Sad to report we lost Philadelphia heavyweight George Hill, who died [last week] in a fire at his home in West Philadelphia.  He was 73 and one of the nicest men you could ever know. I remember meeting him like it was yesterday.  Hill boxed Jerry Judge on my first card at the Blue Horizon on Sept. 30, 1969. I had billed Judge as the Kensington heavyweight champion even though he had lost his only pro fight. I couldn't find a local guy to fight him until one night when I went to Champs Gym.  Hill was getting ready to spar, and his trainer, Joe Rose, who also trained George Benton, had heard I needed someone and he said Hill would gladly make his pro debut against Judge.

 

Hill was stopped in the fourth round but it was just the beginning of his boxing journey.  He spent time in Muhammad Ali's camp and he was involved in one of the best Blue Horizon preliminary fights in memory. It took place seven months after the Judge fight when Hill got up from two first-round knockdowns and KO'd fellow-Philadelphia Donald Branch in the second.  The crowd went nuts because Branch had paraded around the ring with his arms over his head in a victory pose after he had dropped Hill the second time in the opening round.

 

Hill's record was only 2-3-2 but he became one of the most reliable and respected judges in boxing.  He was in Dusseldorf, Germany, with us in 1998 as a judge the night Charles Brewer's IBF super middleweight title was stolen by an outrageous split decision.  Hill scored it 117-111 for Brewer, but the German judge (116-112) and the so-called neutral Italian judge (115-113) scored it for Sven Ottke.  After the decision was announced, Hill ran over to where I was standing and yelled, "How can they do that?"  I told him we were in Germany and that was the best answer I could give.

George was one of those people I never heard a bad word about.  When Michelle Rosado promoted my 50th anniversary card late in 2019 at the 2300 Arena, I asked Greg Sirb, as a favor, to appoint Hill as one of the judges for old times' sake.  He did and it was an honor for me and we introduced George from ringside as one of the people there who had been at my first card.

This is terribly sad news about a wonderful man.

 

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Hill's last championship fight as a judge was Dmitriy Bivol's win over Isaac Chilemba in 2018. He also judged a cruiserweight classic, Krzysztof Glowacki's 2015 win over Marco Huck for the WBO title. Boxingtalk sends its condolences to the friends and family of George Hill.