Alphonse Halimi boxer

Alphonse Halimi (February 18, 1932 – November 12, 2006) was a French boxer. He took the World Bantamweight Championship on April 1, 1957, in Paris, and the European Bantamweight Championship three years later.He was born in Constantine, Algeria, to an Orthodox Jewish family. He was the last of 13 children, only seven of whom reached adulthood. His father was a postal inspector. At the age of 10, he ran away from home for the first time, living for long periods of time on the streets of a nation torn by war. A tailor named Dianoux, of Algiers, took Halimi under his wing and trained him to work as a tailor by the age of 12.After he was caught in a fight on the streets of Algiers, Dianoux encouraged him to train at the Mouloudia gymnasium. Halimi was an excellent swimmer, but he chose boxing as his calling. He was Jewish, and sewed a star of David on his red and green (the Mouloudia colors) training shorts. Halimi's hero was the Algerian-born Marcel Cerdan, and he would carry a photo of his idol at the bottom of his suitcase throughout his career.He won more than 100 matches before being noticed by a trainer and being asked to come to France. Halimi began to box as an amateur at age sixteen, and knew that he could expand on his amateur credentials while in the military. At the age of 21, he won the first recognition for his abilities, capturing the French bantamweight amateur title in 1953 and 1954, and won the all-Mediterranean title in 1955.American Billy Peacock fell to Halimi in Paris on March 16, 1956, in a close, strategically fought, ten round points decision. In an important win, Halimi showed dominance in the first and ninth rounds, though the rest appeared even. The Parisian crowd were not pleased with the pace of the bout, as both boxers cautiously circled, jabbed, and repeatedly clinched.On April 1, 1957, at the Vélodrome d'hiver in Paris, Halimi became world bantamweight champion by defeating the Italian deaf-mute boxer Mario d'Agata in a fifteen-round decision. The partisan Parisian crowd of 17,000 watched Halimi take eleven of the fifteen rounds, while D'Agata managed to win only two. It was D'Agata's first title defense. The bout had no knockdowns, but clinches were common, and the referee frequently had to pull the contestants apart. Special lights had been set for the fight, to allow d'Agata, who could not hear the bell, to know when each round ended or began. When the bell rang, the lights flashed. There was a storm on the day of the fight, and lightning struck one of the signal lights in round three. d'Agata was struck by sparks, suffering a burned neck and back, but the bout continued.