Damaged Goods

Documentary exposes harsh reality of life after boxing

By STEVE BUFFERY

There is a scene in the documentary "After The Last Round" when an old man named Harry Moyer wanders over to his son Phil and begins to wipe Phil's face with a tissue, precisely as he would have done years earlier when Phil was boxing and Harry was his trainer.

Phil suffers from dementia and stares past his father, unfocussed and lost.
"You're all right," whispers Harry to his aging son.
Phil, however, clearly is not all right.

In his 90s, Harry is in much better shape than Phil and his other son Denny, who also was a world-ranked fighter out of Portland, Ore., in the 1950s and '60s.

The camera then pans out to show Denny and Phil sitting in adjoining chairs, starring blankly ahead, brothers bound by the brutal sport of boxing and the wretched consequences the so-called "sweet science" exacts on those who embrace it.

Everyone who has ever watched a round of boxing generally is aware that the sport is -- particularly at the professional level -- dangerous and potentially lethal. But what we don't see is what happens to these damaged fighters after they walk away from the ring.

Denny and Phil Moyer were legends in the Portland area, world-ranked middleweights, charismatic and handsome.

Now, they are broken, suffering from dementia, living together at a nursing home, in need of constant care, their conditions deteriorating.

Laura Moyer, Phil's daughter, describes how when they first took her father to the home, the tough ex-fighter, who fought the very best of his day, including Sugar Ray Robinson, began crying.

"He said: 'Please don't leave me here,' " said Laura, breaking down in tears. "But we couldn't take care of him anymore."
The executive producer of After The Last Round is Tom Moyer, a cousin of Denny and Phil.

Now a resident of Santa Barbara, Calif., Tom grew up in Portland, where the Moyers were the first family of boxing. Tom's father also trained Phil and Denny. But what was once a source of pride for the family has turned into tragedy. And not just because of Denny and Phil's dementia. Harry also is a victim, as he spends his remaining days dealing with the fact that he put his boys in the ring and is, in a way, the architect of their demise.

Decades later, having witnessed his cousins' downward spiral, Tom Moyer encouraged his own son Patrick and Patrick's friend, the filmmaker Ryan Pettey, to take put together a documentary, not just about the Moyer family, but on what happens to fighters after the final bell has sounded.

Patrick is the film's producer and Pettey the director.
The film shows that not only are many ex-professional fighters, perhaps even the majority, damaged goods, most are destitute, or nearly there -- cast away like broken toys, treated worse than greyhound dogs.

There is no pension for ex-fighters. Most walk away with nothing, in fact, less than nothing, because they leave boxing with less than what they had going in.
After The Last Round profiles boxers who are in the advanced state of dementia, or blind, or broke, but also examines why some fighters, including many who waged tremendous wars in the ring and absorbed untold punishment -- such as Canadian heavyweight legend George Chuvalo -- have survived seemingly unscathed, at least physically.

Tom Moyer is justifiably proud of the film, but equally frustrated, as he is attempting to have the movie included in this year's Toronto International Film Festival. But as of yet, he has had no luck.

Near the end of the documentary, the camera focuses on Denny's wife, Sandy.
"He's living over there, but really he's dead," she says of her husband. "And nobody cares. Frankly, nobody ever will care. But I care."
Tom Moyer's reason for producing After the Last Round, and for pushing for its inclusion in this year's TIFF, is so more people will care.
STEVE.BUFFERY@SUNMEDIA.CA

More on Moyer by Roger Esty

FIGHT TO THE FINISH

I remember Denny Moyer. I remember a lot of fighters like him that were fighting too long. But whether they needed the money or not they seemed not to care. I think they knew in the back of their minds that things would only get worse. They never talked about it because that would be sniveling and fighters don't snivel. Denny Moyer wasn't a sniveler. Nice enough guy sober. Get him drunk,which didn't take much doing,and you better be on his right side. But sniveling? Naw,how can you have fun complaining?

The stories we read about the Moyers back to the Langfords,and recently the Gatti's and Arguellos,and the recent HBO documentary on the Resto/Collins fight-it's part of the world of boxing. We feel for them,but what can we do? Boxing isn't one of those sports where kids are honed like Little League. (Remember that Walt Disney series,'Moochie And The Little League?).Can you imagine Walt Disney putting together a kids' show called "Moochie And The Boxing Ring?" Society would push The Society For The Prevention Of Cruelties To Animals to the back burner.

Big venues for boxing are Vegas and Atlantic City. Gamblers are on it like flies on sh-t. There'll never be a world or even a national commission to control it because the leeches would have to move on.The leeches are in control. Congress won't do anything except ask basesball players about steroids.

If Denny is coherent I don't think he'd want anyone to feel sorry for him.It's good that he has his wife. I've always thought fighters' wives are the best. Their bridge to heaven is their suffering watching their husbands engage in the ring. But wherever Denny is,I think he's still trying to find a good time.Too bad we all cry watching him struggle.

A Denny Moyer Sidenote

By Bill O'neill

Here's a little "tag" to the Denny Moyer story:

A cousin of mine was a reporter on the Portland Oregonian newspaper back in the 1970s, and he worked with a fellow named Dennis Moyer--no relation to the famous boxer who shared the same name. One day a guy carrying a pistol barged into the Oregonian newsroom, looking for "Denny Moyer." It seems that Denny Moyer the pugilist was having a steamy affair with the guy's WIFE, and the guy wanted to "have a little talk with him" about it. By the time the police arrived, people in the office had the guy pretty well convinced that it was a case of mistaken identity, and that their Denny Moyer was not the guy who was screwing the man's wife.

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A Denny Moyer Story

The following was sent to me by Bill O'Neill. It goes hand in hand with everything I have heard and read about Moyer, a tough as nails former boxer. I thought it was hilarious.



By Bill O'Neill

Denny Moyer was a good, tough, very PROFESSIONAL fighter. Nice, stand-up style, good movement, great chin, gutty and intelligent--had everything EXCEPT a punch. He boxed brilliantly early in his career; his first loss was to Don Jordan in a world title fight when he was only about 19, and he kept fighting right on up into his forties. Beat a lot of great fighters, but stayed in the game too long. Was from a fighting family. His father boxed, as I recall; as did Denny's brother Phil, and their sons.

But now, let me tell you a story about Denny Moyer--and I'll try to make it brief. A lifelong friend of mine named Jack Thompson was training Denny, very late in Denny's career, in a gym in Portland (Oregon), that was upstairs over a bar in a seedy section of town. The two of them, along with a young middleweight named Davey Rogers, were leaving the gym one evening when a couple of DRUNKS stopped them on the narrow stairway. "Where's Denny Moyer?" one of the drunks demanded. "I've got two hundred bucks that says he can't last one round with me!"

Jack and Denny looked at each other, and decided to go back upstairs and take the guy up on his offer. In the gym, as Jack was lacing up the drunk's gloves, the guy started cursing at Davey Rogers. Words were exchanged, and the drunk said, "Put the gloves on this punk! I'll bet a hundred dollars that says I can knock HIM out in one round, before I knock out Denny Moyer!"

So they strapped a pair of 14-oz. gloves on Rogers, who Jack tells me could really whack. The kid leveled the drunk with the first punch he threw; knocked him flat. The professionals collected the hundred, and had begun to pack up their stuff again when the drunk's friend yelled out, "Look! He's getting up!" And sure enough, the drunk staggered to his feet and said, "I didn't get my shot a Denny Moyer yet!" He and his friend threw two one-hundred-dollar bills on the ring apron and said, "Come on! A deal is a deal!"

So Jack put the gloves on Moyer, but cautioned him: "Look, don't hit this guy in the head. He has just been knocked out, and another concussion like that could get us in big trouble."

Thereupon, Moyer quickly put the guy down and out with a body punch, causing a spew of vomit that shot six feet in the air. A few minutes later, the three pros helped the drunk down the stairs and back into his favorite bar--and departed the scene, three hundred dollars richer. (Fortunately, they didn't get arrested.)

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