Ringside Report Remembers the Legendary Willie Pep
By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart
Honesty has always been, in my opinion, a decent policy. So, this is where I throw up my hands and tell you something that may lower my esteemed reputation amongst all the dear good readers. I turned my attention this week to a boxer I happened to know little about. It may be my UK centric point of view and it may be that in my upbringing his name was just simply never mentioned but there you are – I knew very little about Willie Pep.
Now don’t judge me, I am a simple boy from the West Coast of Ayrshire with an interest in boxing that goes beyond a pay per view subscription but it’s true. Willie Pep was a stranger to me.
But he is a stranger no more.
I took myself off to trawl the internet and various books because people had talked in glowing terms about his career and how he was their favorite fighter or how he was THE guy in the 1940’s or he just was a genius in the ring. What did I find out? Let me tell you…
William Guiglermo Papaleo, born in 1922, in Connecticut was an immigrant’s son of Italian descent. Tired of getting beat up by other kids he took up the noble art. So far not an unusual story and I was far from excited as this is the kind of story most boxers can tell. I was still green but willing and eager to know why people saw him as such a talent…
His amateur career ran for two and a half years where he boxed 65 times and lost in only 3 contests. He managed to win Connecticut championships in two weight divisions over the time he fought – flyweight and bantamweight. Again, so far, so what. I mean an amateur career that did not get out the States? Then you have to remember it was pre-World War II and amateur boxing was far more local than it is global nowadays.
He turned professional at the age of 19. It was 1940 and the world was gripped in the midst of a Nazi invasion of Europe that would be the sole focus of people like my parents over here in the UK. The US were still to enter that party whilst Pep became the youngest boxer in 40 years to win a world title. It was at featherweight – and there was meant to be only one champion in those days – when he beat Albert Wright on November 20th, 1942.
If the world was looking the other way at the time, trust boxing politics as it was not prepared to let a world war get in the way of a good internal fight and the National Boxing Association refused to accept Pep as the world champ as they had one of their own – Sal Bartolo. So, on the 9th April 1943, Pep beat him to become a unified champ. OK so the youngest in 40 years gets me going and the unification fight is always something we like to see but it was during the war years – were there enough good enough fighters out there who were not laying their lives on the line in combat to challenge Pep?
It was a title he kept until, in 1948, Pep lost it to Sandy Saddler, getting knocked out in the 4th round. Now by 1948 this was a guy who was racking up double figures in fights EVERY year. This first fight with Saddler was the first of several tremendous brawls and contests between them. Pep was beginning to show his pedigree against anything that came his way. He had also managed to fit in a stint in the Navy from 1943 to 1944 when he was discharged with distinction; then he joined the Army in 1945!
It’s about now that I began to change from indifference to enthusiasm. Not the fact that the guy fought for his country, again many do that, but that he continued to box and win whilst serving his country – in two services! The morale boost that must have given people was palpable. It was also reported in 1947 that he had been in a bad plane crash – this cut his time in the ring down a bit – he only fought 10 times that year! The plane crash saw three passengers killed and 18 injured. Pep was among those injured – he broke his left leg and two vertebrae in his back. Took him six months to recover and then go and defend successfully his world title!
Nowadays any injury can end up with a fighter not fighting for months but Pep got to the ring and took on only 10 guys because of it!
Of course, he probably should never have been allowed near a ring and the injury could have been life threatening but he did and he won! You have to applaud the guy’s tenacity, bravery and the fact he lived into his eighties!
As I started to write this I realized that of the 241 fights that Pep had I was only going to scratch the surface. I was not going to be able to draw the right and detailed enough picture of a guy who is still held in such high regard in any column – so I aint gonna!
This speedy, feet fast, solid boxer who frustrated people and then knocked them out stood like a colossus – which at 5 foot 5 was no easy feat – in the boxing world of the 1940’s and 1950’a then took 6 years off and in the sixties boxed 10 times and won 9 of them!
Somebody once said he boxed like a tap dancer with gloves on and the YouTube footage of him tells us they aint far wrong. Now as a fan of a man I just got to know I am off to do some more digging!
Win an autographed copy of Mike Tyson’s autobiography “UNDISPUTED TRUTH” by clicking HERE and subscribing to be entered to win this great prize along with any future ones!
[si-contact-form form=’2′]