Galento the Great: The Authentic and Authorized Story of the Life and Ring Battles of Tony (Two-Ton) Galento, World’s Heavyweight Contender

By Joseph G. Donovan and Abe J. Greene

Galento the Great is the gripping biography of Tony “Two-Ton” Galento, the boxer who once fought Joe Louis—considered one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time—for the heavyweight title. It was written by Joseph G. Donovan in 1939, the same year Galento challenged Louis for the title.

Domenico Antonio Galento (1910-1979) was an American heavyweight boxer, nicknamed “Two-Ton” for his reasoning to his manager for being nearly late to one of his fights: “I had two tons of ice to deliver on my way here.” Galento was one of the most colorful fighters in the history of the sport. He wrestled an octopus, and boxed a kangaroo as publicity stunts for his fights. He also boxed a 550 lb. (250 kg) bear, as a stage attraction.

“THIS is an authorized, authentic and unvarnished story of my life and battles. The author has known me for 13 years and he, if anyone, knows the facts and figures, better than myself. While he has scratched my back a bit with his facile pen, both as Sports Editor and columnist of the Newark, N. J. Morning Ledger and as the author of my fighting career, I like it from page to page. Joe Donovan has as much punch in this story as I have in my left hook in the ring. And that is something.”—Tony Galento

• Language: English
• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Release date: Dec 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789125702

Joseph G. Donovan

JOSEPH G. DONOVAN was a sports editor and columnist for the Newark Morning Ledger in the 1930s. He was married to Frances Donovan and had a daughter, Patricia. ABE J. GREENE (1899-1988) was a newspaperman and ring official who was credited with cleaning up boxing in New Jersey and turning the state into a major venue for the sport. As the longtime president and later commissioner of the old National Boxing Association and as a four-term New Jersey State Athletic Commissioner, he became one of the boxing’s best-liked and most respected officials. He championed the rights and well-being of boxers against their sometimes callous and unscrupulous managers even as he worked to make the sport profitable for the businessmen who ran it. He worked as an editor at The Paterson Evening News while serving in his boxing posts, having first come to prominence in 1933—then the city editor of The Evening News—when he served as chairman of a special labor-management commission that resolved a 14-week strike by 10,000 local silk workers. He was appointed as the state’s athletic commissioner in 1937 and elected as president of the National Boxing Association, which sanctioned bouts outside New York, in 1941. The next year he became the first man re-elected to the boxing association post, which he held until the late 1940’s, when he was named commissioner, a more powerful position that had been created especially for him. Greene passed away in Paterson, New Jersey on September 22, 1988, aged 89.

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Text originally published in 1939 under the same title.

© Papamoa Press 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

GALENTO THE GREAT

The Authentic and Authorized Story of the

Life and Ring Battles of

TONY (Two-Ton) GALENTO

WORLD’S HEAVYWEIGHT CONTENDER

BY

JOSEPH G. DONOVAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 5

ACKNOWLEDGMENT 7

DEDICATION 8

NOTE by Tony Galento 9

FOREWORD by Abe Greene 10

PREFACE 12

INTRODUCTION 17

CHAPTER ONE 21

CHAPTER TWO 25

CHAPTER THREE 28

CHAPTER FOUR 31

CHAPTER FIVE 33

CHAPTER SIX 36

CHAPTER SEVEN 39

CHAPTER EIGHT 41

CHAPTER NINE 43

CHAPTER TEN 48

CHAPTER ELEVEN 52

CHAPTER TWELVE 60

CHAPTER THIRTEEN 63

CHAPTER FOURTEEN 71

CHAPTER FIFTEEN 73

CHAPTER SIXTEEN 78

COMPLETE RING RECORD OF TONY GALENTO COMPLETE BOXING RECORD OF TONY GALENTO 81

MEASUREMENTS OF LOUIS AND GALENTO 86

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 87

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

To Abe J. Greene, who wrote the foreword; M. Philip Chapman, who gave editorial advice; William L. Gilzenberg and Thomas Carey, who did months of research; the Newark Ledger for the use of photographs and Henry Armata for art work.

DEDICATION

Dedicated

To

MY WIFE, FRANCES DONOVAN,

AND MY DAUGHTER, PATRICIA.

NOTE by Tony Galento

THIS is an authorized, authentic and unvarnished story of my life and battles. The author has known me for 13 years and he, if anyone, knows the facts and figures, better than myself. While he has scratched my back a bit with his facile pen, both as Sports Editor and columnist of the Newark, N. J. Morning Ledger and as the author of my fighting career, I like it from page to page. Joe Donovan has as much punch in this story as I have in my left hook in the ring. And that is something.

FOREWORD by Abe Greene

MR. JOSEPH G. DONOVAN, who has strayed temporarily from the devious pursuits of ordinary run-of-the-day journalism to indite an all-embracing tome on the life of the famed Tony Galento, has done more than serve the purpose of biography. He has struck a magnificent blow at the detractors of the great American institution of proper and voluminous eating and drinking. Thus having written, Mr. Donovan and his work, Galento the Great, must take their places in American history as first line defenders of the art of epicure.

Because certain it is that Tony Galento owes his precipitous rise to the heights not so much to prodigious fists; not so much to the brilliance of flashing fists and dancing feet; not so much to anything as to the gustatory prowess which has built a lusty human into a mammoth gladiator of elephantine grace.

America knows its Number One Challenger for the rich heavyweight honors as a blustering I’ll knock that bum out braggard whose bellowing charges, supported by flailing fists, render hors de combat all the hapless victims paraded before him in the prize ring.

Mr. Donovan paints a different picture of Galento the Great. A plodding youth, built squat and sidewise, who was so thoroughly the antithesis of a prize-fighter that to him from early days came naught but scorn and ridicule whene’er his fistic pretensions were discussed.

Lumbering through the early years of boxing travail, scoffed at and laughed at, still he persisted, the author tells us. His record in the ring dotted with reverses. His battle-scarred physiognomy a tell-tale revelation of lack of defensive skill.

Surely not a fighter of championship tone who might some day be knocking at the Temple of the Great? Yet here he is, matched for the world’s richest bauble, and speaking contemptuously of the champion. What was it? Mr. Donovan lets us in on the innermost story of the Human Gargantua.

He had a robust body, a stout chin, gameness and a punch...his heart pumped pure fighting blood, the blood of thoroughbreds.

Fate decreed to Tony Galento an abiding faith in himself and his own destiny. Perhaps it was this deep quality of self-confidence which inspired Galento in the early summer of 1937 as he appeared in the presence of our State Athletic Commission. Previous commissioners had set him down as a playboy who could not or would not be amenable to the ordinary rules of training decency and decorum. Yet this Commissioner knew Galento for the qualities his biographer ascribes to him. We had a heart-to-heart talk. The promoters were present. So was his prospective opponent. Tony listened like a child to the counsel.

This was his final opportunity. He could do if he willed so. Victory over Al Ettore, and he would be made, because he now had a skilful mentor. It seemed to take. The fat playboy extended his hand, promised to train ardently and sincerely. And he kept that promise, and has kept it since,—even in his greatest battle with that bum pneumonia, so vividly recounted by Mr. Donovan.

But beyond it all—beyond the power of his punch, is Tony Galento’s pulchritude of paunch,—because pulchritudinous it is in spite of the seeming inconsistency of it all. It isn’t alone the fighter in Tony that makes promoters cry for him as babies cry for their favorite lubricant. It’s the rolling, billowy waves of adiposity, set off by the homeliness of a Frankensteinian face, which bring Galento to the doorsteps of fame, fortune and national acclaim. And, incidentally, which makes him worthy of this fascinating biography from the pen of Mr. Donovan.

Thus, the roly-poly, beer-guzzling gourmand of the prize ring steps up to bat for his biggest moment. And the people of his home state, with supreme confidence in the destiny of this squat behemoth, muse along with Barton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, to wit: As much valor is to be found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our captains and carpet knights will make this good and prove it.

Mr. Donovan makes us think Galento the Great will prove it.

Abe J. Greene,

Boxing Commissioner,

State of New Jersey.

April 6, 1939.

PREFACE

WHEN Tony Galento was matched with Champion Joe Louis for the world’s heavyweight championship, newspaper boxing writers, almost universally, declared that the Orange, N. J. heavyweight was lucky to get the moneyed match and