Yvon Durelle was Canada’s French ‘Fighting Fisherman’
By Eric Armit
Yvon Durelle “The Fighting Fisherman”
Born: 14 October 1929 Baie-Sainte-Anne, Canada
Died: 6 January 2007 Baie-Sainte-Anne, Canada
Career: 1948 to 19674
Record: 115 Fights 88 wins (49 by KO/TKO), 24 losses (9 by KO/TKO), 2 draws. 1 No Decision
Division(s): Middleweight, light-heavyweight and heavyweight
Stance: Orthodox
Titles: Canadian middleweight and light-heavyweight, Commonwealth light-heavyweight
Major Contests
Scored wins over: George Ross, Gordon Wallace (four times), Doug Harper, Alvin Williams, Angelo DeFendis, Willi Besmanoff, Clarence Hinnant, Germinal Ballarin, Mike Holt, Freddie Mack.
Lost to: Doug Harper, Floyd Patterson (twice)**, Paul Andrews, Gerhard Hecht, Ron Barton, Jimmy Slade, Yolande Pompey*, Artie Towne, Arthur Howard, Clarence Hinnant, Tony Anthony*, Archie Moore (twice) ** . George Chuvalo*.
Drew with: Doug Harper, Tony Anthony*
**Past/future holder of a version of a world title
* Unsuccessful challenger for a version of a world title
Yvon Durelle’s Story
Timing is everything and had Durelle fought in a different era he would have been a world champion and sprung one of the biggest shocks in the history of boxing. He was born in the small fishing village of Baie-Sainte-Anne in New Brunswick, Canada and was an Acadian, an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia.
Yvon was the sixth eldest in a family of fourteen children, and as with many others of his generation, he left school early to work on the boats. So early that he had not mastered reading and writing as he also suffered from French being his language at home and English at school. He and his brothers often fought amongst themselves, and his elder brother Ernie was the first member of the family to turn professional in 1949.
Yvon followed Ernie in his first fight in July 1948. He had no training and no trainer and was, at best, crude but was fighting 10-round main events by 1949 and won 22 of his first 23 fights, with the loss coming on a disqualification. His second loss came against Roy Wouters who had fought future middleweight champion Randy Turpin in England just months before.
Just six days after the fight against Woulters, Yvon stopped his brother Bernie in eight rounds in Bernie’s only professional fight! He continued a high level of activity in the Canadian Maritime Provinces, twice beating the Canadian light-heavyweight champion in non-title fights, and he had 40 fights before first fighting outside of New Brunswick.
Durelle won the Canadian middleweight title in June 1953. He put together a run of 14 wins, then won the Canadian light heavyweight title in October 1953, only to lose it in his next fight. He had his first fight outside Canada in February 1954, losing on points over eight rounds against unbeaten Floyd Patterson (below).
He went back to New Brunswick and regained the Canadian light-heavyweight title. He then hit the road, suffering two losses in Germany and one in England. His lack of skill and dislike of training had his career going nowhere and consecutive losses against Jimmy Slade, Yolande Pompey and Artie Towne only confirmed this.
He fought his way back with nine wins in 10 fights and won the Commonwealth light-heavyweight title with a second-round KO of fellow Canadian Gordon Wallace. He climbed off the floor to get a draw with top-rated Tony Anthony, who three months later was knocked out by Archie Moore in a challenge for the light-heavyweight title.
Durelle won 11 of his next 12 fights. A stoppage loss against Anthony was a set back but wins over opponents such as Willi Besmanoff, Jerry Luedee, Clarence Hinnant, Germinal Ballarin and Mike Holt in those 11 victories suddenly put Durelle up in the ratings and landed him a shot at Archie Moore in Montreal on 10 December 1958.
Durelle was a very wide outsider but in the first a right to the head floored Moore. Durelle then made the mistake of standing over Moore for a few seconds which delayed the count. Moore got up but stumbled on unsteady legs. Durelle battered him around the ring until Moore dropped again.
Moore climbed up but with no eight count in the rules he was immediately down again from a right. Moore struggled up at nine and Durelle was one punch from victory but Moore survived and stumbled back to his corner. Moore recovered and outboxed Durelle but was floored by a right in the fifth.
Again, Moore was up but unsteady, and as Durelle landed clubbing punches, it looked as though Moore was going down again, but he fought back and made it to the bell. Durell kept swinging, but Moore took advantage of Durelle’s wide-open defence and floored Durelle four times, with Durelle being counted out on the fourth knockdown in the eleventh round. If the three-knockdown rule had been in force, Durelle would have been world champion in one of the biggest upsets in boxing history.
Moore’s record going in was 176-21-9 and Durelle’s 79-19-2, so 306 fights between them are unimaginable today. Durelle’s performance made him a hero in Canada, a cult figure. Durelle’s chance at fame had gone, and in the return match in August 1959, Durelle was floored four times in the third round and counted out. There were some extenuating circumstances.
Durelle had suffered a spine injury in a boating accident, and two months before the second Moore fight, a tragedy struck Durelle’s home village of Baie-Ste-Anne. Thirty-five fishermen died when they were swept out to sea by 40-foot tidal waves that pounded the wharf. Distraught at the loss of friends and relatives, Durelle found it hard to focus on his training, and he was crushed by Moore.
His 102 fights began to catch up on Durelle, and in November 1959, he was floored five times and knocked out in the twelfth round by a new kid on the Canadian block, George Chuvalo. He fought on but was now up around 190lbs instead of the 175lbs of his peak, so was fatter, slower and training even less. He retired in September 1960 and tried professional wrestling before returning to boxing in 1963, but after losing to Jean Claude Roy in December 1964, he retired for good.
He then went to work as a forest ranger and returned to wrestling to make ends meet. Like many boxers, he was careless with money, and with a wife and four children to support and Canadian Revenue coming after him for unpaid back taxes, he was broke. The amount owed for back taxes was whittled down to $2,500, but he had to borrow the money to pay the bill.
He looked to have turned the corner financially in 1972 when he landed a job with a brewery that hired him to regale customers with his tales of his time as a boxer, and he was licensed to sell their beer in New Brunswick. However, in 1973, his house burned down, and he lost all of his possessions, and the brewer let him go.
He borrowed money in 1974 and opened and operated a club in Baie-Ste-Anne. The business was doing well but there was another twist of fate coming Durelle’s way. In April 1977, he shot and killed a man, firing five bullets through the windscreen of the man’s car. He was charged with murder, but Durelle claimed the man had threatened his family and was driving a car at him.
He was cleared by the jury, who accepted that it was done in self-defence. He sold his club in 1978 and he and his wife were able to live in relative comfort. Durelle refereed some fights in the 1970s, including a Canadian title fight between Al Ford and Leon Noel. He was inducted into the New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame in 1971, the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 1975 and the Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame in 1989.
A book “The Fighting Fisherman: The life of Yvon Durelle” was written about him and the National Film Board of Canada made a documentary of his life entitled “Durelle”. The first round of his fight with Moore in December 1958 will remain one of the most dramatic rounds in the history of boxing. Durelle had suffered from Parkinson’s Disease and had a stroke on 25 December 2006 and died on 6 January 2007 at the age of 77.
