 |
BALANCE THE LOST ART OF BOXING
BALANCE THE LOST ART OF BOXING
Written by Sug Bolden, Charles Hickerson & Nichelle Rue
Albert Bolden (aka: Suger or Sug) for short was born on June 26, 1946. Sug was raised by his grandmother on Shakespeare Street, in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. When the Friday night fights sponsored by Gillette razor first came on in 1954, 8-year-old Sug was glued to the tube mimicking the moves of the boxers. No matter what was taking place at the time, no matter the fun he might have been having outside, religiously when that opening bell rang to signal the beginning of the first fight of the evening, he dropped everything to be in front of the console shadow boxing along with the combatants blow for blow.
An interruption came in the form of a bout with acute rheumatic fever which almost killed him. After one month in the hospital recovering from his near fatal illness, the doctor announced that from that time forward Sug was to take it easy for the rest of his life, no running upstairs, no strenuous activity at all. Sug took this as a challenge and was determined to prove the doctor wrong. Five days later he was sneaking out to play football with the neighborhood kids against his grandmother’s orders. When she found out about his act of disobedience she announced, “If you have enough energy to go out playin’ football, you got enough energy to take this whuppin’”.
Sug, never wanted to become a boxer, he loved football. He went into boxing, more so to please his father (Charles Bolden) than anything else and discovered he was a natural at the sweet science. In his first amateur fight, The Allegheny Mountain Association 3 night tournament Sug won the whole fight with one punch one jab, he was a nauvous. His next opponent in the tournament mysteriously failed to appear for the deciding match. Sug won the tournament by default. Two weeks later Sug fought again and lost to Mitchell Brown a veteran fighter with the Charlie Daniels boxing club in the hill district of Pittsburgh, PA. Sug was anxious to get out of Pittsburgh and see the world. In 1965, he joined the Navy. Following his naval training at the Great Lakes Naval Base, he was stationed in Charlestown, South Carolina where, with only two fights under his belt, he won the middleweight championship and was voted most outstanding boxer of the tournament. To his great dismay, he found himself being shipped out to Holly lock, Scotland, but once there he found a way to swap assignments and managed to get back stateside . Two weeks later while in dry dock in Norfolk, Virginia,
Sug found out that the all east-coast championships were being held. He got excited and asked permission from his captain and was granted permission to participate. Sug won his first two fights. Although he lost in the finals on a close decision, he caught the eye of the head coach of the all-navy boxing team Dick Pettigrew.
Dick was a big, burley African American man from Tyler, Texas as expansive as the state itself and a dominant boxer in his own right who ruled the heavyweight division of the military championships for quite a while before he retired. He still looked as if he could go a few rounds when he spotted Sug in the locker room. In his Texas Drawl, Dick said to Sug “Hey Jum Bunny Joker, how many fights you had?” “Oh about 24 or so,” Sug lied. “Go ahead Jum Bunny you ain’t had no 24 fights.”
Despite Pettigrew’s skepticism about Sug’s experience, he liked what he saw enough to invite Sug to replace the current middleweight on the all-navy team who was soon to be discharged. Sug did not disappoint him. Sug immediately went on to win middleweight championships in both the Charleston Naval Base Invitational and the Norfolk Naval Base Invitational where he also won most outstanding boxer. He won both the Virginia and North Carolina AAU championships in 1967. In 1968 Sug won the all east coast, all navy middleweight, and all service (army,airforce,marine corp). Who would have thought that a kid from the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Shakespeare St.) would end up traveling the world, to the Olympics as an alternate with a number two amateur ranking in the United States?
Sug found himself in the Olympic trials seeking a place on the boxing team coached by the legendary Pappy Gault. He won the first and second nights and went to the finals and fought Al Jones from the Detroit AAU. Sug was winning the fight against Al Jones, he had the only knockdown before he hurt his hand in the last 30 seconds left of the fight. His back was up against the ropes when the bell rang he lost the by one point to Al Jones but made the trip as an alternate instead. The next morning the team left for Alberque New Mexico and two days later he was fighting again, a rematch with all the fighters that fought in Maumee Ohio. After loosing that fight again by one point with a sore swollen hand Sug decided to go back to Norfolk Va. early.
Returning from the Olympics, he successfully defended his all east coast and all-navy championships in 1969. Before getting a chance to defend his all armed forces championship he was honorably discharged from the navy in 1969. Upon advice from his father the late Charles Bolden, Sug decided to turn pro.
In 1970 with only two pro fights under his belt, Sug was recruited by the legendary Pappy Gault to join him at the Harry Lundenberg School of Seamanship in Piney Point, Maryland. A couple of weeks later Pappy got a call from the great Bob Foster, light-heavyweight champion of the world undefeated with a string of knockouts on his resume. Bob Foster was tall, with broad shoulders, a wicked jab and a devastating knockout punch. Consequently he must be regarded as one of the greatest light-heavy weights in boxing history.
Foster was so good, he was having a hard time finding challengers let alone sparing partners with the courage to get into the ring with him, which prompted the call to Gault. It goes without saying that Sug was honored to spar with the champ for a few rounds. “Hey partner,” Foster said in that deep voice of his, “I like the way you made me miss. How would you like to go on the road with me as my chief sparing partner?” With overwhelming gratitude Sug took the position thinking he’d be one of several different sparing partners preparing the champ for his fights. “Little did I know,” says Sug, “I’d be his only sparing partner.” On the road Sug went, padding his own resume with a knock-out against one opponent Josh Hall on the under card of Foster’s champion ship bout in Baltimore Maryland, As well as invaluable experience from a champion who would become a boxing icon. After accompanying the champ on a couple of successful title defenses, Sug’s restlessness to pursue his own career caused him to break camp with the champ.
Under the enticement of a cousin who spoke highly of the Portland, Oregon, Sug decided to find out what fighters were in Portland, Oregon. It didn’t take long for Sug to make his decision to take the plane to Oregon when he found that a couple of notable boxers Andy Kendall, Ray Lampkin and Denny Moyer were training there.
Sug called the boxing commission and found that the manager for Ray and Andy was Mike Morton. Sug contacted Mike and made arrangements to meet him at the airport in Portland, Or. In 1972 when Sug arrived at the airport in Portland, Or he was met by Mike Morton and an older gentleman by the name of Jack Bracke. Sug had no idea who Jack Bracke was at that time.
Jack was a quiet, white haired, 65 year old grandfatherly gentleman with a wealth of boxing knowledge. In his over 50 years in the fight game he worked with a slew of champions including the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis. Fighters swore by Jack Bracke. In all his years as a trainer, manager and corner man, Bracke never had a fighter knocked out. He also estimated that his fighters won 90 percent of their fights. The key to his success he stated, was that he never worked with bums. Bracke saw talent in Sug and when he took Sug under his wing that is when Sug began to truly blossom as a boxer and boxing became easy to Sug and he enjoyed it and got serious.
Two weeks after arriving in Portland Sug won his first fight with a 1st round knockout. In his second fight he dominated his opponent for four rounds then in the 5th he ran out of gas. It was then that Jack determined Sug was to be a light-heavy weight as opposed to a middleweight. He put Sug on a diet that included beer ale in order to put some heft on him and to put more weight behind his punches. He showed Sug how to properly position his feet, to have balance and how to hit without getting hit. That’s when boxing became easy for Sug and he started taking boxing serious. Sug won his next 7 fights and achieved a number 6 pro ranking in the United States as a light heavyweight. Sug left Portland, however, due to a bitter dispute with his manager at the time. During the two years that Sug trained in Portland, Oregon he sparred with Andy Kendall, the number one light heavy weight contender of the world and Denny Moyer the Jr. middle weight champion of the world, that makes two world champions and one number one contender that Sug Bolden had sparred with and gained knowledge from.
It wasn’t until 1984, after Sugs boxing days were over that it suddenly dawned on him how critical Jack Bracke’s training had been to his own success as a professional boxer. He had obtained a video of one of his lasts fights, the only video he owns of any of his fights. He sat down to watch it for the first time. The fight was in Atlantic City, 1981. At 34 he was ten years older than his opponent Mike Rossman. Rossman was from Atlantic City so the crowd was partisan. A few years before Rossman had achieved fame as a Jewish Bomber with a string of knockouts to his credit, known not only for being a hard puncher, but someone who could also take your best shot and still keep coming. His tenacity had earned him the light-heavy weight championship of the world. He was world champion with a decent punch.
He was to eventually loose the championship and when he and Sug met ,Sug was to be just one in a series of journeyman fighters Rossman would face on his way to another title shot. Little did Rossman know what he was about to face. For nine rounds of a ten round bout Sug totally dominated the fight peppering Rossman’s face with stinging jabs. Sug’s delivery was so much quicker than Rossmans ability to defend himself, that Sug seemed to be landing blows at will.
By the end of the fight Rossman’s cut up and swollen face told the tale of a fighter who had taken a sound beating. It was a forgone conclusion, that outside of a miracle Sug had the bout wrapped up. But, as fate would have it a miracle occurred in the form a straight right hand to Sug’s ear that blew out his eardrum in the 10th and final round. The pain was utterly and unbelievably excruciating. He went down on one knee. Being in such pain he was unable to stand for the count and lost the fight on a KO. Be that as it may, it wasn’t until watching that fight for the first time that he realized what this wise old man had taught him that enabled him to dominate this world champion caliber fighter, ten years his junior, so handily.
Before the Rossman fight, it had been six years since he’d left Portland in anger over problems he’d been having with his manager. Because of Jack’s practice of working with only promising fighters, if had Sug stayed it is a good chance that with his talents and Jack’s teachings he would have become a world champion in 1975. Now, with the aid of age and maturity Sug has come to see just how special Jack Bracke really was. It all came back to him, the man and his teachings, the man Sug referred to as his second father, a man he called pops.
As it is with so many so called secrets, the Jack Bracke style of boxing amounts to nothing more than ancient knowledge that has been suppressed by a current movement. That movement in boxing as Sug sees it is going in the direction of mediocrity owing to the bad technique of the boxers under the bad influence of men who pass for trainers, not all but many. What is missing is the element of teaching. In any profession it is the basics upon which everything else is built and when we are in a slump it is always the basics to which we return.
Sug is not selling himself, he sells the Jack Bracke technique that has been tried and true through a decade long career working with a string of champions and title contenders. In this sense he doesn’t consider himself a trainer, but a teacher in the style of Jack Bracke taking on the mantel of boxing knowledge that has long been suppressed and needs to be once again revived for the sake of the quality of boxing. Sug wants to return the quality of boxing by going back to the basics by paying homage to Bracke’s approach to resurrect the art of boxing. A trainer puts an athlete through his or her paces. A teacher instructs and corrects. The inspiration for teaching the Bracke technique is manifested not only via his record, but in Sug it is manifested in personal experience. Under the tutelage of Bracke he went from being a good fighter to a very good fighter, and had he stayed with Pops he would have become a great fighter.
Such devotion, rooted in personal experience, to Bracke’s approach to the art of boxing has lead Sug on a crusade of sorts to promote not just Bracke’s style but Bracke the man, because for Sug Jack Bracke was a great man who taught him valuable lessons about boxing and the myths about boxing. Owing to this sense of indebtedness to a great teacher it is Sug’s intention to establish a boxing fund in Bracke’s honor devoted to youth programs in the Portland, Oregon area centered around teaching the art of boxing using Bracke’s style.
At this point in time practitioners of the Bracke style of boxing are few and far between. Since Jack died, Sug has taken up the banner and is one of those who holds the secrets that created champions and contenders on a steady basis. Bracke’s fighters won 90 percent of their fights. That is a fairly high ratio by any standard. The odds are in favor of the Bracke taught fighter and if you want to give your fighter the best advantage to win with a tried and true style Sug Bolden is at your disposal, 832-643-4405 /412-600-3472.
Send E-Mail to: boldenbigsis@aol.com
Copyright © 2005 Nichelle Rue. All Rights Reserved