Sandy Saddler, 75; Boxer Known for Knockouts

Sandy Saddler, a featherweight and junior lightweight champion and one of the hardest punching small men in boxing history, has died. He was 75.

Saddler died Tuesday at the Schervier Nursing Care Center in the Bronx of complications from Alzheimer’s.

Saddler, who beat the great Willie Pep three times in four fights, turned pro as a bantamweight and won an eight-round decision March 7, 1944. In his next fight, against the experienced Jock Leslie, he was knocked out in the third round.

From then on, it was Saddler who did the knocking out. Of his 144 wins--against 16 losses and two draws--103 were by knockout or technical knockout.

Saddler was still world featherweight champion when he retired in 1957 after sustaining a serious eye injury when a taxi in which he was riding was involved in an accident.

Born Joe Saddler, he was the son of West Indian immigrants and raised in the Harlem section of New York.

Saddler had about 50 amateur fights before turning pro and going 19-2 in his first year. He then went 24-0 in 1945, and he was 75-6-2 when he finally got a featherweight title shot against Pep on Oct. 29, 1948. Pep’s record was 135-1-1.

Saddler dominated the match in Madison Square Garden, cutting Pep in the first round, knocking him down twice in the third and knocking him out in the fourth.

The rematch was held in the Garden on Feb. 11, 1949, and Pep, on what he called his greatest night, regained the title in a 15-round decision.

On Dec. 6, 1949, Saddler won the vacant junior lightweight title in a 10-round decision over Orlando Zulueta in Cleveland and defended it twice before the 130-pound weight class was dropped in 1951. (It was restored in 1959.)

Saddler regained and retained the featherweight title in rough-and-tumble fights in New York.

He won when Pep couldn’t come out for the eighth round Sept. 8, 1950, and he stopped Pep in the ninth round Sept. 26, 1951.

The 1951 fight was so rough, both men were suspended briefly by the New York State Athletic Commission.

After 22 more bouts and two more title defenses, Saddler retired.

He became a boxing trainer and worked with many pros, including former heavyweight champion George Foreman in the 1970s.