‘ONE-ROUND WALLS’
Looking back on the career of Canada’s ‘Hooded Terror’
NINETY SECONDS of colourless footage isn’t much to go on when assessing an old-time fighter, but sometimes that’s all you’ve got. I’d found a newsreel clip on Youtube of the French featherweight great Ray Famechon facing Blackpool’s Ronnie Clayton for the European title at the King’s Hall, Belle Vue, in 1949. The clip ended quickly. Famechon kept his crown. Then suddenly another fight started.
“One-round Walls Does It Again” flashed across the screen and an impressively built 6ft 2in heavyweight slid into view. Within seconds his hapless French opponent, Albert Coulbaly, was on the deck from a clinically placed right. “Walls, who’s a Canadian of Cherokee Indian extraction, has only been over here a short time,” the voiceover man with the cut-glass accent advised, “and has so far always got his man in the first round.” This bout was no exception.
When Coulbaly got up, Walls pursued him with a rapier-like jab; and when the opening came, he whipped in another right and Coulbaly crumbled. The Frenchman rose again but the fight didn’t last much longer. Admittedly, Coulbaly was a low-grade opponent. But nevertheless, there was something about the smooth, measured victory that intrigued me. Walls looked like a boxer who was going places, yet I’d never heard of him. Just who was this “Oneround Walls” and what became of him? I decided to find out.
Earl Walls was born in Maidstone, Ontario, in February 1928. His great grandfather, John Freeman Walls, a North Carolina slave, had reached Canada through the Underground Railroad. Earl started boxing at Patsy Drouillard’s gym in Windsor, Ontario. At 19, he came to the notice of pro manager Jimmy Jones, who brought him to New York.
Walls honed his skills at the famous Stillman’s gym and made his pro debut in Jamaica, Queens, in May 1948. He flattened his opponent, Dick Lee, in the first round, but then lost his next three bouts. However, Earl then won his next six contests before heading to Britain in the summer of 1949.
In his UK debut, Walls finished Dundee’s Ken Shaw in three rounds at the King’s Hall on August 22, leading BN to call him “a heavyweight of great promise”. His second opponent, Belgium’s Piet Wilde, was blitzed out in a round, and this got Walls a headline fight at London’s Empress Hall. Again, Earl did the business, finishing his Austrian opponent, Kurt Schiegl, in 2-07 of the first. Then came the aforementioned one-round demolition of Coulbaly.
Walls was quickly becoming a boxoffice attraction. With his physical appearance and boxing style, the British press likened him to Joe Louis. He always entered the ring with his head wrapped in a towel, which earned him the nickname “The Hooded Terror”. But the sports scribes were getting a little carried away. After all, Walls had only been a pro for 18 months and still had much to learn. This became apparent in his next bout.
Earl was outpointed by Jamaica’s Lloyd Barnett (then 17-8) on December 13, 1949. BN called it “one of the greatest and most exciting heavyweight slams seen since the Jack Petersen-walter Neusel duels” and the readers voted it their 1949 Fight of the Year. But Walls was expected to beat Barnett. He had one more fight in Britain – a disqualification loss – and then went back to Canada.
Walls was far from finished, however. After capturing the Canadian heavyweight crown in 1952, he fought on until 1955, winning most of his bouts. Earl twice KO’D the highly ranked Rex Layne, who had beaten former world champions Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott. There was talk of a Wallsmarciano world title fight, but this never happened.
Earl retired from boxing aged 27 and became a successful real-estate broker. He died of a heart attack in December 1996, aged 68.