Heavenly Art: The Wonder Of Nicolino Locche
By Mike Casey
Some time back, when the secretive lair was finally penetrated
and the crown jewels sparkled in the sudden sunlight, I realised with a sense of
wonder that every great thing ever said about Nicolino Locche was true. There he
was, moving casually and almost contemptuously around the ring, an imperious
master of his trade, taunting his hapless opponent with gifts of body and mind
that only come from the gods. The hapless opponent was Antonio Cervantes, who
was only one of the greatest junior welterweights that ever lived. What does
that tell us about Locche? It tells us volumes. He pitched a 15-0 shutout on the
cards of all three judges in that unforgettable exhibition of pure boxing. Yes,
the fight was in his native Argentina. No, it wasn’t hometown favouritism gone
mad.
What was it about Argentina and other exotic lands when I was
growing up in the sixties? They seemed to be cloaked in as much secrecy as the
Soviet Union and China. Nothing seemed to get smuggled out. A glimpse of Locche
or Eder Jofre on moving film was a rare treat. The truth, I suspect, was plain
old-fashioned laziness on the part of the staid and parochial American boxing
media of that time. Who ever profiled Nicolino Locche in any great depth? How
many writers from the established titles of the day knew he was even there? A
genuine fistic genius was our midst, plying his trade with all the finesse of a
master painter, but the poor fellow came from Argentina and how the hell did you
pronounce that surname? The old men of the Ring magazine were far too busy
lambasting Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston and telling us that only a few fighters
who came along after Jack Johnson were worth a damn. If you never leave New
York, you’ll never know what’s going on in Beunos Aires. Nat Fleischer went on
his periodical world jaunts and credited the likes of Jofre, Pascual Perez and
Pone Kingpetch for being special talents. But for the most part, boxing in the
Americas and the Far East was compressed into small print to fill the back of
the magazine.
While Mr Fleischer and his weary, near-octogenarian troops (and
fellow historians will know that I have praised those gentlemen quite often in
many other regards) were bemoaning the dramatic drop in live boxing audiences,
the likes of Locche, Perez, Jofre, Carlos Ortiz and Flash Elorde were filling
giant soccer stadiums in those odd countries where they spoke in strange
tongues. Massive crowds would stomp and cheer and sing in joyous praise of their
gladiatorial heroes. The Argentinian fans would often sweep Locche home on a
wave of celebratory song, safe in the knowledge that the ever shifting,
liquid-like armour of their idol could not be pierced.
Locche was a physical contradiction and I think that is why so
many boxing fans are stunned when they see him in action for the first time. In
and out of the ring, Nicolino was no obvious athlete. Like his compatriot and
fellow legend, Carlos Monzon, Locche was a heavy smoker all his life, yet his
ability to store and conserve his energy in combat was frequently lauded as
exceptional. Monzon was a similar freak of nature, known as ‘Iron Lungs’ to
those around him. Manager Amilcar Brusa once said that he never saw Monzon
gulping for air in a fight. It was quite common for Locche to take a few drags
on a cigarette between rounds while his seconds did their best to conceal the
act.
Balding, barrel-chested and thick shouldered, Nicolino resembled
a slugger or the kind of beefy trialhorse who rarely wins but can give or take
all night long. Tough and brawny boxers of remarkable durability have long been
produced by the score in Argentina. There are countless, barely known journeymen
with patchy records who can box sublimely, slug with the best of them and go the
distance every time. The vast majority of these men, save for the odd bad apples
found in every barrel, are wonderfully schooled and hard as nails. In his
appearance alone, Nicolino Locche would have been completely lost in their
midst.
Once in motion, however, he blew all stereotype images from the
mind. His was a lazy, languid, impudent style that was all his own. He was
genuinely unique among the great magicians of the ring and I haven’t seen his
like since. He was a grand master of all the essential technical skills and
invented his own little eclectic collection into the bargain. He was ‘El
Intocable’, the untouchable. What he didn’t possess was a knockout wallop, and
how convenient that was for certain lazy writers whose ‘research’ on Locche was
to simply glance at his long record and highlight the 14 knockout wins from the
staggering total of 117 triumphs, 14 draws and just four losses in 135 battles.
I’m sure Nicolino didn’t lose too much sleep over the lack of
powder in his cannon. Who cares about a knockout punch when you can clean a
skilful and destructive hitter like Antonio Cervantes by a score of fifteen to
zero?
Locche could blind an opponent with science in every way
imaginable. His box of tricks was bottomless. He would bend forward from the
waist, sometimes locking his gloves behind his back, stick his chin up in the
air and cheekily invite uppercuts and slashing punches of despair that never
struck him. The meaty, protruding head would twitch one way and then the other
as the incoming missiles passed by and worked up a cool breeze.
Locche was rarely a ‘runner’ in the ring. The thought of running,
or for that matter any exercise of great exertion, would likely have horrified
him. Such was his confidence in his breathtaking ability, he would often
position himself squarely in the line of fire and trust his physical and mental
instincts. Like a cuddly bear on castors, he would slide forward, jig sideways
or move back with a casual yet oddly comical grace. Sometimes he would look like
an old man with a bad back as he stepped and shuffled in and out of his
appointed circle, before suddenly shooting out a jab or winging a hook to the
body with lightning athleticism. He could box at range or box in close, fight
off the ropes or rush an opponent without looking at all awkward.
How sickening his talent must have been to a generation of
quality men who were made to look uncharacteristically clumsy as they slashed
and swiped at the air around him. For a seasoned ring mechanic who has learned
his trade and done it all, there is no worse feeling than that of inadequacy.
Locche teased and taunted and smiled, and even conducted running conversations
with people at ringside. When Muhammad Ali subsequently did likewise, he was
hailed as a roguish one-of-a-kind. But while Ali was flamboyant and flashy,
Locche was deft and dexterous, infinitely cleverer and more knowledgeable. While
Ali was intense and passionate, Locche was calm and casual and saw no point in
inflating the compact economy of his blindingly apparent genius. Boxing to him,
it seemed, was as pleasant a way as any to pass the time between cigarette
breaks and other less rigorous pleasures.
Record
In examining Nicolino Locche’s sprawling record, it is important
to understand the nature of Argentinian boxing. You will see a lot of draws on
the early records of many great fighters. They are well protected when they are
learning and developing, and close fights between young prospects are invariably
deemed stalemates. I don’t doubt for a moment that Locche was done a few favours
on the way up, just as the young and raw Carlos Monzon may have similarly
profited from the kindness of judges. But neither of these wonder boys needed
crutches to stand up. Their records glitter with first class quality and
achievement.
A while back, writer Martin Sosa Cameron compiled a nice little
biography of Locche for the CBZ, in which the maestro’s many accomplishments
were neatly encapsulated. Here is the gist of what Martin wrote: “From 1958 to
1964, Locche made 55 bouts without a loss (winning 45 and drawing 10), and
between 1964 and 1972, when he lost his title to Alfonso (Peppermint) Frazer, he
was unbeaten in 57 fights (won 54 and drew three). Through 1973 to 1976, he won
his last seven fights. He faced the best men of his weight in their primes.
Among his most important wins are Joe Brown (1963), Sandro Lopopolo (1966),
Eddie Perkins (1967), Paul Fujii (1968), Carlos Hernandez (1969), Antonio
Cervantes (1971) and Pedro Adigue (1973).
“Locche also drew with Ismael Laguna (1965) and Carlos Ortiz
(1966), all world champions. Laguna, Ortiz and Lopopolo were holders of the belt
in non-title bouts, and against Fujii, Locche obtained the junior welterweight
championship. He also scored notable victories over Jaime Gine, Vicente Derado,
Eulogio Caballero, Manual Alvarez, Tony Padron, Sebastian Nascimento, Raul
Villalba, Roberto Palevecino, Abel Laudonio, Hugo Rambaldi, Everaldo Costa
Azevedo, L.C. Morgan (who previously beat Jose Napoles), Abel Cachazu, Al Urbina,
Juan Salinas, Juan Aranda, Joao Henrique, Adolph Pruitt, Benny Huertas and Jimmy
Heair.”
The Quick And The Clever
Locche was ample proof that ring cleverness comes in all kinds of
packages, so perhaps this is an opportune time to establish the strict
parameters in which I judge him. I speak here of an innate ability that is only
given to a special few, that of uncanny anticipation and the genuine gift of
being virtually simultaneous in the co-ordination of mind and action. From what
I have seen and heard, I believe that Locche places nearer than anyone to that
phenomenal Australian wastrel, Young Griffo. Indeed, Nicolino might well have
been Griffo’s modern equal. I am talking about a gift that is eternal and
somehow survives natural erosion and self-inflicted damage. Griffo was a drunk
for most of his life, yet never lost the ability to instinctively dodge bullets.
He could pick flies out of the air. He dodged a spittoon thrown by Mysterious
Billy Smith when it was almost upon him. Spotting the projectile in the bar room
mirror, the well-oiled Griffo moved his head by the required fraction and
carried on boozing.
Boxing has seen many runners and jumpers and contortionists who
can bend their bodies every which way in almost cartoon-like fashion. These are
great gifts in themselves and I give these men every credit. But their talent is
generally finite. Their speed eventually diminishes and their elasticity loses
its stretch. Then there are those whose special talents can turn all sorts of
twisting corners but cannot handle a sudden roadblock. Whatever else one thinks
of Naseem Hamed, he possessed astonishing reflexes and lightning speed. But in
the one true acid test of his career, he failed disastrously to change horses in
mid-stream against wily Marco Antonio Barrera. Cunningly fighting against type,
Barrera embarrassed Hamed in the way that Hamed had embarrassed so many others.
So who else belongs up there with Locche and Griffo among the
quick, the clever and the eternal? One lives in fear of leaving out any obvious
candidates in these circumstances, but those who spring readily to my mind are
Wilfred Benitez, Jem Driscoll, Bob Fitzsimmons, Joe Gans, Jack Johnson, Benny
Leonard, Jem Mace, Kid McCoy, Packey McFarland, Willie Pep and Pernell Whitaker.
These, for me, were the enduring aces equipped with built-in radar.
Wilfred Benitez, at his young and glorious best before his
troubles drowned him, was a precocious wonder of the age. It was no surprise
that he befuddled Antonio Cervantes in much the same manner as did Locche. There
was nothing tacky or exaggerated in Wilfred’s nickname of El Radar. Much like
Locche and Griffo, Benitez was a master of perhaps the most difficult of the
fistic arts, that of moving whilst appearing to stand still. Kid Lavigne, even
as he was thrashing punches into no man’s land, swore blind that Young Griffo
did little more than twitch. Benitez at his best came close to occupying that
rare stratosphere. I have always believed that the wiry Puerto Rican ace, if his
mind hadn’t already been unravelling from personal strife, would have racked up
more points than Sugar Ray Leonard in their clash of the gifted titans.
Jem Driscoll, the great ‘Peerless Jim’ was another wizard who
could give an excellent impression of a ghost. American fight manager Charlie
Harvey couldn’t say enough about the Irish magician who drove top men like Abe
Attell and Leach Cross to near despair.
“Jem Driscoll was the greatest boxer the world has ever seen,” Harvey said in
his later years. “You will recall that when Driscoll boxed Attell, he outboxed
the Yankee four ways from the jack. He made Attell miss so badly that Abe almost
plunged through the ropes. That will give you an idea of Jem’s boxing wizardry.
You may talk about George Dixon, Young Griffo and their likes as masters of the
profession. But give me that boy Driscoll. He unquestionably is the king of them
all.”
Bearing Driscoll’s brilliance in mind, what are we to make of Jem
Mace, who retained his remarkable powers of co-ordination right to the end? As
an ageing veteran, long after his Prize Ring prime, Mace fought an exhibition
with Driscoll which was witnessed by a number of British boxing reporters. They
couldn’t believe what they saw. Driscoll, for all his evasive trickery, couldn’t
avoid being hit by Mace’s left jab.
The marvellous, natural gifts of Bob Fitzsimmons and Jack Johnson
have been much more greatly documented down through the years because of our
timeless fascination with the heavyweights. To those who know their stuff, Fitz
still gets the vote as possessing the most brilliant boxing mind the game has
ever seen. He was acknowledged as the ultimate master by the formidable
triumvirate of Griffo, Kid McCoy and Joe Gans. Fitz took his natural gifts to an
even higher plane by constant study of physical and mental technique. He was
probably the hardest pound-for-pound hitter that ever lived, yet his hammer-like
blows were delivered with finesse and often in the manner of a gentle caress.
“Fitzsimmons was the greatest short punch hitter I ever saw,”
said Jim Jeffries. “He could sure snap them in with a jar. You remember how
everyone thought he knocked Corbett out with a solar plexus punch? Well, old
Fitz told me years afterwards that he didn’t hit Corbett in the pit of the
stomach at all. He got Corbett to leave an opening, shifted and just stiffened
his left arm out and caught Corbett on the edge of the ribs on the right side of
the solar plexus, to drive the ribs in with the punch.”
It was Kid McCoy’s contention that a prime Fitzsimmons would have
had little trouble in taking Jack Johnson. Well, folks, we can argue about that
one forever and a day. I hope Galveston Jack’s star isn’t diminishing among the
younger set, because we surely have enough proof now of his genius. He was
incredibly quick and thoroughly schooled in every element of the game. He could
slip, feint and block punches, often catching them in mid-flight. His mental
powers matched his great physical strength, often to the point of shredding the
other man’s patience and driving him to swing and slash at the elusive target
like a rank amateur. Fireman Jim Flynn quickly reached the end of his tether
against Johnson, resorting to a comical jumping and butting routine that made
mischievous Jack smile even more.
Kid McCoy, like Locche and Griffo, was another blithe spirit to
whom boxing came easily. A deep thinker and philosopher and a master of mind
games, the Kid worshipped at the altar of Fitzsimmons and extracted all the
knowledge that Freckled Bob was willing to impart. A majestic boxer and a
powerful puncher, McCoy played boxing as chess and had the grand master’s gift
of constantly being three or four steps ahead. Alas, the Kid’s hyperactive and
analytical brain did him in at the age of sixty-seven, when it calculated that
there was no reason left to live and commanded its owner to commit suicide.
The lightweight division, of course, has spawned countless men of
subtle skills and varying gifts, but the three all-time masters in cleverness,
in this writer’s opinion were Joe Gans, Benny Leonard and Packey McFarland. What
did they have over the others? The more appropriate question might be, “What
DIDN’T they have?” Writer T.P. Magilligan memorably described Gans thus: “He is
the embodiment of all that is graceful and artistic in ring circles. In point of
grace, action, intelligence, contour, speed and punching power, this Gans is in
a class by himself.”
Was Gans cleverer than Benny Leonard? It is impossible to say,
since brilliant Benny was so similarly gifted. There was no greatly discernible
weakness in either man’s make-up. Their balance was superb and they were always
ready to hit from any position. They could see openings almost before they
presented themselves and then deliver accurate and educated blows with wonderful
timing. With power and artistry, they could dismantle their opponents from any
range. Leonard did indeed care deeply about getting his prized hair mussed. But
Benny could rough it when the occasion demanded. He turned a potential defeat
against Richie Mitchell into a thrilling and courageous victory at Madison
Square Garden.
Packey McFarland, the wonder from the Chicago stockyards, the man
who was never world champion yet lost just one of more than a hundred fights,
was another natural. Those who saw McFarland in action never forgot him. Huge
crowds marvelled at the hard-hitting, ghost-like maestro who possessed the
visual tricks and elusiveness of a shadow. When McFarland exploded onto the
world stage at the Mission Street Arena in Colma, California, in the spring of
1908, he was hailed as a boxing wizard without a discernible fault. Former
lightweight champion Jimmy Britt was scientifically bewildered and battered to a
sixth round knockout defeat and everyone was talking excitedly about the new kid
on the block. Ringside reporter Eddie Smith wrote of Packey: “McFarland is
everything, a hitter, a boxer, a good general and wonderfully clever and fast.”
The shame of Pernell (Sweet Pea) Whitaker’s magnificent career is
that the tides of changing times forced him to display his championship wares in
Las Vegas instead of more traditional and appreciative theatres. His silky
artistry was deemed ‘boring’ by the new wave of ignoramuses and dilettantes
whose perception of a good fight is twelve rounds of blood and thunder all the
way. Idiots! They are every reason why I constantly yearn for Madison Square
Garden to charge back in earnest and reclaim its mantle as the Mecca of boxing.
Look at the officials’ scorecards in Sweet Pea’s title bouts. Such was his
dominance at the peak of his career, he won by ridiculously lopsided margins. He
was a wee genius of extraordinary speed, skill and reflexes. Pound for pound, on
his very best night, he would surely have ghosted his way around most of his
fellow greats.
I wouldn’t have much of an argument with anyone who wants to tell
me that Willie Pep was the greatest, purest boxer there ever was. Lord knows,
Willie was great enough after his famous plane crash of 1946. Before that near
tragic event, however, it seemed he was a phenomenon from another planet. In
those early golden days, only Sammy Angott, a notoriously difficult opponent for
anyone, was able to spoil and hustle a route through Willie’s confounding
exclusion zone. Pep had raced to 63 straight wins before that first loss.
“Willie Pep was the greatest boxer I ever saw,” said our dear departed pal, Hank
Kaplan. “There’s nobody even close to him today.”
Frustration
It is Kaplan who rather neatly brings us back to Nicolino Locche.
When Hank was still ticking and giving us his great thoughts on the game, he
loved Locche. Kaplan was never one to grow old or misty-eyed, and consistently
gave credit to fighters of all generations. It was a source of great frustration
to him that Locche’s great talents were going largely unrecognized. Boxing
analyst, Curtis Narimatsu, who got to know Kaplan well, told me, “Hank
absolutely adored the artistic Locche, as opposed to the blood-thirsty warlocks
who favour the KO killers. Hank lamented to me often about the overlooked Locche.
Nicolino had an exquisite defence and great vision.”
Nicolino Locche came from a humble background in the Tunuyan,
Mendoza region of Argentina and he learned how to be untouchable in more ways
than one. He had his first amateur fights as a tender nine-year old and was a
crafty natural from the outset, fighting in tough little arenas that were
sometimes lit with kerosene lamps when the electricity supply failed. On one
occasion, against a much bigger opponent, the cheeky little Locche blew out the
lamps to even up the odds!
My good friend George Diaz Smith, who has penned many a fine
article about the South American masters of the game, says of Locche, “He was a
contortionist by trade, miffing many a fighter to fall right into him in
avoidance of fatigue and despair – with the astute twist of his upper torso and
hands at his sides, swiftly jerking his head a centimeter, dodging a lead or
counter-punch by half an inch and then viciously contorting the facial features
of his opponent like an artist strokes his brush.
“Fighting him was like a phantom before you, and if you did see
him a moment where you thought he was standing, he suddenly disappeared right
before your eyes and would then be standing in another position. There was no
clowning around in there with him, although he was tagged the Charlie Chaplin of
boxing for his unique moves in the ring. Acquiring the taste for gamesmanship
and pizzazz, Locche found that boxing was as much an entertainment measure for
incorporating theatrics that no other boxer had thus far seen on the planet –
not since the smaller weights in Willie Pep and Benny Leonard.
“Talk about being inventive! Locche would constantly re-invent
and challenge, making boxing improvisational fun to a newer boxing realm.
Sliding his feet and camouflaging the moves were just for starters. He was
deadly accurate with his volume punching, which left his opponents with so much
buckshot, that it would be astounding as to how they could keep up, much less
continue.
“Nicolino’s manager, Tito Lectoure, always held Locche above all
his prized disciples without a second thought. Lectoure said, ‘I believe Locche
was the last grand idol of the Argentine fighters. He was the most spectacular
that stepped into the ring. There were a lot of good fighters, but Locche was
unique, standing alone. His battles weren’t bloodbaths or particularly violent,
yet he always filled Luna Park with 20,000 fans and it didn’t matter who he
fought. People just wanted to see him.’”
High Praise
Just recently, I came across some high praise indeed for Nicolino
Locche. Not from a fellow writer, not from a manager or a trainer, but from an
erudite fan who quite obviously knows his boxing. Sadly, he didn’t reveal his
true identity. But his comments, in my view, deserve greater exposure and here
they are: “As a lover of boxing and avid reader of boxing history, it may come
as a bit of a surprise to you that I don’t place much weight on the opinions of
boxing ‘historians’ when it comes to evaluating and comparing fighters. This
holds true even for such veteran observers as Nat Fleischer, who personally saw
every major boxing champion compete in person since the days of Jack Johnson
through the era of Ali. That isn’t to say I completely dismiss everything
Fleischer has to offer from his recollections, but he was, after all, just one
man sitting ringside.
“However, there is one man whose opinion on the great fighters I
regard with extreme deference; that man is former trainer Ray Arcel. No musty
relic of the past, Arcel may have gotten his start in boxing as a sparring
partner for the legendary lightweight Benny Leonard in the early 1920s, but over
his 70-year career in boxing Arcel trained and developed championship fighters
all the way through Roberto Duran and Larry Holmes. In between, world champions
from Ezzard Charles to Barney Ross to Kid Gavilan and more than a dozen others
all learned their trade at the knee of the master. So when Ray Arcel talks about
fighters, I listen closely, because Ray Arcel might well be the greatest boxing
mind in history.
“Most boxing historians will tell you that perhaps the greatest
defensive fighter in history was the legendary Willie Pep, a magnificent
featherweight champion universally included on every boxing wag’s all-time
pound-for-pound list of the greats. On film, Pep is almost comically elusive and
difficult to hit cleanly, seeming to anticipate incoming blows by telepathy and
move just an inch out of range before countering sharply. So slippery was Pep in
the ring that legend has it he once won a round against contender Jackie Graves
without throwing a single punch (the reality is a bit different, but Pep
certainly had Graves flailing and stumbling in vain in a desperate attempt to
land a punch).
“So when Ray Arcel said that Willie Pep was only the second
greatest defensive fighter he’d ever seen, I sat up and took notice. Who could
Arcel’s number one be? The great Benny Leonard, of whom it was said he could box
an opponent’s ears off for 15 rounds without ever getting his hair mussed? The
furiously weaving Duran, whose frenetic movement and relentless aggression made
him a miserable target? Jack Johnson? Wilfred Benitez? Could it be Ali?
“No. The man Ray Arcel claimed was the greatest defensive boxer
he’d ever seen was a little known Argentinian junior welterweight by the name of
Nicolino Locche, a former world champion with more than 100 career victories who
was none the less almost completely unknown to American boxing fans because he
fought exclusively in South America.
“Locche trained lazily. He lacked a punch. He smoked up to 50
cigarettes a day. Heck, he smoked cigarettes in the ring between rounds! And
despite all this, Nicolino Locche was quite possibly the most brilliantly
defensive fighter in the history of boxing. Like Pep, Locche could stand in the
center of the ring, hands at his sides, and openly laugh as his opponents tried
desperately to land a solid punch, each effort missing by just an inch as Locche
just barely moved out of harm’s way.”
Now, Ray Arcel didn’t know everything of course, as I’m sure our
anonymous friend would be quick to concede. But foxy old Ray sure as hell knew
more than most others.
Full Circle
At the end of it all, I still find myself coming back to Young
Griffo and Nicolino Locche as the true, natural born instinctive masters. There
is a much easier slide rule for measuring such men: a certain indifference and
indeed a degree of arrogance on their part as to just how brilliant they are.
One occasionally meets such people. They are the people who
enthrall you and infuriate you simultaneously. They will hit a home run or belt
a golf ball 300 yards at the first time of asking and then trot off to do
something more interesting. Griffo liked to drink and Locche liked to smoke. But
why not win a few major boxing titles in between? After all, Bobby Jones made a
rewarding little pastime out of golf.
> The Mike Casey Archives
<
|