Continued
FUN & GAMES: Let’s get back to the fight with George Meighan. When did you feel certain that the fight was yours?
ECKERT LEWIS: By about the third round.
FUN & GAMES: Did George realize it too?
ECKERT LEWIS: I don’t think so, because he gave a good account of himself up to that time. He became conscious of this in the fifth when he got hit with the first good left hook. It stung him and he was surprised. It almost paralysed him and he went down, but he got up and came back on the attack in the sixth round. Then in the seventh, he got caught by another hook. I think he jabbed me but his right dropped, and my hook came through, not over, his right hand and he went down for the full count. I think it is important to say that we had no animosity over the fight. In fact we were together at a dance at St. Mary’s Hall the same night having fun together.
FUN & GAMES: This was in ‘49 or ‘50?
ECKERT LEWIS: In 1950.
FUN & GAMES: How long did you remain champion?
ECKERT LEWIS: I was going to S.J.C. at that time, and there was a little bit of pressure by the faculty to cease fighting. One reason was because I became almost like a celebrity in the school. The boys wanted to speak to me about boxing all the time. Add the other because they felt that my ring activities interfered with my school work. Also, I was beginning to have some trouble with my eyes – astigmatism. So for a while I began to spend more time on other sports, especially football, and after I got my eyes examined I decided to give up boxing and my championship without being given a chance to defend it. There were no serious challengers anyways. Fighters like Junior Wagner were around, but every time a promoter tried to bring us together, he would back out.
FUN & GAMES: But after you fought George Meighan and before you gave up the title, you had quite a few fights.
ECKERT LEWIS: Yes. It was decided that since there was no local competition, to import fighters from Mexico. Vilo Encalada suggested a fight with the featherweight champion of Yucatan – Panucho Montalvo. This was arranged and I fought him at Palace Theatre.
FUN & GAMES: Before you tell us about the fight I want to remind you that many people who saw Montalvo work out in the gym thought it would have been a mismatch. You met him in the ring. How good was Panucho?
ECKERT LEWIS: I think we are having this same experience today with Mexicans who come here to fight. They have this very placid expression on their faces. Just last Sunday a close friend of mine said on seeing two Mexicans enter the ring at Birds Isle, “I have two machetes to give them to cut some grass because they are nothing but milperos.” Yet these fighters fought ten good rounds to his great surprise and one was a very skillful boxer. Belizeans will misjudge fighters who come from abroad for several reasons. One, they are only here for two or three days and two, it would be stupid of them to get in the ring with Belizean sparring partners who might be looking for a reputation. But to answer the question. He did confuse me because he was the first I met who switchhit, i.e, changed from southpaw to orthodox and back to southpaw. I had knocked him down in the third round and he got up and started with this switchhitting which helped him to score to my kidneys with short looping right hands. When I went back to my corner at the end of the round, I discussed this with Slim (Terror) and asked him how to handle this style and he said, “Use a left jab, right uppercut and a left hook,” and I went out in the fourth and did exactly that. Left Jab, right uppercut and left hook, and he was sprawled on the canvas for a knockout. So that one never knows what might have happened in the later rounds had I not solved his style, because Panucho was very tough. He was trying very hard to get up and he was really well hit as the pictures taken by my manager, Mr. Harrison, show his hair standing on end and sweat spraying in the air from the shock of the punch. I fought Panucho with a broken right wrist. Around this same time Ludwig Lightburn also got his right hand broken and we both went to Dr. Markowski, who advised that our hands be put in cast. Ludwig complied, but I did not, so the bones healed in the wrong position and so I live with it up to this day.
FUN & GAMES: Your strength and power were in the left hand. It seemed to many that you were not effective with the right hand at all.
ECKERT LEWIS: I think the answer to that lies in your statement. The power was in the left hand therefore the right doesn’t look effective. The orthodox boxer who is a right-handed person has his power in his right hand. And he uses his left hand either as a defensive weapon to keep you away by jabbing you, or as an aggressive weapon to set you up for his right. But since I am a left-handed person who fights in an orthodox stance, I can’t keep you away with my right hand. Also, my power hand being the one that I attack with, does most of the damage before the right, which looks ineffective by comparison. But I do use the right hand. In fact, I broke it hitting Jimmy Pollard on the head with it in a sparring session.
FUN & GAMES: You were inactive for a while and then you went back to the ring. What brought you back?
ECKERT LEWIS: Well, I quit in 1950. In ’51 I started to train because people began talking about a return match with Ludwig. Ludwig had gone to Mexico for some fights. He came back and fought some more Mexicans in Belize City, including Beto Carbajal and others who were really good. He got a lot of valuable experience. Also, he started saying he was the featherweight champion.
FUN & GAMES: He claimed the title as being vacant.
ECKERT LEWIS: That’s right. Well, there were some eliminations with George Myvett and others, and Ludwig came out on top. So I decided to come back and fight him, and it was arranged.
FUN & GAMES: Our friends Dickie Gardiner and Nacho Coye again?
ECKERT LEWIS: Oh, yes.
FUN & GAMES: You were still being trained by Roy (Slim Terror) Cadle and Ludwig by Kid Broaster?
ECKERT LEWIS: Of course.
FUN & GAMES: People would like to have your opinion on this. How do you rate Kid Broaster as a trainer?
ECKERT LEWIS: I rate him very high. Most people don’t know that Broaster also trained me at one time. The first good boxing boots were bought by him from Mexico and sold to me. They were very good boxing shoes. He used to train me at the Militia Hall along with Ludwig, Simon Lucas and others. He did not teach you how to execute a lot of fancy punches. He would try to build on what you already had and develop your strong points. Or he would look for your opponent’s weakness and tell you how to take advantage of it. He was very good at this.
FUN &GAMES: How do you rate Slim Terror in these areas?
ECKERT LEWIS: Slim would teach you the things he learnt as a world class professional boxer but he was not as clever as Broaster was in analyzing the style of fighters and planning how to defeat them. Slim could also prepare you for a fight so you would be in top physical condition. He was a very dedicated trainer, but Broaster was as cunning as a fox.
FUN & GAMES: How did you prepare for Ludwig?
ECKERT LEWIS: This was expected to be one of the great ones so a lot of effort was put into my preparation. We made sure we had the sparring partners and we made sure that a good training programme was formulated. But after a while I got fed up with training, especially road work in the mornings. Oftentimes I would dodge this, not because I was being unfaithful to the game, but I spent so much energy concentrating on the fight and thinking about it all the time that I slept badly at nights and felt that I needed more rest in the mornings. Anyway, we had all these sparring partners lined up and we worked hard in the gym. We had an open gym at Imperial Hall on New Road and anybody could come there and put on the gloves. Ludwig was working out at another gym – Liberty Hall on Barrack Road and they used to send spies to my camp to watch me and we would do the same. Our spies would report that Ludwig was unimpressive in his workouts. It would have been interesting to know what their spies had to say.
Anyway, the day of the fight came. This time I was fighting for a percentage of the gate, not for a guaranteed purse. So I got a good friend to stay at the gate and check on the tickets. This particular friend had never seen me fight. It was a thing with him that he wouldn’t go to see me fight. But he went this time. Incidentally, it was at the Palace Theatre and we had a packed house.
I was confident, and my supporters were even more confident, and this is the way I approached the fight. Not many people are aware of this but in the first round when we came out and I reached forward to touch gloves with Ludwig in the center of the ring, I got hit with one of the worst right hands I had ever received. It was a straight right to the jaw and the effects of this punch lasted until the end of this fight in the ninth round. And all this time I was trying my best to hit Ludwig with my left hook.
FUN & GAMES: How good was Ludwig at defending against the left hook?
ECKERT LEWIS: His was a well-practiced guaranteed defence to make sure he wouldn’t get hit with that punch. I learned afterwards that, apart from his gym work, he had a bag of sand hung from a beam and Broaster had him train there in the morning early when no one was around. Broaster told him to keep his right close to his side, and the moment he felt a blow on this arm to throw a straight right. And every time I threw the left hook, that right hand would counter to my jaw for nine rounds until eventually I went down and lost by a knockout in the ninth.
FUN & GAMES: You have participated in a lot of sporting activities and excelled in quite a few of them but your great love is boxing and you would like to see amateur and professional boxing reaching the heights once more. What ideas do you have to accomplish this?
ECKERT LEWIS: Like in any form of study it is worthwhile to look at history. History teaches us a great deal. It is true we don’t have Brother Jacoby or Father Ganey nor a Parish Hall, but the experience that individuals have gained working with the organization that existed at that time can be drawn upon now to assist at least amateur boxing in this country. I feel that the amateur association should try to sponsor amateur boxing not only in terms of holding a tournament, but in terms of getting equipment and facilities and organizing training sessions to prepare the youngsters before they compete in a tournament. One of the ideas that I have been trying to push for the last year and a half is that the time has come for amateur boxing to get a location. A place that can be used for training which should be run by competent people. A place where all boxers could come to train whether they intend to enter tournaments or not.
FUN & GAMES: Some place like the old Parish Hall.
ECKERT LEWIS: Yes. A place like Parish Hall and a similar organization like the C.Y.O. (END)