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Taansends Weekly Series Of Fighters YOU Don't Care About.
I've decided to start a weekly series of memories of mine about boxers that no-one else gives a toss about.
First in the series is Fidel Castro Smith also known as Slugger O'Toole.
I apologise for any mistakes. My brain is shyte.
He turned pro under the latter name, Slugger O'Toole. He was trained by Brendan Ingle who thought it would be a craic to have a black dude come out in a green dressing gown (with a big hood) to Irish music then flick the hood back to have a lovely gleaming black face. His real name came about because his dad was a big fan of the original Fidel Castro (he was conceived in 62 just after the revolution) but Ingle didn't think that would go down in Thatchers Britain (in hindsight it may have been).
The British Middleweight scene was not great at World Level then but there were a lot of tough domestic fighters & Smith beat Denis Cronin (a Welsh caveman), Johnny Melfah (who could punch like a mule), Lou Gent (who the following year fought Nigel Benn in one of the most entertaining fights I attended - mainly because everyone was E'd up) as well as a few other decent fighters.
The funny thing is, towards the end of his career he changed his named from Slugger O'Toole back to Fidel Castro Smith & one of the Alphabet bodies had both fighters ranked in the top ten
He never fought himself though.
He also lost to a fighter I liked by the name of James Cook (a Jamaican Englishman). I believe Cook is now training fighters down one of my old manors, the Old Kent Road - where I once got punched in the face by a bird in the Dun Cow, causing me to fall off a balcony in a strobe light slow motion.
First in the series is Fidel Castro Smith also known as Slugger O'Toole.
I apologise for any mistakes. My brain is shyte.
He turned pro under the latter name, Slugger O'Toole. He was trained by Brendan Ingle who thought it would be a craic to have a black dude come out in a green dressing gown (with a big hood) to Irish music then flick the hood back to have a lovely gleaming black face. His real name came about because his dad was a big fan of the original Fidel Castro (he was conceived in 62 just after the revolution) but Ingle didn't think that would go down in Thatchers Britain (in hindsight it may have been).
The British Middleweight scene was not great at World Level then but there were a lot of tough domestic fighters & Smith beat Denis Cronin (a Welsh caveman), Johnny Melfah (who could punch like a mule), Lou Gent (who the following year fought Nigel Benn in one of the most entertaining fights I attended - mainly because everyone was E'd up) as well as a few other decent fighters.
The funny thing is, towards the end of his career he changed his named from Slugger O'Toole back to Fidel Castro Smith & one of the Alphabet bodies had both fighters ranked in the top ten
He never fought himself though.
He also lost to a fighter I liked by the name of James Cook (a Jamaican Englishman). I believe Cook is now training fighters down one of my old manors, the Old Kent Road - where I once got punched in the face by a bird in the Dun Cow, causing me to fall off a balcony in a strobe light slow motion.
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