Читать книгу Sporting Blood. Tales from the Dark Side of Boxing онлайн
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When Nesseth asked Jackie Leonard, matchmaker at the Hollywood Legion, to approach IBC viceroy Truman Gibson for big fight exposure for Jordan, he unknowingly set off a chain of events that would eventually change the course of boxing history. No sooner was Gibson in the mix than Jordan was matched up with rugged Virgil Akins for a shot at the welterweight championship. Akins, who won the vacant title by annihilating Vince Martinez in 1958, would be making his first defense against Jordan. Hard-punching “Honeybear” was considered “inconsistent,” one of several euphemisms tossed around boxing in the 1950s, but as a fighter with friends in low places, it is nearly impossible to say how much of his hit-and-miss career was legitimate and how much was not. On December 5, 1958, Jordan plastered the 3-1 favorite over fifteen dirty rounds before 7,344 fans at the Olympic Auditorium to win the welterweight championship. His unexpected victory would have dramatic repercussions.
It is hard to imagine someone as erratic as Jordan—who was arrested for possession of marijuana only three weeks after winning the world title—causing the downfall of Frankie Carbo, but truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction. When Nesseth refused to give Carbo a “cut” of Jordan after the Akins match, “Mr. Gray,” along with malignant sidekick Blinky Palermo, resorted to threats. Threats gave way to action, and Jackie Leonard, mistakenly thought by Carbo to be a willing go-between for his underworld shenanigans with Jordan, was beaten senseless by unknown assailants for taking his jitters to authorities. Several arrests, indictments, and trials later, Carbo and Palermo were convicted of conspiracy and extortion for their schemes involving Jordan and were each sentenced to long bids in prison. The mob stranglehold on boxing had been loosened, courtesy of a prizefighter for whom collateral damage was merely second nature. Even as Carbo and Palermo stewed on the witness stand, Jordan was partying with Mickey Cohen, poster boy of L.A. gangster chic, and drawing the enraged scrutiny of the California State Athletic Commission.