The Big Wind

Tommy ("Hurricane") Jackson is a burly (192 1/2 Ibs.) young (22) Negro who loves to fight. Hurricane also loves his mother. And like any man with two loves, Hurricane has known trouble. This spring he put his promising heavyweight record (16 wins, one loss, one draw) on the line against a light-punching light heavyweight named Jimmy Slade. The big wind dwindled to a spring breeze. Tommy lost a ten-round decision and got so flustered that he blamed it all on mom. "I'm glad I lost," he said. "My mother kept telling me when to go to bed. She treats me like a baby." The New York State Athletic Commission, which likes to think that all boxers are gentlemen, made him apologize.

Last week Hurricane blew into Manhattan's Madison Square Garden to redeem himself. His mother had stopped nagging, he said. Like a good boy, Tommy had been trotting ten miles daily on the Rockaway Beach boardwalk. In Stillman's Gym he had been pushing sparring partners around as he polished up his wild assortment of slaps, jabs, backhanded cuffs and spectacular double uppercuts. He had bothered little with the big bag. "Phooey to that," said Hurricane. "I like to box with guys. A big bag can't punch back. I like to get hit. Then I fight better. When I'm hit, yeah man, that's fun."

In the Garden Ex-Marine Charley Norkus did his muscle-bound best to show Hurricane some fun. Tommy was easy to hit. and Norkus jolted him just often enough. By the time he had absorbed a deep gash over each eye, the Hurricane was really swirling, and apparently happy. Flailing fists from every direction, Tommy swarmed all over the slow-moving Norkus. By the fifth round he had the ex-marine hanging helpless on the ropes. Hurricane could not blow his man down, but the boxing commission had obviously taught him manners. He politely stepped back and let the referee stop the fight.

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