Heavyweight Anthony Mosco vs Birdman Smith-True Story of 22 Sec. YouTube Viral Bout
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
Historically speaking, Anthony Bosco versus Jimmy ‘Birdman’ Smith is considered to be the classical example of the worst televised heavyweight bout ever seen. Mosco, a former New York and Florida Heavyweight Golden Gloves champion who served as a sparring partner for the late heavyweight contender Smokin’ Bert Cooper, went 3-0 during his brief heavyweight career.
Mosco’s career as a heavyweight prospect ended due to a congenitally fused vertebra in his neck. He later earned an MBA business degree, and remains today as vice-president of sales at Polymer Logistic. Anthony Mosco joins the late Rocky Marciano (49-0), Joe Mesi (36-0), JD Chapman (29-0), George Candelaki (24-0), Lee Canalito (21-0), Ike Ibeabuchi (20-0), George Foreman (Monk) III (16-0), Ricky Womack (13-0-1), Zsolt Bogdan (13-0), rugby player Sonny Bill Williams (7-0), and football player Ed (Too Tall) Jones (6-0) as being among the only heavyweights to have retired undefeated.
Smith looked crazy in his professional debut, and when the 216 pounds heavyweight prospect Mosco knocked him out in 22 seconds, Smith’s career as a 198 pounds cruiserweight belonged to the ages. However, the December 1992 Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida, bout came back to life on YouTube, and has received almost two million hits.
Because heavyweight (201 pounds and above) and cruiserweight (200 pounds and below) are separate and distinct weight classes, Mosco versus Smith should properly never have been sanctioned in the first place. Birdman Smith has flown into oblivion for the past 27 years, but his memorable performance, which had ego written all over it, still lives on YouTube. Smith entered the bout with a 3-0 amateur record, which-in reflection-was hardly the sort of background to fight a two-state Golden Gloves heavyweight champion.
Incidentally, the referee in Anthony Mosco versus Jim ‘Birdman’ Smith, Brian Garry of Tampa, Florida, was a professional referee between 1983 and 2015, who refereed the WBO World Welterweight Championship bout between Serhiy Dzinziruk and Carlos Nasciminento in Hamburg, Germany, in 2007, and was later inducted into the Florida Boxing Hall of Fame.
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