Roy Harris of Cut and Shoot: Texas Backwoods Battler

Generations of fighting Harris blood exploded through Roy Harris’s veins that August night in 1958 as he stood in the boxing ring in Los Angeles. He was facing the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world, Floyd Patterson, who, at the time, had earned that crown at an earlier age than any other man in history.

Roy faced a psychological handicap met by few other heavyweight challengers. How could a rustic backwoodsman turned gentleman-scholar-soldier cope with such a challenge? What strange events had conspired to create the meeting of such a contrast in pugilistic antagonists?

Roy Harris of Cut and Shoot is, in part, the story of how and why Roy Harris emerged from backwoods obscurity to the pinnacle of fistic heaven—a heavyweight title bout. But this is also the story of the rapidly vanishing breed that spawned and nourished him—the rugged individualistic frontiersmen from the oil-rich southeast Texas thicket country. Today, Cut and Shoot is a growing community northeast of Houston. Roy has retired from illustrious careers not only in boxing, but as an attorney, real estate mogul, and the county clerk of Montgomery County, Texas, for twenty-eight years.

Roy’s personal memories are inserted throughout Roy Harris of Cut and Shoot, adding authenticity to this dramatic saga.