Unusual Fight Locations

[keithmoonhangover]

Ken Lakusta fought Mark Wills in Jakarata and is listed as the only fight on the card.
Al Cole and Glen McCrory shared a ring in Moscow.

[scartissue]

Jim Corbett fought Joe Choynski on a barge in a California harbor.

Willie Pep fought Gil Cadilli in their first fight on an Air Force Base

Marvin Hagler fought Sugar Ray Seales in their first fight in a TV studio.

[goose 5]

How about Valdez-Briscoe 1 and 3 ?

[dagosd2000]

Peter Maher fought Bob Fitzsimmons on Feb. 21,1896 for the unofficial Heavyweight Championship Of The World on a makeshift ring set up on a sandbar in the middle of the desert in Coahuila,Mexico.. The promoters wanted the fight staged in Texas.However,prizefighting at the time was outlawed in the state. Judge Roy Bean,who had the last word in the U.S. border town of Langtry decided to circumvent the law and at the 11th hour snuck the fight across the border in Mexico. The ring was set up on a sandbar across the Rio Grande River.There were just ring ropes,no canvas mat. The setting was far enough from the Mexican army, and being outside the United States,outside U.S. jurisdiction. BTW:Fitz KO'd Maher in less than a round.

[keithmoonhangover]

Some very good choices gents. Thank you.

[Bladder]

Peter Maher fought Bob Fitzsimmons on Feb. 21,1896 for the unofficial Heavyweight Championship Of The World on a makeshift ring set up on a sandbar in the middle of the desert in Coahuila,Mexico.. The promoters wanted the fight staged in Texas.However,prizefighting at the time was outlawed in the state. Judge Roy Bean,who had the last word in the U.S. border town of Langtry decided to circumvent the law and at the 11th hour snuck the fight across the border in Mexico. The ring was set up on a sandbar across the Rio Grande River.There were just ring ropes,no canvas mat. The setting was far enough from the Mexican army, and being outside the United States,outside U.S. jurisdiction. BTW:Fitz KO'd Maher in less than a round.

The top photo is Australian Billy Smith against Billy Lewis, which continues to be misidentified as Fitz-Maher.

[Bladder]

Dwight Qawi v James Scott at Rahway State prison.

[keithmoonhangover]

Peter Maher fought Bob Fitzsimmons on Feb. 21,1896 for the unofficial Heavyweight Championship Of The World on a makeshift ring set up on a sandbar in the middle of the desert in Coahuila,Mexico.. The promoters wanted the fight staged in Texas.However,prizefighting at the time was outlawed in the state. Judge Roy Bean,who had the last word in the U.S. border town of Langtry decided to circumvent the law and at the 11th hour snuck the fight across the border in Mexico. The ring was set up on a sandbar across the Rio Grande River.There were just ring ropes,no canvas mat. The setting was far enough from the Mexican army, and being outside the United States,outside U.S. jurisdiction. BTW:Fitz KO'd Maher in less than a round.

The top photo is Australian Billy Smith against Billy Lewis, which continues to be misidentified as Fitz-Maher.

I don't think BoxRec list this fight. It's mentioned elsewhere.

[Bladder]

Peter Maher fought Bob Fitzsimmons on Feb. 21,1896 for the unofficial Heavyweight Championship Of The World on a makeshift ring set up on a sandbar in the middle of the desert in Coahuila,Mexico.. The promoters wanted the fight staged in Texas.However,prizefighting at the time was outlawed in the state. Judge Roy Bean,who had the last word in the U.S. border town of Langtry decided to circumvent the law and at the 11th hour snuck the fight across the border in Mexico. The ring was set up on a sandbar across the Rio Grande River.There were just ring ropes,no canvas mat. The setting was far enough from the Mexican army, and being outside the United States,outside U.S. jurisdiction. BTW:Fitz KO'd Maher in less than a round.

The top photo is Australian Billy Smith against Billy Lewis, which continues to be misidentified as Fitz-Maher.

I don't think BoxRec list this fight. It's mentioned elsewhere.

It's here with a few other photos:
https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/Austr ... illy_Lewis

[keithmoonhangover]

The top photo is Australian Billy Smith against Billy Lewis, which continues to be misidentified as Fitz-Maher.

I don't think BoxRec list this fight. It's mentioned elsewhere.

It's here with a few other photos:
https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/Austr ... illy_Lewis

I was looking at the wrong Australian Billy Smith.

https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/10782

This website seems to have combined them both.

https://boxerlist.com/en/boxer/australi ... smith/9102

Can we assume BoxRec is correct?

[Bladder]

I don't think BoxRec list this fight. It's mentioned elsewhere.

It's here with a few other photos:
https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/Austr ... illy_Lewis

I was looking at the wrong Australian Billy Smith.

https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/10782

This website seems to have combined them both.

https://boxerlist.com/en/boxer/australi ... smith/9102

Can we assume BoxRec is correct?

My knowledge of Australian Billy Smith doesn't extend beyond the fact his fight with Lewis gets misidentified as Fitz-Maher so couldn't say.

[keithmoonhangover]

It's here with a few other photos:
https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/Austr ... illy_Lewis

I was looking at the wrong Australian Billy Smith.

https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/10782

This website seems to have combined them both.

https://boxerlist.com/en/boxer/australi ... smith/9102

Can we assume BoxRec is correct?

My knowledge of Australian Billy Smith doesn't extend beyond the fact his fight with Lewis gets misidentified as Fitz-Maher so couldn't say.

[Bodyshot3]

Chris Eubank went properly weird, off-grid towards the end......a swanky Dubai Tennis Club and a fight in that well-known boxing hotbed Cairo

For some reason he also had a world title fight in a plush hotel in Portugal and against the American Ron Essett. I am not sure anyone goes to an Algarve 5-star hotel to catch a very sub-par WBO title fight. Or perhaps they loved it

[keithmoonhangover]

Chris Eubank went properly weird, off-grid towards the end......a swanky Dubai Tennis Club and a fight in that well-known boxing hotbed Cairo

For some reason he also had a world title fight in a plush hotel in Portugal and against the American Ron Essett. I am not sure anyone goes to an Algarve 5-star hotel to catch a very sub-par WBO title fight. Or perhaps they loved it

Weren't the top two because he converted to Islam?

[Ambling Alp II]

Corbett-Choynski on a barge.
Foreman-Norton in Venezuela.
This might be a stretch, but Robinson-Pender in Boston. Boston almost never has big fights.

[gilgamesh]

Clay vs Liston 2 being in Lewiston, Maine has always been odd to me.

What's that town that was Bankrupted after putting on a Dempsey fight? I wanna say Shelby, Montana?

[Caractacus]

Peter Maher fought Bob Fitzsimmons on Feb. 21,1896 for the unofficial Heavyweight Championship Of The World on a makeshift ring set up on a sandbar in the middle of the desert in Coahuila,Mexico.. The promoters wanted the fight staged in Texas.However,prizefighting at the time was outlawed in the state. Judge Roy Bean,who had the last word in the U.S. border town of Langtry decided to circumvent the law and at the 11th hour snuck the fight across the border in Mexico. The ring was set up on a sandbar across the Rio Grande River.There were just ring ropes,no canvas mat. The setting was far enough from the Mexican army, and being outside the United States,outside U.S. jurisdiction. BTW:Fitz KO'd Maher in less than a round.

That sure looks like "Fitz" to me from the back of his head tho ?
who says it aint and what is their proof it is not ?
also in my opinion that most certainly looks like a sand-bar in the Rio Grande to me.

[orbtastic]

Clay vs Liston 2 being in Lewiston, Maine has always been odd to me.

What's that town that was Bankrupted after putting on a Dempsey fight? I wanna say Shelby, Montana?

They had tremendous problems finding a venue that would hold it. A lot of states actually blocked the fight too.

I believe I’m right in saying it’s the only heavyweight title fight held in Maine and it still holds the record for lowest attendance at well under 3000. Crazy really.

Rahway state prison as already mentioned.

Playboy mansion has to be fairly unusual.

Has there ever been a boxing card at the Azteca other than Chavez Haugen?

[mattdonnellon]

Peter Maher fought Bob Fitzsimmons on Feb. 21,1896 for the unofficial Heavyweight Championship Of The World on a makeshift ring set up on a sandbar in the middle of the desert in Coahuila,Mexico.. The promoters wanted the fight staged in Texas.However,prizefighting at the time was outlawed in the state. Judge Roy Bean,who had the last word in the U.S. border town of Langtry decided to circumvent the law and at the 11th hour snuck the fight across the border in Mexico. The ring was set up on a sandbar across the Rio Grande River.There were just ring ropes,no canvas mat. The setting was far enough from the Mexican army, and being outside the United States,outside U.S. jurisdiction. BTW:Fitz KO'd Maher in less than a round.

That sure looks like "Fitz" to me from the back of his head tho ?
who says it aint and what is their proof it is not ?
also in my opinion that most certainly looks like a sand-bar in the Rio Grande to me.

“Such the above photograph depicts, as anyone familiar with prize fighting history knows, or does it?
Of course, it has appeared in several issues of The Ring, A Pictorial History of Boxing, Christopher Tobin in his book Fitzsimmons Boxing's First Triple Champion, uses the photograph and attributes it to The Ring, and the black trunks for Fitzsimmons and the white for Maher was described by Gilbert Odd in The Fighting Blacksmith, The Story of Bob Fitzsimmons . But, then again his bibliography lists no original source news coverage.
In the files, this photograph was attributed to the collection of a Mr. Earl Puryear. I know little of Earl Puryear excepting that he was an amateur boxing historian who apparently conducted personal research on the Fitzsimmons v. Maher fight, he wrote in December of 1955 to Floyd Red Taylor, a legendary collector and boxing historian, as follows, " I have been trying to piece together a bit of fistic history. Checked at the library on Lantry, Texas where Bob Fitzsimmons K.O. Peter Maher..."
A different view of what appears to be this same fight is printed on the Ogden Tab Cigarettes card no. 43 entitled "Snapshot of an American Prize Fight" by N.P. Edwards.
The description of black trunks for Fitzsimmons and the white for Maher appears in, The Story of Bob Fitzsimmons by Gilbert Odd.
In the Boston Herald coverage of the fight they state,
"Maher wore short-legged black fighting breeches, with a green belt." "Fitz had chosen for his ring costume a navy blue breech clout, with a belt of stars and stripes. He legs were bare and his shoes were of the standard running shape."
Further problems, the gloves in the famous photograph appear to be white, However, "the brown pair (gloves)went to Maher, and Fitz took the light green ones"
-Boston Herald February 22, 1896
Maher has an obvious mustache in the famous photograph. But, "with his (Mahers) moustache shaved off his face looked much better"
-The Police Gazette" Feburary 29, 1896
Also of note, in the famous photo one group have a parasol or umbrella up and the day seems very bright yet ;
"The day was gray with clouds, and the Kinetoscope was useless......to the point where the seventy-five foot pontoon bridge had been stretched across the Rio Grande River which, swollen by recent rains had been changed from a sluggish stream to a roaring torrent."
-New York Herald February 22, 1896
...a high wind and ...followed by a downpour of rain. A score of men with cameras of various descriptions were on hand to film the fight. The weather conditions were anything but accomodating to their business...
-Police Gazette
Immediately after the fight Mr Rector, on behalf of the kinetoscope people, offered Fitzsimmons and Maher a purse of $5000 to be battled for tommorrow...
-Boston Herald. February 22, 1896
But, now comes the real discrpeancy
“..the canvas enclosure that enclosed the ring was to be seen in the distance…to the west, sloping down to the very foot of the enclosure , was a mountain five hundred feet in height, rugged and almost perpendicular. Across the river, on the Texas side, was its counterpart, and fringed along its stern summit, commanding full view of the ring, were some three hundred men and women, who looked like pigeons to those below.
The circus canvas with which the battle ground was enclosed was 200 feet in circumference and sixteen feet in height. The ring was composed of white pine, covered with white duck, and had an elevation of four feet. "
-New York Herald. February 22, 1896

All of the research for the preceeding article was conducted and supplied by Mr. Matt Donnellon. Mr. Donnellon is in preparation of a book on the life of Peter Maher. The photographs of the pontoon bridge and of the canvas enclosed ring also appear in Dan Stuart's Fistic Carnival by Leo N. Miletich.”
“Antiquities of the Prize Ring”.

[funso banjo baby]

Benn v Watson in the tent was very special

[Caractacus]

I think the photograph of the sand-bar first appeared not in a Boxing magazine but in one of those issues of
TRUE WEST magazines that used to be on the newsstands sometime in the early 1970's.

[Caractacus]

George Forman vrs Ron Lyle in January 1976 was held in the parking lot of Caesar's Palace under a huge circus tent from what I remember.

[gp.]

Peter Maher fought Bob Fitzsimmons on Feb. 21,1896 for the unofficial Heavyweight Championship Of The World on a makeshift ring set up on a sandbar in the middle of the desert in Coahuila,Mexico.. The promoters wanted the fight staged in Texas.However,prizefighting at the time was outlawed in the state. Judge Roy Bean,who had the last word in the U.S. border town of Langtry decided to circumvent the law and at the 11th hour snuck the fight across the border in Mexico. The ring was set up on a sandbar across the Rio Grande River.There were just ring ropes,no canvas mat. The setting was far enough from the Mexican army, and being outside the United States,outside U.S. jurisdiction. BTW:Fitz KO'd Maher in less than a round.

That sure looks like "Fitz" to me from the back of his head tho ?
who says it aint and what is their proof it is not ?
also in my opinion that most certainly looks like a sand-bar in the Rio Grande to me.

What, in your opinion, marks out that particular bit of sand as "looking like a sand-bar in the Rio Grande" rather than any other piece of sand?

[Nile4000]

Where Ali-Bugner ll was held at.

[Expug]

Fred Apostoli fought somebody in a round “ ring” I don’t remember who. Maybe someone here knows about this.