Ring Observer Boxing by Scoop Malinowski
By Scoop Malinowski
Not all journeys to boxing greatness follow the typical path. A Buffalo, NY kid named Jimmy Allcorn proved it.
“I started out as a fan and got so obsessed with boxing that I had to do it myself, ” recalls Allcorn. “I started martial arts when I was eleven or twelve. Then at fourteen I went to a friend’s house, we were supposed to go to the movies. But we couldn’t get a ride. My friend’s dad and his friends were watching the Ali-Lyle fight. Before the fight, they interviewed each poolside. That’s how I became a fan. I started following it, mainly heavyweights. In 1976 I started watching Sugar Ray Leonard. Then I was full-bore on, every weight class, every fight.”
Allcorn turned pro in 1982 at 20 under the name Jimmy Ellis Allcorn. “I had mixed success, had a record of 7-5-1 with a no contest (Boxrec doesn’t have the results). Then two more fights later – a draw and a no contest – they were a comeback.”
But Allcorn’s best memories are as a sparring partner for multiple world champions and a few legends. “I never kept track of how many world champions I sparred.”
The kid had a plan and got his start by taking matters into his own hands and knocking on the right doors. “I started out going to see Lou Duva. He had just come to Buffalo with Livingstone Bramble for the Ray Mancini fight in June 1984. Three weeks ahead of the fight Bramble came to town to train, he set up a camp. I went to see Lou Duva to see if he needed any extra guys to spar. I had also planned to go to ask Mancini. Lou liked me, treated me well and put me in with Bramble.”
“In 1977 I had sparred with Ralph Racine, the world ranked lightweight. I sparred with him a lot. Bramble was on a different level.”
Quality sparring partners become hot commodities and Allcorn’s reputation earned him extra work. “They also had Bobby Czyz (then a super middleweight, 168) in camp to fight Mark Frazie in Atlantic City. The last day of sparring Bobby was looking for a guy to spar. It got more heated than a move-around. Then he caught me with a right hand that I don’t think he pulled [laughs]. I was tangled up in the ropes. It was a nice move around for six rounds. I got caught in the fifth round. Czyz came over and apologized. That was the last time with Czyz, then it was back to Bramble. When he caught me with that right I thought the ceiling fell in on me for a moment.”
“Duva paid me $50 a day.” Was it worth it? “Oh God yeah. He liked me a lot. I put in good work and I showed up every day. I didn’t complain. Nobody took liberties with me other than that one right hand from Czyz. Lou put in a good word for me, that’s how I got steady work as a sparring partner.”
“From there with Bramble, I got in a camp for Hector Camacho, before his fight with Roque Montoya May 1985. I was in camp for a month. It was a Don King promotion. They were throwing money at me. I got to work with the Hilton Brothers, who were on the card. And Greg Page, who liked little guys to move around with and hit his mid-section – that was his warm-up before sparring.”
An all time ring legend also was part of the camp but nobody knew who he was at the time. “Julio Cesar Chavez spent two weeks in Buffalo. Nobody knew who he was. The little guy with the belt. He had just won the WBC Super Featherweight title (vs Mario Martinez in Sept. 1984). I remember seeing him and even I didn’t know who he was.”
Of course, there had to be at least one memorable Don King anecdote in Allcorn’s memory bank. “One time I had to drive Don’s limo to pick up chicken wings from this one particular place. He used to bring in his celebrity friends to sit ringside at his shows. He brought in Todd Bridges from the TV Show Diff’rent Strokes. Todd decided to go with us to pick up the chicken wings. We got lost – I was from Buffalo but I didn’t know the area. Todd Bridges is toking up in the back seat. That was crazy. I finally found the place. I got a $100 tip from Don King for getting him chicken wings.”
“One night Bert Randolph Sugar and I were in the bar in the hotel where the fight headquarters was. Bert had quite a lot to drink that night. Then Don King walked into the bar and Bert shouted, “You’re the ugliest nigger I’ve ever seen in my life!” The whole place just stopped. But they just laughed it off.
Hector Camacho was another highly charismatic and eccentric character who entered Allcorn’s orbit and you can rest assured there were a few zany Camacho anecdotes. One even included the highly-respected former world champion Emile Griffith, who was in camp helping Hector. “Camacho Jr was about three years old and being a little brat, playing around and kicking at Emile Griffith. At first Emile was gracious about it. This went on and on. Junior kept going to get instructions from his dad. Emile was getting angry. He knew Macho was putting him up to it. The last straw was when little Hector went up and kicked Emile in the nuts. Emile jumped up, set him aside. Hector ran away. Emile kept chasing him and kicking him in the ass all through the hotel. It was hilarious.”
Macho was a showman, even in training camps. “Whenever I was in Macho’s camp after sparring was over, when we were through for the day Camacho would always want to do “Kung Fu’ theater with me because – what a lot of people don’t know is that he was an excellent martial artist – he had a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and I’m a black belt in kickboxing and Kajukenbo Kempo, so we would have these little exhibitions for the other guys in camp that we called “Kung Fu theater.” And in our down time we had long discussions about Bruce Lee because we were both huge fans. It was a lot of fun.”
Eventually the biggest titan of the decade would feature a cameo in Allcorn’s journey. “My next gig was working with Camacho before the Jose Luis Ramirez fight. But they didn’t need me much because Ramirez was a southpaw. I was there for three days but didn’t go to the Vegas camp where the fight was. They needed me in 1986 for the Edwin Rosario fight at Madison Square Garden. Everything was going great. Mike Tyson was on the undercard against Reggie Gross and Chavez against Refugio Rojas. I was supposed to fight Rich McCain in a swing bout but it got dropped. I got a day of sparring in with Chavez when his sparring partner needed a medical. I said I’d do it and went cross town to where Chavez was sparring. That was really interesting. He was a buzzsaw. He was 130, I was 147, but you wouldn’t know it. He was really strong and a very accurate puncher and very tenacious as well. I was sharp from being in Camacho’s camp. It was only one day, four rounds with Chavez.”
“Fight night. I had been running into Tyson through camp. Flashback… I had known of Tyson since the Empire State Games in the early 80s. I was supposed to be a swing bout on this loaded King card. Kevin Rooney was there when they told me my fight was cancelled. Rooney asked me, ‘What are you going to do?’ Then he asked me if I’d like to be a second for Tyson’s fight? All I did was carry the water, ice and towels and I was paid handsomely for it. I got to see him knock out Reggie Gross from the corner. I got to hang out with Tyson after the fight. He told me that when Gross hit him with the uppercut he felt it down to his toes but he wasn’t hurt. Then he countered with the left hook and it was over. At the Empire State Games I saw his fight against Winston Bent in Syracuse (RSC 3). Tyson was head and shoulders above all other amateurs back then.”
Who was the smartest champion? “That’s a good question… Just being around Ray Leonard, definitely. I had a move around with him. He was training for Terry Norris. He brought me into his camp to work with the Canadian kid Dan Sherry who was going to be Chris Eubank’s first defense. He was Ray’s fighter. I missed a free trip to London because I didn’t have a passport. I tried to talk my way into sparring Ray Leonard but he had too much talent in his camp to mess around with me – he had Quincy Taylor and Simon Brown. I sparred Simon Brown three times and he broke my nose twice!”
Funniest Champion? “Macho. He was always cracking people up and cracking himself up. Always fun to be around. He would disappear for two or three days, go out, dancing, partying and other interesting activities. If he had stuck to the spartan lifestyle of a fighter, who knows how good he would have been.”
Best jab? “Czyz. He had that shotgun jab.”
Strangest character? “Probably Bramble. He had his idiosyncrasies. He could be strange in different ways. He came from a different culture. Not strange in a bad way. Interesting character.”
Strongest physically? “Bramble. Pound for pound he was the strongest.”
Allcorn also had an encounter with a five time world champion. “It wasn’t very memorable because I was only brought in for three days to help Vinny Paz prepare for a guy by the name of Jake Carollo (April 1989 – his first fight after losing to Roger Mayweather for WBC Super Lightweight title in Nov. 1988). Paz was pretty friendly but he didn’t stick around long after his training was done. It was only about a week or so before the fight and he was doing a lot of press, etc. The only thing that really stands out is a snafu at the front desk of the Trump Plaza in which they booked my trainer and me into a room with a single bed … and how long it took them to correct the issue. We arrived at about 8:00 that night and it didn’t get resolved until almost 11:30. After driving from Buffalo to Atlantic City, we weren’t in the mood for that sort of incompetence.”
Eventually Allcorn decided it would be in his best long term interest to stop trading punches with the best fighters on the planet. “I kept up sparring with elite fighters into the 90s when I decided to stop at 32. I knew how a lot of fighters ended up. I didn’t want that. I was cognizant of that. I wasn’t elusive – I was a walk-in banger with not much head movement. The abuse I took in training camps from elite fighters I didn’t want to keep going. I haven’t put the gloves on for sparring since. I wanted to end up fine neurologically – from this phone call you wouldn’t know it [laughs]. But I did have three spine surgeries. I had a thick skull, hard head and a thick neck. But taking the punches deteriorated my spine in my neck, which was more or less, a shock absorber.”
After being an active fighter and sparring partner, Allcorn stayed in the business. “I worked for (promoters) Don Elbaum and Mike Acri, just doing whatever they needed – part time publicist, driver for fighters, coordinating weigh-ins, baby sitting, keeping guys from wandering off. I lost Leon Spinks in downtown Baltimore one time. And he got KOed in the first round by a rank amateur in his pro debut, John Carlo.”
Leon Spinks was the classic story of achieving huge success too soon. “Too fast, too young, too crazy. If they had moved him properly after the Ali fights… they just did it wrong, putting him in with Gerrie Coetzee. They should have put the brakes on and let him develop as a fighter. He liked to party and he had a heart of gold and people took advantage of it.”
Is Allcorn still a fan of the sport today? “Oh God yeah. Just as much as when I was a kid. Just as much a rabid fan as ever. I like Usyk, Beterbiev, Inoue, Nakatani – he’s something else, I like Boots Ennis.”
Could Usyk be the greatest of all time? “Ali would have given him trouble. Young Foreman at his best. Usyk definitely could be in the running.”
James Allcorn started out as a boxing fan kid and got the idea to put himself in the ring with some of the greatest champions in history. By force of will, he made his boxing dreams come true.
