[Rocco Del Sesto]

01/17/67 Tuesday
Sacramento, CA, USA
For The California State Heavyweight Title
Henry Clark – HW (8-3-2) vs. Bill McMurray – HW (20-15-2)

Hey!! My first Title fight of some kind!!!

Henry Clark - USA Rating 5 (In the Game)
Heavyweight 1964-79
32 wins / 13 losses / 4 draws / 9 KO

Hometown: San Francisco, CA
Manager: Joe Herman

Started out career with losses against Joey Orbillo(17-4-1,9) and Jimmy Harryman(8-3-1,6) and a 2 round TD with Johnny Gordon(13-3-3,7). In his 5th career fight Clark fought a young Manuel Ramos(7-1 at the time), winning a 10 round decision. A little more then a year later in Sept 1965 Clark won his 8th consecutive fight winning a 10 round decision over George (Scrap Iron) Johnson. After that he then fought an 8 rounc NC against Amos Lincoln, a 10 round draw with Bobby Stininato(41-19-2), and then lost a 10 round decision to zora Folley in Oct 1966. In January 1967 he fought Bill McMurray for the California State HW Title, winning by a 12 round decision.

After a 10 round decision over Steve Grant(13-11-1,5), Clark successfully defended his California State HW title with 12 round decisions over Fred Lewis(38-15-1,24), Eddie Machen, and Steve Grant in March and May 1967. He then won fights against Roger Rischer and Leotis Martin before loosing by 7th round KO to Sonny Liston in July 1968. Clark defended his California title once again in Sept 1968 defeating Jimmy Gilmore by 10 round decision. Then in 1969, Clark fought a 10 round draw with Brian London, beat Bob Stallings by KO, Lost a 10 round decision to Al Jones, lost an 8 round UD to Jeff Merritt and KO'd Bob Dunlop. The Dunlop win started another win streak of 8 straight victories including two over Leweni Waqa(25-15-1,16), Jimmy Fletcher(13-9-3,8), Chuck Haynes(12-5-3,4), Fred Lewis and finally a 10 round decision over Jack O'Halloran in June 1972. Two months later Clark and O'Halloran fought a rematch, this time for the California State HW title. O'Halloran was victorious this time with a 12 round decision.

Clark then lost to Ken Norton and a Steve Carter(16-6-0,7) before starting another winning streak through early 1975, this time 7 straight, including wins over Jeff Merritt, Mac Foster, Jimmy Gilmore, Roy (Tiger) Williams and Jody Ballard. After a 10 round draw with Jimmy Richards(27-11-4,12) Clark finished his career with consecutive losses to Earnie Shavers in 1976, a loss to Howard Smith in his only fight in 1977 and then after a 2-1/2 year layoff, he came back for one last fight, a 10 round decision loss to Bernardo Mercado.

Bill McMurray - USA Rating 2
Heavyweight 1959-71
23 wins / 24 losses / 3 draws / 8 KO

Hometown: Sacramento, CA

Original Rating by: Mark Sumagyi,Gunsmoke
New Rating by: Rocco Del Sesto
(From Mark's rating, I upped the HP by 1, lowered the KO rating by 1 and upped his 3Pt punches some. That changed his overall rating from a 1 to a 2)

Another of the crop of California heavyweights from the 60's. McMurray was a professional opponent for some of the biggest names of the decade. From 1959 till the start of 1962 McMurray built a reasonable 13-3-0 record fighting against Club Fighters and nobodies. At the start of 1962 he fought fellow trialhorse Paul Andrews, right at the the end of Andrews career, to whom he lost a 10 round decision. He wouldn't win again till the early part of 1963 when he knocksout George Logan in the eighth. He win one, then lose one through the next 4 fights before facing Eddie Machen in his push to a World title fight, he would be kayoed in seven. He had a five month layoff before accepting a fight against Charley Powell which he also lost by KO, this time in three rounds and his once reasonable career record was looking decidedly more shabby at 16-9-0. Two tough fights against Elmer Rush followed the disappointing outing against Powell which result in a draw and a split decision loss. Somehow his run of 4 defeats earned him a shot at the California State Heavyweight title against Roger Rischer. Rischer was too polished however and McMurray lost on points after 12 rounds. Rischer agreed to a non-title rematch and again proved too good, this time taking a decision in 10.

Once again McMurray fought Rush in October of 64, the third time he fought Rush since May of that year, and again he would lose, this time in the eighth via knockout. That would be his second string of 4 straight losses and his record at this point in his last ten fights was 1-8-1, his lone win coming against Billy Stephan (KO 4). Taking 1965 off to make decisions about his future in the fight game, McMurray would return in 1966 with two straight victories over Bobby Stininato and Dancing Jackson. After splitting two fights against Willie Ray Richardson, McMurray would face Thad Spencer for the California State title, prior to Spencer's participation in the Heavyweight elimination tournament in just under 12 months time, which he won with Knockout in the seventh round, stunning the crowd. His first title defense was against Tony Alongi which ended in a Technical Draw with both fighters badly cut. His second defense in January 1967 was against Henry Clark who beats McMurray on points in 12 rounds. In March he would pad Floyd Patterson's record lossing in the first by KO. Rising young fighter Dave Zyglewicz (22-0-0 at the time of the fight) was his next opponent of note at the end of 1967, whom he losses to via decision after 10 rounds.

In March of 1968, McMurray began a murderous schedule which saw him fight some fearsome punchers to close his career, the first of these was against a rebounding Sonny Liston eager to prove he was still a force, loosing by KO in the fourth. Six months later he ponied up again, this time against young Boone Kirkman, whom he lost to by points after 10 rounds.

On the 29th of May he would fight California's next great Heavyweight, Ken Norton, whom he would lose to in his inimitable style, this time being KO'd in the seventh. Norton's record after this fight moved to 10-0-0 (9). At the turn of the decade McMurray's time was nearly done and a third round TKO loss to Boone Kirkman and a first round KO loss to Earnie Shavers sent McMurray into retirement.

The Fight.....
Henry Clark, out of San Francisco is trying to jump start his career to start taking it elsewhere out of the west coast boxing scene. He’s coming off three disappointing fights in 1966 having fought an 8 round no contest with Amos Lincoln, a 10 round draw with Bobby Stininato and then in late October lost a 10 round decision to aging heavyweight, former top contender, Zora Folley, here in Sacramento. Clark comes back to Sacramento here in January 1967 to take on Sacramento native, Bill McMurray, the reigning California State Heavyweight Champion. McMurray won the title the past September with a 7th round TKO victory over Thad Spencer. McMurray’s last fight was in November, a tough fight that was stopped and declared a technical draw in the 6th round of a scheduled 10 round affair with Tony Alongi. The bout was stopped after it was felt both fighters were too badly cut for it to continue. BoxingRec does not show the Alongi/McMurray fight being a California title fight, though Mark Sumagyi’s nice bio writeup on McMurray in the rating he’d posted for McMurray states that fight as a title fight. This writing honestly does not know.
In January 1967, Clark and McMurray fought out a 12 round battle that ended in a decision victory for Clark to take the California title away from McMurray. Our replay fight also goes the full scheduled 12 rounds. Many of the early and mid rounds are closely fought but Clark manages to carry most of those rounds. The late rounds, Clark begins to take more control of the fight, while totally dominating the last two rounds, out pointing McMurray 33-10. Neither fighter manages to put the other down on the canvas in this one, and in the end, it’s a Unanimous Decision victory for Henry Clark. The final judges cards read 119-110, 116-113, 118-112.

The file I've posted for Clark is the original game rating, I only added the bio info. The McMurray file is Mark's original creation with a couple little tweeks I noted above. I decided to play test McMurray a little bit seeing I had quite a few of his opponents in my data base, especially for the latter half of his career. Mark, your rating was pretty darn good! Leave it if you'd like with Mark's original numbers and McMurray will fight pretty good for you. In my testing though, his KO's were coming out an aver of around only 5 per his 50 fights and he was being stopped around 14-15 times where as in real life he was stopped in a fight 11 times. Thus the couple little changes I made seemed to pull those numbers in closer. Hope you don't mind Mark my little bit of tweeking?!