Fullmer, Gene

Gene Fullmer was born July 21, 1931 in the city of West Jordan , Utah . He made his debut in the professional ring at the age of twenty, performed under the guidance of local manager Marv Jenson, a mentor who helped many young West Jordan boxers.

For four years, he won 29 victories in a row, including taking the upper hand against future world champion Paul Pender . He suffered his first defeat in his career in April 1955, by unanimous decision of judges from a little-known compatriot Gil Turner. Already in the next match he took revenge from Turner, then won two more fights, but then a series of two losses followed.

By the beginning of 1957, Fullmer had an impressive track record of 37 victories and only three defeats. Thanks to a series of successful appearances, he got a chance to challenge the world middleweight title, which at that time belonged to the famous Sugar Ray Robinson . Their fight lasted all fifteen rounds, challenger Fullmer looked better than the titled Robinson, and all the judges unanimously gave him the victory. In the same year, a rematch was organized between them, and Robinson took back his champion belt, knocking out Fullmer in the second minute of the fifth round.

Having lost his title, Gene Fullmer continued to enter the ring, gained nine more victories in a row, and in August 1959 he won the vacant world title by the National Boxing Association (NBA), defeated another challenger Carmen Basilio by technical knockout in the fourteenth round - their dramatic duel was recognized as the best fight of the year according to the magazine " Ring ".

Subsequently, Fullmer defended his championship belt seven times, during the championship he defeated such famous boxers as Spider Webb, Joey Giardello , Florentino Fernandez , Benny Paret . Twice defended the title in a confrontation with Sugar Ray Robinson. Their fight in 1960 lasted all fifteen rounds and ended in a controversial decision, most experts considered Robinson the winner, but the judges recorded a draw. A year later, there was already the fourth duel between these fighters, this time Fullmer looked clearly better and won by unanimous decision.

When the National Boxing Association was renamed the World Boxing Association (WBA) in 1962, Gene Fullmer and Nigerian spokesman Dick Tiger won the new middleweight belt. Tiger won the points by unanimous decision and thus became the new champion. In 1963, they again entered the ring with each other, this fight ended in a draw, and the Nigerian remained in the belt. In the same year, their third fight took place (the World Boxing Council world title was also at stake), this time Dick Tiger defeated by technical knockout in seven rounds. Shortly after this defeat, Fullmer decided to end his sports career. In total, at a professional level, he spent 64 fights, of which 55 won (including 24 ahead of schedule), 6 lost (2 ahead of schedule), in three cases a draw was recorded. In 1991 he was included in the International Boxing Hall of Fame .

He died on April 27, 2015 in his native West Jordan, surrounded by friends and relatives ^{[2] [3]} .

• Gene Fullmer - professional boxing statistics for BoxRec