Punchers from the Past: William McKinley (Blackjack) Billy Fox

Name: William McKinley (Blackjack) Billy Fox

Born: 29 January 1926 Tatums, Oklahoma.

Died: New York January 1986

Career: 1943 to 1950

Record: 58 fights 48 wins (47 by KO/TKO), 9 losses (6 by KO/TKO), 1 draw.

Division: Middleweight, Light Heavyweight

Stance: Orthodox

Titles: None

Major Contests

Scored wins over: George Kochan(three times), Nate Bolden, Artie Levine, Jake LaMotta**, Johnny Colan

Lost against: Gus Lesnevich**(twice) , Agostinho Guedes, Ted Lowry, Dick Wagner (twice), Joe Blackwood.

Drew with: Ted Lowry,

**Past/ future holder of a version of a world title

* Unsuccessful challenger for a version of a world title

Billy Fox’s Story

Although Fox holds the record for the longest run of KO/TKO wins at the start of a career, and is second in the all-time list of longest run of KO/TKO wins, through no fault of his own he will always be associated with the period of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s when the Mafia was a cancer at the heart of boxing and his victory over Jake LaMotta was a fix.

Fox was born in Oklahoma and after his mother died when he was four his father remarried and moved the family to Virginia. Billy was first attracted to boxing when he read of the million-dollar gate for the Dempsey Tunney fight. Billy did not get along with his step mother and ran away from their farm in March 1942 at the age of 16 determined to be a boxer. He ended up in Philadelphia and started to compete in amateur fights there where he claimed he had a modest 8-8 record and his trainer Jimmy Reed convinced him to turn professional. Fox had his first professional fight on 29 October 1943 when he was 17, knocking out Billy Williams in three rounds.

He won three more fights by KO/TKO in 1943 and continued to fight even after being drafted into the US Army where he met and married his wife.

Fox was now under the management of Frankie “Blinky” Palermo a side-kick of Frankie Carbo a former Murder Inc. hitman who was already an unacknowledged manager of many top boxers. Together with businessman Jim Norris Carbo would control championship boxing in the early 1950’s.

Palermo kept Fox busy in 1944 as he scored twenty wins all by KO/TKO against very modest opposition in Philadelphia and New Jersey but in December appeared on an undercard fight in Madison Square Garden (MSG)which Fox won on a first round kayo.

Fox was now 24-0 with 24 wins by KO/TKO and he added another five inside the distance wins in 1945 including his first fight scheduled for ten rounds in which he knocked out Eddie Rossi in two minutes. Despite his 24 wins he had not yet found a place in the Ring Magazine light heavyweight ratings- partially due to the level of his opposition and partly the suspiciously easy way some of his victims fell over.

In 1946 he took his run of inside the distance wins to a record 36. The standard of his opposition remained low and he had never faced an opponent who had figured in the Ring Ratings and yet in their February 1947 issue was No 1 light heavyweight ahead of Ezzard Charles and Archie Moore!

On 28 February in MSG Fox challenged Gus Lesnevich for the world light heavyweight title. Lesnevich had won the title by stopping Freddie Mills in London in May 1946 but had been knocked out in eight rounds by Bruce Woodcock in a non-title fight in September. It was the only time in his career that Lesnevich had been counted out so it was felt by some that Fox had a punchers chance of springing an upset. Fox actually did much better than expected before being floored and stopped in the tenth round. That loss snapped Fox’s run of inside the distance victories at 36.

Palermo was determined to get Fox a return against Lesnevich and he quickly had Fox back in the ring and scoring knockouts. Some of the opposition was a decent level with Fox having to get off the floor to stop George Kochan in seven rounds and surviving an almost disastrous second round to stop rated Artie Levine in the third.

Fox needed a big win to land a return with Lesnevich and Jake LaMotta was the chosen target. LaMotta was being described as the ”Uncrowned Middleweight Champion”. He was complaining that he was being avoided and was desperate to land a shot at the middleweight title. The Fox fight took place on 14 November in MSG and LaMotta was a huge favourite but Fox sprang a big upset by stopping LaMotta in the fourth round. One of only four inside the distance losses LaMotta would suffer in his 106 fight career.

Before the fight there was some suspiciously heavy betting on Fox and the bookmakers closed the books and refused to take any more bets. LaMotta’s performance was pitiful as he just left himself open to Fox’s punches rarely fighting back and the referee with no option but to stop the fight. It was so obviously fixed that the New York Commission pulled LaMotta in and questioned him but he insisted it was not a fix. In 1960 when questioned by a Senate Committee LaMotta confessed that he had lied to the New York Commission and had been offered $100,000 to lose against Fox. He had initially refused but insisted on a guarantee that he would get a title shot if he lost and went ahead with the fight on that basis.

The Fox fight had caused such a stink that La Motta was told he would have to wait two years for the rage over the fixed fight to die down and in June 1949, less than two years after the Fox fight, LaMotta beat Marcel Cerdan to win the middleweight title.

The LaMotta fight was part of a two stage plan. Firstly to get Fox a win over a “name” fighter and then go after Lesnevich again. Part one was fixed but part two imploded. Fox challenged Lesnevich for the second time in MSG 5 May 1948 and was knocked down twice and knocked out after just 118 seconds of the first round.

Fox was still only 22 but he was on a downward path. Just three months after fighting for the world title he lost on points to 10-9-2 Willie Applegate who was 0-4-2 in his previous six fights-a very dubious result. In the remainder of 1948, after parting with Palermo, he scored four wins, including outpointing Johnny Colan the only points win in Fox’s career, but being stopped by Agostinho Guedes and drawing and losing to Ted Lowry. He fell even further in 1949 losing three of his four fights and retired after being stopped in four rounds by Joe Blackwood on 25 January 1950 one day before his 24th birthday. He had spent most of the money he earned in his days at the top and the Pennsylvania Commission refused to issue him with a licence so his career was over.

His run of 36 consecutive inside the distance victories (which earned him the nickname of( “Blackjack”) puts him in No 2 position in the all-time list behind Lamar Clarke with 42 and his run of 36 wins by KO/TKO is the longest for any fighter at the start of his career.

At one time Fox was being credited with 49 consecutive inside the distance wins but Palermo “ invented” many of them and Fox later had no memory of some of the fights Palermo invented so 36 is the generally accepted number. Once retired Fox admitted that he had serious doubts about the way some, of his opponents performed. He also said that the LaMotta fight was the thing that ended his love of boxing and sent him on his way down the slope. To hear everywhere that what he had considered his greatest achievement being rubbished as a fix depressed him and he found it hard to motivate himself for every subsequent fight. His depression and money problems broke his marriage and when tracked down by a journalist in 1956 he was said to be desolate, destitute and living on the edge. He was reported to be seriously ill in a mental hospital in 1960. No more was heard about Fox until a notice in the Richmond Times of 23 January 1986 reporting his death in New York at the age of 59. A career ruined by a victory.