Home > Oral Histories of Some Lankville Pugilists > Oral Histories of Some Former Lankville Pugilists

Oral Histories of Some Former Lankville Pugilists

December 17, 2013 Leave a comment Go to comments

By Gern Naglers  (1958, 0W, 3L, 0KO)
baalbeck-courtesy-of-hakmat-awada-baalbeck-photoprint-studio-c-1945
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I was never what you would call a boxer.  I’d get in the ring and give the other guy a mean look and then he’d knock me out.  After that, I’d go back to my little huts.  Sometimes, I’d go out and jump some guy.  Tie him to a chair, take his pants off, take everything out of the pants and then give him his pants back.  It was nothing weirdo, or anything.  I just wanted what was in the pants.  You know, wallet, car keys, food, whatever.

I had a manager by the name of Bickford but he didn’t want to mind no criminals.  So, he dumped me.  After that, I did a lot of pants robbing and then I got sent up to the Lankville State Pen in 1960.  I remember the judge, he said, “Mr. Naglers–I would like to sentence you to a beheading but I cannot do that.  So, you’ll go to the Pen instead.”  That was all.

In the Pen, I became champion.  I was champion from 1961-1970, no one could beat me.  They’d have a match about six or seven times a year and they’d let all the fellows sit on folding chairs around the ring.  They had a photographer one time from Boxing Matters that came in; later I got a letter saying that none of the pictures had come out right.  “It was all just your knees,” the photographer wrote.  I didn’t have any idea.

Well, I got released in 1982 and by then, of course, it was too late for a comeback.  I got a little bit of land in the Lankville Desert and a pop-up camper.  I go into town and pick up some bologna and bread and a pack of cigarettes and that’s all I need.  I don’t got no TV.

A guy wrote me one time saying he wanted to write a book about me being that I was prison champion.  I told him to come out for an interview.  He did and I stole his pants.  Didn’t give ’em back either.  He went away and I never did hear nothing after that.

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