Actor Mickey Rourke debuts professional boxing career in Fort Lauderdale

 

Rourke (R), 1991
State Archives of Florida

By Jane Feehan

Among highly publicized events at Fort Lauderdale’s War Memorial Auditorium during its decades-old history was actor Mickey Rourke’s professional boxing debut in 1991. 

In March 1991 Sal Cherch, an entrepreneur and boxing promoter from Lauderhill, spotted Rourke at the Fifth Street Gym in Miami Beach and asked him if he’d like to participate in a match two months later. Rourke, already a well-known actor (and nearly an icon in France) agreed. He had chalked up a number of amateur fights during the 1970s and continued to train, sometimes at the Miami Beach gym. Cherch picked May 23 as the date because he planned to donate event profits to the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 23.

Rourke, 34, would fight part time mechanic Steve Powell, 33, from the Fort Lauderdale area. Powell, a Medfield, MA native, came to South Florida less than a decade before and opened an auto garage in Oakland Park. He was also a boxer. By 1991, he had scored four wins out of eight professional bouts. Powell had just won a match in the Bahamas and was reportedly known for a strong right jab. He was promised $300 for a four-round fight with Rourke.

Thanks to Rourke’s team, the media expected to see a roster of celebrities including Don Johnson and wife Melanie Griffith, Kim Basinger, Sylvester Stallone and Gene Hackman. About 2,400 showed up to watch Rourke, a 168-pound super middle weight, duke it out with the part-time mechanic. Of the spectators about 375 presented press credentials. The event was expected to be a Hollywood story, if not a memorable boxing match.

The celebrity list of those who actually appeared at War Memorial that night was a short one. Counted among the famous was boxing promoter-trainer Angelo Dundee, fighters Leon Spinks and Alexis Arguello, Rourke’s girlfriend actress Carre Otis (Wild Orchid) and Robert Conrad who left “in disgust” after round 3.

Rourke, booed several times, reportedly connected a few questionable jabs to the back of Powell’s head. He also lifted and pushed Powell a few times through the ropes, more befitting a wrestling match rather than a boxing bout.

The four-round fight was called in a decision (no surprise) for Rourke. Two judges scored 38-37, the third judge, 39-37. The real winner was the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 23. As promised, Cherch donated the night’s profits, $8,553 to the group a few weeks later. The match took in $45,846 and costs were assessed at $37,293.

Mickey Rourke grew up in Miami and Miami Beach and attended Nautilus Junior High and Miami Beach High before his boxing and acting days. He went on to fight several more times in other cities after the Fort Lauderdale match. His acting career has captured far more headlines than have his pugilistic pursuits.

A fan of boxing (and of Rourke), I would have attended that match had I been in town, though I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it as much as his Pope of Greenwich Village, a film favorite.

Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources:

Miami Herald, Dec. 30, 1990

Miami Herald, April 8, 1991

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, May 23, 1991

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, May 24, 1991

Miami Herald, June 9, 1991

Tags: Boxing, celebrities in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale history, history of Fort Lauderdale, Mickey Rourke, Jane Feehan

A profitable alliance: Boxing and Frankie Carbo

By Jane Feehan

Miami Beach boxing promoter Chris Dundee denied doing business with mobster Frankie Carbo, but admitted he first met the “Czar of Boxing” in 1937 at Stillman’s gym in New York City.  There was probably more to that relationship than he let on.

Carbo, part of the New York-based Lucchese crime family, had ties with boxing managers and fighters as far back as 1936. He was always ready with the “long green,” paying the gym tabs, car notes and other expenses of fighters. He also lined the pockets of managers. They were in too deep by the time they realized favors led to obligations. 

It wasn’t easy doing business without getting involved with the mob. Carbo had the connections to make things happen. Money flowed to those who associated with the unofficial “commissioner” of boxing. Fighters and managers saw money that they may not have seen otherwise. In 1959, a New York Amsterdam News reporter suggested many boxers would have remained in obscurity had it not been for Carbo.

Fight doctor Ferdie Pacheco wrote that Chris Dundee “had to join the boxing union of Frankie Carbo.” The "membership" helped Dundee, brother of manager Angelo Dundee, to develop world champions at his 5^th Street Gym. Without happy fighters and worthy matchups there was no business.

Some in the fight world would  turn over as much as 50 percent of the take to Carbo. Boxing champ Sugar Ray Robinson resisted. Though he was considered to be in Carbo’s circle of influence, he didn’t like taking orders. Famed fighter Jake La Motta admitted Carbo ordered him in 1947 to take a dive in a bout with Billy Fox. To his many boxing credits, Muhammad Ali was the first heavyweight champion to be totally free of mob ties.

Carbo, who used the alias “Mr. Gray” in arranging fights, chose the contenders; he was probably behind what was then thought to be a mismatched bout between Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) and Sonny Liston in February 1964 at the Miami Beach Auditorium. Throughout the years, however, Dundee maintained he hadn’t done business with Carbo. In 1960 he was quoted as saying boxing wasn’t “big enough any more to attract a real racketeer.” There was more money, he said, in horse racing, football and baseball.

Before that historic, if not pretty, 1964 fight, rumors flew about Chris Dundee using Carbo’s influence to obtain certain closed circuit television rights for another championship fight. But Dundee steadfastly denied connections ... and then there was the time Frankie Carbo, in the company of Chris Dundee, picked up the check of Miami News editor Howard Kleinberg and his wife at the Saxony Hotel restaurant. He asked Dundee who the friend was who waved when he attempted to pay the check. Dundee told a startled (and not entirely happy) Kleinberg it was Carbo. Wink wink.

It was reported that Carbo illegally arranged a long roster of fights at Madison Square Garden and other venues, including Miami Beach, for more than two decades. In the 1940s he kept an apartment in New York City to conduct business with boxing managers. A few years later, the FBI knew he had a place at the 2000 block of Taft Street in Hollywood, FL. Carbo was seldom there, it was reported, but it was also used for business.

More on Carbo’s pedigree: He was born in New York’s Lower East Side in 1904 as Paolo Giovanni Carbo. By age 11, he was declared a juvenile delinquent. He went on to run a Bronx taxicab protection racket in the 1920s and was arrested and convicted in 1928 for murdering a driver who would not pay up. Carbo served 20 months in prison for a reduced charge of manslaughter. The conviction precluded his obtaining a license for boxing operations. An associate of mobsters Owney Madden and the “Lord High Executioner” Albert Anastasia, Carbo was suspected of being a trigger man for Murder, Inc., with possible involvement in several mob hits including that of Bugsy Siegel (yet unsolved) in 1947 . He was also thought active in bootlegging and bookmaking during his career.

In 1958, Carbo was indicted along with Frank “Blinky” Palermo with seven counts of undercover management and two counts of unlicensed matchmaking in fights. Charges included conspiring with Herman (Hymie the Mink) Waller, New York furrier and fight manager, to commit a crime of undercover management of boxer Don Jordan. While awaiting trial on Rikers Island in New York, he was brought before the Kefauver Committee in Washington, D.C. investigating organized crime. Carbo responded to each of the 25 questions he was asked by invoking the Fifth Amendment giving up no information.

The Czar of Boxing was convicted in July of 1961 with Attorney General Robert Kennedy as U.S. prosecutor and was sentenced to 25 years at McNeil Island Penitentiary in the state of Washington. Like many mobsters during jail time, he remained a powerful influence in his criminal domain. Kennedy long suspected him of continued involvement in the fight world and particularly with Sonny Liston. Carbo was released for health reasons 12 years into his sentence. He died in 1976, aged 72 at a Miami Beach hospital.

Dundee probably didn’t need Carbo’s help during the ensuing Muhammad Ali years, but he maintained  that the czar was a gentleman, if not a friend. The Dundees are gone now and so too the electrifying days of heavyweight stars, matchups at the Miami Beach Auditorium and the roof raisers at the Garden. And mob influence?   Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

For more on the 5th Street Gym, see the labels for boxing or use search box.

Sources:

Pacheco, Ferdie. Tales from the 5^th Street Gym. University Press (2010).

Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires. Thomas Dunne Books (2006).

Chicago Daily Defender, Jul. 24, 1958

New York Amsterdam News, Jul. 25, 1958

Chicago Daily Defender, Nov. 2, 1959

New York Amsterdam News, Nov. 7, 1959

Chicago Daily Defender Mar. 21, 1962

Miami News, Nov. 29, 1954

New York Times, Nov. 11, 1976

Tags: Boxing history, Chris Dundee, Mob history, Miami Beach history

Brothers Dundee, the 5th Street Gym, and boxing's best days in Miami Beach

By Jane Feehan

Angelo Dundee at Rourke -Powell fight 1991
Florida State Archives

I was hooked on boxing as a kid after seeing World Heavyweight Champion Floyd Patterson running along River Road in Chatham, N.J., training for his matchup with Ingemar Johansson. In his early 20s then, Patterson exuded intensity and purpose, endurance and physical magnificence. I was awe struck when I learned it was all for professional fighting.

A few years later we moved to Fort Lauderdale, about 25 miles from the epicenter of boxing, the 5th Street Gym in Miami Beach. Lucky were they who climbed those creaky wood stairs to the dilapidated, termite-infested gym sitting above a drugstore and news stand.  How else to authentically experience this fraternity of the "sweet science" whose members were punching, jabbing, left hooking and pivoting hours each day in hopes of reaching pugilistic fame and fortune? I could only read about it … and that was OK.

Born in Philadelphia, Chris Dundee (1907-1998) had managed the boxing career of brother and club fighter, Joe Dundee. The family name was Mirena but “Dundee” sounded Irish, loaning (they thought) street cred to their boxing finesse and promoting abilities. It stuck.

Chris first came to Miami Beach in 1938 to promote the Ken Overlin-Ben Brown fight at the jai alai fronton. The area was ripe for boxing events; Miami was the new land of opportunity. He returned to stay in 1950 and opened a gym at 5th Street and Washington Avenue. Younger brother Angelo Dundee (1921-2012), who gave the gym its name, came aboard as trainer and manager. The Miami Beach Auditorium often served as stage for official boxing events. Chris remained the consummate promoter, keeping seats filled. With complementing skills, they yin-yanged their way to success. 

Brothers Dundee kept the gym humming with hopefuls and Chris scored a few notable promotions. The first big smack up was in 1956 with the lightweight World’s Championship fight between Wallace “Bud” Smith and Joe Brown. The most famous, of course, was the Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston matchup for the World Heavyweight title in 1964. It catapulted Clay, who had just taken the name Muhammad Ali, the 5th Street Gym, and the Dundees—especially Angelo—into world fame.

There was another among the gym’s notables who rode this rising tide.

Dr. Ferdie Pacheco (1927-2017) operated a free clinic in Miami’s poor Overtown neighborhood when he joined the cast of characters at the 5th Street Gym in 1962. He became known as the fight doctor, corner man and personal physician to Ali and other boxers. Pacheco left Ali’s camp after a controversial bout with Ernie Shavers in 1977. He went on to become a media personality as boxing analyst for NBC and Univision. Pacheco and Ali remained friends.

Pacheco’s book, Tales from the 5th Street Gym (University of Florida Press, 2010) captures both the history of the gym and essence of what it meant to fighters. Among them included a troupe of talented Cuban pugs, their fellow exile fans, and other managers and trainers during the decades before the gym's demolition in 1993. Several practitioners of the sweet science contributed to Pacheco’s compilation, but he set the background and tone, providing context. His wife, Luisita Sevilla Pacheco, provided many of the photos.

To know the gym’s history is to understand why Ferdie Pacheco was “steamed” in 2006 when Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer ceremoniously installed a plaque at the site of the demolished gym dedicated solely to Angelo Dundee who was on hand for the occasion. Chris was gone by then but Angie remained in the collective conscience (he still does). 

Powell-Rourke fight 1991
Florida State archives

Pacheco was a treasure trove of good, bad and hilarious memories from this Golden Era of boxing. He was a prolific writer, with 14 books to his credit and painter of works that fetch thousands.

No, I never made it to that boxing mecca in South Beach, but reading the doctor’s tales was almost as good as climbing those stairs to boxing heaven. Sweet.

Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Tags: history of Miami Beach, Ferdie Pacheco, Angelo Dundee, Chris Dundee, Muhammad Ali,  5th Street Gym, film researcher, Miami Beach history, Jane Feehan

The Liston-Clay fight in Miami Beach, a star is born

Feb. 25, 1964 Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

It was announced in December 1963 that a matchup between boxing champ Sonny Liston and the brash Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) would be held at the Miami Beach Convention Hall in February, 1964. 

The attorney representing Liston was Martha Jefferson Louis, wife of famed boxer Joe Louis. Miami millionaire Bill MacDonald and boxing promoter Chris Dundee were instrumental in bringing the historic fight to Miami Beach.

MacDonald guaranteed the pugilists $625,000 for the “live gate,” revenue derived from the sale of seats that sold for $20-$250. With 16,000 seats in the hall, a sellout would garner $1.1 million. Liston would get 40 percent, Clay, 22 ½.  MacDonald needed $800,000 to break even. Closed circuit TV would generate even more money after Theater Network Television took its 15 percent. 

MacDonald’s expectations merged with differing expectations for the outcome of the fight.

Some thought the pairing a mismatch; Clay, at 22, was thought to be too young—not ready—to beat the powerful and ferocious Liston, nicknamed “Big Bear.” About 30 years old (he was not sure of his birth date), Liston had a 35-1 record with 24 knockouts.

“No one could ever convince me that anyone could beat Sonny Liston,” said Dick Cami, one-time boxing manager and owner of Miami Beach’s Peppermint Lounge. “He had it all—the weight, the jaw, the punch and the reach ... he had unusually long arms.”

The Associated Press reported Liston stood to earn $1.6 million in a fight that may not last three rounds. Liston had anticipated no more than three rounds. Others mused it would be a good fight because Clay, “the Louisville Lip,” had already won 19 fights, 15 by knockouts. He was fast on his feet and fast with the punches.   Clay, 1960 Olympic Games light heavyweight gold medalist, already known for his dramatic outbursts (and poetry), claimed he would win in eight, five or three rounds. In any case, he planned to “upset the whole world.”

Sparring for the Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1964 fight began immediately. The two snarled at each other when meeting up accidentally at Dundee’s Fifth Street Gym where Clay was training with Angelo Dundee. Messages were exchanged before the big event with Liston claiming Clay was “his million dollar baby.” Clay’s poetic yet taunting prediction began with: Clay comes out to meet Liston and Liston starts to retreat; If Liston goes back an inch farther he’ll end up in a ringside seat.

Liston and Clay knew how to display both sides of their personalities. The Big Bear, a guest at the Casablanca Hotel on Miami Beach, played unofficial entertainment director, shaking hands and hamming it up by the pool lifting women into the air while husbands snapped pictures with their Brownie cameras. Ed Sullivan introduced Liston and Joe Louis sitting together in the audience at the Deauville Hotel for the Beatles' appearance on his show.*

Clay worked just as hard to let the world know who he was.

Ali in 1978,
Courtesy of the Maryland Stater

“To know Cassius, like the saying goes, was to love him,” Cami said.  Before the fight, Clay came into the Peppermint Lounge to visit (but never drink) with singer Dee Dee Sharp who had recently recorded the hit Mashed Potatoes. “He was in every sense of the word a gentleman and definitely not a womanizer,” recalled Cami.  One night the young fighter asked Cami if he could park his bus outside the lounge.

“He had a bus with a giant picture of him on each side and the 79th Street Causeway (where the Peppermint Lounge was located) was a perfect place for it to be seen," Cami said.

Clay’s public relations campaign continued. A few days after they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Beatles stopped by the Fifth Street Gym where he playfully lifted one or two of them off their feet for the press.

The days for playing hard and training harder quickly slipped away as the main event approached.

During weigh-in the morning of the big day, the two continued the taunting. Clay’s outbursts were so wild that he was later fined by the Miami Boxing Commission. They eventually got down to business. Clay, at 6’3” weighed 210 pounds while 6’ 1” Liston weighed in at 218 pounds. The reach of the Louisville Lip was two inches shorter than that of the Big Bear. The fight was on.

Liston, a 7-1 favorite, came out like a bear for the first three rounds, but suddenly lost advantage to the younger Clay. The Louisville Lip landed a punch that left a deep gash beneath Liston’s eye. It bled heavily and later needed eight stitches. When the bell rang for the seventh round, Liston remained in the corner; his shoulder was reportedly injured. Clay was declared heavyweight champ of the world.  “I am the greatest,” the 22-year-old yelled. He had indeed upset the world. He was the greatest.

The outcome did not prove as pleasant for Bill MacDonald. Only 6,297 seats were sold out of the 16,000 in the hall. A news story reporting Cassius Clay had joined ranks with the Black Muslims turned spectators away who took a dim view of the group. Others reported seeing Clay with Malcolm X.

Whatever the reasons, the live gate brought in only $402,000; Liston (who died in 1970) reportedly received $367,000. MacDonald was mentioned as a defendant the following year in a law suit resulting from the fight.

After the historic fight, Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali. According to Cami, Angelo Dundee told him efforts by the Black Muslims to fire him and hire one of their own were spurned by Ali. The young fighter was smart; he remained loyal to the trainer who helped him earn his title.

Ali fought his last match in 1981, ending a career of 61 fights with 56 wins and 37 knock outs. The fighter who took control over his own image from the beginning became as mellow and majestic as an aging lion. Once one of the most recognized faces on the globe, Muhammad Ali died June 3, 2016 at 74.  Copyright © 2019. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

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* It was a banner year for Miami Beach: the Beatles, the Liston-Clay fight and then the Jackie Gleason Show announced its plans to broadcast from the city.

Miami News, Dec. 6, 1963

Miami News, Dec. 10, 1963

Palm Beach Post, Feb. 23, 1964

Palm Beach Daily News, Jan. 7, 1965

Kleinberg, Howard. Miami Beach: A History. Miami. Centennial Press (1994)

Tags: Muhammad Ali, Sonny Liston, Liston-Clay fight 1964, Miami Beach in the 1960s, Dick Cami, Peppermint Lounge, film researcher, boxing history, Miami Beach history