For a while, Lavern Roach seemed to be a fighter who knew when to quit. A husky, young ex-marine and Ring magazine's Rookie-of-the-Year in 1947, he had learned a dreadful lesson when he climbed into the ring against the late ex-Middleweight Champion Marcel Cerdan. That night two years ago, he crawled around the ring on his hands & knees as Cerdan's sledgehammer blows smashed him to the floor seven times in eight rounds. After that beating, handsome Lavern Roach, a good fighter who had been brought along too fast, went back home to Plainview, Texas with his wife and daughter,...
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