When I told Jersey Joe Walcott that I was sitting in the eighth row at the Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia the night he got clocked by Rocky Marciano, he smiled, then said: "I wish I had been sitting there with you."

"Why did you want to become a fighter," I asked. "Why not a cook? Bricklayer? Truck Driver?" Boxing was his last desperate attempt to head off his heartaches, he said.

Born Arnold Raymond Cream at Merchantville, New Jersey, in 1914, Joe said he was 37-years-old, and the father of six kids when he knocked out 29-year-old Ezzard Charles on July 18, 1951 to become the heavyweight champion of the world. Some people claim he was forty-one. Like Archie Moore, and this writer, he never had a birth certificate. We couldn't prove we were born. Only the IRS believed us.

"I became the oldest man to ever win the heavyweight championship," he said. It was his fifth attempt to reach his pinnacle. "When I saw Charles at my knees I gave thanks to God." Joe was a very religious man. The metropolitan press dubbed him, "The Praying Puncher." They should have called him "Murder One." He said he changed his name to Joe Walcott because "Cream" sounded unbefitting for a future champion. He borrowed his sobriquet from his favorite fighter, the original Joe Walcott, an ex-welterweight king. The press worshipped at his alter. They dubbed him, "The Barbadoes Demon." All demons meet with unhappy endings. The Barbadoes one was struck and killed by an automobile in 1935. The new Joe Walcott added the word 'Jersey' to signify the State of his birthplace.

Archie Moore summed up Jersey Joe's boxing career as well as anyone I ever interviewed. Archie said, " He fought from 1930 to 1953. In 67 pro fights, he won 49, of them, 30 by knockouts. Can you imagine what he could have done if he'd had proper handling during his early career? That's why it took him so long to win the heavyweight championship. Aside from being black, he had no support."

Some writers claim Joe was too cute of a fighter, too cautious, with too little regard for his own capabilities. Rocky Marciano said Walcott was difficult to fight because you could sit up all night trying to figure out his style -- only to discover he had none. He would run, twist on a dime, then reverse himself in mid stream. He would skip, then linger, and throw a right when it looked like his reflexes told him to throw a left. His behavior inside and outside the ring brought credit to a sport that could certainly use the likes of a Jersey Joe Walcott today.

The story of Jersey Joe is stunningly comparable to that of Jim Braddock, who went through life like a serious mistake --- doing ordinary labor at a time when your take home pay couldn't take you home. Whereas, Braddock got a late start, Walcott embarked on a professional boxing career at age 16, and for the same reason Braddock did -- because the only two that could live as cheaply as one is a horse and a bird. "Boxing offered more money that ordinary laboring," Walcott said.

"I broke my arm," Walcott told me, "I couldn't work and I was getting less than ten dollars a week in relief money to feed my wife and six babies. I was at rock bottom. Boxing saved my life" He began as a middleweight. The great Jack Blackburn handled him for a while, but left him flat when he recognized the talent in another young, black fighter named Joe Louis. James J. Johnston picked up where Blackburn left off, but abandoned him in 1945. He was 30 and had not made much of a splash in the world of Fistiana. During a career that dated back to 1930, Walcott took some frightful beatings from pugs like Al Ettore, who stopped him in 8; Tiger Jack Fox, who kayoed him in 8; Abe Simon, who bombed him out in 6; Joey Maxim, who beat him with his superior boxing skills.

And so the press, and the boxing world in general, considered Walcott as nothing more than an imposter among heavyweight contenders. Promoters avoided him like the oriental plague. While Archie Moore blamed it on the fact that Walcott was black and had no support or proper instructions, there is a school of thought which holds that Walcott was somewhat of a lazy fighter, lacking the box-office appear of say, Joe Louis or Rocky Marciano, who weren't afraid to mix it up. Walcott, by his own admission, believed in one of the old axioms of prizefighting: He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day!

Around the time Johnston lost interest in Walcott a local fight promoter, noticing his muscular physique, if not his artism, asked Walcott to give his new arena a start by fighting the main event. Walcott agreed and pleased the fans so much he was brought back week after week. It got the attention of a racketeer named Felix Bocchicchio who was so crooked he had to screw his socks on. But Felix saw in Walcott what so many others overlooked - a rugged jaw and iron fists. Felix new as much about boxing as the Mona Lisa did about swatting flies, but he decided to learn. He was seldom seen without a fight promoter, trainer or prizefighter in his company. He learned from them the mannerisms of the fight game.

When he felt the time was ripe, Fleix challenged a fighter Joe Louis had side-stepped, Curtis "The Hatchet Man" Sheppard. Walcott foiled the odds-makers. He doubled Sheppard with rib-benders and stopping him in the 10th frame. Felix made more money on side bets than Walcott's purse amounted to. Other promoters quickly booked Walcott into places like Madison Square Garden, where he worked havoc on tough Lee Oma to take the decision, and pounded Tommy Gomez to destruction in three heats. Everyone, including the Brown Bomber predicted that Jimmy Bivins would be the next heavyweight king. In fact, Louis' camp turned down a $100,000 offer to fight Bivins. He was quick, tough, and had a bursting bomb for a right hand. He had trounced Hatchet Man Sheppard, whipped Joey Maxim, put a lily in Archie Moore's hand, and had run up a string of triumphs that made him a serious candidate for championship honors. Many sports writers felt Jersey Joe Walcott had no business in the same ring with the likes of Jimmy Bivins. His right hand could leave you cobwebby.

It was no contest. On February 25, 1946, Walcott dropped Bivins and knocked the stuffing out of him, leaving Jersey Joe a sensational winner and Bivins refusing to fight him ever again. When Joe Louis was training for his first fight with Max Schmeling, Mashky Jackson was hustling sparring partners for the Brown Bomber at $25-a-round. Walcott needed the money. Mushky said Walcott refused to go another round with Louis so he ran him out of camp. Walcott told me it was because he dropped Louis.

"That's why they ran me off," Walcott said. Mashky said Louis slipped. The newspaper played it up big. "It was pure pre-fight broadcasting, said Walcott, "so I went along with it."

Just when it seemed as though Walcott was born to be sacrificed on a boxing alter, fickled Fate took over. 'Uncle' Mike Jacobs convinced him to box a ten-round exhibition for a Milk-Fund charity show subsidized by Mrs Randolph Hearst. His opponent: Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion. Few tickets sold, however, so Jacobs was forced to make it a 15-round fight with the Brown Bomber's title at stake. The result: a complete turn-around with a sell-out crowd of 18,000 excited fans taking up every seat. Jersey Joe surprised everyone by out-fencing Louis. At the finish, nearly everyone, including Louis thought Walcott was the new champion. Ruby Goldstein, the referee, gave the nod to Walcott, saying, "Walcott punched his ears off." But the two judges voted for the Brown Bomber, although Walcott had dropped him twice.

"After the fight," Walcott said, "Joe put his arm around me and whispered in my ear, 'I'm sorry.' I looked across the ring and I could tell that Louis thought he had lost the fight. In fact, he wanted to leave the ring, but his handlers held him back."

On June 25, 1945, they fought again in New York. This time, Walcott forgot to duck and Louis flattened him in the 11th round. Louis retired, and Walcott was signed to fight tough Ezzard Charles on July 18, 1951 for the heavyweight title. Charles was at ringside when Rex Layne beat Walcott four months earlier, and saw no harm in risking his chances against the man from Jersey. Besides, 'The Cincinnati Flash' had outspeeded him in their first fight on June 22, 1949, and again on March 7, 1951, so he wasn't worried. The press gave Jersey Joe about as much of a chance as Hillary Clinton's health care fiasco.

By now, Charles was perfectly aware that Walcott's best punch was a sharp countering, perfectly-timed punch aimed at the snout, which he had always managed to avoid. In their third match, however, Walcott, behind on points, quickly switched to a left hook that landed with the force of an avalanche on the champion's jaw and knocked him senseless. After five attempts, Jersey Joe Walcott was heavyweight champion.

As a cub reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News I was privileged to accompany a sports writer when he interviewed Rocky Marcianio in his dressing room on February 13, 1952, following his stoppage of aging Lee Savold in round 6, at the Philadelphia Convention Center. The fans were booing because Rocky hadn't knocked Savold out, but I can remember Savold's face covered with blood. I remember Rocky sitting on a table covered with a white sheet, listening to the boos ringing in his ears, and shaking his head. "What the hell do they want -- a murder?" Rocky bellowed. Rocky went on to knockout Gino Buonvino, Bernie Reynolds, and Harry "Kid" Matthews in quick session. He had run up a string of 42 wins, all but five of them inside the distance. A fight between Marciano and Walcott, many experts agreed, would provide the excitement of Dempsey vs. Firpo. Or Schmeling vs. Louis. Walcott had been fighting for 22 years and had more experience behind him than Heidi Fleiss. He possessed much more skill than Rocky, such as an astute mind, and cageyness. Against Charles he had showed a fortuitous combination of strength and slyness. He said he had a secret formula waiting for Rocky, but fighters always say that to unnerve their opponent.

They fought on September 23, 1952 and I was seated behind Joe Louis. From the opening bell and for 12 rounds the 198-pound Walcott made a fool out of the betters who had made his 184-pound challenger a 9-5 favorite. The same Rocky attack that had cut Roland LaStarza's career short, and sent Carmen Vingo to the hospital to die, was totally ineffective against Jersey Joe. In the first round Walcott showed Marciano who was boss by knocking him down for the first time in his career. Eschewing his copyrighted shuffle, Walcott went after Rocky like a hounddog after Cool Hand Luke. At the sound of the first bell they were tearing at each other like two women at a white sale.

The second round was much the same, with Walcott landing clean blows to Rocky's chin of granite. From Rocky's corner, Al Weil kept up a staccato of "Keep down low, keep down low!" Walcott was magnificent. He reminded the old-timers of Joe Gans. He had the guts of a badger and the fighting heart of an aroused lion. Joe glided through five rounds, waiting for an opening, then Rocky would fall much the same as Charles had fallen under his crushing right. But Father Time was Walcott's greatest enemy - and by the sixth round it was beginning to show. Rocky began backing the champion up with devastating rights and lefts that would have felled an elephant. Both were bleeding - Rocky from a deep gash on the head and Walcott from a sliced eyelid.

At the end of the seventh round, Rocky came back to his corner yelling, "I can't see -- it's my left eye." Some said it was the solution used on Walcott's eye that got into Rocky's eye. Andrew Golota would have quit. Bonecrusher Smith would have surrendered on his stool. Ruberto Duran would have cried, "No Mas!" But Rocky fought blind for three more rounds, missing his target repeatedly. Walcott peppered him with lefts and rights, using every trick in the books, until Rocky's face looked like chicken gumbo. Blood spouted like a spigot from the Rock's forehead and between the eyes.

By the end of the twelfth round Walcott was comfortably ahead on the cards of all three officials: 7-4-1, 7-5, and 8-4. Only nine minutes remained between Walcott and the hardest fought victory of his career. Suddenly his feet became as heavy as an asphalt-spreader's boots. He became a general in retreat.

To this day, Walcott does not know why he backed into the ropes in the thirtieth round. But he did, and he was caught by a picture-punch --- probably the hardest punch every thrown in an American prizefight. Walcott went down like a sunken vessel. Rocky tossed an unnecessary postscript left that merely glazed Joe. With one arm queerly gripped over the middle ring rope, Jersey Joe fell. This time, there was no getting the genie back in the bottle. Referee Charley Daggert counted him out. Richard Steele would have called the paramedics. Howard Cosell would have called the cops. Joe said he never heard the count. True to his nature, he still found something to laugh about as he looked back on the fight. He chuckled as he remembered hearing that Rocky had to leave the stadium wrapped in a bathrobe because a souvenir hunter swiped his pants.

It was hard for even the most dedicated Walcott fan to see how he could come back. Looking at the tape of their second fight, which took place on May 15, 1953, it is very evident that the memory of his devastating knockout was still with Walcott when he fell to the canvass and refused to get up after only 2 minutes and 25 seconds of fighting. Had he gotten up, his best was probably not good enough to hold off the champion.

Jersey Joe Walcott retired to become a parole officer for juvenile delinquents. He had a short sprint as a referee, but made a sham out of the second Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston bout, thereby leaving history to wonder how it ended and in what time.

In retrospect, there was never a heavyweight champion in the annals of Boxciana like Jersey Joe Walcott. In a career that had its eddies and tides, he had the guts to take on the most feared fighters of the current fight game. One is left to wonder just how far he would have gone if he had not lived in Joe Louis' shadow. ****

A Bit About Bill Kelly

From 1965 to present Bill Kelly has written for dozens of magazines and newspapers either as a staff writer or free-lancer. His 15,000 published articles include modern crime and gangsters, celebrity interviews, old West gambling stories, treasure stories, tales of the old West, and boxing. His most memorable interviews were conducted with John Wayne (Wayne's last interview), Henry Fonda, Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson and Ike Williams.

His California tabloid experience includes The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Orange County Register, Valley Tribune, and Valley Star, where he doubled as Managing Editor and feature writer.

Kelly's magazine experience includes Gambling Scene Magazine, Poker Digest, Treasure Search, Oklahoma State Trooper, California State Trooper, Virginia State Trooper, Boxing Digest, Boxing Illustrated, KO Magazine, Hollywood Studio, Country Review, Sports Illustrated, and too many true crime magazines to list here.

Kelly's true crime stories, and his book, Homicidal Mania, can be viewed on http://www.cybersleuths.com/

For additional true crime by Bill Kelly: editor@crimemagazine.com

His stories on New Mexico History are currently running in the On-Line New Mexico Magazine: http://www.southernnewmexico.com

Autographed copies of Bill Kelly's books, Gamblers of the Old West ( $25 plus $3.50 shipping & handling) and Treasure Trails and Buried Bandit Booty ($14.95 total) can be purchased by contacting the author at: wildbill@cosmoaccess.net

Bill is currently looking for a publisher for his manuscript, Empty Saddles. This book contains interviews with 50 of the 1940 B-cowboy movie stars including Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Bob Steele, Sunset Carson, and many more. This book is the result of 25 years research and writing, and Kelly considers this his finest work to date.

Bill Kelly is a writer for hire. His Kelly's Korner was at one time syndicated and well received. He is especially interested in reviving this column for an interested tabloid.