Former boxer Quarry dead at 53
Posted: Sunday January 03, 1999 11:04 PM
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Quarry suffered from severe brain damage caused by repeated blows to the head AP |
TEMPLETON, Calif. (AP) -- Jerry Quarry, a popular heavyweight who
fought Muhammad Ali and Floyd Patterson then eventually lapsed into
a punch-drunk fog, died Sunday after being taken off life support.
He was 53.
Quarry was hospitalized Dec. 28 with pneumonia and then suffered
cardiac arrest while at Twin Cities Community Hospital. He died at
3:52 p.m. after family members directed doctors to remove life
support, according to Claude Sutherland, a longtime family friend.
"It was a family decision to take him off life support when
they were told he would probably be bedridden," Sutherland said.
"They're pretty distraught."
Quarry, who earned $2.1 million in purses as a top contender in
the 1960s and '70s, later was living on Social Security checks. By
the age of 50, the pounding he had taken in the ring turned him
into a confused, childlike man whose relatives had to take care of
him.
"He won the last fight of his life by going home to God,"
Quarry's mother, Arwanda, said through Sutherland.
The medical name for his condition was dementia pugilistica,
severe brain damage caused by repeated blows to the head.
"Jerry was the hardest puncher there was," said Joey Orbillo,
who lost to Quarry in 1966. "He had a heart bigger than a
Rottweiler."
Among the highlights of Quarry's career were two fights against
Patterson, the former heavyweight champion. Both bouts were in
Quarry's hometown of Los Angeles, and the first ended in a draw and
he won the second on a controversial split decision.
"He was one helluva fighter," said Johnny Ortiz, a former
co-owner of Main Street Gym in downtown Los Angeles, where Quarry
worked out. "He was a big puncher, he had a terrific left hook."
Quarry, a 6-foot, 195-pound blond who seemed to be easy to cut,
earned his biggest payday, $338,000, by fighting Ali when Ali
returned from his banishment in 1970.
Early in the fight in Atlanta, the two butted heads and a gash
opened above Quarry's left eye. Ali peppered the spot with jabs,
spraying blood, and stopped Quarry in three rounds. Quarry futilely pleaded with the referee not to stop it.
Ali cut Quarry again to win a rematch in seven rounds, and Joe
Frazier bloodied him badly in the second of their two fights,
winning in five at Madison Square Garden in 1974.
"He had the misfortune of fighting in the Ali era," said Ortiz, who
recalled that Quarry wrote poetry and enjoyed singing outside the
ring. "If he was fighting today, he would have been a champion."
Quarry turned to cocaine and alcohol on the downslopes of his
career, dulling his reflexes and leaving him virtually defenseless
in the ring. He finished his pro career with a 53-9-4 record after
having fought more than 200 bouts as an amateur.
"I'd do it all again, same way," he said three years ago.
Neurological tests revealed early signs of dementia in 1982,
before his short-term memory loss and motor skills deteriorated so
noticeably and before his last three fights.
"He took a lot of punishment. Big punchers take two or three
shots to land one," Ortiz said. "He should have retired, but he
didn't. He was broke and he kept coming back."
A neuropsychologist who examined him five years ago said that
boxing had aged the boxer 30 years and that he was at third-stage
dementia, similar to Alzheimer's.
In 1992, Quarry fought for one final time. Believing he could
make a comeback as George Foreman had, he took a bout in Colorado,
a state where no boxing license was required.
But Quarry was battered for six rounds by a club fighter.
"Irish Jerry" Quarry's payday for absorbing the beating was
$1,050.
"He was missing the accolades," Jerry's brother James said
three years ago. "In making those comebacks, Jerry would walk
around saying, 'I'm going to be a hero again.' "
He is survived by three children; four sisters; three brothers,
including Jimmy and Mike, who were fighters; and parents, Jack and
Arwanda Quarry.
A funeral was scheduled for Saturday in Shasta.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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