Eddie Machen: Former Heavyweight Contender Remembered – Part I

By Chris “Man of Few Words” Benedict

The origin of Eddie Machen’s fist fighting vocation, like many before him and countless more after, can be traced directly back to juvenile delinquency. His father Norman struggled to support his stay-at-home wife and their six sons (Eddie being third oldest) on a rural letter carrier’s salary from the U.S. Postal Service in working-class Redding, California. Machen would be billed during his career as “The Shasta Blaster”, a nod to the name given the county to which Redding serves as administrative center as well as the arch-gravity dam spanning the Sacramento River, broken ground on and officially named in 1937 then completed eight years later when Eddie was on the verge of turning 13.

Also a standout in basketball at Shasta Union High School, Machen made a name for himself as a starting fullback on the varsity football team as a sophomore. But Eddie’s academic career would terminate there. A fan of Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson, he abandoned his jobs selling newspapers and resetting pins at a bowling alley and dropped out of school, first getting mixed up with the wrong crowd and picking fights in the streets before pursuing boxing, which was literally in his blood. His first formal trainer and manager was also his uncle. Dave Mills fought as a heavyweight between 1908 and 1920, retiring with a rather humdrum record of 6-8-6 which included no-contests against Harry Wills and Young Peter Jackson, as well as a second
round TKO loss to Sam Langford who was defending his World Colored Heavyweight title.

After relocating to Chile, Mills would be crowned in 1919 as the inaugural South American Heavyweight champion by virtue of a 15-round decision over “The Wild Bull of the Pampas” Luis Angel Firpo, whose claim to fame remains having knocked Jack Dempsey clean out of the ring (from where he was assisted back between the ropes by writers and photographers) for an alleged total of fourteen seconds, making this 1923 episode the first of two controversial “long count” fights (with very different outcomes-he would recover and put Firpo away within one minute of the very next round) with which Dempsey is associated.

Before that, though, Firpo would win the South American championship from, and defend it successfully against, Dave Mills, both first round knockouts which would prove to be Machen’s Uncle Dave’s fistic swan song.

Three fights (and a fallout with Uncle Dave) into an abridged amateur career, Eddie Machen would be sentenced to an equal number of years in prison on an armed robbery conviction. Though he claimed that he “went in as a kid” and “came out grown up, determined never to be jailed again”, finding trouble over the course of the next seventeen years would prove far easier for Eddie than accepting and dealing with its consequences.

Machen seemed at a loss for direction and identity after regaining his freedom, toiling away but at least earning an honest living at chopping down trees as well as delivering mail like his dad. Lee Hughes, a local boxing instructor, came along to provide the necessary guidance to Eddie, who may have been accelerating in physical strength but, mentally, was still spinning his wheels. He took the 23 year-old under his wings and convinced him to turn pro.

Accepting the challenge and making the most of the opportunity, Machen reeled off ten consecutive knockout victories before making the acquaintance of well-connected San Francisco promoter Syd Flaherty who welcomed Machen into his stable of fighters, the star of which was recently dethroned middleweight king Carl “Bobo” Olson, fresh off a knockout loss to new champion Sugar Ray Robinson. Machen would not have long to wait to make a name for himself. No luck or superstitious hokum was needed in his thirteenth professional fight at the Cow Palace against Cuban veteran Nino Valdes, over whom Eddie earned a unanimous decision. To prove the win was no fluke or hometown favor, Machen met Valdes again three months later in Miami and knocked him out before Nino’s home crowd in the eighth round.

Quickly ascending the rungs of the crowded ladder of heavyweight contenders, Eddie would further propel himself upward with a points win over the tough Johnny Summerlin who had twice lasted the distance with a young Sonny Liston (though losing both) and broken the jaw of Machen’s up-and-coming counterpart Zora Folley. Eddie then claimed back-to-back decisions over former light-heavyweight champion Joey Maxim, whose star was burning out but had a name and reputation (namely outlasting Sugar Ray Robinson in the hellish temperatures of Yankee Stadium in their 1952 title fight which saw referee Ruby Goldstein collapse, carried off, and replaced during what literally became a last man standing contest) which were still sufficient to light up arena marquees. Machen would close out 1957 by climbing to the top spot among heavyweight contenders with a decisive win over Tommy “Hurricane” Jackson who was coming off a loss in his return bout against defending champion Floyd Patterson. Already having grounded the “Hurricane” in the opening round, Machen claimed the win when Jackson’s handlers halted the one-sided affair, refusing to let their fighter out of his corner for the 11th round.

“It was a terrible fight,” lamented former heavyweight champion Joe Louis of the draw between Machen and second ranked Zora Folley that he had just witnessed at San Francisco’s Cow Palace. “Machen wasn’t sharp and Folley weakened.” Because the fight was not filmed, the opportunity is absent for contemporary audiences to challenge or confirm the Brown Bomber’s assessment, but if headlines such as “Fans Boo Action, Then Boo Decision” which ran above an AP article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the following morning are any indication, it is safe to assume that Louis’ feelings were universally embraced by pugilistic experts and enthusiasts of the day. A title shot at Floyd Patterson, which carried with it something resembling a Congressional mandate, hung in the balance. Democratic Representatives Clair Engle from California (who would be succeeded by John F. Kennedy’s future Press Secretary Pierre Salinger) and Arizona’s Stewart Udall, both of whom served the 2nd District in their respective states, were collectively intent upon looking out for the best interests of their individual hometown heavyweight heroes, Machen and Folley. A joint statement released and reported on by Harrison Humphries for the evening edition of The Day out of New London, Connecticut six days prior to the Machen/Folley showdown, accused Patterson’s manager Cus D’Amato of “Eastern city slicker tactics” in freezing out either challenger, adding that “we believe Congress should act to prevent such monopolistic conduct.” Jack Dempsey, Engle and Udall asserted, “was recognized as a real champion because he was willing to meet all comers. Patterson is a great fighter, but he must prove he is a great champion by meeting the top contenders.”

With all due respect to the Congressmen’s noble intentions, which involved setting up a “bona fide national standards and national supervisory commission which will result in real national championships-not regulated titles controlled by a few New York manipulators”, they seem to have been guilty themselves of what could be dismissed as innocent enough ignorance or else purposefully selective memory. Dempsey’s seven-year championship reign, after all, consisted of a meager sum of six title defenses. While it would be remiss to discount the dubious quality of available competition in the mid-20s, numbered highly among those eager for a crack at the heavyweight crown were black contenders Sam Langford, who Dempsey later admitted to intentionally sidestepping despite the fact that Sam was well past his prime and more than half blind by the time, the flamboyant Senegalese former light-heavyweight champion Battling Siki who had taken the title by dismantling Georges Carpentier (in even more brutal fashion than Dempsey had) in a fight which had been originally set up for Siki to take a fourth round belly flop, and Harry Wills who was eschewed by racist and/or self-serving promoters in favor of Gene Tunney. And we all know how that turned out.

The Dempsey/Tunney fight was only made following a three year hiatus from the ring during which Dempsey levied the prestige attached to his status as world heavyweight champion to collect on any number of financially beneficial endeavors which were as high visibility as they were low impact. He was content to tour vaudeville, stage public sparring exhibitions, clown around with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks on the Universal lot where Jack had been signed on as a contract player by studio head Carl Laemmle, get a nose job to literally improve his profile for his fledgling film career, and marry actress Estelle Taylor much to the chagrin of his manager Jack “Doc” Kearns, further unraveling a partnership already coming apart at the seams.
As for Floyd Patterson, Engle and Udall were certainly on to something. For what it’s worth, they were far from alone. Hell, even the anomalous Patterson (a gentle, cerebral man who made his living scrambling the brains of fellow human beings) would fall out with his legendary manager and express embarrassment at the over-protective custody D’Amato held over his title reign. “Fight for nothing or don’t fight and become regarded as a champ who’s keeping his title on ice,” Patterson wrote in his memoirs Victory Over Myself.

Acting against the wishes of not only D’Amato but no less than President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, Patterson insisted on accepting a publically demanded match with the feared Sonny Liston in his second go-around as champion (he was the first former heavyweight title holder to reclaim the belt). Wholesome, baby-faced Floyd set himself up as a pawn in the crusade (referenced time and again as “The Good Negro vs. The Bad Nigger”) against the hulking, illiterate Liston whose unscrupulous mob affiliations were far from secret, but rather a further stiff jab to the seemingly never-healing black eye on the boxing community, not to mention a personal source of agitation to the Kennedy administration who were mired in a litigious and provocative crackdown on organized crime. Liston obliterated Patterson in 2:06 of the first round to win the title at Chicago’s Comiskey Park. Floyd lasted only four more seconds in their return bout, which only served to dry the cement on his unfortunate legacy as the heavyweight champion with a heart of solid gold but a chin of candy glass. Afterwards, Floyd would attain a great measure of sympathy and affection for the misunderstood Liston.

After first becoming the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history to that point (Cus D’Amato’s last protégé, a street tough from the Bronx named Mike Tyson, would smash that record) by beating both Tommy “Hurricane” Jackson and the legendary Archie Moore in a three-man tournament to determine Rocky Marciano’s successor, Patterson made his first bit of business a TKO win in a rematch with Jackson, followed up with questionable defenses against the likes of 1956 Olympic gold medalist Pete Rademacher, Roy Harris, and British Commonwealth champion Brian London before being upset by Sweden’s Ingemar Johansson in the first fight of what would be a memorable trilogy.

Painted out of the picture, meanwhile, were a cluster of legitimate and discontented contenders. Left huddled together on the outside looking in were men such as Nino Valdes, Bob Satterfield, Mike DeJohn, Alex Miteff, Willie Pastrano, and Zora Folley. Not to mention Eddie Machen.

Gothenburg’s Nya Ullevi Stadium easily sold out its 53,167 seats for Ingemar Johansson’s September 14, 1958 showdown against the United States’ likewise undefeated #1 heavyweight contender Eddie Machen, setting a new Swedish record for outdoor attendance of a sporting event. It is believed that 28,000 additional fans were turned away on fight day and that the number of peripheral spectators swelled to nearly twice that (almost equaling the stadium’s capacity) outside the gates as the match took place. They would not be left waiting long.
Machen, by all accounts, was anticipating a quick payday with the tantalizing assurance of a title fight with Floyd Patterson fixed in his vision, looming just over the horizon. If he was already looking past Ingemar Johansson, it is little wonder he never saw the initial strike of “toonder and lightning” coming. Occurring at center ring with only 1:08 of the first round having elapsed, Ingo circles his prey and launches a brutal right hook which sends Machen flat on his back. Eddie would find himself there once again thirty seconds later, clearly unsteady on no longer reliable legs and trying to smother Johansson in the futile hope of riding out the storm. After jogging back to a neutral corner in a comical knee-to-chest fashion, Johansson instinctively and ruthlessly moves in for the kill the moment Machen has regained his footing for the last time.

First employing the right hand Ingo also referred to as “The Hammer of Thor” to clobber Eddie into a crouching position in his own corner, Ingo is allowed by referee Andrew Smyth to pummel the clearly defenseless Machen with nearly fifteen clean blows to the head until he finally crumples beneath the ropes, left hanging halfway off the ring apron where Eddie’s handlers frantically rush to his rescue. Smyth, for no good reason whatsoever, faces away from Machen and completes the ten count. With the crowd going berserk, adding no doubt to Machen’s fuzzy grasp on his current whereabouts, his corner men are quick to help him up, cover him in his robe, and literally shake some sense into him.

Because Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston, after Johansson’s heavyweight title win over Patterson, occupied the top two heavyweight contender spots held by Folley and Machen when they last squared off, there may have been less at stake now that they were ready to tangle a second time, but the winner was sure to anchor into third place while probable marginalization, if not total obscurity, hung in the balance for the unlucky loser. Folley, suffering from tonsillitis which he kept secret so as not to cause a postponement, clearly outworked Machen using his signature left jab, which he followed up occasionally enough with right hooks to the head or lefts to the body that he cut Eddie’s right eye, raised a mouse beneath the left, and built a comfortable lead. Swinging wildly and missing badly, Machen could not close the distance and wound up on the wrong end of the unanimous decision.

“There was nothing close to a knockdown” in what the Associated Press described as a “lackluster battle” which “brought repeated boos from the crowd of 5,447 and frequent warnings from referee Vern Bybee to step up the action.”

To add insult to injury for Machen, his manager Syd Flaherty had arranged for his fighter to receive 60% of the gate in lieu of a straight purse with a guarantee of $15,000 going to Folley. With the attendance at less than half-capacity, Machen’s cut amounted to exactly $14,729.32, meaning that he paid Zora Folley roughly $270 out of his own pocket for the pleasure of being beaten up by him. So, even if Folley did not exactly have Johansson, Patterson, and Liston looking over their shoulders and shaking in their shoes, things were looking particularly grim for Eddie Machen.

Make sure to come back tomorrow on Ringside Report to read Part II of Eddie’s story….

[si-contact-form form=’2′]