After the performance, Taylor purchased a supply of rubber cigars and aluminum. He fashioned the aluminum into a cup, and somehow also attached the rubber cigars.

The next night he wore the cup and challenged the spear carrier to knee him again. He did, and Taylor was not injured. End of problem with the spear carrier.

Nothing came of Taylor’s invention until a conversation with some boxing people. A boxing show had been held the night before where several matches ended because of below-the-belt fouls, the crowd had been in an uproar. Fouls were common in the 1920s because when a match ended because of an incapacitating foul, all bets were off. Boxers with lots of money riding on them who were about to lose a match would foul the opponent, lose the match anyway but save the bettors.

Taylor dragged out his home-made contraption, improved it with the addition of foam rubber and tried to seek an audience with the New York State Athletic Commission. For two years, he was brushed aside. Finally, Jimmy Johnston, famed fight manager, intervened for him with Jim Farley, then the chairman of the commission. His device was finally accepted, and in 1930, boxing rules were changed so that protective cups could be worn and boxing matches could no longer be won or lost because of low blows, though individual rounds could be lost. Because James Farley went on to be the muscle behind the political career of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Taylor claimed that HE was the reason Roosevelt became President. (Yes, the family agreed that was a bit of a stretch.)

Over the years, Taylor made some money from his invention. He had a number of famous boxers among his clients. ”Primo Carnera wore a large,” he wrote. “He was built like a horse.” Joe Louis also wore one of his cups in every fight, but Foulproof was not really a businessman. He was also rather eccentric as he made the rounds of boxing clubs in New York City challenging folks to “kick me here”. Although he had a patent, other manufacturers eventually made their own versions of the boxing cup, and Taylor lost out on the big money. Taylor also invented foulproof baseball and football helmets and even a device for lady wrestlers. My mother recalled that as a newlywed, she met James Taylor who immediately strapped her into his new foulproof bra and charged her in her chest (an unforgettable first meeting, I’m sure). Taylor said he had the likes of Leo Durocher and Joe Medwick whack him over the head with a bat, but again….he was not the one who made money on protective gear.

I met Foulproof Taylor twice, once when he made a St. Louis visit to surprise his brother (my grandfather) for his 80th birthday. My eccentric great-uncle stayed with our family. He sent a box ahead of his arrival. In the box were a copy of his self-published book, “Prizefight Government”, a couple t-shirts and a large sack. Apparently in his past, Taylor was also a World Champion sack racer, and he demonstrated his technique at a family party. (He didn’t hop as we kids did in sack races; he put each foot in the corner of the sack, gathered the top of the sack in his hands and ran in quick little steps.) He also ordered my mother to have on hand Guinness Stout (which he drank several times a day), and for breakfast he wanted water with his corn flakes. (eeew). Taylor was married to Margaret, lived in Brooklyn, and he and his wife had a boarder who lived with them.

In college, I made a trip to New York City and met Foulproof Taylor (he seldom used the name, James) for lunch at Jack Dempsey’s restaurant. I had a college friend with me who endured the whole long story about his inventions. He told us his wife was in a deep depression because the man who had been their boarder had died. He told us that yes, Margaret and the boarder had a relationship of sorts and he didn’t mind, as long as Margaret took good care of him. She died shortly after our visit.

Foulproof Taylor died around 1970. I know he called the New York newspapers when he went in the hospital to tell them “the man who saved boxing” was in the hospital. Two weeks later, he passed away of stomach cancer. My father and grandfather went to New York to take care of his small estate. James and Margaret Taylor had had no children. We supposed all those years of being kicked you-know-where had taken their toll.

Several years later, I was reading a book by the late pianist Oscar Levant. Levant wrote that one of the characters around New York when he was there was one Foulproof Taylor asking people to “kick me here”. I almost whooped with recognition.

I don’t like boxing; it’s a man thing I don’t understand. But the Taylor cousins are delighted knowing that a sack-racing, opera-singing, inventor and character named Foulproof Taylor is part of the family tree.

 

Can you link that, or is this some old newspaper clipping that you are retyping?

 

http://articles.nydailynews.com/1996-07-21/sports/18011850_1_baseball-bat-wearing-boxing

http://living-las-vegas.com/2010/11/the-man-who-saved-boxing/

 

That would be awesome if he retyped the whole article.