The nice Henry Armstrong used to work far more rounds on the heavy bag than he did rounds of sparring, and he was celebrated for being indefatigable in a prize combat.
If you realize him for being the one man to carry three belts concurrently, you solely know half of his wonderful story. The nice Henry Armstrong was born on a day like at present, 110 years in the past.
Armstrong was born as Henry Jackson Jr. on December 12, 1912 in Columbus, Mississippi. His father was Black and his mom was Native American. Whereas working odd jobs as a teen to assist his household, he got here throughout a unfastened web page of a newspaper with information of Cuba’s Child Chocolate making 1000’s of {dollars} for a title protection, and immediately turned impressed to comply with on his footsteps.
His highway to the highest was by no means simple. He made his debut as an expert fighter with a loss towards Al Iovino in 1931 and went on to a 1-4 document throughout his first 12 months as a professional. It was solely then that his profession actually took off.
Preventing at a neck-breaking tempo, Armstrong engaged in some 90 fights in 5 years till he challenged and defeated Petey Sarron for the Ring featherweight championship in New York’s Madison Sq. Backyard in 1937 – and that was simply the beginning.
Fifteen fights and fewer than a 12 months later, Armstrong started one of the crucial astonishing streaks in boxing historical past. He lifted the Ring welterweight title from Barney Ross in Might, got here again all the way down to light-weight to defeat Lou Ambers in August for the Ring title in that division, after which moved on to make an astonishing 19 defenses of his welterweight belt (a document that also stands at present) whereas nonetheless holding his light-weight and featherweight championships as nicely throughout a part of that reign.
Throughout that welterweight reign, he defended his title thrice throughout one month (Might 1939) and FOUR instances throughout one other month (October 1939), a feat which will by no means be surpassed.
He misplaced his light-weight belt to Ambers earlier in 1939, nevertheless, and he would later unsuccessfully problem Ceferino Garcia (a person he had defeated as a welterweight) for the middleweight belt, with the combat ending in a disputed draw.
His extraordinary championship run got here to an finish in 1940 with back-to-back losses to Fritzie Zivic with the welterweight belt at stake. Armstrong would combat virtually 50 extra fights earlier than calling it quits. Since then, his identify resurfaces each time an inventory of the Prime 5 boxers of the time is compiled, with many observers (together with this author) inserting him at No. 2 solely behind the nice Sugar Ray Robinson.
After his days within the ring have been over, he turned a membership proprietor and a Baptist minister.
Armstrong retired in 1945 with a document of 152 wins, 21 losses and 9 attracts, with 101 stoppage wins. He was inducted into the Worldwide Boxing Corridor of Fame within the inaugural class of 1990.
Diego M. Morilla has written for The Ring since 2013. He has additionally written for HBO.com, ESPN.com and lots of different magazines, web sites, newspapers and retailers since 1993. He’s a full member of the Boxing Writers Affiliation of America and an elector for the Worldwide Boxing Corridor of Fame. He has received two first-place awards within the BWAA’s annual writing contest, and he’s the moderator of The Ring’s Ladies’s Rankings Panel. He served as copy editor for the second period of The Ring en Español (2018-2020) and is at present a author and editor for RingTV.com.
