The lord of the rings

Andrew Mathieson
THE echoes of a cheering, sometimes bloody-thirsty crowd at Festival Hall still ring in Tony Saltalamacchia’s battered 55-year-old ears.
They are sounds the sounds of a different era, when boxing was at the forefront of the national consciousness.
Television’s TV Ringside – in which Tony played his part – was an institution beamed into most homes.
He loved the fight nights.
The anticipation, the atmosphere, the last-minute nerves, but most of all the venue.
“The dressing rooms were underneath and you came up the stairway,” Tony visualises.
“If you could imagine you were going out to fight, you would be fairly nervous. Well, I was.
“But the moment you walked up the stairs, you were in the hall and looking back down on it.
“You then saw the squared ring and all the nerves started to disappear.”
Festival Hall was a haven for boxers when then-raw welterweight Tony, who shortened his name to Salta, turned pro at just 16.
Everybody was looking for a match with anybody back then.
“Just packed you’re bags, rolled up, weighed in and saw the doctor,” Tony reminisces. “If you got matched, you were lucky.”
Like most aspiring boxers, Tony’s early days weren’t always so lucky.
He copped the odd blow along the way.
His family, which included eight children, arrived in Australia from Sicily in 1963 in search of a better life. But the 10-year-old boy who could not speak a word of English discovered he was an easy target.
“I think then all the school kids thought I’d come from the Moon or something,” Tony recollects.
“They were all pointing fingers at me and, in those days, there was a lot of racism and I always got picked on.”
After turning up to a boxing gym for help, Tony admits he “squared the ledger” with a few of his bullies.
Tony went on to eight pro fights, with the most memorable Rocky Mattioli’s debut.
Mattioli, who would win a world title seven years later, was the only boxer to floor Tony.
But all fights were tough, even the sparring.
A session with Australian champion Barry Michael took its toll. A left hook ruptured Tony’s eardrum, affecting his balance and he lost his feet.
“Barry didn’t know and I wouldn’t let him know of the damage he’d done,” Tony says.
“To this day I have never, ever told him.”
The speed of Australian world champion Johnny Famechon was something else, as Tony discovered.
“You’re throwing punches at him and you’re hitting thin air,” Tony says, still amazed. “He was a master of evasiveness.”
A bricklayer by trade, Tony built his own house at Moolap and equipped it with a gym.
The walls are adorned with title belts and every imaginable promotional poster with the traditional fists-up pose.
A favourite shows Geelong footballers gathered around Tony’s ring. He was the AFL club’s boxing coach for five years.
Former players Ronnie Burns, Brad Sholl and current stars Joel Corey, Corey Enright and David Wojcinski could handle themselves but Cameron Mooney was the standout, Tony reveals.
“I used to send him text messages that there was an Australian title waiting for him,” Tony smiles.
“I told him I was serious but I’m sure he thought I was joking but he told me he was a lover, not a fighter.”
But Tony really loves training hard-luck kids off Geelong’s streets. Some, like Heath Stenton, have hit the big time.
They are different men when they leave Tony’s gym.
“These guys don’t go out on the streets fighting,” he observes. “They’re disciplined and they show respect.
“I often tell them that if I find them going out on the streets blueing and using what they learn here, they’re no longer welcome here.”
Sitting in a rippling polo shirt that barely contains his biceps, Tony still paints a tough picture.
“I can still go with the 20-year-olds,” he grins. “I can do what they do and sometimes even better.”