Grady and the Champ

On the night of the fight, more than 6000 Jamaicans packed the National Stadium to see Grant, their own champion, defend the title he'd brought to the island after beating Love Allotey in Ghana. They cheered wildly as Grant stepped into the ring. And then a funny thing happened: Grant found himself staring into the eyes not of Ponder but of Prince Buster, who stood beside the young American as his second. Buster and Grant had been good friends; the musician had even accompanied the champion to London for a previous fight. But now his former ally stood beside the opponent, staring down Grant as hard as he could. The Jamaican boxer looked surprised, and so did the crowd. Probably because of Buster's presence, the thousands of onlookers received Ponder more warmly than they would have another foreign opponent.

Ponder was too fast for Grant to connect often, but the American's careful defense and backpedaling cost him: He landed few blows to Grant's body or head, and he was beginning to tire. In the eighth round, Ponder opened up a cut above Grant's left eye — a feat Grant tempered in the ninth and tenth rounds when he pushed Ponder to the ropes and pummeled him. But Ponder fought back to the very end.

The fight was close but, Ponder says, not that close. At the last bell, he was sure he had won. Indeed the Jamaican Star reported Buster was so sure of Ponder's victory that the musician lifted the would-be champion back into the ring and held his arms up in victory. The crowd cheered; they thought the match was his too.

But Ponder hadn't won. Grant did, on a split decision. Even the crowd was stunned. "Unlike the type of outburst the Jamaican fan is now accustomed to hear after a Bunny Grant fight, it was the other side which was yelling, 'We was robbed,'" the Star reported.

"It was stolen, and everybody got upset," says Buster. "It got rowdy. People started throwing cups." Goodman was outraged, barking at reporters — "My boy won by a mile" — demanding a rematch, and vowing never to return to Jamaica. Buster was furious as well: "[Grady] was calm; I was the one who got crazy. He realized he was in a different country and couldn't do anything about it."

The Kingston fight was a turning point for Ponder. He had been boxing since he was 14 years old; now 20, he could still barely pay his rent. He continued to fight, but half-heartedly, he says. He took a job driving for Society Cab and began to distance himself from the sport.

Ten months later he got his rematch with Bunny Grant but lost again — this time, he says, fair and square. Within a year, he quit boxing. "I just left all my equipment and everything at the gym and never went back for it," he remembers, chuckling. "I wish I had gone back for it."

Among the scores of Miami youths who came into boxing on the heels of Ali, there wasn't much room for champions. Most of the local boxers stayed local. There was a tremendous demand for them to fill the tickets. Unscrupulous managers — called fish peddlers and beachcombers — would scour the beaches, streets, and bars, looking for youngsters willing to take a beating for 20 bucks. There was a profit to be made in losers, in so-called dead men, and many of the local kids were unwittingly slated by their managers to be just that. And so they fought each other, filling the tickets for lesser bouts, only rarely getting a shot at a fight that would make the news, let alone further their careers.

David King, a fighter who trained with Ponder at the Fifth Street Gym, has bitter memories of his managers. "There was a boy named Pedro Sanchez; I must have fought him seven times. I swear they wanted me to lose," he says, chuckling. "They didn't treat us too good in those days ... those kind of managers. I always was very picky, but I know a crook when I see one. [Grady Ponder] was the king over me; he was dynamite. But we all fall in the same place. Wasn't no good place or bad place. Everybody went down in the end."