remembering the greats of the 30s and before...

[silkov]

I'd like to start a thread which will discuss the greats of the early part of the last century. It was a time when every division was overflowing with competition, especially the lighter weights... and a fighter had to be special just to reach contendership status. Fighters often fought 20 times or more a year and would regularly fight people above their own weights.
Perhaps somepeople would like to discuss the merits of fighters champs such as Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey... who would fare best had the two met in their primes?.... or perhaps people could bring up the names of almost forgotten greats, many who didn't win titles, men like Ace Hudkins, Harry Wills, Owen Moran, Leech Cross, and what about some champions that are now often overlooked such as The Dixie Kid, Tommy Ryan, Jack Mcauliffe, Young Griffo, Kid Kaplan.... the list is endless.
Hope people find this interesting........

[bfanalyst]

It's difficult for me to rate fighters pre-1930s. Fighters fought under a different set of social rules that discriminated against fighters of color in all facets of American life, particularly American sport.

A black heavyweight was briefly allowed to challenge for the heavyweight title when Jack Johnson came around but after that America didn't give a heavyweight another chance until Joe Louis came around.

Much of the pre-1930s was a time when fighters of color were denied the equal opportunity to challenge for world titles. For this reason, I only acknowledge anything in boxing history that took place post-1930s. It's debatable that full-integration took place in the 40-50s due to Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in Major League Baseball and the rise of the Civil Rights Movement. I tend to focus on post 1930s because if you look at boxing history, that is when many African-Americans began getting title shots on a more consistent basis.

I'd be happy to discuss anything post-1930s.

[bfanalyst]

I already pointed out to you that a few colored fighters picking up titles here and there does not mean that integration had taken place. Full-integration is what I'm talking about. I don't suppose you know what that is? That is the equal participation of all ethnic groups. That didn't come to be until the 1930-50s. Now stop being a bigot and accept American history. It's documented for you to see. Accept the truth and it shall set you free! Integration - participation - equality!!!!!!!!!!

[silkov]

bfan, you have the nerve to call Terap a bigot (which he is not) and say that he should accept American history, but you wish to dismiss and forget all the great coloured fighters who strove to acheive something in their lives, who surely are all part of the aforementioned history.
The fact that some of these black fighters managed to pick up world titles is a tribute to there courage, talent and determination.
I'm sure that if these men were alive today they would thankyou for your misguided political correctness.
I could give you a long list of the great coloured fighters both champions and contenders who strove to become something in the hardest of sports and had to battle against racial prejudice as well, but I doubt that you would really be interested.
You seem to have a rather shaky hold on American history, afterall didn't racial segregation exist on American buses and in American schools right up to the mid-sixties???.
Didn't the civil rights marches take place in the 60s and 70s???.
Is there no such thing as racial prejudice in America today???.
I'm sure many on the far right of the political spectrum will be overjoyed that you wish to overlook the achievements of great coloured fighters such as George Dixon, Joe Gans, Dixie KId, Jack Johnson.... especially Jack Johnson they always hated him.
Like I said earlier you accuse people of bigotry yet have very ridged and limited views yourself. Views which are also factually unsound and illogical.
I created this thread to try and promote the names and memories of great fighters of all colours who saw boxing as a way out of poverty and a means to acheiving something in their lives.
Many of the non coloured fighters of this time were immigrants themselves and were themselves victims of poverty and prejudice.
These fighters are all part of American and world history (history embraces the world not just America you know!) which you use to your convenience yet would also like to trash to your own ends too.
For someone procliaming to be interested in the rights of racial minorities you're statements are little more than racist themselves.
You wish to forget the memories of great fighters simply because the society they lived in doesn't agree with you're misguided ideas.
You obviously claim to abhor racism yet wish to forget the many men who fought through and against this racism.
I suggest you read up on both American history and the history of boxing before making and further judgements.

[wsbuf]

I love to talk about early boxers. You are disrespecting them by not bringing them up anymore. Maybe they were discriminated against but remembering them is a give them there props. The Italians pre 1930 had to change their names to get fights. I will talk about them because they deserve it.

[PugilistPrincess]

Hi guys,

I am just recently getting interested in boxing and it's the early boxers that interest me. It's funny how I got the interest. I've always loved history and I was surfing the net and just came upon some photos of early boxers from around the turn of the century and through to the 1920's and something about them just got me interested cause they look so different and so much younger than the boxers of today. I would love to learn more about early boxers and this website has been really handy in learning about them cause some of them are not well known at all. Does anyone have any favorites? It's funny, wsbuf, how you mentioned that the Italians had to change their names to get fights, that's true. I was interested in the boxer Hugo Kelly and I kept thinking, when I saw his photo, how I didn't think he looked Irish at all yet he had the name Kelly. Turns out his real name was Ugo Micheli, quite Italian, so I found that interesting.

Sarah

[PugilistPrincess]

Hi,

Thanks for the info. on Hugo Kelly, there's something about him I really like. I didn't know much about him besides the little bit I found on this website. Thanks for the link to that photo of him KOed. I hadn't seen that one before. Actually, the second link you sent me from the Chicago Historical Society is where I found all the photos of boxers and it's actually the website that got me interested in early boxers in the first place, I LOVE that website. The other fighters who caught my attention are, and some of them didn't win many fights as I noticed when I looked them up on this site, but some of them were pretty good, anyway they were:

Jim Braddock
Billy Miske
Eddie McGoorty
Kid Sullivan
Tommy Burns
Kid Herman
Fred Murphy
Jack McClellan
Billy Maynard
Joe Gans
Jack Dempsey (of course, I knew him already!)

I'd like to try and learn more about as many early boxers as I can, it's my new interest and I'm having fun learning about it.

Thanks for replying my post,
Sarah

[silkov]

Thanks PugilistPrincess for your interest in this thread, it's good to hear from someone else who is interested in the early greats of boxing.
One of the reasons I started this post is because to many people these days tend to overlook or have forgotten many of the great pugilists of the late 19th and the early 20th century. These men are all a great part of boxing history and existed in a time when there were far less weight divisions, only one world champion per division and a far more active fighters and so far more competition.
While I myself appreciate many of the fighters around today in many ways they are in a different sport to the fighters of the early part of the last century.
Thanks for drawing my attention to the Chicargo Historical Society, I didn't know about it at all. The pictures in it are fascinating... including some of my favourite fighters... Joe Gans, Battling Nelson, Ad Wolgast, Jack Dempsey, and Mickey Walker.
If you haven't already come across them I would recommend the following web sites.... The Cyber Boxing Zone... this is full of information on both boxers of both today and as early as the 19th century, check out the Black dynomite section which is devoted to the great coloured fighters of the 19th and early 20th century.
Also visit Harry grebs home page... Greb is a legendary figure from the 1920s... (he was world middleweight champion) and this excellent site is dedicated not only to him but also to many other fighters from his era.
Look up the 'other fighters' section in this website and then you can read about fighters such as Kid Kaplan, Stanley Ketchel, Newsboy brown and pete sanstol, to name just a few.
Other good sites are New Mexico website, Maxboxing, and Eastcoast boxing.
If you want to read up on the greats a book that would really help you is 'A pictorial history of boxing' which goes through the history of all boxings main divisions and gives a lot of rare information on the earliest fighters. It also has great pictures.
Biographies and autobiographies are a great way of learning about these fighters and their lives.
I'd also recommend you try to pick up a copy of 'the ring record book and boxing encyclopedia' as these books are invaluable for the information they hold. Which includes among many other things, the full records of every boxing world champion, plus many other obscure facts about boxing and fighters.
Old boxing magazines are another great source of information especially old Ring magazines, Boxing Illustrateds, and Boxing News papers, many of which if you buy pre 80s copies will have stories on the great boxers of years gone by.
Most of these books\mags you may have to find secondhand, if you can't find them in the second-hand book shops go to Ebay US or UK.... you can get some great boxing books on this site.
Hope this information helps you pugilistprincess.

[Tyson KTFO 3 Times]

Great thread.

Thanks for getting the old fighters the attention they deserve.

[PugilistPrincess]

Hey,

Thanks so much for all your help. It's really appreciated! I found a copy of The Pictorial History of Boxing on ebay and I'm going to buy it, sounds like something that will come in handy so I can learn more about the early greats of boxing. I'll also see if I can find any of the other books you listed and I checked out those websites and they are great. The eastcoast boxing website has some great articles. I just read one there on Joe Grim which I found quite interesting. I can't believe he could take all those beatings and only got KOed once and he was a horrible boxer. lol! ..but he sure was tough!

Glad you liked that website with all those photos from the Chicago Historical Society. It's a treasure trove of vintage photos of many boxers and I can spend hours there going through all the photos. Since you like Battling Nelson I'm sure you saw the photo of him scowling :x and looking all mean.....I'd be afraid to fight him!....he just looked tough.

Hope to hear more from you guys soon, you sure do know your stuff!
Sarah.

[silkov]

Pugilistprincess, I m sure you'll enjoy 'A pictorial history of boxing', it was one of the first boxing books I ever got and is still one of my favourites. It has loads of information on fighters and also a lot of rare photoes.
Try to pick up books on Jack Johnson. He is a very interesting character and was one of the greatest ever Heavyweight champs. (I'd rank him above Dempsey).
Battling Nelson has always been one of my favourites, he was one of the toughest fighters ever and had epic battles with Joe Gans and Ad Wolgast.
Some British fighters you might find interesting are Ted 'kid' Lewis, Jimmy Wild, and Jack 'kid' Berg.... also Jock Mcavoy... Mcavoy is perhaps the hardest punching middleweight England ever produced.
Check out the East Side boxing site, it has some really good links also IBOP Gallery has lots of good pics of fighters from Archie Moore to Ali....
Hbo, ...Boxing Talk, ...SraightJab com and Cox's boxing corner are some more good sites to visit..... and I'm still discovering more myself!.....

[Alex]

One of the most overlooked fighters of the 30's (in my opinion) is Marcel Thil, who held the IBU World Middleweight title from 1932-37. While the National Boxing Association version of the title changed hands several times, Thil held onto his title, successfully defending it nine times and defeating NBA champions Lou Brouillard and William (Gorilla) Jones. He also held and defended the European Light Heavyweight title for a time.

http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=017887

[knockout artist]

bfan is in the process of trashing all the threads on boxrec with a single MANTRA from the modern boxing media.

bfan and the salesmen in the modern media he is parroting are incompetent to do with the subject of boxing and have NO *INTEREST in boxing.

Their ONLY INTEREST is in spewing out and spreading currently politically correct mantras as far as they can.

bfan and the salesmen in the modern media he is parroting are so incompetent that
THEY HAVE NEVER HEARD OF George Dixon, who won the bantamweight title in 1890 and won the featherweight title in 1891.
THEY HAVE NEVER HEARD OF Joe Walcott who won the welterweight title in 1901.
THEY HAVE NEVER HEARD OF Joe Gans who won the lightweight title in 1902.
etc etc etc

bfan and the salesmen in the modern media he is parroting are so incompetent
that they DO NOT KNOW that Jack Johnson refused to fight THREE great black heavyweights who were the top contenders during the time he held the title. Johnson kept Sam Langford, Joe Jeannette and Sam McVey from ever getting their rightful chances at the heavyweight title.

bfan and the salesmen in the modern media he is parroting are so incompetent
that their ONLY use for boxing is to use it as one of MANY subjects they have no interest in other than as a forum to spread propaganda for the modern politically correct agendas they espouse.

Here bfan has arrived to try to trash a thread started by a poster who has a genuine interest in the subject of boxing and even an interest in the earlier eras of boxing of which most are so ignorant today.

Spread your political mantras, bfan.

Spread your ignorance of the subject of boxing.

Use the topic of boxing as a further way to spread and spew out your tired political agenda.

What a tiresome and sorry spectacle.

As I wrote here on another thread

I once was talking to Jack Obermayer--so called "boxing writer" who wrote for a number of boxing magazines in cluding Ring magazine.

The name Stanley Ketchel came up.

"He never fought a black fighter," Obermayer crowed.

"Ketchel fought Jack Johnson for the heavyweight title," I said pleasantly. "Any six year old who had a genuine interest in boxing would know that."

"Either you don't know that---or you think Johnson was a white fighter?"

"Ketchel also fought Sam Langford , who out weighed him by a good amount."

Ketchel also fought other black fighters earlier in his career.

That was decades ago.

And now bfan comes here to present the same tired mantra courtesy of the modern media selling machine.

If Jack Obermeyer thought Ketchel never fought a black guy he should not be earning a living as a boxing writer.

Johnson was Ketchel's most famous fight and one of the most famous fights in history.