Fifty-four years ago, my father’s uncle, Johnny Ortega, knocked out Tommy Rhett in the eighth round to capture the California State Flyweight championship in front of 1,753 at the Richmond Auditorium. Below is a copy of the Humboldt Standard from the morning after the fight, April 23, 1954, and includes a quick write-up of the fight.
The History Channel updates visitors on historic events throughout world history with “This Day in History.” There were a number of notables for March 25:
1911: Due to poor working conditions, 146 people are killed in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, staffed with mostly young immigrant women, in New York City. The tragic deaths led to legislative reforms requiring employers to raise standards at the workplace and spurred the growth of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union. (The union since merged with others to form UNITE HERE.) The building was then-privately owned and later turned over to New York University and made into a national landmark in 1991.
1958: Sugar Ray Robinson defeated Carmen Basilio to regain the middleweight crown, his fifth and final title of his career. Heavyweight legend Muhammad Ali later said of Robinson: “My idol will always be Sugar Ray Robinson, who was, and remains, one of the best pound-for-pound fighters to have ever lived in this century.”
1967: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., led 5,000 marchers in Chicago and declared the Vietnam War was “a blasphemy against all that America stands for.”
1994: The last American forces leave Somalia after an unsuccessful 15-month peacekeeping campaign.
My brother Mario Ortega, Jr., put together an article at 15rounds.com on the IBF/IBO Flyweight Champion Nonito Donaire, Jr. (19-1, 12KOs), who is one month out from his title defense in Dubai.
Nonito Donaire Jr. (19-1, 12 KOs) touched down in the United States last week from Philippines, where he has become a national hero. “The Filipino Flash’s” rise to fame was one of the well chronicled stories of 2007. Only few insiders gave him much of a chance to defeat then unbeaten IBF Flyweight Champion Vic Darchinyan in July. The result was a devastating fifth-round knockout, a new champion, and the launching of a new star in boxing. Donaire followed the title-winning victory up with an eighth-round knockout of mandatory challenger Luis Maldonado in December, who had only lost previously to Darchinyan. Donaire is currently rated the top flyweight in the world by the most respected rankers of the sport, including The Ring Magazine, and preparing for another challenge. On April 18th Donaire will travel to Dubai to defend his title against Hussein Hussein (31-4, 24 KOs), a tough former Australian Olympian who has given some of the best flyweights in the world tough fights.
Donaire, a local Bay Area product and native of the Philippines, defends his titles April 18.