Last month was the birthday of Welterweight Pete Latzo, aka, "Young Clancy”, who was born on August 1, 1902, in Colerain, Bedford County, Pennsylvania, near the heart of the coal-mining county.
He spent some of his early years mining, and working as a "breaker
boy" whose primary job was to pick slate and other impurities from
anthracite coal.
Cartoonist Ham Fisher
met Latzo outside a pool hall and, impressed by his personality and sportsmanship, was inspired to create his popular
character Joe Palooka.
In 1920, Fisher put together a sample package of Joe Palooka (then titled Joe the Dumbbell) but was unable to attract interest. By 1927, he was working as a traveling strip salesman for the McNaught Syndicate. However, Fisher also hawked his own unpublished, unsold strip.
In 1928, after he secured over 20 sales, including to New York's Daily Mirror, Fisher informed his managers at McNaught, who decided to give Joe Palooka a trial run. The comic strip soon became a national success.
In the 1930s the strip appeared in more than 600 newspapers, had a
readership around 50 million, and inspired several movies.
The strip
helped to solidify the word "palooka" as a boxer who lacks grace or
ability, although the character Joe Palooka was the heavyweight
champion. A dozen low-budget film adaptations of Joe Palooka appeared from the 1930s into the 1950s. Comic books featuring Joe Palooka began in 1933 and continued through the 1950s.
Originally the term welterweight was used only in boxing, but other combat sports also use it for their own weight division system to classify the opponents. If used, welterweight is typically between lightweight and middleweight. The first known instance of the term is from 1831, meaning 'heavyweight horseman', later 'boxer or wrestler of a certain weight' by 1896. This sense comes from earlier welter, 'heavyweight horseman or boxer' from 1804, possibly from c. 15th century welt, meaning 'to beat severely'. A professional welterweight boxer's weight is greater than 140 pounds, and no more than 147 pounds (about 63.5–66.7 kg).
Latzo defeated Larry Johnson in a close ten round points decision before 12,000 at Madison Square Garden on February 21, 1930. He was defeated by future world heavyweight champion Jim Braddock before a crowd of 4,000, on October 17, 1928, at New
Jersey's Newark Armory in a ten-round points decision.
Latzo fought Jimmy Slattery, former world light heavyweight champion, in a seven-round No Contest on May 27, 1930, at Boston Garden. The purses of both boxers were withheld and they were ordered to leave the ring by the referee when it appeared they were exerting too little effort to merit continuing.
In one of his last bouts on June 5, 1934, Latzo lost to Pennsylvania's state middleweight champion Teddy Yarosz in a fourth-round technical knockout in Millvale.
Latzo left Scranton to reside in Marven Gardens, a suburb of Atlantic City, in Margate City, New Jersey, near the end of his boxing career around 1928. He died at the age of sixty-six in Atlantic City Hospital after gall bladder surgery in July 1968, having suffered from gall bladder ailments since his boxing retirement. His gall bladder issues may well have been a result of his boxing history as he was frequently the victim of brutal body blows to the stomach and both sides of his abdomen. He had had major surgery of some form in 1937 when he first retired from boxing, and a boxing benefit was held for him in December of that year. His funeral was held at Scranton, Pennsylvania's Holy Rosary Church on July 11, and he was buried in the city's Cathedral Cemetery, where his wife Catherine was laid to rest two years later.
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Styrous® ~ Thursday, September 3, 2026
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