Boxing historian John DiSanto has made it his cause to raise funds for gravestones to honor some of the best boxers in Philadelphia history. “I feel connected to them because of this project.”
The cemetery told John DiSanto where Tyrone Everett was buried but he still could not find a gravestone for the North Philadelphia boxer who was murdered in 1977 by his girlfriend a week after becoming the No. 1 contender for a world title.
DiSanto, a Philadelphia boxing fan and historian, was digging through old articles about Everett when he came across the news coverage of his funeral. Several thousand mourners came to the church in South Philly but only 1,000 could make it inside. Some fainted when they reached Everett’s open coffin.
It was a scene so DiSanto figured in the spring of 2005 that he would stop by Eden Cemetery to see the final resting spot of a boxer who could have been a world champion.
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But DiSanto could not find the plot. He grabbed a groundskeeper and told him he was looking for Everett. The groundskeeper remembered the fighter and they walked to find him.
“We’re both staring down at the grass,” DiSanto said. “He says ‘This is it.'”
The fighter who had Frank Rizzo and Muhammad Ali come to his funeral was buried in an unmarked grave. No headstone. No marker. Just a patch of grass at plot 430-2 in a Delaware County cemetery.
“Right away, I said ‘That’s something I could do,'” DiSanto said.
DiSanto connected with Everett’s mother and said he wanted to purchase a gravestone for her son who died at 24. Doris Everett was floored.
Everett never did get that rematch with junior lightweight champion Alfredo Escalera, who scored a controversial decision in their first meeting in 1976. But the fighter who packed The Spectrum did finally get a gravestone, a proper remembrance for a career that was so promising.
And DiSanto soon learned that Everett was not the only Philadelphia fighter in an unmarked grave. Matthew Saad Muhammad, Gypsy Joe Harris, Eddie Cool, and Garnet “Sugar” Hart — all stars in their day — received gravestones because of DiSanto’s fundraising.
And next is Gil Turner, a boxer from Strawberry Mansion who fought for the welterweight title in 1952 as a 21-year-old in front of 39,000 fans at what became known as JFK Stadium.
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Turner died in 1996 and was buried in an unmarked grave in North Philadelphia. Nearly 30 years later, DiSanto plans to change that.
“My mission is to honor these guys, remember them, and remind people who they were,” said DiSanto, 63. “I’m just a fan and I feel connected to them because of this project.”
Turner sat on his West Philadelphia porch long after his boxing career and screamed “I am the greatest.” Suddenly, a flock of neighborhood kids would be there to challenge him in checkers. He took all the kids to the movies at the Capital Theatre on Girard Avenue and made sure Catharine Street was free from any trouble.
“He was a protector,” said his son Keith Hunter.
Turner fell into trouble as a teen, was sent to a reform school near Harrisburg, and asked his grandmother to send him a book about boxing. He returned to Philadelphia, learned to box at the Police Athletic League at 19th and Oxford, and became an amateur champion.
Two years into his pro career, Turner fought future Hall of Famer Kid Gavilan at Municipal Stadium. The South Philly crowd was the largest for a welterweight title fight until 1980 when Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard met for the first time.
His son will often watch the Gavilan fight, especially the 11th round as the fighters exchange furious blows before Gavilan takes control and the referee steps between them. Earlier in the round, Turner looked out on his feet before he bounced off the ropes and returned fire. He refused to give up and the fight ended with him standing.
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“He gave everything in that last round,” his son said. “Now that I’m older, that hits differently when I watch it. He gave so much in that last round and he gave so much in his life. If you called on my father, he was there for you. He showed up. My mother would say ‘People take advantage,’ but I don’t believe that he believed that people took advantage. That’s just who he was. He was an excellent father.”
DiSanto grew up in Mantua, N.J., and fell in love with boxing at the Spectrum as a teenager in the 1980s. He saw the rise of Jeff Chandler and Matthew Saad Muhammad and the final chapters of Mike Rossman and Bennie Briscoe.
He loved the action in the ring, but it was the characters that hooked him. DiSanto watched their interviews and read the pre-fight stories in the Philly papers. It was like he knew the fighters. A baseball fan as a kid, DiSanto felt something different with boxing. Every fight became personal.
His boxing website — PhillyBoxingHistory.com — chronicles the city’s fight scene from the 1920s to present day. He created the Briscoe Awards to honor Philly’s best boxers, spearheaded the Joey Giardello statue in South Philly, and is the chairman of the Pa. Boxing Hall of Fame. DiSanto worked in marketing and finance but boxing was always his passion.
“I’ve gone all over to watch boxing but Philly is always the place for me,” DiSanto said.
DiSanto made a list of boxers he was interested in, found out where they were buried, and then visited to see if they had a gravestone. He said he felt like the Angel of Death walking through cemeteries. More often than not, the fighters were in unmarked plots.
They were stars and champions who fought in stadiums and arenas. But most of them died with little money. A funeral was enough of a financial burden. The gravestone — which usually takes about six months to be made — often went unordered.
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“I make no judgement on the family or whoever didn’t do it,” DiSanto said. “In most cases, it’s a financial challenge. It’s expensive and you have kids and bills to handle. They don’t set out to not get a gravestone but over time, you lose sight of it. We all do things like that. It’s one of those things where time passes and people forget about it.”
DiSanto paid for Everett’s gravestone on his own before raising money to keep the project going. Turner’s gravestone will cost roughly $5,000. Donations can be made online and they’ll raise money on Saturday at Muhammad Ali’s old training center in Deer Lake, Pa.
A group of prominent Philadelphia boxing figures — including Jaron Ennis, Tim Witherspoon, and Russell Peltz — will travel to Fighter’s Heaven in the Poconos for a “one-of-a-kind special event” called Tribute to Philly Boxing. All proceeds will be split between DiSanto’s gravestone project and a boxing program run by the Joe Hand Boxing Gym.
“It’s a hustle,” DiSanto said. “You have to work it. We’ve had beef and beers for this guy. We’ve sold T-shirts for that guy. It takes a lot of $20 donations to get there.”
“I’m providing an opportunity for all of us to place this gravestone. I think that means more than if I just did it myself in private. To say ‘Hey boxing community, come on. Let’s do this.’ The community gets this done. It’s not just me.”
Turner told Ring Magazine in 1981 that his passion was never the same after he lost to Gavilan. He fought 46 more times after the Gavilan fight and was a regular on TV but never challenged again for a world title. That was his finest hour. He retired in 1958, worked as a salesman for Ballantine Beer, and later as a night watchman on the docks of the Delaware River.
Turner trained his son in the ring and told him that he would never be able to outbox him. He was as competitive in the gym as he was on the porch with checkers. One day, his son tried to challenge him. Hunter was younger and faster. Of course, he could beat his old man. They each threw a jab outside Turner’s West Philly home.
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“Next thing you know, we’re in the middle of Catharine Street,” Hunter said. “He said ‘Come on, you ready.'”
They didn’t have gloves or ropes but it was on.
“I’m going in and out, in and out,” Hunter said. “Then this is what happened. I stayed in a little too long. He hit me with a body shot. I went up against a car and tried to act like I wasn’t hurt but I’m trying to keep him off me. He comes towards me and says ‘Oh you’re hurt. I can see it in your eyes.’ I went down. I was done.”
Turner died in 1996 at 65, two weeks after suffering a stroke. His son was confused why so many people were outside the funeral home before realizing it was for his dad. He didn’t realize that Catharine Street Checkers Champion made such an impact. To him, the guy who fought Gavilan was just his dad.
Turner was buried at Northwoods Cemetery in a plot purchased by his brother, who didn’t pay for a gravestone. He is buried under a patch of grass without any marker.
“I only went there once,” his son said.
The funds for DiSanto’s last gravestone came in quickly. Saad Muhammad was everyone’s favorite fighter in the 1980s as his backstory — he was found wandering the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as an orphan — was as unbelievable as the way he often rallied from the brink of defeat to win fights.
The news of his death was still on people’s minds and his gravestone was added a year after the fighter’s death in 2014. It was easy to find support for that project.
But it’s been 30 years since Turner died and even longer since his career was relevant.
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“A lot of people don’t really remember him unless you’re a hardcore Philly fan,” DiSanto said. “But it’s something that I can do for someone who I care about, who I respect, who I’m interested in. Most of these guys have been gone for a long time. I didn’t know most of them, I never met them, I’ve never seen them fight live. It’s not often that you can do something to acknowledge them and do something positive in their memory. It’s an opportunity to bring their name back up and have people hear about them and read about them.”
Turner’s gravestone has been an uphill climb — first his son had to receive ownership of the plot — but DiSanto kept punching just like the Philly fighters he loved at the Spectrum. It’s now entering the final round.
Hunter was stunned when DiSanto called to say he wanted to give his dad a gravestone. The son has hung fliers at gyms, made T-shirts, and chipped in his own donation.
He went with DiSanto last month to pick out the stone and it will soon be ordered. A man who once fought in front of nearly 40,000 people will no longer be in an unmarked grave.
“This means so much for me that John is doing this,” Hunter said as he started to break. “I’m blessed for this. This is the last time we can have people care. I want to do something nice for my dad. My father deserved this.”
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