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Tony Galento "I'll moida da bum". "I never hoid of da bum." His thoughts on William Shakespeare: "I'll moida da bum". Contemplating Sartre and his form of existentialism: "I'll moida da bum". Or Charles Dickens and David Copperfield: "I'll moida da bums". OK some of them I made up but he could have said them. Tony Galento (b. Domenico Antonio Galento) may have been from New Jersey but it may as well have been from another planet. Heck, when Max Baer caught him on the phone he asked to be put through to his interpreter. The language of charisma? Whenever I think of 'Two Ton' Tony Galento I can't help but smile. The thought of him makes me laugh for he was intentionally very funny. I know he was a dirty fighter but he even made this funny. He put down his losing to Joe Louis to "not fouling him enough". His training consisted of eating and drinking whatever he like, whenever he liked. Though he took the Louis fight seriously by not drinking alcohol for two days before the fight. Mind you he could fight. Though he lost to Louis he did knock him down so he must of been a hell of a fighter. He even had over 50 knockouts in his career. Incredibly brave as well. If he had trained properly what might he have done? Jack Dempsey saw his potential and trained him briefly though he gave up disgusted by his lack of desire to train. For the Max Baer fight he deliberately didn't wash so as to put off his opponent. Bare did later comment on the BO though it didn't help 'Two Ton' as he lost the bout. If a Hollywood scriptwriter had made Tony Galento up then he would have been told to get lost as his character was too far-fetched! If you don't know about Tony I urge you to find out about him as he was, at the very least, a colourful, charismatic character. He was short, fat, revelled in his fatness, was balding, wore a bad hairpiece later in life and got paid for wearing a bad hairpiece (see below). Whatever he was or wasn't he was always watchable. When his boxing career was over he appeared with Brando in On The Waterfront, made B movies and once knocked Jackie Gleason clean out. He pro-wrestled, wrestled an octopus, boxed a kangaroo and fought a Russian bear. Ok, these are not politically correct but you have to admit, unusual if tasteless. Funny guy. If you have any one-line classics from Galento which I can put here just e-mail me them. Boxing record TWO TON TONY V JOE LOUIS (THE FAT MAN'S DEFINING MOMENT): Beetle-browed, nearly bald, a head that rode his collarbones like a bowling ball returning on rails, his waist size more than half his five-foot-eight height, Two Ton Tony Galento appeared nearly square, his legs two broomsticks jammed into a vertical hay bale. By all measures he stood no chance when he stepped into the ring against the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis, the finest heavyweight of his generation, in Yankee Stadium on a June night in 1939. “I’ll moida da bum,” Galento predicted, and though Louis was no bum, Tony, the Falstaff of boxing, lifted him from the canvas with a single left hook and entered the record books as one of the few men to put the great Louis down. A palooka, a thug, a vibrant appetite of a man, he scrapped his way out of the streets and into the brightest light in American life. For two splendid seconds he stood on the canvas at Yankee Stadium, the great Joe Louis stretched out before him, champ of the world, the toughest man alive, the mythical hero of the waterfront, of Orange, New Jersey, of an American nation little more than a year away from war... Joseph Monninger, 2007 MORE: Tony had a small part in the classic Marlon Brando movie, On The Waterfront. It was the idea of the screenwriter, Budd Schulberg, to use ex-fighters in the movie to add authenticity rather than employ Hollywood old hands. Three of those who appeared in the movie had fought Joe Louis. On set one day Galento knocked down the director, Kazan, who didn't see the funny side of being put down by 'Two Ton Tony'. FURTHER READING: Two Ton: One Night, One Fight -Tony Galento v. Joe Louis Affiliate/Advertising policy.
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