Tommy Farr Disliked Working In The Welsh Coal Mines Tommy Farr, like so many of his fellow countrymen, was born into poverty leading to the inevitable job of working down the Welsh coalmines, before his teens. In those days of appalling conditions in the mines and poor pay no one liked working there but Tommy Farr particularly disliked it. To escape from the drudgery Tommy believed that his best chance of escaping was to tale up boxing as his means of escape, a decision he later describe as the lesser of two evils. So he followed the route that Jimmy Wilde Jim Driscoll had taken before him; he joined the boxing booths. At the tender age of 12, already having left school, he engaged in his first official fight, a six round points win over Jack Lord that set Tommy Farr on his way. Little did Welshman Tommy Farr realised that he would be heading towards greater fame. Tommy Farr Became Welsh Light-Heavyweight Champion Tommy Farr did not set the world alight in his early days of boxing. Tommy decided to try his luck in London, this did not work out too well for him either having only one fight, against Eddie Steel, to which he lost. Tommy Farr Beat Two Ex-World Light Heavyweight ChampionsOn his return to Wales fortune smiled upon him at last, putting together seven straight wins he then took the Welsh Light-Heavyweight title with a points win against Randy Jones. Another six wins making it 14 straight led to the first of 3 meetings with Eddie Phillips, all of which Tommy lost. The last of those 3 meetings was for the British Light Heavyweight title which was lost over 15 rounds. After this fight Tommy was to reach a turning point in his career when he began completed a string of 18 fights without defeat Tommy Farr beat ex-World Light Heavyweight Champions Tommy Loughran and Bob Olin, another former light heavyweight champion. Even with his growing reputation Tommy Farr was not expected to defeat Ben Foord in a challenge for the British Empire titles in March 1937. The fight wasn't a classic but Farr's crouching style and consistent scoring with the left hand secured the titles. Tommy Farr Easily Beat The Dangerous Ex-Heavyweight World Champion: Max BearAfter a somewhat mixed blessings at the beginning to his career Tommy Farr was now the British Empire Heavyweight Champion and ready to mix it with the best the world had to offer. His next opponent was Max Baer the great former World Heavyweight Champion. Understandably, Tommy Farr was the underdog; Max Baer was going to beat him and beat him easily or so they thought. Tommy Farr turned the odds upside down with a Fantastic of boxing skills, while for the most part Max Baer played to the crowd. Mistakenly, Max Bear thought that he could finish Tommy Farr whenever he so chose, but he was sadly mistaken as Tommy Farr had other ideas. When the time came that Max thought he would now put an end to the Welshman challenge he found himself in a real fight. By now Tommy had established a commanding points lead and was not about to give it up. Max moved in for the kill. Tommy jabbed him - Max threw big right hands, Tommy jabbed him Max tried to box, Tommy jabbed him and kept on jabbing. Tommy Farr Was now Ready To Take On The Brown Bomber.Tommy Farr was fighting a great fight, dancing, crouching, bobbing and weaving, jabbing you name it, he did it all and when Max Baer did manage to get in some good punches Tommy Farr fought back. An absolutely tremendous performance saw Tommy Farr take the points verdict in his best win yet. With another superlative performance Walter Neusel was dispatched in only 3 rounds leading up to the epic battle with the abominable Brown Bomber, Joe Louis. First, let us look back in time to when king boxer Joe Louis was the reining world heavyweight champion and in defence of his crown since knocking out the German Max Schmeling, leading to when Joe Louis and John Henry Lewis Fought for the Heavyweight Championship Boxing crown. Of course, it was another one of Louis' victory as he knocked out the former lightweight champion in just one round, but the real significance of this fight was that for the first time since the Jack Johnson era, two black boxers was fighting for the world heavyweight crown, It was beginning of the black boxers domination in the boxing ring for African-American Joe Louis ruled the Heavyweight Division for quite sometime and after his retirement more black boxers wore the heavyweight boxing crown. |
