The middle weight boxing champion (Beat Sugar Ray Robinson for he title) Gene Fullmer has passed away at the age of 83.
He was one of the best fighters to come out of Utah and not only that, kept his commitment to the church. He and his two brothers trained many boxers and help a lot of under privileged kids find a way to not be in gangs…
I actually know some of his nephews and sister in law, all I can say is the Fullmer family is the salt of the earth type people…
RIP brother Fullmer.
Unless they lived in Alpine 
Didn’t he have a resturaunt in Provo at one time? Or, am I thinking of another Mormon boxer?
I think so… but not sure… He had a boxing stable in South Jordan for several decades that he and his brothers ran…
What is interesting is he died the night of his brothers funeral… I think you might call that a “Close knit family”…
I am old enough to remember Gene very well. So sad to hear of his passing. He was a regular on televised fights back in the late 50s and early 60s. I probably saw 5 or 6 of his championship fights on TV with my dad when I was a kid. His brother Don fought for the middleweight title against Nino Benvenuti in Italy and lost several years after Gene had retired. Gene was a brawler who had more boxing skill than he was given credit for. They used to call him the Mormon Mauler. He could take a lot of punishment and give more than he took. He was as rugged as they come and always made a good impression in his post fight interviews. He appeared to be a real nice guy but there is no way I would have wanted to be in the ring with him.
I still remember one of his fights around 1961 with Ray Robinson,the fourth, and last, in the their series. Fullmer had a big round and the home teachers came by in the middle of it. My dad wasn’t active in the church and we had a very short visit. We may have missed a round or two. Gene fought Robinson four times and won two and had a draw in another one. Ray was the only guy to knock Fullmer out in their 2nd fight after Gene took the crown from him. Fullmer later won a version of the middleweight title again and fought Robinson twice in title defenses when Robinson was well past his peak. ■■■■ Tiger stopped Gene in Gene’s last fight in Nigeria on cuts. I was a huge Fullmer fan as all Utahns were at the time. He never ducked the top contenders and made a lot of money for the time and did well as a mink rancher. Unlike a lot of fighters he used his ring earnings wisely.
If anybody is interested a number of his fights, or parts of them, can be seen on Youtube.