Don Jordan

[2] 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.

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.

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.

After being robbed and seriously assaulted in a Los Angeles parking lot in September 1996, Don Jordan went into a coma, and died in a nursing home in San Pedro, California, on 13 February 1997.