What beggars belief is that Berliner got the kid to sign a contract tying him exclusively to Premierland for ten years.
Berg, as he decided to call himself, with no boxing experience climbed through the ropes for the first time in June 1923.
Wearing baggy shorts, plimsolls, without a gumshield and with no bandages on his hands he stopped Young Johnnie Gordon in eight rounds.
Jack was fourteen years old. He was paid the equivalent of 75p – he kept 5p for himself and gave the rest to his mother to put food on the table for his family.
Though it may sound like fiction, in the six months after his debut he had 15 fights – he won 13 and drew two. One of his victims was 27.
That was the era if you were dropped to the canvas the referee, before starting his count, would say: ‘If you don’t get up you won’t get paid.’
They usually got up.
At 16 Berg not only outpointed British featherweight champion Johnny Curley over 15 rounds in an overweight match he topped the bill at the Albert Hall.
Jack used to blind his opponents with leather and his battering-ram approach endeared him to thousands of fans.
News of his remarkable exploits had travelled across the Atlantic and it wasn’t long before he became a superstar in the States.
Jack had 76 fights over there and won 67. And he was the main attraction at New York’s Madison Square Garden on nine occasions.
With his dark matinee idol good looks, Jack attracted the ladies.
Show girls on Broadway and London’s stage were his favourites. As a womaniser he made Muhammad Ali look like a Trappist monk.
Jack was an in-demand film stunt man when he stopped fighting. He died at 81, 27 years ago.
He was idolised by my father’s generation. When I asked the old man if he wanted to come with me to the fights he’d say: ‘Only if Kid Berg’s on the bill.’
There’s got to be another great boxing movie in there somewhere. The Sun online article 25th October 2018 Colin Hart
[8.6] RICKY HATTON 48-45(32)-3 [Welterweight & Light-Welterweight]: Daily Mail - Daily Telegraph - Hatton TV -
US ready for Hitmania after watching Hatton’s destruction of Maussa: The Hitman needed his cuts-man on Saturday night but it is the adrenalin pumping through his fighting heart, not the solution pressed into the gashes above his eyes, which makes Ricky Hatton an authentic world champion …
Hatton is a warrior plucked from the sepia pages of prizefighting’s past, a throwback to the heroic era when the opponents were matched out of raging pride rather than commercial experience …
The left hook from hell which flatted Carlos Maussa would have decapitated a rottweiler. It was a belter in every way …
Ricky Hatton’s career is likely to come to its climactic end sooner rather than later.
Enjoy him while we can. Daily Mail article Jeff Powell
Hatton excels and now goes hunting for Tszyu: Ricky Hatton’s dismantling of teak-tough Ray Oliveira on Saturday night, the most accomplished performance in the Mancunian’s 38-fight career, strengthened his ambitious plans to fight Kostya Tszyu, the world’s No 1 rated light-welterweight, in a contest expected to take place in March.
Hatton’s growing maturity, visible in his movement and punch selection against Oliveira, a highly skilled campaigner who has spent a decade at the highest level, thrilled a capacity crowd of 12,000 at the Excel centre in London’s Docklands, and sent a clear message to the Tszyu camp. Hatton floored Oliveira in the first round and then pummelled his brave opponent to a knockout in round 19, the first stoppage in the challenger’s 59-fight career. Daily Telegraph article 12th December 2004 Gareth Davies
The things that happened to me is not normal life that. Did that happen? Did that really happen? Hatton, Sky Documentaries 2023
He was destined to have a happy ending. But it didn’t turn out that way. ibid. dude
I was a world champion four times over. But I consider myself a failure. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. ibid. Ricky
Ricky was made to be a professional. He was exciting. He let his hands go. He was a whirlwind. ibid. observer
If he wasn’t fighting, he’d be going out drinking too much. ibid. dad
Hatton v Mayweather, December 2007: ‘That fight was transcending life.’ ibid. Steve Lillis
I knew that Ray Hatton wanted to get rid of me. ibid. Billy Graham
If you’re in a bad place, it [drugs] just gives you a false reading … I kept a lot of it hidden. ibid.
Hatton v Pacquiao, May 2009: ‘His mental side, he just wasn’t there.’ ibid. Ray Hatton
It’s the loneliest place in the world. ibid. Ricky
43) Floyd Mayweather Lost TKO10: US Fight Commentary TV -
v Floyd Mayweather 8 December 2007 WBC Welterweight Nevada: [r1] … 7’’ is a substantial reach disadvantage … Two good left hooks by Floyd Mayweather … Mayweather nailed him with a right hand … [r2] … Hatton on the assault … sneaky right hand by Mayweather … Mayweather able to pick him apart … Good left hook from Hatton … He’s [referee] taking away the style of one of the fighters … [r3] … Hatton tries to cut the ring off … Good hook by Hatton … Hatton is cut … [r4] … The [Mayweather] elbow and forearm … Hatton is almost smothering himself … A nice [Mayweather] combination ... [r5] … Mayweather may be toying with him … One of the most sensational fighters in the history of boxing … [r6] … Giving him the shoulder, giving him the look … A point taken away [Hatton] … The lightning hand speed of Mayweather … Really rough stuff … [r7] … He’s got to do something about the [Mayweather] elbows … These are close rounds … We’ve not seen these guys use the jab … very few body punches … A magnificent prize fight … [r8] … Straight right hand [Mayweather] … really snapped the head back … chopping right hand … look at this … [r9] … Mayweather has decided to rumble with Hatton … Floyd will give you the shoulder … This guy’s a master boxer … Professional boxing at its very best … A wonderful prize fight … Mayweather quick with the jab … A master boxer at work … [r10] … Left hook drops him [Hatton] … He’s in a heap of trouble … It’s all over … One of the greatest fighters I can recall. US fight commentary
[8.6] KOSTYA TSZYU 34-31-25-2-1: The Australian online -
These days, when he mockingly raises his fists for the camera, you could be forgiven for thinking Kostya Tszyu is more lamb than lord of the ring.
After all, wasn’t this the guy who in 2006 sailed across the dancefloor with the curvaceous queen of salsa, Luda Kroitor, on Dancing with the Stars? Who clowned around in oversized boxing gloves with a couple of kids for those hilarious TV ads for Hyundai? The man they once nicknamed the baby-faced assassin is looking more benign these days, but you still wouldn’t want to be his punching bag.
Tszyu celebrated his 30th year as a boxer last month – he first stepped into the ring as a nine-year-old in the freezing mining town of Serov in the Russian Urals, fighting much older boys; by the time he was 20 he’d had 259 fights on the amateur boxing circuit (and lost just 11). After he settled in Australia in 1992, coach Johnny Lewis taught him how to perfect his fancy footwork and his lethal angle of delivery.
When I interviewed Tszyu for a cover story back in 2002, he was at the top of his game, the undisputed Junior Welterweight champion of the world, the first man in 30 years to unify the belts in that division. Still, there was no bluster, only truckloads of self-belief. Tszyu proved a surprisingly engaging personality: his predilection for reading Dostoevsky and Pushkin in the sauna (‘I look for insights into life’); his fear of the boxing mafia poisoning him (‘I know this happen’); his infatuation with the self-help philosophies of Dale Carnegie (‘Never say you can’t do something!’) and his spectacular fallings-out over money (‘You learn many hard lessons’).
Through all this he was a boxer blessed with the split-second timing and stainless-steel nerve to bust through any opponent’s defence.
Watch his reply to receiving a nasty cut above the eye from Jan Bergman in the sixth round of a 1995 IBF title fight, where he strikes back with a knockout punch seemingly from halfway across the ring (you can catch it on YouTube).
Two years after our story came out, Tszyu suffered his first major setback: a shoulder injury requiring surgery. In June 2005, in the boxing world’s kitsch capital, Las Vegas, Tszyu lost to British boxer Ricky Hatton after retreating to his stool in the 11th round. ‘I don’t feel great to finish my career on a losing note,’ he reflects today, between bites of caviar served by his wife, Natasha. ‘I been the winner all my life.’