The great Sandy Saddler in London

BACK in 2016, BN assessed the greatest ever featherweights and ranked Sandy Saddler at number one. At number two in the list came Saddler’s great rival, Willie Pep. I have seen many similar lists over the years, and it is Pep that more often tops the list, with Saddler frequently appearing behind Henry Armstrong at number three. 

I concur with the BN verdict, as Saddler beat Pep in three of the four contests that the two men shared.  There is no doubt at all that both Pep and Saddler deserve their place, in whatever order, right at the top of the all-time featherweight list.

Pep only ever fought one British-based fighter. He was stopped in nine rounds by Hogan Kid Bassey, a Nigerian who came to the UK in December 1951, in a 10-round non-title affair in Boston, USA, in September 1958. 

Pep was well past his best at the time and Bassey, who was managed by that doyen of the Leicester scene, George Biddles, was the reigning world featherweight champion.

As the referee counted 10 over the stricken body of Pep in that ninth round, he ruled that he had stopped the contest, and that Pep had not been knocked out. This caused some controversy, but the third man may have simply wanted to save the great man from having a KO loss on his record because he, like the rest of the boxing world, respected Pep so much.

Sandy Saddler also boxed only one fighter from the UK. He had just lost to Pep in their second contest at Madison Square Garden, a fight that the Ring magazine named as its ‘fight of the year’ for 1949, when he was invited over by promoter Jack Solomons to take part in a contest at the White City Stadium, on the undercard of the Freddie Mills vs Bruce Woodcock fight for the British heavyweight title. 

His opponent was a veteran featherweight from Lisburn, County Antrim, named Jim Keery. Saddler was at the height of his powers, and it was quite a coup for Solomons to tempt the American over here to take part in a 10-rounder against a fighter that no one in the States had ever heard about.

Keery had been a fighter for 17 years when he met Saddler. He started his career boxing in the small halls of Belfast in 1932. After eight years of battling, he managed to earn a shot at the Northern Ireland featherweight title against the champion, Spider Jim Kelly. Unfortunately, Keery weighed in half a pound overweight for the contest, and Kelly therefore remained the champion, despite being stopped in only five rounds by Keery in front of seven thousand fans at the King’s Hall, Belfast. Seven months later, in November 1940, Keery lost a 15-round decision to Al Lyttle for the Northern Ireland lightweight title.

Keery soldiered on for another nine years as a lightweight before being picked by Solomons to fight Saddler. At no stage had he cracked the British Top 10 but, immediately prior to the Saddler bout, he knocked out the leading challenger for the British title, Peter Fallon, in the sixth round of a 10-rounder at Liverpool Stadium. This bout, coupled with a victory over ex-British lightweight champion Billy Thompson earlier in the year, earned him his White City opportunity.

Inevitably, Saddler was streets ahead of Keery on the night with BN reporting, “Saddler (9st 3lbs) gave away five pounds to Jim Keery and knocked him out in the fourth round. Keery was not overawed by his opponent’s former glories and attacked strongly in the first round. Saddler punches hard and this was noticeable at once in the opening round when Sandy slammed home a right to the jaw to floor the Irishman for seven”. 

Keery visited the canvas four more times in a one-sided contest but had earned his place in history in a brave battle against the greatest featherweight of all time. Keery died in 1981, aged 68.