The boxing crowd is no different than any other sporting congregation that gathers at assembly or merely for coffee to relive the days gone by, many of them sanctified over time in the cobwebs of memory and aggrandizement.
One-sided defeats sometimes become narrow losses with the passage of time or a career something apart from precise history. Stories abound concerning greatness within a fighter’s reach before it slipped from his fingertips.
In the case of St. Paul welterweight Billy Light a piece of his history now appears confounding. Ranked No. 8 in the world at his weight level by Ring Magazine in 1928, he could not solve the riddle of a man who was a close friend but whom he could not beat. It is left for historians to debate if that man, fellow Hall of Fame inductee My Sullivan, was that much better, had the perfect style for the job or simply had Light’s number, sometimes a catchall phrase for that which defies analysis.
There were fourteen losses on Light’s record when he retired after losing by kayo to Angelo Puglisi on May 9 1933 in Duluth, but nine of those occurred during the last two and one-half years of his career. He had 12 bouts before he lost a fight, on a newspaper decision to Bobby O’Shea on April 21, 1927 at the Kenwood Armory in Minneapolis and he reversed that loss four months later in a rematch at the New Hippodrome in St. Paul. Yet, nine of his last 12 fights ended in loss and he was stopped in four of them. His career lasted just eight years at a time many of his contemporaries were fighting twice that long.
Still, the story of a shooting star in the fight game is not unusual. A fighter of great merit comes and goes, crossing the firmament of our awareness in a sudden yet exciting arc into its horizons.
Well into retirement Light added a footnote to his story by re-engaging Sullivan, his local nemesis, in a slapstick sparring session one evening during the early 1970s at the Venetian Inn in St Paul. Light had lost three fights to Sullivan during their careers, once for the state welterweight title.
Both men were well past middle age and used gloves as large as pillows, yet the Minnesota Boxing Commission, quite concerned about an exhibition between men that age, resolved afterward not to allow such an event again. Light and Sullivan had been stablemates at one time, became rivals later in their careers but remained friends nonetheless.
Light was a popular figure, particularly after his retirement when he became a raconteur of sorts regarding his past and the state of the sport he loved.
Upon discovering that the business down the street was operated by a fighter, Light made occasional stops at Russ Newton’s Barbershop on Rice Street, sometimes for a haircut, other times just to sit and talk beneath the awning out front when Newton was between customers.
In possession of only a fraction of the hair he once had, Light would reach for his billfold after a trim, but Newton would send him off with a wink and a nod, content merely to have heard boxing stories from times gone by. Your money’s no good here was the understanding.
“He loved talking about boxing, about the fighters he knew and what it was like when he fought,’’ Newton recalled. “Who hit hard and who was overrated. I loved listening to him.’’
Yet Light’s love at this time had switched to a new arena that required a boxer’s footwork nonetheless – ballroom dancing. “He loved to dance. That had become his passion then,’’ Newton added.
Light discovered another young man with boxing ambition at the Prom “Ballroom upon one of many Thursday night visits when old-time music was provided for the dancing crowd.
Jay Pelzer, later a trainer and coach, was learning the sweet science as a high school student and was in charge of the Prom’s hat check room. He came to know Light during one of the St.Paul welterweight’s many visits to the facility. “He would come in to dance every Thursday night for the old-time music,’’ Pelzer recalled. “That would have been 1947 or 1948. We’d talk about boxing. He never married or had a family. He lived with a sister on Maryland Avenue for as long as I knew him.’’
Light’s true name was Albert Wegleitner. It is easy to guess why he might take up a nom de plume as a fighter, although his true intentions now appear relegated to the dustbins of time.
“Wegleitner’’ certainly does not fit a newspaper headline as easily as “Light.’’ Or a fight poster. It is not as easy to spell or pronounce for some people, some of them ostensible ticket buyers. Or “Light” (on his feet) because of the way he covered the dance floor of the Palm Ballroom?
Dancing is not the answer to this crossword puzzle from the past. “I asked a number of ladies he used to dance with how he was on the floor, Pelzer said. “They said he was terrible.’’ Harsher judges than he ever encountered at ringside.
Yet he was good enough inside the ring to earn a place after these long years in the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame.
