[8.7] TYRONE EVERETT 37-36(20)-1: The New York Times - Tom Cushman - Harold Lederman -
Tyrone Everett, a boxing contender who had recurring dreams of a championship belt and premonitions of danger, was shot and killed yesterday in Philadelphia.
The 24‐year‐old challenger for the World Boxing Council’s world junior lightweight (130‐pound limit) title was found by police alone in a second‐floor bedroom of a house in South Philadelphia. He died minutes later at 11:40 a.m. in a hospital of bullet wounds in the face.
The police said they had no clues, and no murder weapon was found. Police Sergeant Edward Funk said the police had responded to a call by a neighbor who heard gunfire.
The police were also seeking the owner of the private house in which Everett was found. The fighter did not live there.
Everett, a left‐hander who escaped the streets of Philadelphia through boxing and wound up owning two apartment houses, a bar and a Cadillac, had won 35 of 36 fights. His most recent victory was a fourth‐round knockout of Delfino Rodriguez of Mexico in preliminary bout on the Muhammad Ali‐Alfredo Evangelista card in Landover Maryland just 10 days before he was killed.
His only loss was a highly controversial decision to Alfredo Escalera of Puerto Rico, the WBC junior lightweight champion, in a title bout in Philadelphia last November 31. A rematch, promoted by Don King, was scheduled for next month or July in Puerto Rico.
Everett, after his victory in Landover, said he did not want to go to Puerto Rico. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if we got hurt down there,’ he said.
He said that Escalera, a flamboyant righter who keeps a pet boa constrictor and who also was on the Landover card, had thrown the snake at him during training and ‘tried really to punch me.’
‘When I went down there to watch him fight, his friends and cousins started threatening me,’ said Everett.
Most ringsiders at Everett’s fight with Escalera scored the bout heavily for the Philadelphian – about 10 rounds to 4 was the consensus.
Originally, the fight was to have been judged by three officials appointed by the WBC. It was scored, however by one official from Puerto Rico, one from Philadelphia and one from a neutral location.
The Puerto Rican official scored the fight for Escalera and the neutral judge scored it for Everett. But the judge from Philadelphia, Lou Tress, also scored it for Escalera.
Everett. a flashy dresser who was said to have a fondness for women companions, once said, ‘People say don't like to get hit – that’s true. They say I don’t look like a fighter, that I’m too pretty. I want to stay that way.’
He talked often of his dream of wearing the championship belt around his waist in the ring.
‘I step into the ring and the lights go down, and the spotlight hits me, I hear all the girls in the audience screaming, ‘Whoo‐ee look at Tyrone Everett.’ he said of the dream. ‘Then I dream, How can I lose hearing those girls screaming for me like that? What a dream.’ The New York Times online article 27 May 1977, ‘Tyrone Everett, Boxer, Dies of Bullet Wounds’
Tyrone Everett won the junior lightweight championship of the world last night. Won it with a whirling, artistic, courageous performance that brushed against the edges of brilliance. Tyrone was standing tall, proud, bleeding in his corner after the 15 rounds, waiting for the championship belt to be draped around his waist, when they snatched it from him. Picked him so clean it’s a wonder they didn’t take his shoes and trunks along with everything else. Tom Cushman, Philadelphia Daily News
History’s worst decision. Harold Lederman
v Alfredo Escalera 30 November 1976 WBC Super-Featherweight Philadelphia [r1] … A study in concentration … counter right by Tyrone Everett … a quick right hook … [r2] … You have to breathe in all that smoke … Sneaky right [Everett] … good solid left … combination right-left … [r3] … Good right hook by Tyrone Everett … another solid left … combination … left … glancing right … [r4] … Both fighters with slight cuts … Counters from Tyrone Everett seem to be effective … Tyrone Everett a good one there! … [r5] … Good right hook from Alfredo Escalera … vicious right … Everett has been countering very very well … [r6] … Everett scored with a right hook himself … Good exchange … [r7] … Quick [Everett] right … good solid left hook … I give that one 10-9 to Tyrone Everett … [r8] … Good right-left combination by Everett … sneaky right lead … Everett scored … I saw that as a Tyrone Everett round … [r9] … Good movement there by Everett … Solid right to the jaw by Alfredo Escalera … Everett with a couple of good licks … solid counter … [r10] … Right uppercut to the body [Escalera] … [r11] … Escalera missing wildly … [r12] … The champion scored with a right-left combination … Escalera cannot score … Good right by Tyrone Everett … [r13] … Tyrone Everett: blood all over his face … high up on the head … continues to counter … good right-left combination … [r14] … Such a gutsy performance [Everett] … good right to the body … good right … [r15] … A wide margin of lead [Everett] … The champion is cut … Everett is even scoring in this round … [145-143 Escalera! 146-143 Escalera! 148-146 Everett) (Boxers: Escalera & Boxers: Everett) US fight commentary
[8.7] MIKEY GARCIA 39-39(30)-0 [Welterweight & Light-Welterweight & Lightweight & Super-Featherweight & Featherweight]: ESPN online - The Sun online -
Why Isn’t Mikey Garcia a Mexican-American Superstar? Los Angeles – The most preternaturally gifted figure in boxing – perhaps any sport for that matter – is a 73-year-old former field worker with a regal bearing and full head of silver hair. His name is Eduardo Garcia. Not only has he trained world champions, he’s sired two of them.
Robert Garcia, who held a super-featherweight title and is himself a world-renowned trainer, was born in 1975 after his pregnant mother crossed the Mexican border for the express purpose of ensuring him an American life. Almost 13 years later, Mikey Garcia was born in Oxnard, California, the last of Eduardo and Virginia’s seven children.
‘I’m the youngest by 11 years,’ Mikey said. ‘I’m the accident.’
He’s also the prodigy, the great hope of America’s great boxing family. Five years have now passed since Mikey knocked down Orlando Salido four times en route to the WBO featherweight title. He’s since collected titles at 130, 135 and 140 pounds. On Saturday, he’ll fight Robert Easter in Los Angeles for custody of the IBF and WBC lightweight belts. Easter is a game, undefeated and impossibly long-armed champion. It’s a real good fight, but it won’t endow Mikey with the signature contest that he still lacks.
‘It’s still not there,’ he said. ‘That one marquee name, still not quite there.’
At 30, Garcia aspires for pound-for-pound glory and pay-per-view fortune. He could be – perhaps should be – what Oscar De la Hoya was once: the sport’s transcendent Mexican-American. It’s a big role, but Garcia has both the requisite skill (power and precision, ferocity and footwork, nothing wasted) and the resonant story (the patriarch Eduardo, former strawberry picker, comes out of retirement to make history training Mikey). Still, he’s got a way to go. By the time De la Hoya was 30 he’d fought a dozen pay-per-views, including Pernell Whitaker, Julio Cesar Chavez, Ike Quartey, Shane Mosley and one of Eduardo Garcia’s protégés from Oxnard’s La Colonia gym, Fernando Vargas.
It was a different time, of course. While the business of boxing remains a cynical one, the logistics were simpler then. The promotional interests and their corresponding networks weren’t as segregated as they are now. No-one epitomizes this present conundrum more than Mikey Garcia, who lost two and a half years of his prime and about $1 million of his own money in a lawsuit with his former promoter Top Rank.
It’s worth declaring here that I’ve worked both sides of boxing’s conflicted aisle. I met Mikey while doing a piece for Showtime a couple of years ago. We walked through a park in Oxnard, past a mural of Mexican-American heroes, his older brother and father included.