Open Letter to Floyd Boudreaux from Don Mayfield

I have a great deal of respect for both of these legendary pioneers.... I just thought I would share this letter for what it is worth.


( Before you begin reading this letter Don wanted it known that he sent a copy to Floyd after reading Floyd's interview in the Jan. - Feb. 1989 issue of the Times. If you would care for a copy of the original interview send $3.00 and a S.A.S.E. to the Times. The Editor.)

November 30, 1989

Hello Floyd,

Today is the day after I received a copy of the Jan. - Feb. 1989 American Pitbull Terrier Times. I had been told by a number of different ones that you had said a number of things about me in the interview you gave the Times. I became so interested that I subscribed for the Times, that was the first of August 1989. As of yet I have not been sent any issues, but a friend of mine did send me this Jan-Feb issue yesterday for me to read your interview.

Floyd I must say that your age ain't changed you very little, as to the way I read your interview, I told Phyllis, I said you no Floyd's more of a liar than I thought he was, but you know it could be that he ain't such a liar, it could be that maybe he just got a bad memorv and he just gets things mixed up. And Floyd you remember how crazy and upfront Phyllis is. She said you think that all you want to about that PRINCE OF A MAN, but you're as wrong as you can be. Floyd knows every lie he is saying in that interview.

So what I thought I would do is write you this letter as I read over this interview and point out just a few of the many things I read and feel I know I can prove is wrong, WITH FACTS!

First let me tell you Maurice Carver matched his first time in 1952, the Skipper dog. Eli Jr. was eight months old when Nirider deal him from Jerry Clemmons. And in that litter there was more than four pups. Nirider got one male as a puppy, he jumped out of a two story window at six months old and killed his self one day when he seen another dog walking down the street. That is when Nirider then deal for Eli Jr., and at the same time or a month or two later he deal Jerry for Spook. She quit cold 4 or 5 different times in rolls when Nirider roll her in this area.

Floyd I could go on and on one thing after another of things such as what I have pointed out to you, it is like I see it throughout the interview.

What I want to write you about are the more direct things that you said that much more ways involved me. First lets start with Eli from him to me being confused as to the Bullyson vs Benny Bob match. Let me first say that the match with Danny Burton and Raymond, Danny's dog was black and was owned by the Plumers, Raymond's dog was white and was called Whitey's Ford Danny's dog was called 500, no dogs there that day was called Lighting IV.

Floyd you know as well as I know how ELI was bred. It is just like Leo told me, Curley Hayes told me and a number of us in the core knew the true breeding of ELI. Jr. Bush told Curley Hayes that you told him the true breeding on Eli. Floyd you and I talked about this in the years when the game was talking all about it. Like I said more than one told me how they knew for sure that Eli was out of CRY BABY. But like you always knew me, ain't no one dog deal going to rile me. With me I could have forgot the matter, but when the stories began being told to the beginners of the eighties, the way that you, Bobby Hall, and a number of different ones who ya'll be dealing with in the way of lies, lies, lies. Well that's when I began to do a bit more writing the true stories into the game.

As I told you in the last letter I wrote to you, that you never answered when I sent you the copy of REDNECKS. I wrote the story A ROSE IS A ROSE after Sonny Sykes and I got together in Mississippi in 1979. Sonny told me how he was getting back into the game. Sonny and I were always a little different with our friendship, we were close, but not to close, it has been with Sonny and I in a way where we have always had lots of respect for each other. I told Sonny to pick himself a pair of pups from a litter that I had coming from a litter in Chicago. The pups were some high dollar pure bred family bred pups at Paul Sofiakis' yard. I had bred these dogs for a number of generation and know their breeding value. Sonny and I have never been the kind that would lie to each other. It's like no matter what we talk about, we talk to each other in the way as to the truth with each other.

I had told Paul all the stories about Eli and about our deal, you and I had with Cry Baby and the pups. But to Paul it was more like just another story about the question marks in many pedigrees. After Sonny Sykes and I had talked in Mississippi and I deal him the pair of pups. Sykes and Paul later jot together for a visit in Chicago. As I was told by Paul the next day when he called. Paul said Sonny and I was together all day yesterday, he said Sonny and I drank some red wine and didlots of talking about ole times. Paul said Don that story you told me about ELI you were sure right, Sonny told me that he seen Eli when he was on Cry Baby when the litter was near three weeks old. Sonny said that Floyd gave Sonny pick of the litter and told him not to tell anyone how they were bred. Sonny said for some reason he never got to get with Floyd to get the pup he had picked. Sonny Sykes said the next time he saw ELI was when you matched him into Jack Smith in Mississippi. Sonny said that after the match you came to him and told him that ELI was the pup Sonny picked out of the litter. I remember that match very well, Leo and Curley both came to me and spoke of how ELI and Cry Baby looked alike. Curley came to me five minutes into the fight and said out, Hell Son you told me all the pups out of Cry Baby died. I said, what can I say Curley I got eyes too. Well Paul talked on and on as to what Sonny talked about. A few days later Sonny and I talked and I told him I always knew that Eli was out of CRY BABY but I never was told your story about seeing ELI when he was a puppy in his litter on Cry. Sykes said Yup Don that is the truth it happened just like I said, I just never had no reason to tell you about it till now. Don you no me, Sonny said I will tell it to you only one way.

After I talkwith Sonny I wrote the story A ROSE IS A ROSE. In that story I told how Bullyson quit on his line sitting down and how Maurice step out of the pit and left Bullyson sitting there after the 7 or 8 count on a 10 count. I wrote how then you picked up Bullyson and put him on his feet in the center of the pit. You did all you could do to get him to scratch from the center of the pit, but when you freed Bullyson he turn from Benny Bob and went straight to were Maurice stepped out of the pit and tried to jump out of the pit. As Bullyson jumped upon the wall he was pushed back into the pit by another one who is still alive. That is when Bullyson lay beside the pit wall in his corner and I told Rick to scratch Benny Bob into him. Then after Benny was took off of Bullyson, Bully lay in the pit until Jerry Clemmons pick him up and walk to Maurice's car with Bullyson in his arms, all of this is with facts that I can prove with pictures and different people. Benny Bob was a brindle dog with lots of white hair in the story I wrote of him as a white dog, all in a way of talken to ya'll. Then at the end of the story I told you how Eli was really bred, as I had never told you before just how his sire was bred.

After the story was published in Jack Kelly's Sporting Dog Journal and in Rednecks and I sent you the last lettertelling you how I had talked to Sonny about ELI and how I felt as I now had enough facts to write the story as truth. Sonny called me later and told me you had called him and ask him to change his story about ELI. Sonny told me he said to you, Floyd you are going around tellin people that Don had gone crazy and how he lost his mind. Sonny said I told Floyd if what you are saying is truth that means you think I am crazy too, because what Don wrote in that story is truth.

Floyd I have heard story after story about the way you have talked of me and my dogs. I have always weighed it out over the last ten years or so. Floyd you know you and I got real close in our dealing and playing in the game together. You never cared to even know how a dog was bred in those years. The story that you told me about Blind Billy is all together different story than that you tell in the interview, like that story you tell of Rascal. You always told me and others in the game you were never able to find out how Blind Billy was bred. You had a set of pedigree papers on him that showed him as being bred out of JT Collier's dogs I still have a copy of the pedigree here in my house. You told me and others that your dad got the dog from your uncle, who lived near the Texas-Louisiana line near the same town that Collier lived in. Then later you started saying the man your uncle got Billy from had gotten the dog from Earl Tudor. Leo use to say that he knew how Blind Billy was bred and Earl told me more than once that Billy was not out of Dibo. When your dad got Billy he was already a few years old as you told me and others. But now in this interview you say you got the dog from Earl Tudor by trading him four ace roosters. And then you say you bought him in 1953 and he was born in 1952.

Floyd let me show you how clear your stories are for me to read. Dibo was born in March on the 21st of 1951. Earl got him when he was three years old. Now you are saying ya'll deal Earl out of Billy in 1952 or 53. At that time Earl did not have Dibo on his yard! Floyd there was no excuses in the way you cut and lie about me and my family of dogs in your interview. I do not set the price on my dogs the demand does!!! It's like this Floyd, I do not have no pups for sale. I only have two males on my yard and one female now. When I breed my female the puppies have been sold for over a year. The people who deal dogs from me are the same ones who been dealing with me for a number of years. And most of them have gotten dogs from me over the years.

As to what you said about Earl Tudor you were not in the game when Earl matched his last match. And you talk of him as a conditioner and not a breeder. Floyd you know as I know that in the 1930's 48's 58's 68's and 1970's everyone in the core of the game was trying to get dogs bred from Earl Tudor's yard. You say he got his dogs from others until you got to know him. What all you had to say about earl was cut down from each time you call his name. Even to the point where you said he had a dog called Cracker and you know it was Maurice that had the dog called Cracker. It is all just like you tell how Earl was jumping with joy when you matched Blind Billy.

Floyd it is like I can see your truth in understanding of the gamedogs and the game in what you had to say in, Who was the best breeder in your days. What you said in that part of the interview is more true than any part of the interview. It shows me that your as mixed up and confused about life as you were back in 1968 when we met, you ain't proven no truth with any understanding of the records of truth in the game. You show very clear that you have no respect for true breeding and pure bred families. It is like the Dutchman Peter Parker said when he started the interview with you. There is a lot of us who can talk about this and about that, some of us can say just about whatever another one wants us to say. And there are some who then print it as all truth. Some even think that the value of truth is of such no value as they can say just whatever comes to their mine at the time.

Well Floyd I'm here in this letter to tell you and the Dutchman Peter Parker that ain't like it is in the truth. You see the truth has a way of showing its self throughout life, don't make no different what game is being played, or how many times one gives away a true bred pair of pups to a friend. Truth has a way of showing us allit's power, in the way it puts such a test on us in life. I have learn in my life that truth become proven to life in such ways as more to the ones who try and prove truth to be wrong. It'slike what you said about DIBO and how he was a stolen dog. And the story you tell about Dibo and how different it is then the story that Howard Heinzel told about Dibo. It is like I have wrote in a number of stories how everyone has there value of truth they tell in their stories about life. The story I tell about Dibo is the one told to me by Earl Tudor. Earl told me that Ed Ritcheson gave Dibo to a blackman when he was a pup. This blackman was a matredee in a fine restaurant, Ed got dog feed scraps from the blackman. The blackman named Dibo and showed him in pedigrees as being Dibo. Earl told me that he and Howard Heinzel took him to see Dibo when be was running the streets loose and Earl liked him and the way he was bred real well. So Howard stole the dog right then and gave him to Earl to take home with him. It was when Earl was in Arizona to see some matches that are wrote of in Pete Sparks magazine in the 1950's. Earl rolled him later and bred him to a few females showing him as Tudor's Runt. Then later things got straight with the blackman and so Howard and Earl showed him as Tudor's Dibo as Dibo on the pedigrees. The word Dibo means devil in African blackman's language and word. This is what the game is about Floyd it is life in such a way as the truth becomes matched and proven over and over before the next generations tell the stories of truth. There ain't no reason to get upset as to this truth I have told you in this letter.It's like you said and I have lived this truth and can prove this truth and everything I have told you in this letter. Even the part about what Earl said about Blind Billy and Dibo as I have that on tape in Earl's voice. If you ever want to contact me or write me or call, I live in the same place with the same address and the same phone number. We can talk about it and come to a clear understanding as to what is truth and what is not truth, your always welcome. Floyd it's like as long as it's talk it's more in the way of hearsay, but when it is put in print and in interviews for all the game to read, just as if one is saying it for everyone to read and know who said it. Well this is the reason I write you this letter, I feel that I have just as much right to write and tell all the same readers the truth as I know it to be. And so much so as to the way you cut at me throughout your interview.

 

I plan to send you a copy of this letter, also a copy will be sent to the Times and a copy will be sent to the Dutch and English Magazines. Then the players will read more then your value of truth in the same stories you have wrote as all truth. Here is the way that I see it if I have said anything in this letter that is not true, then you should debate me as to what is the truth in what you and I have wrote. If you will not do it in the Times are another interview in a different magazine, it's up to you. How ever, but I don't think it should be in print for all to read coming from just one of us. I as a Texan have my value of life, that I have proved in my life, just as you do as a cajun. So if you want to debate the understanding of the core of the game we both have played for many years of our lives. Then should know that I openly ask you to match your understanding of the truth of the core of the game into me and my understanding of the game. It can be put in print in the Times for the game to read. The game can read the true understanding from both of us in a way where they can seek their own truth out of both our stories of the game. Let the game learn the value of truth in the way of truth that yours I can prove to each other with facts of the things we put in print for all to read. Floyd it's like I have wrote in many stories this is one of the greatest games in the world where the players match into each other to prove in the way of truth to see. Who is wiser you or I! How about it Floyd do you think I am confused or maybe crazy? You want to see which one of us is right or wrong as to the different in what we tell in the stories we have an understanding of. If you do so in such a way as to see who has the facts to prove what they say is true, write it to the Times in a way as you are answering this letter. Maybe Fat Bill would print them in the next issue we could respond in order till the truth becomes proven in a clear way of understanding. That should not be no hard thing for two such dogmen as Floyd Boudreaux and Don Mayfield, should it? Floyd just one more thing. Raymond and Sharon Holt was not even in the game when you matched ELI they did not even know each other in the 1960's. They did not get in the game until 1971 or 72. How could they been in your yard in the I960's trying to buy ELI from you? To me Floyd your interview was the same throughout in it's value of truth.
~ Don Mayfield (RIP)

 

Yep, reminds me of just how dogmen bickered with each other before the Internet lol. Maybe Dibo was slang term for devil back then, but I couldnt find a definition using Google today that corresponds with the definition given by Mayfield in that letter. Just sayin.. Wasnt there, nor was I even born prior to 68, so who really knows.

 

Thats funny becuse i like to look into things like that as well and read that Dibo means to steal LOL and they are saying the dog is stolen so hey go figure

 

lol, I can still remember Barney Fife arguing with someone ( I think it was Lemm,) over conditioning and stuff. And you had to wait two freakin months to read the response lol. just imagine if they were able to argue via the Internet!!!

 

aww hell we do wee just don't get into specifics LMAO oh and i also found this


The Dibo are a ethnic group located in central Nigeria. They are located near the city of Bida and they are largely Muslim..

 

Yeah, that was the first definition I came up with lol. I did look through about another 8 links for different definitions, and even tried the translation function Google offers! Maybe it was slang back then. But Dibo being defined as "to steal" is a bit coincidental lol, just as you pointed out AGame!

 

Respect to all of them and there dog

 

You think the bickering is bad on the net.Man it was bad between Mayfield and Lemm.I got tired of reading the shit after awhile.At first it was funny but it got old.Lemm even wrote a book blasting Mayfield and Hall through out the book.Guys would start a rumor about a dog and the next thing u know everyone was saying how bad the dog was without even seeing the dog themself.I love the guys that say those old timers really was dogmen and into the core of the game.The only time any of them was telling the truth was when they was calling each other liars. They stole each others dogs,switched papers and a bunch of other underhanded shit.

 

and even less knew bucks true breeding ???? and redrum oh so true about the oldtimers you could not get the truth from anyone of them even if U held fire to there nut sack lol ............

 

hard to read... lol

 

Julez thats beacuse don was F ing nutz out of his gord CRAZY !!!!!!!!!!!

 

I would talk to Don back in the 80's.After talking to him I had a headache.He was out there.If u listen to him real close u might have been able to learn something useful but after wards u would be a little off yourself.

 

When folks talk about Don they like to mention things about him like that he was drugged or crazy and if that fails just say he was a liar,,, because they look for anything they can find that will avoid discussing the things that are really important such as the breedings of certain dogs.

Does anyone have any opinions about the breeding of the dogs mentioned in the articles? Would anyone care to comment on why the Rascal dog shown on peds is a different dog than the Rascal that was at Carvers yard? Would anyone be interested in discussing why a number of people saw Maverick win at least 4-5 matches under different names before he was used as a stud dog?

Difficult questions about touchy subjects... maybe its easier and best for all if we just stick to insulting a dead man...

 

I never got a chance to meet Mr. Mayfield...but I've learned a lot from him. A very close buddy of mine would speak with him quite frequently and said that he was one of the coolest. Speaking of Maverick...I don't know how true it is, but I once read that he matched under the name "Vodoo" and was a 6x winner.

YIS
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I like to read what mayfield wrote. His videos are cool as well.

 

Good read........ Thanks

 

The thing with Don like I said is it was very hard to understand what he was talking about sometimes.You really had to pay attention because he would talk and ramble on, but he would tell u something useful if u paid attention.I don't think thats insulting the man.Back then Don went through some things that changed him.The reason the dogs u mention wasn't discussed was this thread was about Mayfield and the letter he wrote.I have stated many times that all of them old timers did plenty of dirt without signaling out one in general.Its like a thread was started somewhere on here Lemm vs.Mayfield I stated then that Mayfield went into the best and beat the best.And only the best beat Mayfield.Lemm well I know he made the best treadmills but he wasn't even close to Don in matching.Nowhere close at all.But what gets me is if u say anything about Mayfield u have guys that come at you that u hate the man and bs in general.It is what it is.