Hope, Bob
  Tunney, Gene; Dempsey, Jack (dancers)
  Crosby, Bing (referee)
  Eden, Barbara; Sullivan, Ed
  “Salute to the USO – Premiere Benefit Performance”
  “The Night of the Century with the World’s Outstanding Artists”
  Youtube video links

  Proclaimed the “1st event ever” in the “New” Madison Square Garden at 8th & 33rd in Manhattan, to benefit the “United Services Organization” (a Defense Department chartered non-profit that provides entertainment and relaxation for members of the U.S. military both overseas and at home bases during peacetime and war), its longtime champion, actor and comedian Bob Hope presented this show of comedy, celebrity, and music.  One long bit made use of the Garden’s reputation and arrangement as a boxing venue and Hope’s experience as a boxer for one brief moment before he took to the vaudeville stage and his journey to stardom across the globe.  Hope, born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, England, in 1903 before emigrating to Cleveland with his parents at the age of 5, as young lad fought under the name of Packy East in Ohio in 1919 soon after graduating from East High.  Records compiled on Wikipedia show 3 lightweight amateur bouts that year, and then 3 obviously staged exhibitions against world champions Jack Dempsey (April 10, 1948, East victor by a KO in less than 15 seconds), Rocky Marciano (this event), and Sugar Ray Leonard (in 1972 at an event staged at his home in Toluca Lake, North Hollywood).   The “fight” with the long retired undefeated world champion Marciano involved an elaborate entrance by Hope’s boxer persona wearing a robe embroidered with “Chicken Delight,” his entourage including “Nurse” Barbara Eden.  Bing Crosby, Hope’s co-star in a flock of “road comedies,” takes to the ring to referee, and a series of classic comedy routines ensue.  Notably, a version of the “patty-cake” bit used frequently by Hope and Crosby in those road films – where the two played the children’s rhyming game to cover a coming set of uppercuts to the foolish villain’s face -- here is used by Hope and the Rock to take out Crosby himself, after which Hope quips, “I’ve been waiting to do that all my life.”  The travesty of pugilism eventually descends to 2 combatants dropping their gloves dancing, actually ballroom dancing, across the ring, soon to be joined by Eden,  showman Ed Sullivan, and former world heavyweight champions Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M61pSYmXfbQ

 Youtube also offers a video of a 1984 skit for the New Orleans World’s Fair called “Raging Cow,” with Packy as promoter in 1984, with “Marvelous Marvin” Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard, John Ritter, Brooke Shields, Dick Cavett, Red Buttons. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqGWY9FWjMI