‘I HURT FOREMAN AND MADE HIM MAD’
Bobby Crabtree was the go-to guy for heavyweights in the 80s and 90s, as James Slater discovers
‘I RAN AT HIM, KNOCKED HIM DOWN, BROKE HIS ANKLE’
PROUDLY calling himself “The Fighting Hillbilly” throughout his near 20-year boxing career, Arkansas native Bobby Crabtree took on allcomers in the 1980s and 90s, including 10 world titlists, and numerous contenders – a roll call headed by George Foreman that reads like a who’s who of the era (Dokes, Weaver, Tucker, Biggs, Tillis, Moorer, Snipes et al). Regarded as a heavyweight journeyman for much of his fighting life, taking bouts at short notice, Crabtree dropped down to cruiserweight and – 22 years ago this month – scored the biggest win of his career when he stunned 30-0 contender Kenny Keene. Today the proud owner of a body shop in Arkansas where he repairs and fixes up cars, the 57-year-old Crabtree is upbeat, possesses sound speech and a fine memory, even though 30 of his 35 losses came via stoppage.
You retired with a record of 56-35-1. What are your memories of such a hectic career?
One thing, I was a southpaw [on Boxrec Crabtree is listed as orthodox], for all but maybe one or two of my fights. I could go back and forth, as I did in the gym, but I was a southpaw. Most of my career, in fact almost all of it, I got a week, maybe less notice for a fight. I was always in the gym, in gym shape, but that’s not the real kind of shape. You need to be in ‘real’ shape for a fight, but lots of times it was just me and the bag, hitting the bag and running. But whenever the phone rang, I had to be ready to go. Today I tell anyone, there is nothing more important than sparring. But for a lot of my fights I had no sparring at all. That was the case for the George Foreman fight. I guess that fight, along with my KO over King Ipitan, who was 13-0 at the time, and my [WBF] title win over Kenny Keene down at cruiserweight, was my biggest fight. Myself and Kenny Keene, that was 12 rounds of us beating the hell out of each other. That was a great fight.
You surprised a lot of people with the win over Ipitan, in Mexico in 1994.
I guess I did, yeah. The Keene fight, and the King Ipitan fight before it in Mexico - that was the only time I had a proper amount of time to train. I had around three months of good training, and it made all the difference. My problem was, I was small for a heavyweight but too big for cruiserweight. But I had fun during my career. I always could punch. My best night was maybe the 26-second KO of King Ipitan – he was supposed to be Don King’s new heavyweight champ, as [Mike] Tyson was in jail at the time and King needed someone else. I ran right at him and knocked him down and he broke his ankle. They asked later why they stopped the fight and Beau Williford, my manager, he said it was because he couldn’t f ***** g move! He was never the same fighter again after that. But the Keene fight – and we had three wars (two stoppage wins by Keene and a decision win for Crabtree) - boy, that man could take a punch. You say I talk well today, but he sure doesn’t. We talked on the phone recently, to look back on our three fights, and he is punchy; he could really take a punch and I guess it’s told on him.
What about Foreman? You went six rounds with him in his third comeback fight.
He said I hurt him. But with George, when you hurt him it just made him mad! But he never knocked me out. I was stuck on the ropes, I guess taking too many punches, but I was still throwing back. Anyway, I have footage of the fight as my wife recorded it. I have most of my fights on record. At the time I never thought Foreman would be able to win back the world title. But, yeah, he did it. He could really take a punch, as he showed in the Holyfield fight and against Tommy Morrison. I had about a week’s notice to fight Foreman, as usual, but I’m glad I took the fight. I hit him with some good shots.
You met Muhammad Ali when you fought Tyrell Biggs in late 1989.
Yeah, I fought Biggs in Michigan and Ali came into the ring, in a black tuxedo, and he shook my hand. That was a really big thing of course. I managed to get some pictures with Ali after the fight; it was before he got really bad [with Parkinson’s]. A funny thing happened, Beau Williford, he said to Ali, ‘See that bad white boy over there, he called you a n **** r!’ Ali came over, pretending to be mad, and he asked me if I’d said that. I said ‘No sir!’ It was all in fun and we talked for 10 minutes, then Ali did some magic tricks.
Any other interesting memories?
I sparred Glenn Mccrory. He was with Beau too at the time. We both sparred with James Tillis too, he was getting ready to fight Tyson. I fought James Broad on that card in New York – maybe it could have been different, I could’ve fought Tyson and Tillis could’ve fought Broad! Anyway, I thought “Quick” Tillis beat Tyson that night. But I almost put Broad down that night. I fought something like 10 world champions during my career; either former champions, current champions or future champions and it’s great to be able to talk about it today [laughs].