Ralph Dupas

Sport: Boxing

Induction Year: 1994

By Jimmy Smith
The New Orleans Times-Picayune

They called boxer Ralph Dupas “Native Dancer.”

Like the thoroughbred of the same era, he moved fluidly and swiftly and effortlessly. “No other fighter fought like me,” says Ralph Dupas today, the words spoken haltings and slowly and with great effort. “Moving side to side, in and out, no fighter in my day did that. Nobody.”

Living, talking, walking. It’s all a challenge now for Dupas, native son of New Orleans and one-time junior middleweight boxing champion of the world. Today, Dupas sits, ever smiling, in a lounge chair in his brother’s (Tony’s) home, his memory erased, his speech slurred, his right side weakened by damage to the left side of the brain- somewhere around the spot where he absorbed countless thousands of jabs and hooks during a boxing career that spanned 16 years and 134 professional fights, 106 of which went the distance.

Dupas was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in Natchitoches on June 25, 1994.

“I had fast feet. That’s what helped me out,” says Dupas, 58. “I’d just stick and move. Hit and run. It came so natural to me. Nothing was forced. It was easy.”
So easy, perhaps, that Dupas fought too often. And far too long.

Dupas was fighting 10-round main events at age 16, sometimes three times a month. In 1951 and 1952, Dupas fought 15 times each year, losing twice and drawing twice. Four months after welterweight champion Emile Griffith beat Benny “The Kid” Paret to death in 1962 at Madison Square Garden, Dupas was losing a 15-round decision to Griffith in a Las Vegas title fight. In five of his 11 fights, Dupas lost by a knockout.

“I’ve got a little brain damage,” Dupas poignantly tells a visitor in a room where walls are decorated with vintage photographs of a younger man whose quick feet and moves were imitated by others. “I’d do it all over again in a New York second. Boxing was my life. I enjoyed boxing. It’s what I loved to do.”

By the time Dupas fought junior middleweight titleholder Denny Moyer in New Orleans Municipal Auditorium on April 29, 1963, Dupas was a veteran of 120 pro bouts. He’d had two previously unsuccessful title fights, dropping down in weight to meet fellow New Orleanian Joe Brown for the lightweight title in 1958 (Brown won with an eighth-round KO), and losing a 15-round decision to the deadly Griffith for the welterweight crown in 1962.

Dupas was clearly in the twilight of his career. He was 27 and in his 13th year of pro boxing. Two months earlier, he lost a disputed 10-round decision to a descending Sugar Ray Robinson in Miami Beach a month after Christmas, prompting the headline “Christmas Comes Again for Sugar Ray.”

“They took it away from me,” Dupas smiles today. Asked to recall the Moyer fight, Dupas merely sits in that lounge chair and smiles, his eyes a blank gaze, head moving slightly from side to side. His once handsome visage is a mirror of struggle. He never stops smiling.

“I don’t remember much,” he says.

Moyer wore the newly created junior middleweight crown and agreed to a match with Dupas in Dupas’ hometown. Moyer was notoriously fast finisher so Dupas had to build a lead in the early and middle rounds to offset whatever flurry Moyer could muster in the later rounds.

A crowd of 5,028 jammed the Auditorium to see if Dupas could finally put an end to his championship frustration.

Moyer had the advantages in the early going, but Dupas picked up the pace in round four, then broke through Moyer’s left eye early in the sixth round, then lost the seventh round when referee Peter Giarusso took away the round after repeated warnings for low blows.

In round 10, Dupas began moving around the ring in the style that had become his trademark, sliding side to side, becoming a moving target while flicking his punches, then attacking Moyer with a barrage of punches near round’s end. The tactic confused Moyer. It took him until the 13th round to figure our Dupas’ movements. By then, it was too late.

Split decision

On the judges’ cards, it was a split decision. Judge Herman Dutrieux scored the 15-round fight 7-6-2 for Moyer. Referee Giarusso scored it 9-2-4 for Dupas and Judge Lucien Joubert favored Dupas 8-5-2.

“It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened in my life,” Dupas said after the fight, crediting manager Angelo Dundee for providing last-round motivation to out with a flourish.

“OK, Ralph, this is it,” Dundee told Dupas as he sent the fighter out for the 15th round. “You got your whole life crammed into these last three minutes out there…. Either you live or you die.”

Dupas lived that night. The memory of his career will now live on.