This week my family and I went to The Gale Center of History and Culture in South Jordan, Utah. There were lots of great exhibits for the kids about local Utah and South Jordan/West Jordan history. It was all very nice and interesting but the most exciting thing for me was the exhibit featuring the Fullmer brothers (Gene, Don, and Jay) and their boxing exploits. There was a nice video that talked about their fights and even included some fight footage. Gene was a great Middleweight Champion from the 1950's and 60's era of boxing. He beat the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson to win his first world title. He then lost the title back to Robinson. Later he beat Carmen Basilio for his second world title and successfully defending it 13 times!
The brothers were all very accomplished fighters and won numerous awards and titles. Don beat Emile Griffith to win the American Middleweight title and had 78 professional fights. Jay was a promising welterweight and had 27 professional fights before suffering a career ending injury.
It was exciting to see a group of brothers from a working class family accomplish so much in their craft. It also hits home that you don't need to have all the fancy trimmings in order to work your way to the top. Truly inspiring!
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