It has been said a man is not dead until he is forgotten. In that case, Willie Pep lives on. More than a decade-and-a-half after his body was laid to rest, eighty-plus years after he first became a world champion, the man generally considered the greatest defensive fighter of all time has been immortalized with a mural in Hartford, Connecticut’s capital city.
Artist Corey Pane completed the artwork over a three day period in the recent past, although the third day was just for putting the finishing touches on the creation. The mural, which Pane estimates is 20 feet wide by 12 feet tall, depicts Pep landing a right hand to the jaw of four-fight rival Sandy Saddler.
Pane wanted to create a tribute piece for Willie for some time. He has other murals within the city, including a 100-foot-tall artwork of a young lady watering flowers on the side of a building downtown titled “Just Grow”, but none were boxing related. Pane, 33, got to know Willie a little bit while attending Hanmer Elementary School in Wethersfield, as the former champ used to jog through the complex. Whenever Pane had recess and saw Pep, he and a friend would run up to him and jog with him.
“I just thought it was so cool,” he said. “To me, that was like running with Rocky or something, or Muhammad Ali.” In addition, Pane’s great-grandfather knew Pep, so he grew up hearing about Pep from his grandfather.
Pep was a source of pride for Connecticut residents in general, but also for the Italian community. Born Guglielmo Papaleo, he shortened his name to Willie pep for his boxing career. Before he fought for prizemoney, Pep had been a shoe-shine boy on Hartford’s Front Street a few years earlier. When he defeated Chalky Wright for the featherweight championship in November 1942, at 20 years old, he became boxing’s youngest champ in 40 years. He would go unbeaten in his first 63 bouts before suffering a non-title bout loss to the heavier Sammy Angott, who was also known for his clutch-and-grab style.
However, after Angott Pep went on another impressive unbeaten streak, this time 73 in a row without a loss. This brought his record to a remarkable 135-1-1, before facing off against his rival Sandy Saddler, who got the better of Pep in three of four bouts. Their first encounter took place in October 1948.
However, it should be noted that Pep was involved in a small plane crash in 1947. Five passengers died. Pep lived, came back to fight five months later, but some historians say the crash, and breaking his back, which saw him put in a body cast, perhaps slowed him down a step. Even so, Pep would defeat Saddler in their second meeting, in February 1949 at Madison Square Garden, to reclaim the featherweight title. This was no small feat, as Saddler himself is a legend. He was tall and skinny yet packed dynamite in his fists. Saddler was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990, along with Pep. Saddler notched 144 wins in his career and more than 100 ended by knockout. Pep would fight on past his prime, but even in doing so, hung up the gloves with an amazing career record of 229-11-1.
Pane, who studied art at the University of Hartford, worked with Matt Conway of CT Murals to try to find a location around Hartford to do the mural of Pep and Saddler. Eventually, it was decided the Charter Oak Boxing Academy (COBA), at 81 Pope Park Highway, would be a perfect spot. However, fundraising was needed for mural materials and to erect the wall. That effort began in the spring, according to Pane, and the mural wall was completed in early November. Almost as soon as it went up, Pane went to work, using spray paint and regular house paint to create the Pep tribute piece.
“I just tried to get it done before it got too cold,” he said.
Former fighter and current trainer John Scully, who trained his entire career in Hartford, and grew up in nearby Windsor, said about the Pep mural, “It’s about time someone in the city of Hartford decided to showcase Willie in this way. He is one of the greatest fighters of all time, a true legend of the game, and the City of Hartford absolutely needed to do something to recognize him as such.”
He added, “The Charter Oak Boxing Academy (run by respected professional referee Johnny Callas) took that step and hopefully boxing fans from all over sooner or later will come by to see this tremendous piece of art.”
The mural is the first boxing piece of significant size that Pane has done but when he was a teenager he created some T-shirts and other things for Chad Dawson’s family a decade-and-a-half ago, when Dawson reigned as the light heavyweight champion.
Pane feels the mural “extends Pep’s name and keeps his memory and his story alive.”
He added, “And the same for Sandy Saddler too, because he was a big fighter at the time, so to help each of them carry on their legacy, their history, is cool. For a lot of people, that stuff gets lost.
“And I feel like, even if you don’t know them, it’s just a cool image to tie into the boxing gym, and maybe it will inspire the kids that are there, in their own kind of way.”
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