5. Tippy Larkin
Tony Pilleteri, an Italian-American, out of Garfield, New Jersey was fittingly dubbed “The Garfield Gunner.” The surname “Larkin” was the title his older brother boxed under so Tony did too.
Friends and family called him “T.P.” so taking the name “Tippy” was also only natural.
And all natural is exactly what fight fans in attendance of Larkin’s eventual sixth-round knockout of Tommy Cross saw in 1942 when the New Jersey boy forgot to put on his trunks before stepping into the ring.
Larkin was a handsome man with a beautiful flair in an ugly sport. He won over 130 fights, losing 15 times but was never actually outboxed. He would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer if not for one fatal flaw.
Robert F. Fernandez, Sr. comments in his book Boxing in New Jersey, 1900-1999:
“If Larkin had [Billy] Graham’s chin [who was never knocked out in 126 fights], he would have become a boxing immortal—the white Sugar Ray Robinson.”
It’s hard to find a newspaper report that doesn’t refer to Larkin as a “master-boxer.” His boxing ability was revered in like dazzling stylists Pernell Whitaker and Nicolino Locche after him.
“Tippy was… an artful dodger who could slip and slide and parry blows like none before,” Fernandez says. “He could feint an opponent out of position and make him look like a clumsy novice with his on-target counterpunches.”
In 1946, Larkin won the reestablished junior welterweight title, beating the excellent Willie Joyce (68-16-9) over a blistering 12 rounds. Larkin beat him on two other occasions as well.
From the time Larkin turned 20 in 1937 until walking away for good in 1952, he would fight 105 times, losing a decision just once—that being to the rough and tumble Hall of Famer Jack Kid Berg.
He wasn’t, however, the only brilliant boxer-puncher glorifying the stacked era of the time. Billy Graham was a superb boxer who in 1947 was being touted as likely Sugar Ray Robinson’s toughest competition.
When Larkin handed Graham a “thorough boxing lesson” (Edwardsville Intelligencer) that same year, he regained the prestige he had lost the month before when he was flattened by the blonde bomber Charley Fusari.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time and it sure wouldn’t be the last. Nine other stoppage losses mar his record.
KO losses to dynamite puncher Al Bummy Davis and Hall of Famers Lew Jenkins, Beau Jack, Ike Williams and Henry Armstong—who Larkin picked apart for an entire round before being caught straight right to the chin in Round 2—hinder the feasibly legendary career he could have had.
