Gary Jacobs “Great All Rounder”
On December 10 1965, in New York City’s legendary Madison Square Garden, American fight fans and journalists alike joined four former world middleweight champions, Britain’s Randolph Turpin; Hawaiian Carl ”Bobo ” Olson; Utah’s Gene Fullmer and Syracuse, N.Y State based, Carmen Basilio, in bidding a fond farewell to American ring great ”Sugar” Ray Robinson who was retiring from boxing. Three thousand miles away in Glasgow, Scotland, on that same date, December 10 1965, a babe was born who would make boxing history of his own as the most successful Jewish ring man ever produced north of the border-his name was Gary Jacobs who would later box as Gary ”Kid” Jacobs.
Before Gary Jacobs burst upon the professional boxing scene in May 1985 with a six round points win over John Conlan in Glasgow. Scotland’s most successful miitt man had been Gorbals flyweight Vic Herman, who used the bagpiping skills he had gained in the Glasgow Jewish Lads Brigade to pipe himself into the ring before knocking Scotland’s only double Lonsdale Belt winner Peter Keenan out of the Kelvin Hall ring in 1950 (Keenan still won) and Herman became the first ever Scots boxer to fight in Japan against world flyweight champion, Yoshio Shirai. Vic also beat some of Britain and the world’s best fly and bantamweight boxers.
But Gary Jacobs surpassed all these achievements in his 12 year paid boxing career. Articulate to the point that he was a TV boxing pundit for a time, ”colourful” is the word that springs most to mind when one thinks of Gary Jacobs and not simply because he wore stunning black sequinned trunks when stopping Dudley’s Robert Wright in Glasgow for the British welterweight title in six rounds in 1992.
A southpaw, ably guided early in his career by Morey Lewis after his amateur days with the Govan club in his native Glasgow, Jacobs could both box and punch hard but unlike many modern boxers Jacobs served a valuable boxing apprenticeship in places like his native city’s Plaza ballroom where he won the Scottish welterweight crown by outpointing Larkhall’s Dave ”Gypsy” Douglas in 1987 after losing a similar title bid to the same fighter in 1986 at the same venue.
Analyse those early career results when Jacobs was finding his championship feet at Scottish Area title level and two things emerge; the quality of most of his opponents and his increasingly powerful hitting power. For example Edinburgh’s Tommy McCallum won five amateur titles with Edinburgh’s Sparta Club but he was stopped in five at the St Andrew’s Sporting club in a Scottish welter title clash by Gary; in two back-to-back bouts at the Plaza in 1987 Gary Williams hit the deck three times before being halted in round seven while Robert Armstrong was decked four times before losing by fifth round TKO.
Come 1988, Jacobs became Commonwealth welters kingpin after Gary knocked out Richard Rova in London’s Albert Hall-a win that came just after Jacobs proved that American rings held no terrors for him by winning the Vacant WBC International title with tenth round kayo of Latin-American Javier Suazo. Again, a sure test of a boxer’s real character is how they treat these two Kilplinesque impostors -triumph and disaster – just the same – and Jacobs’ ability to do just that can be seen in the way that the talented Glasgow southpaw bounced back from an eighth round knockout loss to England’s Mickey Hughes who was trailing on Ref Dave Parris’s scorecard a disappointing loss of the Commonwealth title to Canadian Donovan Boucher and a creditable points defeat in New York’s Felt Forum to future world champion, James ”Buddy” McGirt. Gary’s answer to this adversity was to rack up notable British and Commonwealth tile defence wins, including that memorable TKO win over Robert Wright in 1992 in Glasgow after Jacobs had thrown in his lot with London kingmaker Mickey Duff. But it was in the European championship arena that Gary Jacobs excelled himself becoming the most successful Scottish boxer in French rings. Since Scottish flyweight ”Tancy” Lee lost in Paris in 1919 in a European title bid the French capital and France generally, had not been a happy hunting ground for Caledonian ring men but Jacobs changed that. Witness his European welter title wins over Frenchman Ludovic Proto (Won TKO RD 9) which avenged an earlier points loss to the same opponent. Then there was the European crown points win over France’s Tusikoleta Nkalankette in 1994 at Hautes-de Seine, France.
Form at European championship level which coupled with an eye catching victory in Atlantic City, New Jersey over Jose Miguel Fernandez over ten rounds in April 1994, catapulted Gary into a world title shot against prohibitive favourite and American superstar, Pernell ”Sweet Pea” Whittaker. Few gave Jacobs much of a chance against Whittaker and while Gary lost on all three judges’ cards he at least proved his credentials to be worthy to operate at this international level. After the Whittaker world title bid loss Jacobs had just six more bouts but even in his third last ring appearance Gary showed that he still had a powerful sting in his tail when he wrecked big punching Birmingham slugger, Jimmy Vincent, whose knockout of Tranent, East Lothian’s Tommy Quinn had sent the Scot out of the ring on a stretcher-inside one round at Lewisham in 1997. After losing a 12 round I.B.F. International title bid against east European Yuri Epinantsev in 1997 at the same London Olympia Arena where fellow Scot Tommy Milligan had lost a world title bid against American Mickey Walker 50 years before in 1927, Gary Jacobs called it a day.
With a wife and family and a substantial house in one of Glasgow’s more affluent suburbs and being highly articulate and intelligent, Gary Jacobs looked set for life. However, even subsequent setbacks such as the failure of his Glasgow sports club and other negative headline grabbing events after his boxing career can’t alter the fact that in the boxing ring, Gary Jacobs was and is likely to remain Scotland’s most successful boxer of Jewish origin, worthy of rubbing shoulders with other British Jewish ring greats like Jack ”Kid” Berg and Harry Mizler and Vic Herman-the 1940′s/50′s vintage fellow Glaswegian Jewish boxer whose ring exploits Jacobs eventually surpassed.
Text by Brian Donald
