Ike Williams vs Enrique Bolanos 3

Ike Williams ended his rivalry with Enrique Bolanos in decisive fashion at Wrigley Field, Los Angeles, on July 21, 1949, stopping the Mexican challenger after 2min 40sec of the fourth round to retain the recognised world lightweight championship. Bolanos was knocked down twice and had lost sight in his left eye through swelling when his manager, George Parnassus, asked that the contest be stopped. Former world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, serving as referee, accepted the request and awarded Williams a technical knockout. The official attendance was 18,999, a substantial gathering drawn largely by Bolanos, who had become one of the most popular fighters operating in Southern California.

Williams weighed the lightweight limit of 135lb, while Bolanos came in at 133lb. This was their third championship meeting at the same ground and the second occasion on which Williams had stopped him. In April 1946, Williams had retained the National Boxing Association title when Bolanos was withdrawn in the eighth round. Their second meeting, in May 1948, had been altogether closer. Bolanos carried the fight to the champion for long stretches before Williams retained the undisputed championship by a split decision after 15 rounds. That verdict left sufficient argument for a third meeting, particularly in Los Angeles, where Bolanos’s following made the contest commercially attractive.

There was little in the third contest to resemble the uncertainty of the previous year. Williams took command early and struck with greater authority whenever the men came within range. Bolanos had been an effective pressure fighter at his best, strong enough to work inside and willing to exchange, but he was unable to make the champion retreat for sustained periods. Williams was the quicker and more damaging puncher. He used his jab to bring Bolanos into position, then followed with hooks from both hands. His punches were compact and delivered without unnecessary movement, allowing him to strike again before the challenger could recover his balance.

Bolanos continued trying to close the distance, but his left eye began swelling during the early rounds. The injury steadily reduced his ability to judge Williams’s right hand and left him increasingly exposed on that side. Williams did not attack wildly. He remained close enough to maintain pressure, worked the body when Bolanos raised his guard and then returned to the head. By the end of the third round, the challenger’s face was already showing the effects of the champion’s heavier punching. Contemporary summaries agree that the left eye had become completely closed before the contest ended.

Williams forced the issue in the fourth. Early in the round, he put Bolanos down for a count of eight. The challenger rose and attempted to continue, but his defence had deteriorated, and he could not see the punches approaching from one side. Williams followed him and landed a succession of left and right hooks. A second attack sent Bolanos to his knees near the champion’s corner. Although he again attempted to rise, Parnassus threw in the towel rather than allow him to take further punishment. Dempsey ended the contest at 2min 40sec. The stoppage was therefore made at the request of the challenger’s own corner, not solely upon the referee’s judgement.

The victory was one of Williams’s most convincing championship performances. Earlier in 1949 he had suffered two non-title defeats against Kid Gavilán, but against a natural lightweight challenger whom he knew well, he appeared sharp and physically strong. Bolanos had extended him over the full 15 rounds fourteen months earlier; this time he was unable to complete four. Williams’s greater speed, accuracy and punching force removed any possibility of another disputed decision.

For Bolanos, the defeat closed his pursuit of the lightweight championship. He had challenged Williams three times and had given him his hardest contest in their second meeting, but the final match established a clear conclusion to the series. He remained a major Los Angeles attraction and continued boxing until 1952, though he did not receive another world-title opportunity. His popularity endured long after his career, particularly among the Mexican and Mexican-American communities who had supported him at Wrigley Field and the Olympic Auditorium.

Williams left Wrigley Field still the undisputed champion and looking beyond an opponent he had now beaten three times. The rubber match had lasted fewer than twelve minutes, but it supplied a definite result to a rivalry which had occupied the Los Angeles lightweight scene for more than three years. Bolanos had shown courage in rising from the first knockdown and attempting to continue with one eye closed. His corner’s intervention was nevertheless necessary. Williams had reduced the contest to a one-sided punishment, and nothing in the fourth round suggested that the challenger could recover.

Ike Williams had already beaten Enrique Bolanos twice, but the third fight still filled Wrigley Field because Bolanos belonged to Los Angeles. He was a huge favourite with the Mexican community and had pushed Williams to a split decision over fifteen rounds in their second meeting. Nearly 19,000 turned up expecting another hard championship contest. What they got was a reminder of just how destructive Williams could be when he was properly switched on.

Bolanos was brave and willing, but Williams was operating at a different level. He had faster hands, better balance and far more authority in the exchanges. Once Williams began finding the head with compact hooks, the challenger’s left eye closed rapidly. Bolanos kept trying to press forward, but there is no clever tactic available when you cannot see the punches coming from one side.

Williams dropped him twice in the fourth. After the second knockdown, with Bolanos badly damaged and unable to defend himself properly, his corner called a halt at 2:40. That was the correct decision. Leaving him in there would only have added unnecessary punishment. Williams had now beaten him by an eighth-round stoppage, a split decision and a fourth-round stoppage across their three title fights.

For me, this was Williams at his most clinical. He did not get dragged into Bolanos’s kind of fight. He broke him down, took away his vision and finished the job without wasting punches.