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Encyclopedia of Australian Boxers

’ Every fighter deserves to be acknowledged ’

Most people who read Fighter-Online know BoxRec -- the site on the Internet where you can look up fighters’ records. (New to you? www.boxrec.com stores a million worldwide fight results).

Despite that huge resource, an Australian vault sheds new opportunity. It’s called Encyclopedia of Australian Boxers. This is a book that gives their place to hundreds of prelim boxers.

Randy Jones is in it and he didn’t win a bout - Randy drew one of his four bouts in 1972-75. Leon Juvelot is preserved to history by his single bout in 1962.

There are ten Jones boys including Steve Jones who was KOd in 1 by Mark Clayton, Mark’s not in the book (More on that later).
There are six Williams boxers, capped by the jester commentator Merv Williams. And there are seven Stewarts. The best performed, Clive Stewart, was Australia’s triple champ, middle to heavy; likewise Ambrose Palmer, Ron Richards, Jack Johnson, Dave Sands, Tony Mundine.

The Encyclopedia holds fifteen Aussie boxers surnamed Young, topped by three Aussie champs, two Leo Youngs and Kid Young.
As for the Young first-nameds, Young Stanko, Young Jocker, Young Yank . . . well, you count them.

Take a fighter who beat Les Darcy in his first bout and drew Tom Burns in his second. Mind you, the Darcy was spelt D’arcy and the Burns was not Tommy Burns. Our Tommy Burns, the idol of the ladies, he who filled Rushcutters Bay Stadium sixteen times; did however later fight a 12 round draw with the fighter in question. We’re talking about Jackie Daniels. Victorian welterweight champion, a big name when this little boy first delved the ’Cairns Post’ Saturday morning for Friday fights from Brisbane AND Melbourne stadiums. Jackie Daniels topped the cards often at both halls and Sydney too.

Startling, now, to learn in the encyclopedia that Jackie Daniels lost 47 of his 82 bouts.
None of today’s soft matching back then.

The publishing imprint is Bas Publishing P/L, which combined with an introduction By Barry Michael suggests Barry ("Bas") was in the company. [Not so].
His photo is one of seven world champs on the book’s cover.
"Every fighter that climbs through the ropes deserves to be acknowledged," writes Barry.

Mario Magris was chief editor of the encyclopedia. Highlights of Magris’s own career inside the ropes in the late 1960s were two bouts that went the distance with Lionel Rose.

We noted earlier that Mark Clayton iced Steve Jones . . but that Mark Clayton is not in the encyclopedia and Steve is.
Mario Magriss explained: In the intricate process of filing hundreds of records on electronic file, a swag of files were lost.

When the second edition comes round, Mario promised, ALL the names of all the Australian boxers of all the pro years will be included.
Making the 316 pages of this first edition look slender.