Zora Folley: Portrait of the Pugilist as a Sweet Old Man-Part I
By Chris “Man of Few Words” Benedict
Zora Folley’s pubescent metamorphosis from easy pickings for neighborhood ruffians to teenage baseball star was swift and startling and helped him finally ease his 6-foot-1, 180-pound frame into firm acceptance of the transplantation from Texas to Arizona he experienced at the age of ten. He was well thought-of by the community of Chandler, would be during his prizefighting career, and remains so to this day.
Boasting wins in the Seattle Golden Gloves and Pacific Northwest championships, boxing appeared on Zora’s radar even before he was conscripted into the U.S. Army in 1948, his impressive physical stature no doubt assisting in the subterfuge of convincing recruiters that he was of legal age and not a greenhorn of 16. Stationed in Fort Ord, California, Folley’s unexpected re-introduction to the boxing ring came as a voluntary last-second replacement for his injured platoon sergeant who was due to defend his heavyweight title against a serviceman by the name of Lucius Tate.
Despite losing soundly, and hitting the deck in all three rounds in the process, Folley would commit himself to avenging the defeat, which he would later that year in a match to determine the camp’s 6th Army Champion. Zora would subsequently go on to win the All-Army, All-Service, Mid-Atlantic Inter-Service Athletic Conference, Japan, and Far Eastern Command titles. These accomplishments, as well as those to follow, would always pale in comparison, in Folley’s estimation, to the five battle stars awarded to him for meritorious valor exhibited in his conduct as a sergeant during combat missions carried out in the Korean War. Those medals, and the 1953 honorable discharge they earned him, would serve as points of pride but also stark reminders of the horrors of conflict and bloodshed, contending later in life that whatever uncertainty or doubt may have entered his thought process before, during, or after a boxing match, war had removed fear from ever again entering into the equation.
Forgoing an amateur career, Folley signed a 10-year contract with Phoenix-based manager and promoter Al Fenn hot on the heels of his Army discharge and made his professional debut against journeyman Jimmy Ingram at Los Angeles’ Olympic Auditorium. Their pact included a morals clause which was entirely superfluous owing to Zora’s family-oriented, teetotaling lifestyle. He would remain undefeated until his loss to Johnny Summerlin, floored in the first round and twice more in the sixth before his corner stopped the fight.
“I tried to train Folley right, bring him along steady against the right opponents,” Fenn later reminisced. “I only wish that I had not matched him against Summerlin. Folley was not quite ready for him.” Looking to keep his man active and consequently not allow him to dwell on the temporary setback, Fenn had Folley back at the Olympic only six weeks later to put Jake Williams away in round seven. Three fights later, Folley was taking on California State heavyweight title holder John Lee Storey, who fought under the appropriated moniker Young Jack Johnson (there were also “Young” versions of Peter Jackson, Joe Gans, Joe Walcott, Norfolk, Siki, and more recently Joe Louis, Dick Tiger, and Ali), who was, like Folley, a former Army champion. As in the Summerlin bout, Zora was unable to answer the bell, this time following the fifth round in which he sustained a broken rib at Johnson’s powerful hands.
Before being matched against Nino Valdes, Folley would fight four tune-ups against lesser competition, including navigating his way to a win over Ponce de Leon. This important step up for Folley couldn’t have come at a more opportune time as Valdes was riding a rough stretch of road, having lost five of his last seven fights, two of which were to Eddie Machen. Folley extended Nino’s losing streak by way of unanimous decision. Two close, controversial points wins over Wayne Bethea aside, Folley had little problem punching his way to the #2 heavyweight ranking, winning all 18 fights since the defeat to Young Jack Johnson and setting up his face-off with top-rated Eddie Machen to determine a sure-to-be-mandatory challenger to Floyd Patterson.
Despite the fact that Folley was the more seasoned of the two and held the edge in experience, wins, and rounds fought, Machen entered the Cow Palace not only with an undefeated record of 24-0, but with the supplemental knowledge that those victories came against much stiffer competition. And, even if both men were known first and foremost as defensively minded, cautious (sometimes overly so) counter-punchers, Machen was also acknowledged as the more assertive and, therefore, as a 2 ½ to 1 odds-on favorite. That said, Eddie mounted a too-little, too-late offensive in the later rounds and generally “seemed baffled by the potent left jab of the No. 2 challenger to Floyd Patterson’s crown” according to the report issued by the Associated Press which unofficially scored the fight 117-116 in favor of Folley but wound up in the record books as a split draw. Zora’s manager Bill Swift, having purchased Folley’s contract from Al Fenn (who retained a 3 and 1/2 % interest), was in obvious agreement with the AP when he vented defiantly, like any good corner man worth his ten cent cigar, “That decision was the biggest robbery I’ve ever seen.” Jack Dempsey, who like fellow former heavyweight champion Joe Louis, was in attendance and submitted his assessment that Folley looked good but that Machen’s style was better suited to giving Floyd Patterson problems in a potential matchup.
So, instead, Patterson cut Roy Harris to ribbons but shrunk back from finishing him off, leaving Harris’ father Henry to throw in the towel after twelve bloody rounds and prompting sportswriter Jimmy Cannon to belittle Patterson with the remark that “compassion is a defect in a fighter.” Hoping to bump the dents out of his severely impaired reputation, Floyd became determined to work his way through the top ten contenders, one fight at a time, starting at the top. Which, for all intents and purposes, meant against Eddie Machen and then presumably Zora Folley, depending on the first result. But, Folley and Machen, before either could entertain the notion of a once-again realistic title shot against Patterson, were both already contractually obligated to make their first fistic treks outside of America. Before heading to London to face Henry Cooper, Folley had some unfinished business stateside, a points win over Art Swiden and a fourth round knockout of Pete Rademacher.
Cooper, like Zora Folley, was still in the upswing of a storied, if not spotty, career when the two met at Wembley’s Empire Pool in October 1958. Having been knocked out in the fifth round by Ingemar Johansson in a challenge for Ingo’s European Boxing Union title, Cooper would win the British Board of Control and the Commonwealth heavyweight championships from Brian London less than three months removed from his fight with Zora. These belts he would retain for twelve years, eventually adding the EBU strap then worn by Karl Mildenberger to his collection, and would have retired with them if not for being burglarized of all three by a (no longer possible) quarter of a point in what he previously announced would be his last ever fight against Joe Bugner in March 1971. Not to be outdone by the various nicknames given to Johansson’s murderous right hook (Toonder and Lightning, The Hammer of Thor), Cooper would invent one of his own for the devastating upward left hand he seemingly threw from the hip. ‘Enry’s ‘Ammer. “The right hand was just to wipe me sweat away,” Cooper would quip.
Folley went to work shooting hard rights directly behind his trademark left jab, carving up Henry’s suspect left eye in the very first round. A wild ten-punch combination by Folley forced Cooper to take a knee but, rather than surge forward and press the advantage, Zora rocked back on his heels, took a few tentative and ineffective pot-shots, then patted Henry on the belly on their respective walks back to the corner. Cooper repaid the favor by desperately carrying the fight to Folley, slugging away for all he was worth as Zora could do little else down the stretch then roll his head across Henry’s hemorrhaging left eye in the clinches, perhaps hoping to exacerbate the already copious flow of blood and induce a stoppage.
Regardless, it was Cooper’s hand and not Folley’s which was raised in victory by referee Tommy Little (by British rules, the sole decider) no sooner than the final bell sounded. Folley remained in England for five weeks after his loss to Henry Cooper and dominated Jamaican-born Joe Bygraves in Leicester, flooring him for a “long count” in the second round (which resulted from a miscommunication between the referee and timekeeper) but, unlike against Cooper, was intent on maintaining his aggressive edge, sealing shut Bygraves’ left eye while landing 10 punches to every one of his opponent’s. Referee Frank Wilson waved Zora off of a terribly outclassed Bygraves with only one second left on the clock in the 9th and penultimate round.
Continuing his winning ways with impressive and hard-won decisions over tough Alex Miteff and Willi Besmanoff as well as knockouts of Alvin Williams and Monroe Ratliff, Folley had every right to come into the Cow Palace on January 18, 1960 riding a wave of restored self-confidence and, despite there being less on the line than in their highly-anticipated first encounter, Zora used his jab, effective body work, and left hook to outpoint Eddie Machen to a earn the unanimous decision.
Whether or not Zora Folley believed he had a legitimate shot at defeating Sonny Liston, he surely hoped to make a better account of himself than those who served “The Big Bear” as no more than grist for the mill. Unfortunately for Folley, he would wind up the newest prize for Liston’s trophy wall. Despite entering the contest as the #1 ranked heavyweight challenger, Liston had to concede the lion’s share of the purse ($25,000 as opposed to $40,000 for Folley, rated at #2 or 3, depending on which list you subscribed to-Ring magazine or the National Boxing Association) to make the fight happen.
Putting up a decent showing in the first round by swatting Sonny away with his left jab and hoping to establish a large enough gap between the two that he could begin to land the right hand over the top of it, Liston would move in on Zora’s real estate and come to collect back rent early in the second round with a crushing left/right combination. To give credit where credit is due, Folley took a nine count from referee Joe Ulmer and rushed forward behind a series of punches which backed Liston into the ropes. His advantage would prove short-lived, however, as Sonny sent Folley face forward onto the canvas as the result of another concussive left hook with that lumbering right hand smash directly following it which looked, and most certainly must have felt, like a fallen tree whistling through the forest air whose impact there is simply no time to protect against. As the bell rung to signal the end of the second round, Ulmer had just reached the count of nine while Folley had yet to struggle to his feet.
His corner may have been better served cutting their losses then and there, as Zora’s luck would last only until the 28 second mark of the third when Liston finished him off with a right cross and left hook. This was only Folley’s third loss and first knockout but it appeared for a long while as if his days as a bona fide contender were all but over. Appearances, of course, have a way of being deceiving.
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