Pete Sanstol

Pete Sanstol
Statistics
Height 5' 3
Reach 67 in (170 cm)
Nationality Norwegian
Born March 28, 1905
Moi, Norway
Died March 13, 1982
Whittier, California
Stance Orthodox

Pete Sanstol (March 28, 1905 – March 13, 1982) was a Norwegian professional boxer. He is a World Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee.[1]

Background

Peder Olai Sanstøl was the youngest of five children born to Jonas Jonasen Sanstøl (1864–1942) and Elen Dortea Nilsdatter Lindland (1860–1946) in Moi, Lunde municipality, in Rogaland county in Norway. He moved to Stavanger with his parents as a child. Sanstol learned to box in the club Kristiana AK. He was fourth champion in the flyweight class championship in 1923 and won gold in the bantam class championship in 1925, both times for Kristiana AK.[2][3][4]

Career

He embarked on a professional career in 1926. After winning his professional debut against the British boxing veteran Bert Gallard in Oslo, Sanstol was invited by Max Schmeling’s manager to train in Berlin. After Sanstol left Norway in the mid-1920s, he only occasionally returned. Winning all his bouts in Germany, Sanstol moved on to Paris, where he was compared to French boxing champion, Georges Carpentier. Discovered in Paris by American manager Lew Burston (1896–1969), Sanstol was brought to New York where he graduated from the club preliminaries to become the most sought after bantam in the eastern United States and Canada.[5]

By late 1930, Sanstol had moved his headquarters from the Norwegian-American community of Bay Ridge, in Brooklyn, NY, to Montreal, Canada where he came under the management of Raoul Godbout (1894–1975). The next year he won the World Bantamweight Title, as recognized by the Montreal Athletic Commission. He twice successfully defended his title before meeting Panama Al Brown for world supremacy in the 118-pound division. After narrowly losing that bout by a 15-round split-decision, Sanstol took a year off before resuming another campaign for the championship. He retired from boxing in late 1933, only to return again in 1935. He went back to fight in Berlin. The culmination of this chapter of his career was a title match with Sixto Escobar, which Sanstol lost. Sanstol had one more career bout; defeating Al Brown in Oslo a month after the Escobar fight just before his retirement.[6]

Sanstol later had a couple of charity bouts while serving in the United States Army during World War II. He became a U.S. citizen in 1943.[7][8]

Fighting style

Sanstol was known for his aggression, energy, speed, amazing stamina and uncanny defense. He was also known for his ability to give the crowd a thrilling show. About the only attribute he lacked was the so-called "power punch", although a quarter of his 98 victories were by way of knockout. Throughout his early career, Sanstol used these skills to build an impressive record. In time, his fighting style gradually evolved from that of a careless youth, to that of a wizened veteran. After his bout with Panama Al Brown, Sanstol learned to pace himself better and to use every punch sparingly, not wasting a single drop of energy. Part of this evolution may have resulted from a chronically bad foot or ankle he first sustained during one of these title bouts; it would haunt and hobble him for the remainder of his professional career.

Long-time Montreal Herald Sports Editor Elmer W. Ferguson (1885–1972) once described Sanstol’s evolved fighting style as follows:

“ Sanstol first flashed on the Montreal fistic horizon half a dozen years ago. This writer recollects him knocking out Aleck Burlie in April 1928, over seven years ago at the Forum. In those days Sanstol was a bewildering bundle of speed and energy. His slim, tireless legs carried him around the ring at bounding, blinding speed. He threw his endless energy to the winds with complete abandon. He was a profligate spendthrift of energy and strength, of nerve force. He had all the carelessness of youth about vitality as expended in the ring. He had a seemingly endless supply. For ten or twelve rounds he could dance, bounce, leap and dash about the ring on those steel legs, and meanwhile his speeding fists could keep on throwing stinging punches at bewildering speed, punches from all angles. For not only did Sanstol bound about the ring. He ducked like lightning, weaved, bobbed, always going at top speed, a master-boxer in his own fashion, a fashion founded on speed and stamina. The fighting heart that blazes from his ice-cold eyes still sends him on. But fistic age has tempered the pace, has developed a new ring cunning, and a tendency to accomplish by polished skill what he once achieved by youthful energy that disdained to save itself, that was gladly thrown to the winds.

Sanstol doesn't bound so much as he did. He moves now in a more shuffling fashion, as did great fighters before him, and as did such peerless runners as Schrubb and Nurmi, the greatest of all conservation stylists. Today Sanstol is inclined to save his legs, to some degree, and to employ instead the ring-craft he has acquired in nearly ten years of campaigning up and down the fistic lanes of two continents. Today he is more the Dempsey in his style, less the old Sanstol. His hands still carry their speed, his arms and shoulders the energy to hurl an endless barrage of punches. But he will be found doing much more of the weaving and bending to evade blows or get himself into hitting position. He will not be leaping five or six feet when an evasive swing of a few inches will suffice. He will be doing more of the bobbing and ducking and swinging from the hips, with which he used to delight crowds and bewilder his opponents.[9]

 ”

Career highlights

Later years

After his boxing career ended, Sanstol worked various jobs in Norway, New York City, Chicago, Seattle, and Alaska, including restaurant owner, newspaper writer, recreation center director, hotel clerk, and translator, before settling down for good in the Long Beach/San Pedro area of California in the early 1960s. In 1957, he completed his autobiography entitled Gjennom Ringen.[10]

He died in 1982 in Whittier, California after a series of strokes. On June 7, 2005, Lund municipality raised a monolith in a park in Moi to his memory, listed him as Norway's most famous boxer.[11][12]

References

  1. ↑ Jorsett, Per. "Peter Pete Sanstøl". In Helle, Knut. Norsk biografisk leksikon (in Norwegian). Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  2. ↑ The Ring magazine, December 1953 issue
  3. ↑ Pete Sanstol (Boxrec Boxing Encyclopaedia)
  4. ↑ Norwegian Hall of Fame (Great Norwegians Homepage)
  5. ↑ Everlast Boxing Record (Everlast Sports Publishing Company, John J. Romano, editor. 1931)
  6. ↑ Montreal Athletic Commission (Boxrec Boxing Encyclopaedia)
  7. ↑ Pete Sanstol (Boxrec Boxing Encyclopaedia)
  8. ↑ "Peter Olai Sanstøl". Store norske leksikon (in Norwegian). Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  9. ↑ Elmer W. Ferguson, Sports Editor Montreal Daily Herald August 7, 1935
  10. ↑ Gjennom Ringen (Boxrec Boxing Encyclopaedia)
  11. ↑ The Top 25 Bantamweights of All-Time (Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel)
  12. ↑ Peder Olai Sanstøl (Cleven-Surdahl-Thompson Families)

External links

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