Does anybody remmember Tommy Hurricane Jackson?

[shocky]

He fought Floyd Patterson back in the 50's for the heavyweight championship. He lived on my street in Rockaway Beach, ny back in the 50's.

[Kid Achilles]

Shocky, I don't know much about Jackson except that he beat Rex Layne a few times, though Layne had passed his prime. What kind of man was he? Did you ever sit down and talk to him at length about his boxing career? What did he have to say about Patterson?

[DudeManGuy216]

his fight with Patterson was on the other day and a different one the day before on espn classic. i watched a little of the non Patterson one. it looks like hes a inside fighter. Also Muhammed Ali was one of the guest boxers there. This fight was like in 1962 so he was still Cassius Clay, but he came to a chorus of boos even before the name change.

[SuzieQ49]

ill post something on CRAZY hurricane jackson later. I dont kid, he was CRAZY

[mokele]

Patterson vs. Hurricane Jackson

A few years ago ESPN classic sports was regularly showing Rocky Marciano's old tv show and they featured the fight in July 1957 between Floyd Patterson and Tommy "Hurricane" Jackson. Jackson was tall but he wasn't very heavy, usually weighing under 200 lbs. Patterson was faster and more skilled and eventually got to Jackson and stopped him in the 10th round. That's all I can remember. It's the only fight of Jackson's I ever saw.

[SuzieQ49]

tommy was the epitome of a "Crowd pleaser"

Jackson was 6'4 195lb 80" reach and was considered the 2nd strongest heavyweight in the division outside of marciano. he also had incredible stamina and was very durable. he would go through these non stop hurricane attacks on opponents because he was crazy mentally.


- marciano never got to fight him, though i wish he did in 54-56. due to styles, jackson would have been rather a difficult opponent for rocky in 55. he had the stamina and hurricane attacks to keep up with rocky, he was strong enough not to get manhandled, he was durable, and he was very tall with long arms and was crazy enough to put pressure on marciano. all these factors would have enabled hurricane jackson to give him a competition fight. however jackson never used his size and reach on the smaller guys and prefered to fight one way, and that was to beat rocky at his own game and theres no way he could do that. rocky had better defense and was just too powerful for jackson and jackson would have taken a frightful beating and been stopped sometime in the 13th. however tommy jackson was a great scrapper and marciano and jackson would have put up one of the biggest punch rates of all time and it would have been a very exciting match! jackson did not have much boxing skill, however he was SO GOD DAM ACKWARD IN THE RING HE FOUND HIMSELF BEING ABLE TO BOX WITH FIGHTERS FAR MORE SKILLED THAN HIM. his height, strength, reach and crazy hurricane attacks added to his very ackward style that enabled him to become a top rated heavweight contender.



- jackson was crazy. literally crazy. gym talk was HES CRAZY. as a kid, he used to get made fun of and the only friend he had as a kid was none other than FLOYD PATTERSON! he used to tag alongside floyd patterson and floyd felt bad for tommy because he was so alone. too bad floyd had to give tommy the beating he did.

Shocky, I don't know much about Jackson except that he beat Rex Layne a few times, though Layne had passed his prime. What kind of man was he?

what kind of man was he? well lets just say he was talked with himself more than he talked with other people. he was crazy!


rex layne was far past his prime when jackson beat. jackson beat bob baker who was still a world class fighter, but baker was also over the hill and baker was robbed in the rematch. he beat other very solid heavyweights like dan bucceroni, charley norkus, shot ezzard charles(who was still good, though many ringsiders thought charles won 2nd fight), jimmy slade, johnny williams.


- most of the best opponents tommy beat were past there prime fighters who were much better in the very early 1950s like bob baker, rex layne, clarence henry, and especially ezzard charles.

- the first big time top rated heavyweight jackson faced was nino valdes, and jackson got blown away in 2 rounds.


- jacksons best fight is the first floyd patterson fight where he gave floyd a very close fight, part of which was due to floyd having a broken hand suffered early in the fight, while the other part being jackson fighting a helluva fight.

the horrible ending for jacksons career came in the rematch where a better floyd patterson knocked jackson down 9 times before finishing him off in the 10th in one of the worst heavyweight beatings ever. jackson DID NOT WIN ANY OF THE FIRST 9 ROUNDS. HE TOOK SUCH A BAD BEATING THAT HIS LISCENSE WAS SUSPENDED TO PROTECT HIM.

I spoke to John Garfield who was live around the heavyweight scene at in the 1950s plus he saw hurricane jackson live and out of satterfield, jackson, layne, baker he rated them as following

1. baker
2. layne
3. satterfield
4. jackson

he spoke very highly of prime motivated baker,layne and rated satterfield as one of the greatest punchers ever. however he did not think much of hurricane jackson at all.

heres what he the man I talked to John Garfield said about hurricane jackson

"I'm convinced the single event that expedited Stillman to sell the gym--more than the economics- was Tommy "Hurricane" Jackson.

When I thought I'd seen every eccentric, bizarre character imaginable, Jackson defied description. It wasn't that he went out of his way to do all kinds of antics, like Lou Jenkins on his motorcycle, or Mickey Walker and Fritzie Zivic barhopping; Jackson defined ADD 40 years before the malady existed.

Jackson puzzled everybody in the gym from the first moment he came in in the early 50's. He was a 6-3, lean heavyweight from Far Rockaway, New York. And the constant bemused look on his face, and the sort of maniacal-light in his eyes said there was nobody home .

He was a curiosity in a professional fight gym housing world champions. He could best be described in the ring as: disjointed sticks being thrashed about furiously.

Not only wasn't he equipped to be a fighter, it was questionable if he could get all his limbs to obey him. His imitation of prizefighting and training had everybody shaking their heads, and Stillman muttering aloud: "Disgraceful..."

When he sparred--if you could call it that- Jackson just out-annoyed people. And yet he kept winning fights, until he had graduated to main events, and--unbelievably-- got ranked in the top 10.

He wasn't courageous in the way you would normally understand it, where a fighter would take tremendous punishment, and then summon something from within to storm back. Jackson couldn't get out of the way of punches and seemed never to feel pain; he just soaked it up and kept flailing and swatting.. He was like some terrible toy you couldn't shut off no-matter how many times you slammed it against the wall.

Watching Jackson in boxing gloves was like listening to Roseanne Barr sing The Star Spangled Banner.

Jackson's only response to any question was: "Wanna shoot rats?"

Hard to imagine Whitey Bimstein and George Gainsford--guys who worked with Robinson, Tunney, and Greb-- associating themselves with this oddity, but they did, and he managed to beat a lot of good fighters."


Hurricane jackson is a sad story, especially him as a person. however he was a tough, couragous, crazy warrior of the 1950s who should be remembered as a good top 10 contender and the only worthwhile challenger to pattersons throne outside of johannsen.

- Hurricane jackson # 2 rated contender in 1955





like i said, jackson was very strong one of the stronger heavy contenders. you can tell from this photo his muscles look lean and as hard as a rock. he had what u call "crazy" strength.

[Kid Achilles]

Wow, I had no idea!

[SuzieQ49]

yea, its always intersting too learn new things about fighters you havnt studied well. i used to get the wrong impression on hurricane jackson, until john garfield pointed it out to me on another forum, and then i began to research him more

[Kid Achilles]

He looks like a guy who could take a punch. Most guys who had great chins such as LaMotta, Jeffries, Marciano, Ali, Fullmer, Cobb, Chuvalo etc. seemed to share one trait: a big broad head.

Roy Jones was a great example of a guy with a tiny head for his body size who couldn't take a punch well.

Of course this is not always true as Larry Holmes always seemed to have a relatively small head for a heavyweight but he could really take it.