This Death Might Kill Boxing

Investigation last week reveals that Baltimore might well have had another death on the Knox fight card. The Knox-Bethea fight was originally scheduled for Friday night, October 4, but it was postponed to Monday, October 14 because of an injury to one of the preliminary fighters, a Baltimore welterweight named Johnny Gilden. Gilden, a veteran of 29 fights, was supposed to box a Washington boy named Hal Bristol. On the day of the Knox fight, a "fighter" named Kenney Joseph appeared as a substitute for Bristol. Why Bristol did not show no one professes to know. At any rate, when the fans in the Coliseum first saw Joseph totter down the aisle they booed. According to one boxing man present, Joseph did not appear to weigh more than 125 pounds. Gilden weighed 147�, half a pound over the welter limit. Joseph did not even know how to get through the ring ropes, and the crowd booed this fraud all the more. When the bell rang, Joseph came out, obviously seeking a place to lie down. Gilden was all over him with punches, and Joseph acted as though he had never been in a fight before. He tried to keep Gilden away by fending him off with his knee. After 62 seconds of farce, the referee wisely stopped the fight.

"I'd better clam up"

Asked about this fiasco, Cohen said "I hate the word 'mismatch,' but in truth I didn't think the boy was trying or had the ability. It looked to me like he wanted to get out of here in a hurry." He refused to say more on the grounds he wanted to present the matter to the commission. Leon Yarneth, commission inspector, old AAU official and occasional promoter of teen-age beauty contests, apparently was the man who approved the substitution of Joseph for Bristol, but Yarneth refused to say anything other than, "You've taken me by surprise. I'd better clam up. I've got to appear before the grand jury. I don't want to be detrimental to anyone."

It is hard to write about the promotion of the fight without being detrimental to someone. As noted, Civic Sports, Inc. originally was formed with Benny Trotta as president. Trotta is the well-known Baltimore thug, convicted draft dodger and host of the notorious Club Troc ("and here, directly from Cleveland, O-hi-yoh, Flora the Flower Girl") located in a raunchy section of town known as The Block. When Frankie Carbo was riding high as gangster overlord of boxing back in the '50s, Theodore McKeldin, present mayor of Baltimore but then governor of the state, forced the athletic commission to strip Trotta of his boxing promoter's license. But in August of 1960, the athletic commission restored it, declaring, "Our only interest is to encourage good, clean fight entertainment in Maryland and to do all that we can to preserve the good reputation of the sport and its participants." Mr. Trotta, or Fat Benny as he is known to intimates, wept copiously during the hearing.

Given the green light for good clean entertainment, Fat Benny formed Civic Sports, Inc. to promote fights in Baltimore. But last June internal revenue agents arrested Trotta and his brother, Little Tony, for making book without a federal gambling stamp, and on August 27 two of Fat Benny's "lobs," boxing slang for fronts, wrote to the commission on Civic Sports stationery announcing that Trotta was no longer an officer in their corporation. Examination of the letter shows that Trotta's name was crossed off as president, but the address, 400 East Baltimore Street, and the phone number, 685-7988, remained the same. They are the address and phone number of the Club Troc. Asked where Civic Sports now has its office, Cohen plays it cagey. "They were getting ready to set up an office," he says. Where did they operate in the meanwhile? Cohen: "I don't know." Well, how did you reach them? Cohen: "They would reach me." Well, were there times when you had to reach them? Cohen: "I had no reason to reach them." Trotta has since been convicted but not sentenced and this latest escapade apparently does not hurt his reputation with Cohen, who seems sort of sorry to see Fat Benny go. "I can only say," says Cohen, "that we have had no problems with Benny Trotta in the promotional field. I might say further—that's all."

But that will not be all. Whether Knox was underweight or not, something must happen in Maryland. The situation cannot go on. Baltimore is lucky there have not been 10 other ring deaths.