Born 22 June 1934 in
Los Angeles, Jordan’s brief spell as an amateur shows that he began boxing as a
Middleweight and – unusually – worked his way down to
Welterweight as a professional. His amateur career spanned just fifteen contests, of which he lost only one. Jordan fought professionally for the first time in April, 1953. Standing 5 feet 9 inches and typically weighing around 147 lbs, Jordan was well-proportioned and quickly showed himself to be an effective performer, winning nine in a row before dropping a decision in March 1954, to a fighter he had out-pointed just two months previously. He beat
Art Ramponi to pick up the
California State
Welterweight title in October of that year and opened his 1955 campaign with a victory over former World
Lightweight Champion
Lauro Salas. From that point on, Jordan would be mixing it with the best. Jordan’s progress over the next three years – including two notable victories over
Gaspar Ortega – were rewarded when he challenged
Virgil Akins for the World
Welterweight Championship on 5 December 1958, winning by unanimous decision. Akins – who disputed the decision – would suffer an identical reverse when he met Jordan in a championship return five months later. That was the first of Jordan’s two successful title defences (the second was against
Denny Moyer on 10 July 1959), before losing the title to
Benny Paret, eighteen months after being crowned. Once he lost his title, Jordan also seemed to lose his way. The last years of his career saw him record more defeats than victories and he was effectively – if ignominiously – ‘retired’ by the man refereeing his October 1962 contest with
Battling Torres. When Jordan refused to get up after a knockdown in the first, referee Jimmy Wilson ruled that Torres had not actually hit Jordan hard enough to put him down and the fight was declared a ‘no contest’. Subsequently, the
California State Athletic Commission suspended Jordan indefinitely. In 1961
Lucchese crime family mobster
Frankie Carbo, known as "the Czar of Boxing" was charged with extortion and conspiracy regarding Jordan, convicted and given a 25-year federal sentence. Others convicted were
Louis Tom Dragna (conviction overturned),
Truman Gibson,
Joe Sica, and Frank "Blinky" Palermo. ==Death==