Rocky Balboa Reel Champion, Joey Giardello IRL Champion

Put LaMotta On Blast For Bragging About Going In Tank For Billy Fox

Besides his exquisite ring skills and toughness there was so much to admire about former middleweight champion Joey Giardello.

Born Carmine Tilelli in Brooklyn, Giardello was a man of principle in and out of the boxing ring.

I had the pleasure to interview him several times and though he died in 2008, the memories linger of a standup guy who refused to quiver in the presence of underworld boxing czar and fight fixer Blinky Palermo and his sorry ilk.

Giardello’s final ring record was 98-26-8 but that’s not the true measure of the man.

Let me explain why I so respected this champion.

It was the nonpareil matchmaker Teddy Brenner who lectured me about how Giardello could’ve ducked and dodged many of the roughest black fighters of his era but did not do so.

“Giardello could’ve done that but he never did, he was a man’s man in that sense,” Brenner said. “He would even go into the hometowns of many of the tougher black opponents.”

Proof of this are such illustrious if often unheralded foes on Giardello’s record as Georgie Benton, Henry Hank, Johnny Morris, of course the four bouts with Dick Tiger, Hurricane Carter, Holly Mims, Spider Webb and Rory Calhoun.

A second reason, perhaps more compelling if not as socially enlightened to revere Giardello came out in a New York Post interview I did with him. The topic was Jake LaMotta and how “Raging Bull” became “Staging Bull” or “Sitting Bull” when he threw a 1947 Madison Square Garden bout against Palermo creation Billy Fox.

To underline how artificial Fox was, he recorded 36 successive victories before the Garden sham and went 5-8-1, getting KO’d five times after the disgrace.

Giardello did not blame Jake for dumping the match and he made that abundantly clear to me.

“The same guys or type of guys approached me all the time to fix things. You had to listen to them, else they could do harm to your family,” Giardello said, “but I never agreed. I can understand a fighter going along but what Jake did was even worse. He bragged about going in the tank like it was something amusing.”

A third reason to cherish Giardello was the loving care he and his wife gave to their mentally handicapped son. Wherever Joey went, he took his boy.

I’ve met and known many world champions including Muhammad Ali, Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis but Giardello has a special place in that galaxy.

Philadelphia’s fictional fistic hero is Rocky Balboa but the city’s genuine one is Giardello.

I almost forgot to remark how gracious a decision winner Pal Joey was over the badly faded, age 43 Robinson in 1963. The Sugar Man was a mere shadow of brilliant, more youthful self.’

“He was a great champion,” Giardello said. “But it’s a shame, his reflexes are gone now.”

(mlcmarley@aol.com)