There are no longer any world champions in Philly the city of “Brotherly Shove!” Danny “Swift” Garcia was the most recent losing his WBC welterweight title to WBA champion Keith “One Time” Thurman on March 4th 2017 in a unification bout.
There was a time in the 60’s & 70’s when they had some of the top middleweights but no champions. Their champions per John DiSanto’s www.phillyboxinghistory.com list Danny Dougherty as their first champion when he won the Bantamweight title, “Philadelphia” Jack O’Brien, Harry Lewis, Battling Levinsky, Benny “Little Fish” Bass. Possibly considered the greatest Philly boxer of all time was Tommy “Phantom of Philly” Loughran, 124-32-13, Midget Wolgast, Johnny Jadick, Bob “Wildcat” Montgomery, Harold Johnson, Sonny Liston.
Joey Giardello, “Smokin” Joe Frazier, the modern best in Philly, Matthew Saad Muhammad, “Joltin” Jeff Chandler, Charlie “Choo-Choo” Brown, “Terrible” Tim Witherspoon, Gary Hinton, Buster Drayton, Meldrick Taylor, Robert “Bam Bam” Hines, “Fearless” Fred Pendleton, Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins, Nate “Mr.” Miller, Charles “The Hatchet” Brewer, David Reid, Steve “USS” Cunningham and Danny “Swift” Garcia. That’s approximately 28 world champions in all.
In the 60’s and 70’s they never had a middleweight champion but plenty of contenders like “Gypsy” Joe Harris, “Bad” Bennie Briscoe, Willie “The Worm” Monroe, Bobby “Boogaloo” Watts, Eugene “Cyclone” Hart and Stanley “Kitten” Hayward. Briscoe got three title shots and Hayward one. Harris won a non-title bout.
The Light Heavyweights came along in the late 70’s and 80’s. There were Matthew Saad Muhammad, Jerry “The Bull” Martin, and NJ boxers who trained in Philly such as Mike “The Jewish Bomber” Rossman and Dwight “The Camden Buzzsaw” Qawi Muhammad.
Today the contenders are Bryant “By By” Jennings, Steve “USS” Cunningham, Jesse “Hard Work” Hart, Julian “J Roc” Williams, Danny “Swift” Garcia, “The New” Ray Robinson, “Hammerin” Hank Lundy, Tevin “American Idol” Farmer and Avery Sparrow. That’s just nine contenders. There are near contenders like Joey “The Tank” Dawejko, Tyrone Brunson and Eric “Outlaw” Hunter.
The prospects are led by Jaron “Boots” Ennis, 19-0 (17), who in this writer’s opinion is the best prospect since 1984 Olympic Gold Medalist Meldrick Taylor. Ennis was the 2016 Olympic Alternate losing a questionable bout for the trials champion.
Other prospects are Christian Carto, 15-0 (11), Jeremy “King” Cuevas, 9-0 (7), Branden “The Gift” Pizarro, 10-1 (4), Milton “El Santo” Santiago, 17-0 (3), Marcel Rivers, 5-0 (4), Brandon “Brob” Robinson, 10-1 (7), Poindexter Knight, 3-0 (0), Sam “Tsunami” Teah, 13-2-1 (6), Steven Ortiz, 8-0 (3), Manny “Major Pain” Folly, 11-0 (9), Darmani Rock, 10-0 (7) and Donald “No Love” Smith, 6-0 (3). That’s thirteen on the rise! A combined record of 136-4!