bits and pieces scrapbook
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
Dec. 1933.
"...half-carried to his corner where he cried bitterly."
"...half-carried to his corner where he cried bitterly."
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
Barbados Joe Walcott - 1930.
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
It’s a cliché but no misnomer to write that those were the days. Boxing was the sport of sports. Jack Dempsey was heavyweight champion of the world. “A Dempsey fight was magic,” Ray Arcel told the New York Times in 1983. “The minute he walked into the ring you could see smoke rising from the canvas. You knew you were going to see a tiger let loose…Dempsey would have had a picnic with most of today’s fighters.”
Arcel joined forces with another brilliant trainer named Whitey Bimstein in 1925, a partnership which almost lasted a decade. Their base of operations was Stillman’s Gym, aka The University of Eighth Avenue, a hallowed dump just spitting distance from Madison Square Garden. Arcel was at Stillman’s when it first opened in the 1920s and remembered it as though it was yesterday: “There were more thieves in Stillman’s Gym than in the penitentiary.”
When Lou Stillman retired in 1959, he told the New York Times, “There’s no more tough guys around, not enough slums. That’s why I’m getting out of the business. The racket’s dead. These fighters today are all sissies.”
Together with Bimstein or as an independent, Arcel was cornerman to such legendary talents as Henry Armstrong, Jack Kid Berg, Lou Brouillard, Cerefino Garcia, Sixto Escobar, Kid Gavilan, Benny Leonard, Charley Phil Rosenberg, Barney Ross and Tony Zale.
“You didn’t have to be a great trainer to work with a Barney Ross or Benny Leonard,” Arcel said. “I mean, these guys were natural.”
The first heavyweight Arcel trained was James Braddock for his fight with Joe Louis in 1937. Over the years, Arcel trained fifteen members of the Joe Louis Bum-of-the-Month Club, a Who’s Who of horizontal fighters who got bombed by the Brown Bomber.
“As soon as the bell rang, they folded like tulips.”
Ray Arcel could take a great fighter, perform his magic, and make a great fighter even greater. But he also had a mouth that would not quit. Because of his honesty, integrity and contempt for boxing’s underbelly, Arcel made plenty of enemies, both in and out of the sport.
“Boxing had glamour,” he observed. “Oh, sure, we had scoundrels in those days, but they were clever scoundrels.”
In the early 1950s Arcel began arranging fights for ABC-TV. Unfortunately a rival network with close ties to the IBC (International Boxing Club), run by Frankie Carbo and James Norris, felt the pinch and Ray Arcel was a marked man. On September 19, 1953, Arcel was standing outside a Boston hotel, having just returned from Yom Kippur services, when he was struck in the forehead with a lead pipe. He suffered a concussion, spent nineteen days in a hospital, and was lucky he wasn’t killed. Not long after the attack, Arcel retired from boxing for eighteen years.
“Money is the sickness of the boxing business,” he said. “Maybe the sickness of the world.”
Arcel returned to boxing in 1972 and, with another master trainer, Freddie Brown, began a productive eight-year relationship with Roberto Duran. Arcel and Brown first worked with Duran for his fight against lightweight champion Ken Buchanan at the Garden. “Freddie Brown is like my Poppa,” Duran told Jerry Izenberg. “I can’t even go to the bathroom without him peeking. But Ray Arcel, for him I have no words.” Arcel was as taken with Duran as Duran was with him. “Nobody had to teach Duran how to fight. The first day I saw him—not in New York, I saw him in Panama—I told everybody around him, ‘Don’t change his style. Leave him alone. I don’t want anybody to ever tell him what to do. Let him fight.’” Arcel also trained Duran for his victory over Sugar Ray Leonard in their first meeting in 1980, but he gave up on Manos de Piedra after the infamous “No mas” rematch.
Arcel said after the fight: “Nobody quits in my corner.”
There were a million excuses for Duran’s non-performance that night, everything from a tummy ache to heart disease. Arcel wasn’t buying it. “You mean to tell me Duran has a heart condition?” he said. “He doesn’t even have a heart.”
The last fighter Arcel seconded was Larry Holmes in 1982, in his racially-tinged fight with Gerry Cooney.
“You’re only as good as the fighter you work with. I don’t care how much you know. If your fighter can’t fight, you’re another bum in the park.”
Ray Arcel was one of the greatest cornermen in the history of the game. He trained over 2000 boxers, including 20 world champions.
“I never considered myself a trainer,” Arcel said sagely. “I considered myself a teacher.”
Ray Arcel, the man Red Smith described as “the first gentleman of fistfighting,” died on March 7, 1994, an eloquent, compassionate, knowledgeable man lost to boxing and the world.
(By Robert Ecksel)
Arcel joined forces with another brilliant trainer named Whitey Bimstein in 1925, a partnership which almost lasted a decade. Their base of operations was Stillman’s Gym, aka The University of Eighth Avenue, a hallowed dump just spitting distance from Madison Square Garden. Arcel was at Stillman’s when it first opened in the 1920s and remembered it as though it was yesterday: “There were more thieves in Stillman’s Gym than in the penitentiary.”
When Lou Stillman retired in 1959, he told the New York Times, “There’s no more tough guys around, not enough slums. That’s why I’m getting out of the business. The racket’s dead. These fighters today are all sissies.”
Together with Bimstein or as an independent, Arcel was cornerman to such legendary talents as Henry Armstrong, Jack Kid Berg, Lou Brouillard, Cerefino Garcia, Sixto Escobar, Kid Gavilan, Benny Leonard, Charley Phil Rosenberg, Barney Ross and Tony Zale.
“You didn’t have to be a great trainer to work with a Barney Ross or Benny Leonard,” Arcel said. “I mean, these guys were natural.”
The first heavyweight Arcel trained was James Braddock for his fight with Joe Louis in 1937. Over the years, Arcel trained fifteen members of the Joe Louis Bum-of-the-Month Club, a Who’s Who of horizontal fighters who got bombed by the Brown Bomber.
“As soon as the bell rang, they folded like tulips.”
Ray Arcel could take a great fighter, perform his magic, and make a great fighter even greater. But he also had a mouth that would not quit. Because of his honesty, integrity and contempt for boxing’s underbelly, Arcel made plenty of enemies, both in and out of the sport.
“Boxing had glamour,” he observed. “Oh, sure, we had scoundrels in those days, but they were clever scoundrels.”
In the early 1950s Arcel began arranging fights for ABC-TV. Unfortunately a rival network with close ties to the IBC (International Boxing Club), run by Frankie Carbo and James Norris, felt the pinch and Ray Arcel was a marked man. On September 19, 1953, Arcel was standing outside a Boston hotel, having just returned from Yom Kippur services, when he was struck in the forehead with a lead pipe. He suffered a concussion, spent nineteen days in a hospital, and was lucky he wasn’t killed. Not long after the attack, Arcel retired from boxing for eighteen years.
“Money is the sickness of the boxing business,” he said. “Maybe the sickness of the world.”
Arcel returned to boxing in 1972 and, with another master trainer, Freddie Brown, began a productive eight-year relationship with Roberto Duran. Arcel and Brown first worked with Duran for his fight against lightweight champion Ken Buchanan at the Garden. “Freddie Brown is like my Poppa,” Duran told Jerry Izenberg. “I can’t even go to the bathroom without him peeking. But Ray Arcel, for him I have no words.” Arcel was as taken with Duran as Duran was with him. “Nobody had to teach Duran how to fight. The first day I saw him—not in New York, I saw him in Panama—I told everybody around him, ‘Don’t change his style. Leave him alone. I don’t want anybody to ever tell him what to do. Let him fight.’” Arcel also trained Duran for his victory over Sugar Ray Leonard in their first meeting in 1980, but he gave up on Manos de Piedra after the infamous “No mas” rematch.
Arcel said after the fight: “Nobody quits in my corner.”
There were a million excuses for Duran’s non-performance that night, everything from a tummy ache to heart disease. Arcel wasn’t buying it. “You mean to tell me Duran has a heart condition?” he said. “He doesn’t even have a heart.”
The last fighter Arcel seconded was Larry Holmes in 1982, in his racially-tinged fight with Gerry Cooney.
“You’re only as good as the fighter you work with. I don’t care how much you know. If your fighter can’t fight, you’re another bum in the park.”
Ray Arcel was one of the greatest cornermen in the history of the game. He trained over 2000 boxers, including 20 world champions.
“I never considered myself a trainer,” Arcel said sagely. “I considered myself a teacher.”
Ray Arcel, the man Red Smith described as “the first gentleman of fistfighting,” died on March 7, 1994, an eloquent, compassionate, knowledgeable man lost to boxing and the world.
(By Robert Ecksel)
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
I loved Ray Arcel. Thanks for the post.
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
Only 5'4" tall, Bob Moha was barely more than a lightweight in his early career, but even in the gym he made things miserable for bigger and better known fighters. Montana Jack Sullivan was going around the country in 1907 hurling challenges at middleweight champion Stanley Ketchel. But after a few fierce rounds with Moha in the gym, Sullivan literally ran out of the ring to get away from him. Around that same time, Ad Wolgast, swarming his way to the lightweight title and then headquartering in Milwaukee, put out the word that he would knock Moha out in an impending sparring session. Instead, it was Wolgast who ended up seeing the black lights, and when the poster boy for ring durability woke up, Moha told him: "Be careful how you talk about me hereafter, Ad."
Wolgast had a pal, another well-known hardcase of that era called Indian Joe Gregg. He publicly vowed to avenge Ad when he sparred with Moha the next day. Gregg spent three days in the hospital after the Caveman worked him over.
Nothing like that happened when Jack Johnson worked with Moha in 1909, but for the next few years, everytime the heavyweight champion came to town, newspapers reported that Johnson wanted the Caveman to leave with him to fight under his management.
But not even that could pry Moha loose from his home base, where, by unwritten law, the boxing season ran from fall to late spring, thus enabling him to take his pick of the offers from semi-pro clubs bidding for his services on the baseball diamond. "Moha is one of the fastest infielders in the city, saying nothing of his ability as a batter," reported the Milwaukee Free Press. "Many a game was broken up through some of his mighty clouts."
Future welterweight title claimant Jimmy Clabby was hailed as the boxing wonder of the age. But Moha basically used him for fungo practice in their 10-round no-decision match in the spring of '10. The Caveman , reported the Free Press, "pounced upon Clabby like a terrior going to a bone." It was his most impressive and important performance to date, and a natural springboard to bigger and better things. But Moha signed to play shortshop for the summer instead, and didn't put the padded mitts back on until fall.
After getting the better of a no decision bout with former welterweight champ Mike "Twin" Sullivan early the next year, Moha was scheduled to face another fast-rising Midwesterner named Jack Dillon in Indianapolis. The Milwaukee man sprained an ankle playing handball - another favorite pastime, which Moha always played barefoot - and asked for a postponement. Too late for that, said the Indy promoter, and when Moha showed up on fight day, he was at least 10 pounds over the stipulated weight of 154 pounds. Dillon refused to go ahead with the match, so the Caveman shrugged and went with his manager and a Milwaukee physician to a restaurant around the corner. The fighter was just mopping up after a huge steak and potatoes meal when Dillon and the promoter rushed in to announce that the fight was back on.
That didn't appall the Caveman half as much as his doctor friend's suggestion that he pump Moha's stomach before he entered the ring.
"You mean you want to get that steak and potatoes out of me?" The Caveman howled. "Nothing doing! Think of what a job I had getting it down."
Moha had a harder job, under the circumstances, coping with Dillon, who of course had spied on him in the restaurant and then decided to go through with the fight, figuring the heavy meal would make the squat visitor a sitting duck in the ring. Even so, it was close, unlike a rematch a few months later in Buffalo when a trim Moha put the future light heavyweight champion on the floor several times in another no decision bout.
Since the murder of Ketchel in October 1910, just about everybody weighing near the division limit, which was 158 pounds at the time, anointed himself middleweight champion. That included Billy Papke, who'd traded the belt back and forth with Ketchel in a trio of championship fights and figured with Ketchel out of the picture it automatically reverted back to him. A surprising number of fight experts went along with him, but then furiously backpedaled from that position after Papke and Moha put on a truly scary performance on Halloween Night, 1911.
The Caveman at least had the excuse that he broke both hands early in the 12 round match. What Papke's problem was, nobody knew (later his brother would call it "Australian fever," contracted in an earlier trip Down Under). With Moha unable to hurt Papke and Papke unwilling to try to hurt Moha, the crowd at Boston's Armory Club kept itself awake by jeering from the fourth round on. After about two minutes of the final round had elapsed, members of the audience climbed on their chairs and perversly started chanting, "Don't ring the bell! Don't ring the bell!" Siding with them, timekeeper Billy LeClair deserted his ringside post, and over seven minutes passed before somebody gonged the sorry mess to a close.
Moha was the decision winner, and his followers proclaimed him champion.But in fact the match had been made at a catchweight, not 158, and the winner himself acknoledged the flimsiness of his new mantle by pronouncing himself "willing to meet any of the other boys who feel they have a claim to the championship...because I want to clinch my right to it beyond question." Oddly enough, 10 years later Moha would decide that not only had he been middleweight champion after all, but took a page from papke's book and announced that "since then I have not fought around that weight, so I never lost the crown."
That was a hoot, but the reaction to the Caveman's invasion of New York in 1912 was anything but. "The White Walcott" is what critics called him after Moha won a newspaper decision over Sailor Burke on March 21, and followed up two weeks later by knocking out Jim Smith in eight. That was some compliment, since the black Walcott - Joe, "The Barbados Demon," who was welterweight champion in the first decade of the century - was considered one of the ring's all-time greats.
"Moha is a wonder among the middles," wrote Bob Edgren, who described him as, "short and stocky, built something on the lines of a steamroller. He had short arms as thick as the average man's legs. His back is broad and his shoulders wide and chest deep. His round, wide-jawed head is connected to his trunk by a neck as thick as (wrestler George) Hackenschmidt's."
As if that didn't paint a formidable enough picture, Edgren added that Moha "seldom smiles, and when he does his smile is more appaling than his scowl."
Former heavyweight champion James J. Corbett called Moha "the sensation of the hour in New York," and remarked that "a month ago very few Gotham sports fans knew such an individual existed, in spite of the fact that (Moha) has been before the public in a professional capacity for five or six years, and has the credit of a victory on points over Billy Papke. Now the Easterners are raving about the Milwaukeean and touting him for the middleweight championship."
Two months later, nobody knew where Moha was. After a few more appearances in the Big Apple, The White Walcott returned home in June and promptly became downright invisible. Offers for bouts with Papke, Frank Klaus, and Georges Carpentier died on the table because nobody could find Moha, who'd typically decided to take the summer off. When finally tracked down, Moha said that after the hard work he'd put in all winter, he was entitled to a long vacation.
It lasted until the following January, when the overweight Caveman reported back to the gym to melt himself down to 170 pounds for a february 17,1913, fight in Milwaukee against "Cyclone" Johnny Thompson. Thompson had also once beaten Papke for recognition - at least when he looked in the mirror - as middleweight champion. And, also like Moha, his days as a middleweight were behind him. So their fight was sanctioned and advertised as a contest for the 175-pound "commision weight" (later the light heavyweight) title recently created by the New York boxing commision.
Moha won the newspaper decision, but the general attitude toward his new title was summed up in the Milwaukee free Press the next day: "This morning Mr. Moha is a world's champion, if that gets him anything." It would be another year before the light heavyweight division, moribund since the reogn of Philadelphia Jack O'brien in 1905, got on firm footing again, with the cunning Jack Dillon gaining wide recognition as champion.
For the duration of his career, which went until 1922, Moha was either the brilliant White Walcott again, as when he whipped middleweight title claimant Eddie McGoorty and future light heavyweight titlist Battling Levinsky with breathless ease (both were officially no-decisions, but all agreed Moha won), or looked like he'd just crawled out from under a rock. Or, more likely, off a chuckwagon.
Two months before he fought middleweight contender Mike Gibbons on December 14, 1914, the 24-year old Moha reportedly weighed 245 pounds. But he worked out frantically, even boxing 12 rounds in the gym the day before the fight in Hudson, Wisconsin, to get down to 160 and show everybody he was ready to make a run at the title again.
He ran, all right, only it was for the door after Moha drilled the Minnesota "Phantom" south of the beltline with an uppercut in the second round that sent Gibbons to the floor and one of Gibbons handlers after Moha with a chair. Disqualified, Moha had to borrow train fare home because the promoter refused to pay him his $944.77 purse.
More upset about that than anything else, Moha sued the Hudson Boxing Club all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In a landmark decision issued two years after the bout, Cheif Justice J. B. Winslow rules against the Caveman on the grounds that he had "contracted to box 10 rounds under certain rules," one of which (no fouling) "he violated...and as a result thereof disabled his opponent, and this, by his own act made substantial performance (of his contract) impossible. Wether this act was deliberate or not cuts no figure. It was an act which he had contracted not to do and it prevented performance."
Two months after that, Moha tried to take it out on Gibbons' brother Tommy, but with Mike sitting at ringside loving every minute of it, the younger Gibbons, who would eventually challenge Jack dempsey for the heavyweight title, dished out what the Milwaukee Sentinal called "the worst licking of Moha's life" in winning an easy newspaper decision. "Moha has stopped many punches in his ring life," said the Sentinel, "but never so many at one time."
It was an uppercut thrown by former middleweight champion George Chip a month later, on March 12, 1917, that accomplished what nobody else in about 100 professional bouts ever managed against the Caveman. The punch, which landed flush on Moha's jaw in the fourth round, staggered him, and the referee stopped the fight. Moha's alibi was that he'd spent too much time in a Turkish bath the night before, trying to sweat himself down to the 163-pound contractual limit.
"I can whip any boxer in the world today from 158 pounds to 230 and up," Maoha said. He was never loathe to try, either. Joe Cox, who'd once stopped Jess Willard before Willard became heavyweight champion, stood two heads taller than the Caveman and had about 70 pounds on him. But the sawed-off Milwaukeean wowed a New York crowd by shellacking Cox over 10 rounds in 1916. Moha had trouble reaching Cox's head, but the big guy's ribs ached for weeks afterward.
It took future Dempsey foe Billy Miske 10 rounds to earn a newspaper decision over Moha, and it's significant that in several meetings the Caveman gave Harry Greb all he could handle. Yet interestingly enough, considering the notable series he had with Greb, Dillon, Levinsky, and other big names of his era, Moha's most bitter rival was a middleweight who lived just kitty-corner from him on North Breman Street in Milwaukee. Gus Christie split two grudge matches with the Caveman.
"His arms appeared long in contrast with the rest of the body," Christie recalled upon Moha's death on August 4, 1959. "When he came out of his corner and started to move those arms, it looked like three pairs of fists coming at you all the same time."
Walter Houlehan briefly managed Moha, but was more notable as one of the country's top referee's who saw close up most of the great fighters of that time. "Moha was the best in America in his day," Houlehan said in his published memoirs.
(by Pete Ehrmann)
Wolgast had a pal, another well-known hardcase of that era called Indian Joe Gregg. He publicly vowed to avenge Ad when he sparred with Moha the next day. Gregg spent three days in the hospital after the Caveman worked him over.
Nothing like that happened when Jack Johnson worked with Moha in 1909, but for the next few years, everytime the heavyweight champion came to town, newspapers reported that Johnson wanted the Caveman to leave with him to fight under his management.
But not even that could pry Moha loose from his home base, where, by unwritten law, the boxing season ran from fall to late spring, thus enabling him to take his pick of the offers from semi-pro clubs bidding for his services on the baseball diamond. "Moha is one of the fastest infielders in the city, saying nothing of his ability as a batter," reported the Milwaukee Free Press. "Many a game was broken up through some of his mighty clouts."
Future welterweight title claimant Jimmy Clabby was hailed as the boxing wonder of the age. But Moha basically used him for fungo practice in their 10-round no-decision match in the spring of '10. The Caveman , reported the Free Press, "pounced upon Clabby like a terrior going to a bone." It was his most impressive and important performance to date, and a natural springboard to bigger and better things. But Moha signed to play shortshop for the summer instead, and didn't put the padded mitts back on until fall.
After getting the better of a no decision bout with former welterweight champ Mike "Twin" Sullivan early the next year, Moha was scheduled to face another fast-rising Midwesterner named Jack Dillon in Indianapolis. The Milwaukee man sprained an ankle playing handball - another favorite pastime, which Moha always played barefoot - and asked for a postponement. Too late for that, said the Indy promoter, and when Moha showed up on fight day, he was at least 10 pounds over the stipulated weight of 154 pounds. Dillon refused to go ahead with the match, so the Caveman shrugged and went with his manager and a Milwaukee physician to a restaurant around the corner. The fighter was just mopping up after a huge steak and potatoes meal when Dillon and the promoter rushed in to announce that the fight was back on.
That didn't appall the Caveman half as much as his doctor friend's suggestion that he pump Moha's stomach before he entered the ring.
"You mean you want to get that steak and potatoes out of me?" The Caveman howled. "Nothing doing! Think of what a job I had getting it down."
Moha had a harder job, under the circumstances, coping with Dillon, who of course had spied on him in the restaurant and then decided to go through with the fight, figuring the heavy meal would make the squat visitor a sitting duck in the ring. Even so, it was close, unlike a rematch a few months later in Buffalo when a trim Moha put the future light heavyweight champion on the floor several times in another no decision bout.
Since the murder of Ketchel in October 1910, just about everybody weighing near the division limit, which was 158 pounds at the time, anointed himself middleweight champion. That included Billy Papke, who'd traded the belt back and forth with Ketchel in a trio of championship fights and figured with Ketchel out of the picture it automatically reverted back to him. A surprising number of fight experts went along with him, but then furiously backpedaled from that position after Papke and Moha put on a truly scary performance on Halloween Night, 1911.
The Caveman at least had the excuse that he broke both hands early in the 12 round match. What Papke's problem was, nobody knew (later his brother would call it "Australian fever," contracted in an earlier trip Down Under). With Moha unable to hurt Papke and Papke unwilling to try to hurt Moha, the crowd at Boston's Armory Club kept itself awake by jeering from the fourth round on. After about two minutes of the final round had elapsed, members of the audience climbed on their chairs and perversly started chanting, "Don't ring the bell! Don't ring the bell!" Siding with them, timekeeper Billy LeClair deserted his ringside post, and over seven minutes passed before somebody gonged the sorry mess to a close.
Moha was the decision winner, and his followers proclaimed him champion.But in fact the match had been made at a catchweight, not 158, and the winner himself acknoledged the flimsiness of his new mantle by pronouncing himself "willing to meet any of the other boys who feel they have a claim to the championship...because I want to clinch my right to it beyond question." Oddly enough, 10 years later Moha would decide that not only had he been middleweight champion after all, but took a page from papke's book and announced that "since then I have not fought around that weight, so I never lost the crown."
That was a hoot, but the reaction to the Caveman's invasion of New York in 1912 was anything but. "The White Walcott" is what critics called him after Moha won a newspaper decision over Sailor Burke on March 21, and followed up two weeks later by knocking out Jim Smith in eight. That was some compliment, since the black Walcott - Joe, "The Barbados Demon," who was welterweight champion in the first decade of the century - was considered one of the ring's all-time greats.
"Moha is a wonder among the middles," wrote Bob Edgren, who described him as, "short and stocky, built something on the lines of a steamroller. He had short arms as thick as the average man's legs. His back is broad and his shoulders wide and chest deep. His round, wide-jawed head is connected to his trunk by a neck as thick as (wrestler George) Hackenschmidt's."
As if that didn't paint a formidable enough picture, Edgren added that Moha "seldom smiles, and when he does his smile is more appaling than his scowl."
Former heavyweight champion James J. Corbett called Moha "the sensation of the hour in New York," and remarked that "a month ago very few Gotham sports fans knew such an individual existed, in spite of the fact that (Moha) has been before the public in a professional capacity for five or six years, and has the credit of a victory on points over Billy Papke. Now the Easterners are raving about the Milwaukeean and touting him for the middleweight championship."
Two months later, nobody knew where Moha was. After a few more appearances in the Big Apple, The White Walcott returned home in June and promptly became downright invisible. Offers for bouts with Papke, Frank Klaus, and Georges Carpentier died on the table because nobody could find Moha, who'd typically decided to take the summer off. When finally tracked down, Moha said that after the hard work he'd put in all winter, he was entitled to a long vacation.
It lasted until the following January, when the overweight Caveman reported back to the gym to melt himself down to 170 pounds for a february 17,1913, fight in Milwaukee against "Cyclone" Johnny Thompson. Thompson had also once beaten Papke for recognition - at least when he looked in the mirror - as middleweight champion. And, also like Moha, his days as a middleweight were behind him. So their fight was sanctioned and advertised as a contest for the 175-pound "commision weight" (later the light heavyweight) title recently created by the New York boxing commision.
Moha won the newspaper decision, but the general attitude toward his new title was summed up in the Milwaukee free Press the next day: "This morning Mr. Moha is a world's champion, if that gets him anything." It would be another year before the light heavyweight division, moribund since the reogn of Philadelphia Jack O'brien in 1905, got on firm footing again, with the cunning Jack Dillon gaining wide recognition as champion.
For the duration of his career, which went until 1922, Moha was either the brilliant White Walcott again, as when he whipped middleweight title claimant Eddie McGoorty and future light heavyweight titlist Battling Levinsky with breathless ease (both were officially no-decisions, but all agreed Moha won), or looked like he'd just crawled out from under a rock. Or, more likely, off a chuckwagon.
Two months before he fought middleweight contender Mike Gibbons on December 14, 1914, the 24-year old Moha reportedly weighed 245 pounds. But he worked out frantically, even boxing 12 rounds in the gym the day before the fight in Hudson, Wisconsin, to get down to 160 and show everybody he was ready to make a run at the title again.
He ran, all right, only it was for the door after Moha drilled the Minnesota "Phantom" south of the beltline with an uppercut in the second round that sent Gibbons to the floor and one of Gibbons handlers after Moha with a chair. Disqualified, Moha had to borrow train fare home because the promoter refused to pay him his $944.77 purse.
More upset about that than anything else, Moha sued the Hudson Boxing Club all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In a landmark decision issued two years after the bout, Cheif Justice J. B. Winslow rules against the Caveman on the grounds that he had "contracted to box 10 rounds under certain rules," one of which (no fouling) "he violated...and as a result thereof disabled his opponent, and this, by his own act made substantial performance (of his contract) impossible. Wether this act was deliberate or not cuts no figure. It was an act which he had contracted not to do and it prevented performance."
Two months after that, Moha tried to take it out on Gibbons' brother Tommy, but with Mike sitting at ringside loving every minute of it, the younger Gibbons, who would eventually challenge Jack dempsey for the heavyweight title, dished out what the Milwaukee Sentinal called "the worst licking of Moha's life" in winning an easy newspaper decision. "Moha has stopped many punches in his ring life," said the Sentinel, "but never so many at one time."
It was an uppercut thrown by former middleweight champion George Chip a month later, on March 12, 1917, that accomplished what nobody else in about 100 professional bouts ever managed against the Caveman. The punch, which landed flush on Moha's jaw in the fourth round, staggered him, and the referee stopped the fight. Moha's alibi was that he'd spent too much time in a Turkish bath the night before, trying to sweat himself down to the 163-pound contractual limit.
"I can whip any boxer in the world today from 158 pounds to 230 and up," Maoha said. He was never loathe to try, either. Joe Cox, who'd once stopped Jess Willard before Willard became heavyweight champion, stood two heads taller than the Caveman and had about 70 pounds on him. But the sawed-off Milwaukeean wowed a New York crowd by shellacking Cox over 10 rounds in 1916. Moha had trouble reaching Cox's head, but the big guy's ribs ached for weeks afterward.
It took future Dempsey foe Billy Miske 10 rounds to earn a newspaper decision over Moha, and it's significant that in several meetings the Caveman gave Harry Greb all he could handle. Yet interestingly enough, considering the notable series he had with Greb, Dillon, Levinsky, and other big names of his era, Moha's most bitter rival was a middleweight who lived just kitty-corner from him on North Breman Street in Milwaukee. Gus Christie split two grudge matches with the Caveman.
"His arms appeared long in contrast with the rest of the body," Christie recalled upon Moha's death on August 4, 1959. "When he came out of his corner and started to move those arms, it looked like three pairs of fists coming at you all the same time."
Walter Houlehan briefly managed Moha, but was more notable as one of the country's top referee's who saw close up most of the great fighters of that time. "Moha was the best in America in his day," Houlehan said in his published memoirs.
(by Pete Ehrmann)
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
Young Farrell, whose true name may have been Billy Farrell, was very active in California during the state's four-round era (1915-24). He currently has more draws than any other boxer in the BoxRec database (90, 92 if adding newspaper draws). (Draws were quite common during this period throughout California, in part because of the state's use of the Australian Scoring System.)
(boxrec)
http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Austr ... ing_System
(boxrec)
http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Austr ... ing_System
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
I love the language and choice of words this writer used, fantasticdoug.ie wrote:Dec. 1933.
"...half-carried to his corner where he cried bitterly."
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
Arcel really comes across as an intelligent gentleman; there is a chapter in 'The Corner Men' dedicated to him and it makes fantastic reading; there have been some lovely people involved in the sport.doug.ie wrote:It’s a cliché but no misnomer to write that those were the days. Boxing was the sport of sports. Jack Dempsey was heavyweight champion of the world. “A Dempsey fight was magic,” Ray Arcel told the New York Times in 1983. “The minute he walked into the ring you could see smoke rising from the canvas. You knew you were going to see a tiger let loose…Dempsey would have had a picnic with most of today’s fighters.”
Arcel joined forces with another brilliant trainer named Whitey Bimstein in 1925, a partnership which almost lasted a decade. Their base of operations was Stillman’s Gym, aka The University of Eighth Avenue, a hallowed dump just spitting distance from Madison Square Garden. Arcel was at Stillman’s when it first opened in the 1920s and remembered it as though it was yesterday: “There were more thieves in Stillman’s Gym than in the penitentiary.”
When Lou Stillman retired in 1959, he told the New York Times, “There’s no more tough guys around, not enough slums. That’s why I’m getting out of the business. The racket’s dead. These fighters today are all sissies.”
Together with Bimstein or as an independent, Arcel was cornerman to such legendary talents as Henry Armstrong, Jack Kid Berg, Lou Brouillard, Cerefino Garcia, Sixto Escobar, Kid Gavilan, Benny Leonard, Charley Phil Rosenberg, Barney Ross and Tony Zale.
“You didn’t have to be a great trainer to work with a Barney Ross or Benny Leonard,” Arcel said. “I mean, these guys were natural.”
The first heavyweight Arcel trained was James Braddock for his fight with Joe Louis in 1937. Over the years, Arcel trained fifteen members of the Joe Louis Bum-of-the-Month Club, a Who’s Who of horizontal fighters who got bombed by the Brown Bomber.
“As soon as the bell rang, they folded like tulips.”
Ray Arcel could take a great fighter, perform his magic, and make a great fighter even greater. But he also had a mouth that would not quit. Because of his honesty, integrity and contempt for boxing’s underbelly, Arcel made plenty of enemies, both in and out of the sport.
“Boxing had glamour,” he observed. “Oh, sure, we had scoundrels in those days, but they were clever scoundrels.”
In the early 1950s Arcel began arranging fights for ABC-TV. Unfortunately a rival network with close ties to the IBC (International Boxing Club), run by Frankie Carbo and James Norris, felt the pinch and Ray Arcel was a marked man. On September 19, 1953, Arcel was standing outside a Boston hotel, having just returned from Yom Kippur services, when he was struck in the forehead with a lead pipe. He suffered a concussion, spent nineteen days in a hospital, and was lucky he wasn’t killed. Not long after the attack, Arcel retired from boxing for eighteen years.
“Money is the sickness of the boxing business,” he said. “Maybe the sickness of the world.”
Arcel returned to boxing in 1972 and, with another master trainer, Freddie Brown, began a productive eight-year relationship with Roberto Duran. Arcel and Brown first worked with Duran for his fight against lightweight champion Ken Buchanan at the Garden. “Freddie Brown is like my Poppa,” Duran told Jerry Izenberg. “I can’t even go to the bathroom without him peeking. But Ray Arcel, for him I have no words.” Arcel was as taken with Duran as Duran was with him. “Nobody had to teach Duran how to fight. The first day I saw him—not in New York, I saw him in Panama—I told everybody around him, ‘Don’t change his style. Leave him alone. I don’t want anybody to ever tell him what to do. Let him fight.’” Arcel also trained Duran for his victory over Sugar Ray Leonard in their first meeting in 1980, but he gave up on Manos de Piedra after the infamous “No mas” rematch.
Arcel said after the fight: “Nobody quits in my corner.”
There were a million excuses for Duran’s non-performance that night, everything from a tummy ache to heart disease. Arcel wasn’t buying it. “You mean to tell me Duran has a heart condition?” he said. “He doesn’t even have a heart.”
The last fighter Arcel seconded was Larry Holmes in 1982, in his racially-tinged fight with Gerry Cooney.
“You’re only as good as the fighter you work with. I don’t care how much you know. If your fighter can’t fight, you’re another bum in the park.”
Ray Arcel was one of the greatest cornermen in the history of the game. He trained over 2000 boxers, including 20 world champions.
“I never considered myself a trainer,” Arcel said sagely. “I considered myself a teacher.”
Ray Arcel, the man Red Smith described as “the first gentleman of fistfighting,” died on March 7, 1994, an eloquent, compassionate, knowledgeable man lost to boxing and the world.
(By Robert Ecksel)
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
A Glimpse of Beau Jack by Robert Mezey
Philadelphia, 1946.
Night. My father and I are walking home
along a pavement raked by swirling snowflakes
wherever the wind kicks up. Having just emerged
from under the beamed shadows of the El
we cross to the Arena, heading home
—to mashed potatoes, sisters, downcast eyes,
anger and sullen silence—past the wall
in which a door stands open and I see
in luminous blackness hundreds of black shapes,
heads and shoulders, the sides of faces silvered
in swirls of smoke, the embers of cigars
glowing an instant and then blacking out—
far off in the black depths the source of light,
the canvas square of ring circled by kliegs
and a slim brown man who has a bigger man
pinned on the ropes, digging blood-red gloves
methodically, like a man chopping wood,
into his ribs, the white skin splotching pink.
Could I have seen at that distance the rocking
and ripple of muscle under the bronze skin
or did I just imagine all of this?
It couldn't have been much more than a second—
my father was a very impatient man—
but there it is, as radiant as just now.
My arm was jerked hard, I was dragged away
wondering desperately who the man was—then
there he was on a poster, fists cocked, poised,
smiling behind his gloves. I have forgotten
the name of his opponent but not his name.
I loved him, and I wanted what he had—
not the jeweled belt, the title, money, fame—
what could they mean to an eleven-year-old?
No, what I wanted was the pride and power,
prowess and speed and grace, and even more,
fearlessness in the face of bigger men.
And that most beautiful of names—Beau Jack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVMi3g7HlyU&index=73
Philadelphia, 1946.
Night. My father and I are walking home
along a pavement raked by swirling snowflakes
wherever the wind kicks up. Having just emerged
from under the beamed shadows of the El
we cross to the Arena, heading home
—to mashed potatoes, sisters, downcast eyes,
anger and sullen silence—past the wall
in which a door stands open and I see
in luminous blackness hundreds of black shapes,
heads and shoulders, the sides of faces silvered
in swirls of smoke, the embers of cigars
glowing an instant and then blacking out—
far off in the black depths the source of light,
the canvas square of ring circled by kliegs
and a slim brown man who has a bigger man
pinned on the ropes, digging blood-red gloves
methodically, like a man chopping wood,
into his ribs, the white skin splotching pink.
Could I have seen at that distance the rocking
and ripple of muscle under the bronze skin
or did I just imagine all of this?
It couldn't have been much more than a second—
my father was a very impatient man—
but there it is, as radiant as just now.
My arm was jerked hard, I was dragged away
wondering desperately who the man was—then
there he was on a poster, fists cocked, poised,
smiling behind his gloves. I have forgotten
the name of his opponent but not his name.
I loved him, and I wanted what he had—
not the jeweled belt, the title, money, fame—
what could they mean to an eleven-year-old?
No, what I wanted was the pride and power,
prowess and speed and grace, and even more,
fearlessness in the face of bigger men.
And that most beautiful of names—Beau Jack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVMi3g7HlyU&index=73
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
Sept 1924
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning in any area, but particularly in boxing. For example, boxing is something you learn through repetition. You do it over and over and suddenly you’ve got it. …However, in the course of trying to learn, if you get hit and get hurt, this makes you cautious, and when you’re cautious you can’t repeat it, and when you can’t repeat it, it’s going to delay the learning process…When they…come up to the gym and say I want to be a fighter, the first thing I’d do was talk to them about fear…I would always use…the same example of the deer crossing an open field and upon approaching the clearing suddenly instinct tells him danger is there, and nature begins the survival process, which involves the body releasing adrenalin into the bloodstream, causing the heart to beat faster and enabling the deer to perform extraordinarily feats of agility and strength…It enables the deer to get out of range of the danger, helps him escape to the safety of the forest across the clearing…an example in which fear is your friend.
The thing a kid in the street fears the most is to be called yellow or chicken, and sometimes a kid will do the most stupid, wild, crazy things just to hide how scared he is. I often tell them that while fear is such an obnoxious thing, an embarrassing thing…nevertheless it is your friend, because anytime anyone saves your life perhaps a dozen times a day, no matter what how obnoxious he is, you’ve got to look upon him as a friend, and this is what fear is…Since nature gave us fear in order to help us survive, we cannot look upon it as an enemy. Just think how many times a day a person would die if he had no fear. He’d walk in front of cars, he’d die a dozen times a day. Fear is a protective mechanism….By talking to the fighters about fear I cut the learning time maybe as much as half, sometimes more, depending on the individual.
(by Cus D’Amato)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPgnA-WE1YU
The thing a kid in the street fears the most is to be called yellow or chicken, and sometimes a kid will do the most stupid, wild, crazy things just to hide how scared he is. I often tell them that while fear is such an obnoxious thing, an embarrassing thing…nevertheless it is your friend, because anytime anyone saves your life perhaps a dozen times a day, no matter what how obnoxious he is, you’ve got to look upon him as a friend, and this is what fear is…Since nature gave us fear in order to help us survive, we cannot look upon it as an enemy. Just think how many times a day a person would die if he had no fear. He’d walk in front of cars, he’d die a dozen times a day. Fear is a protective mechanism….By talking to the fighters about fear I cut the learning time maybe as much as half, sometimes more, depending on the individual.
(by Cus D’Amato)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPgnA-WE1YU
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
The fighter who dethrones a Pugilant Hero has a hard struggle to win popular acceptance thereafter, as readers of Pierce Egan have reason to know. The microcosm is a worshiper of demigods, like the larger world around it. Gene Tunney is belittled to this day, particularly by fans who never saw him, simply because he whipped Jack Dempsey. The names of the conquerors of Hannibal and Terry McGovern are seldom spoken. The cult of Napoleon envelops the globe, but only Tory biographers have a kind word for Wellington. One thing all these victors have in common is that they went into the ring as long shots; the man who demolishes a concept is never popular.
A protracted terra-cotta-colored prizefighter named Sandy Saddler, whose physique and profile remind me of a praying mantis, has labored under this handicap since the evening of October 29, 1948, four days before the Truman election, when he knocked out a quick-moving Italian named Willie Pep, of Hartford, in Madison Square Garden, and won the featherweight championship of the world. Pep was a 1–3 favorite going in; Dewey, as I remember it, was 1–15. It was to be a week of surprises, and the blushing experts never forgave either winner. Saddler, five feet eight and a half inches tall, was twenty-two and weighed a hundred and twenty-four pounds. Pep, who was twenty-six, is of a height more usual among featherweights—five feet five. Like Saddler he was under a hundred and twenty-six pounds; he had to be, because that is the class limit. Saddler floored the Hartford man twice in the third round and knocked him out with a left hook to the jaw in the fourth. Pep, after the third knockdown, was the theater of a visible psychomachy, or struggle between body and soul. Body won, and he stayed down. Knowing coves—in Egan’s phrase—who on the afternoon of the fight had coupled Pep and Sugar Ray Robinson as twin pinnacles on the horizon of the Sweet Science, announced after Pep’s defeat that he had been a hollow shell, which is a traditional ex-post-facto metaphor.
They even suggested that he had feigned, although his record made this implausible. He had won a hundred and thirty-four fights out of a hundred and thirty-six.
To me Saddler appeared to be what Egan would have called a first-rate bit of fighting stuff, but he never succeeded in making his detractors admit it. He fought Pep three more times—in 1949, 1950, and 1951. In the last two annual renewals he knocked the old champion out, but the critics said that the Pep of 1950 was the mere shell of a shell, while the Pep of 1951 was not even that; he was more like the murmur you hear when you hold a shell to your ear. By that time, Pep admittedly was a bit worn between the shoulder blades, but he was still the second-best featherweight in the world. Part of the public reluctance to accept Saddler is attributable to his height, which spectators feel gives him an undue advantage over his opponents. A moment’s cogitation on observed phenomena would tell them the opposite.
(by A.J.Liebling)
A protracted terra-cotta-colored prizefighter named Sandy Saddler, whose physique and profile remind me of a praying mantis, has labored under this handicap since the evening of October 29, 1948, four days before the Truman election, when he knocked out a quick-moving Italian named Willie Pep, of Hartford, in Madison Square Garden, and won the featherweight championship of the world. Pep was a 1–3 favorite going in; Dewey, as I remember it, was 1–15. It was to be a week of surprises, and the blushing experts never forgave either winner. Saddler, five feet eight and a half inches tall, was twenty-two and weighed a hundred and twenty-four pounds. Pep, who was twenty-six, is of a height more usual among featherweights—five feet five. Like Saddler he was under a hundred and twenty-six pounds; he had to be, because that is the class limit. Saddler floored the Hartford man twice in the third round and knocked him out with a left hook to the jaw in the fourth. Pep, after the third knockdown, was the theater of a visible psychomachy, or struggle between body and soul. Body won, and he stayed down. Knowing coves—in Egan’s phrase—who on the afternoon of the fight had coupled Pep and Sugar Ray Robinson as twin pinnacles on the horizon of the Sweet Science, announced after Pep’s defeat that he had been a hollow shell, which is a traditional ex-post-facto metaphor.
They even suggested that he had feigned, although his record made this implausible. He had won a hundred and thirty-four fights out of a hundred and thirty-six.
To me Saddler appeared to be what Egan would have called a first-rate bit of fighting stuff, but he never succeeded in making his detractors admit it. He fought Pep three more times—in 1949, 1950, and 1951. In the last two annual renewals he knocked the old champion out, but the critics said that the Pep of 1950 was the mere shell of a shell, while the Pep of 1951 was not even that; he was more like the murmur you hear when you hold a shell to your ear. By that time, Pep admittedly was a bit worn between the shoulder blades, but he was still the second-best featherweight in the world. Part of the public reluctance to accept Saddler is attributable to his height, which spectators feel gives him an undue advantage over his opponents. A moment’s cogitation on observed phenomena would tell them the opposite.
(by A.J.Liebling)
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
One could imagine Henry McLemore, a staff correspondent for the United Press, rubbing his hands and licking his chops before hitting the keys of his typewriter after the second fight between Lou Ambers and Henry Armstrong. When something gets under a writer’s skin, as referee Arthur Donovan got under Mr McLemore’s, there is nothing quite so pleasurable as driving home the point with a good old lashing of sledgehammer wit.
Thus Mr McLemore wrote: “Arthur Donovan is the new lightweight boxing champion of the world. He is a bit fat for the title, particularly in the head. But he won it in Yankee Stadium last night. He won it for Lou Ambers by rendering a decision as questionable as a mongrel’s paternity.”
Never had Mr Donovan applied the rules of boxing quite so stringently, and a lot of bemused and angry reporters and fans were left wondering why. He took the second, fifth, seventh, ninth and eleventh rounds from Armstrong for fouling, and even Hank’s prodigious industry could not overturn so severe a handicap. Ambers became the world champion again by a unanimous decision.
It was a great pity that the contest was marred by controversy, as it featured two wonderful scrappers staging a magnificent fight. But for the penalties he incurred, Hank would undoubtedly have won. Lou, however, was no less impressive for his clever work and his fighting spirit.
Hank was ever relentless in his attacks, which just kept coming in waves. Yet throughout the terrific milling, Ambers was meeting the champion with a constant output of jabs, hooks and uppercuts.
Armstrong made a slow start to the fight, but found his momentum by the third round and began firing on all cylinders. Lou was all too happy to engage Hank and the two fighters ripped punches at each other at a formidable rate. Their heads banged together frequently in the furious exchanges and Hank picked up an injury to his right eye. He returned the favour when he cut Lou’s left eye in the fourth.
Such was the pace of the battle that the two warriors began to show tiredness in the eighth round, although only by their own exceptional standards. The crowd at Madison Square Garden loved what they were seeing. It was a stirring encounter between two naturally talented men whose styles and fighting pride blended perfectly.
There were no knockdowns, but Lou was very nearly felled in the fourteenth round when Hank spotted a fleeting opening and opened up with a terrific volley before Ambers could raise his guard. Armstrong’s sustained assault lasted for very nearly a minute as Lou staggered and tried to find a way out of the storm.
Outside the ring, Al Weill and Hank’s trainer Eddie Mead weren’t content to leave the fighting to their boys. Al and Eddie became embroiled in a heated argument over referee Donovan’s points deductions from Armstrong. Weill finally blew and shouted at Mead, “You’d better watch out if you keep that up!”
Armstrong and Ambers knew the fight was up for grabs by the time they came out for the fifteenth and final round. Neither man would let up as they dug each other with body shots on the ropes. Lou tagged Henry with a right to the face but took a solid right to the jaw in return.
Ambers suddenly had a phase where he caught Armstrong with a succession of lefts, while Hank misfired and seemed to be losing his way. But the wonderful Armstrong always found something when he needed to. He lost his mouthpiece after taking a couple of stiff rights, but steamed back at Ambers and was winging shots to Lou’s body at the bell.
The pro-Ambers crowd had no problems with the decision in their man’s favour, but trainer Eddie Mead was raging about the treatment to his man Armstrong by referee Donovan.
It was gorgeous grist to the mill from Eddie. “I’ll blow up boxing in this town,” he threatened. “Armstrong was penalised for every low tap, but Ambers was elbowing and thumbing throughout the fight and wasn’t even given a warning.”
Meads, of course, didn’t blow up boxing in New York. The old Empire State continued to flourish, the Garden continued to bloom and Henry Armstrong went on to become a living legend.
(by Mike Casey)
http://youtu.be/VkyGvAZ1ySU
Thus Mr McLemore wrote: “Arthur Donovan is the new lightweight boxing champion of the world. He is a bit fat for the title, particularly in the head. But he won it in Yankee Stadium last night. He won it for Lou Ambers by rendering a decision as questionable as a mongrel’s paternity.”
Never had Mr Donovan applied the rules of boxing quite so stringently, and a lot of bemused and angry reporters and fans were left wondering why. He took the second, fifth, seventh, ninth and eleventh rounds from Armstrong for fouling, and even Hank’s prodigious industry could not overturn so severe a handicap. Ambers became the world champion again by a unanimous decision.
It was a great pity that the contest was marred by controversy, as it featured two wonderful scrappers staging a magnificent fight. But for the penalties he incurred, Hank would undoubtedly have won. Lou, however, was no less impressive for his clever work and his fighting spirit.
Hank was ever relentless in his attacks, which just kept coming in waves. Yet throughout the terrific milling, Ambers was meeting the champion with a constant output of jabs, hooks and uppercuts.
Armstrong made a slow start to the fight, but found his momentum by the third round and began firing on all cylinders. Lou was all too happy to engage Hank and the two fighters ripped punches at each other at a formidable rate. Their heads banged together frequently in the furious exchanges and Hank picked up an injury to his right eye. He returned the favour when he cut Lou’s left eye in the fourth.
Such was the pace of the battle that the two warriors began to show tiredness in the eighth round, although only by their own exceptional standards. The crowd at Madison Square Garden loved what they were seeing. It was a stirring encounter between two naturally talented men whose styles and fighting pride blended perfectly.
There were no knockdowns, but Lou was very nearly felled in the fourteenth round when Hank spotted a fleeting opening and opened up with a terrific volley before Ambers could raise his guard. Armstrong’s sustained assault lasted for very nearly a minute as Lou staggered and tried to find a way out of the storm.
Outside the ring, Al Weill and Hank’s trainer Eddie Mead weren’t content to leave the fighting to their boys. Al and Eddie became embroiled in a heated argument over referee Donovan’s points deductions from Armstrong. Weill finally blew and shouted at Mead, “You’d better watch out if you keep that up!”
Armstrong and Ambers knew the fight was up for grabs by the time they came out for the fifteenth and final round. Neither man would let up as they dug each other with body shots on the ropes. Lou tagged Henry with a right to the face but took a solid right to the jaw in return.
Ambers suddenly had a phase where he caught Armstrong with a succession of lefts, while Hank misfired and seemed to be losing his way. But the wonderful Armstrong always found something when he needed to. He lost his mouthpiece after taking a couple of stiff rights, but steamed back at Ambers and was winging shots to Lou’s body at the bell.
The pro-Ambers crowd had no problems with the decision in their man’s favour, but trainer Eddie Mead was raging about the treatment to his man Armstrong by referee Donovan.
It was gorgeous grist to the mill from Eddie. “I’ll blow up boxing in this town,” he threatened. “Armstrong was penalised for every low tap, but Ambers was elbowing and thumbing throughout the fight and wasn’t even given a warning.”
Meads, of course, didn’t blow up boxing in New York. The old Empire State continued to flourish, the Garden continued to bloom and Henry Armstrong went on to become a living legend.
(by Mike Casey)
http://youtu.be/VkyGvAZ1ySU
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
barbados joe walcott
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
Aside from there being a whopping 65 losses on his record, “The Croat Comet” Fritzie Zivic, was one of the “dirtiest” boxers in ring history, perhaps the dirtiest, even though, as the record shows, he was never disqualified. As a result, his reputation suffered. Everyone understood what Zivic was about. Tough, canny and clever, he was a master at the dark art of errant elbows and well-timed head butts, discreet low blows and painful thumbs to the eyes. Zivic didn’t try to deny it either. As far as he was concerned, this amounted to standard procedure. Pugilism was a rough business and when it came to foul tactics, boxers had to be ready to both take it and dish it out.
“I’d hit guys low,” admitted Zivic. “Choke ‘em or give ‘em the head. My best punch was a left hook to you-know-where.”
Zivic’s career began in 1931 and by 1940 he had yet to earn a title shot, his inconsistency preventing the public from viewing him as a legitimate threat. But a big win over Sammy Angott set him up nicely for a chance at Armstrong’s welterweight crown. And Zivic began dreaming about that big Cadillac he always wanted. With Henry Armstrong having already established himself as one of the greatest fighters in boxing history, a triple division champion with 18 straight defenses of his welterweight title, Fritzie was a big underdog. The day of the fight, Zivic went down to the Cadillac dealership to check out the latest models and give himself some extra motivation for the battle to come.
But the first several rounds of the match were not good for the challenger. The aggressive Armstrong looked as strong and capable as ever and seemed to be cruising to a record nineteenth successful title defense. Zivic, his reputation preceding him, sought to be extra careful about any unseemly tactics, and appeared inhibited.
“That night Henry’s givin’ it to me pretty good,” recounted Zivic... “And I can see that Cadillac rollin’ farther and farther away from me. Henry’s givin’ me the elbows and the shoulders and the top of the head, and I can give that stuff back pretty good, but I don’t dare to or maybe they’ll throw me out of the ring.”
Zivic in fact was pacing himself, as he had never gone 15 rounds and knew he had to have something extra for the late going; stopping the tough Armstrong inside the distance was simply not a realistic prospect. So entering the middle rounds, the challenger began to pick it up. He used hard uppercuts to perfection, nailing Armstrong repeatedly. And then he got the break he needed.
“In the seventh round I give him the head a couple times and choked him a couple times and use the elbow some, and the referee says: ‘If you guys want to fight that way, it’s okay with me.’ Hot damn! I told Luke Carney in my corner: ‘Watch me go now,’ and from there out I saw that Cadillac turn around and come rollin’ back.”
The bout turned into a bloody alley war. And while Zivic’s uppercuts were his prime weapon, his thumbs and laces to the champion’s eyes also took their toll. Going into the final rounds, the bout was deadly close, but the challenger closed the show. He battered a hurt and exhausted Armstrong mercilessly and with seconds left in the fight, put “Homicide Hank” on the deck. We’ll never know if Henry could have beaten the count; the bell rang to end the fight before he had the chance. Zivic took a close but unanimous decision.
It was a huge upset, but Fritzie Zivic didn’t hold the title for very long. He defeated Armstrong in a rematch and then lost the crown to Freddie Cochrane just six months later. But he held on to that big Cadillac for many years after.
(by Michael Carbert)
“I’d hit guys low,” admitted Zivic. “Choke ‘em or give ‘em the head. My best punch was a left hook to you-know-where.”
Zivic’s career began in 1931 and by 1940 he had yet to earn a title shot, his inconsistency preventing the public from viewing him as a legitimate threat. But a big win over Sammy Angott set him up nicely for a chance at Armstrong’s welterweight crown. And Zivic began dreaming about that big Cadillac he always wanted. With Henry Armstrong having already established himself as one of the greatest fighters in boxing history, a triple division champion with 18 straight defenses of his welterweight title, Fritzie was a big underdog. The day of the fight, Zivic went down to the Cadillac dealership to check out the latest models and give himself some extra motivation for the battle to come.
But the first several rounds of the match were not good for the challenger. The aggressive Armstrong looked as strong and capable as ever and seemed to be cruising to a record nineteenth successful title defense. Zivic, his reputation preceding him, sought to be extra careful about any unseemly tactics, and appeared inhibited.
“That night Henry’s givin’ it to me pretty good,” recounted Zivic... “And I can see that Cadillac rollin’ farther and farther away from me. Henry’s givin’ me the elbows and the shoulders and the top of the head, and I can give that stuff back pretty good, but I don’t dare to or maybe they’ll throw me out of the ring.”
Zivic in fact was pacing himself, as he had never gone 15 rounds and knew he had to have something extra for the late going; stopping the tough Armstrong inside the distance was simply not a realistic prospect. So entering the middle rounds, the challenger began to pick it up. He used hard uppercuts to perfection, nailing Armstrong repeatedly. And then he got the break he needed.
“In the seventh round I give him the head a couple times and choked him a couple times and use the elbow some, and the referee says: ‘If you guys want to fight that way, it’s okay with me.’ Hot damn! I told Luke Carney in my corner: ‘Watch me go now,’ and from there out I saw that Cadillac turn around and come rollin’ back.”
The bout turned into a bloody alley war. And while Zivic’s uppercuts were his prime weapon, his thumbs and laces to the champion’s eyes also took their toll. Going into the final rounds, the bout was deadly close, but the challenger closed the show. He battered a hurt and exhausted Armstrong mercilessly and with seconds left in the fight, put “Homicide Hank” on the deck. We’ll never know if Henry could have beaten the count; the bell rang to end the fight before he had the chance. Zivic took a close but unanimous decision.
It was a huge upset, but Fritzie Zivic didn’t hold the title for very long. He defeated Armstrong in a rematch and then lost the crown to Freddie Cochrane just six months later. But he held on to that big Cadillac for many years after.
(by Michael Carbert)
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
Jimmy Slattery - he danced on his toes like a ballet dancer, his arms dangling at his sides, rifling fast and accurate punches through the tightest of defences.
In 1925, the year he fought for the World Light-Heavyweight Title (in September), he fought 19 fights - in that year alone...the year he turned 21 years old.
In the end he was another who was badly beaten by John Barleycorn.
...........................
He came out of Buffalo's old First Ward, starting as a long rangy kid in the Broadway auditorium, to become one of the smoothest, most efficient fighting machines in the world. The first pair of green trunks he ever wore in the ring were made by his mother; the bathrobe slung carelessly over his broad young shoulders was borrowed. He fought him, first professional fight for $40. Yet in a few swift ears, Jimmy Slattery's murderous left had clouted him a straight path to Madison Square Garden, where he eventually became the light heavyweight champion of the world and a heavy weight title contender. In his hey-dey, he was like the hero of some ancient Irish fable-a ring wise, black haired Irish imp who carried man made lightening in his gloves.
He was only 20 years old when he fought his first fight in the big time. Hoarse-voiced thousands that night in 1924 watched this dancing will-o'-the-wisp out-box. out-guess and outfight the veteran Jack Delaney. Yet within that same year the same Madison Square Garden crowd watched, agonized, while Paul Berlenbach, a huge hunk of ex-wrestler, belted Buffalo's golden boy all around the ring. The referee stopped the fight in the eleventh round after Berlenbach had smashed Slats to the canvas three times.
Despite this beating, though, he lived to win the title five years later when on February 10, 1930, he won a 15-round decision over another Buffalo fighter, Lou Scozza, in the Broadway Auditorium. But those were five fast years that only served to grease the skids for Slattery's ride bloom hailed a cab on Eighth Avenue and rode it nearly four hundred miles to a training camp up in the Adirondacks.
The vanishing act was another of his pet tricks; he'd drop out of sight regardless of circumstances. His manager, Red Carr, once lined up a big fight for Slats only to find that Slats was nowhere around. For five days he was gone. Police at Elkhart, Ind wired to Buffalo that he had been arrested for vagrancy. Another time-in New York-Slats told Carr he was going out to buy a hat. He was gone for half a week before he came back without the hat.
Once Slattery turned up missing in Venice. His companions were getting ready to have the canals dragged when they found him at 4 a. m., floating aimlessly around in an appropriated gondola.
Anyone could put the "bite" on him. That was another of his weaknesses That staunch heart of his was brimming with too much kindness. A buck? Sure. A fin? Sure. Fifty? Hell yes! He made more than that a second. So the gang hung on. Used his cars, his liquor, his money and used him for all he was worth. Once a delegation of 28 home-town pals dropped into his New York - hotel after a fight. They had spent all their money. How were they going to get home? Slats snapped his fingers. "Nothing to it," he said, and picked up the phone and ordered 28 Pullman berths for Buffalo.
What caused Slattery's rapid downfall as a fighter, as meteoric as his rise to fame? Maybe the trouble was too much too soon. Maybe it was a case of "too many parties and too many pals." One guess is as good as another. Slattery himself perhaps had the answer to the ride down. He once said that he'd give up fighting in a minute if he could play the piano. However, be never learned to play anything but the harmonica. Before Slat's first 15-round fight with Paul Berlenbach, the late Tex Rickard went to his dressing room with the idea of soothing, the nervous youngster. He found Slattery stretched out on the rubbing table trying, to play his harmonica with gloved hands.
But for a fighter who preferred music to mayhem, he made-and lost -a tidy fortune. In a career of 126 fights he earned and flung away $438,000. He could have been heavyweight champion of the world, according to most sports experts who saw him in action in his prime. Gentleman Jim Corbett made it a point to see every Slattery fight because, according to sports writers, he saw his own greatness mirrored in the lean Irishman. Gene Tunny has called him the greatest natural boxer of those times.
Slattery boxed frequently with Tunney when the latter was getting into shape for his second Dempsey fight during one furious session, Slats sent Tunney sprawling through the ropes. Newspaper stories said Tunney "slipped," but Slattery's followers have always maintained that it was a clean punch that nearly knocked the heavyweight champ out.
Slattery fought his last professional fight on August 22, 1932 in Offermann Stadium. He was knocked out in the second round by Charley Belanger, Canadian light-heavy weight champion.
(by Ed Dunn)
In 1925, the year he fought for the World Light-Heavyweight Title (in September), he fought 19 fights - in that year alone...the year he turned 21 years old.
In the end he was another who was badly beaten by John Barleycorn.
...........................
He came out of Buffalo's old First Ward, starting as a long rangy kid in the Broadway auditorium, to become one of the smoothest, most efficient fighting machines in the world. The first pair of green trunks he ever wore in the ring were made by his mother; the bathrobe slung carelessly over his broad young shoulders was borrowed. He fought him, first professional fight for $40. Yet in a few swift ears, Jimmy Slattery's murderous left had clouted him a straight path to Madison Square Garden, where he eventually became the light heavyweight champion of the world and a heavy weight title contender. In his hey-dey, he was like the hero of some ancient Irish fable-a ring wise, black haired Irish imp who carried man made lightening in his gloves.
He was only 20 years old when he fought his first fight in the big time. Hoarse-voiced thousands that night in 1924 watched this dancing will-o'-the-wisp out-box. out-guess and outfight the veteran Jack Delaney. Yet within that same year the same Madison Square Garden crowd watched, agonized, while Paul Berlenbach, a huge hunk of ex-wrestler, belted Buffalo's golden boy all around the ring. The referee stopped the fight in the eleventh round after Berlenbach had smashed Slats to the canvas three times.
Despite this beating, though, he lived to win the title five years later when on February 10, 1930, he won a 15-round decision over another Buffalo fighter, Lou Scozza, in the Broadway Auditorium. But those were five fast years that only served to grease the skids for Slattery's ride bloom hailed a cab on Eighth Avenue and rode it nearly four hundred miles to a training camp up in the Adirondacks.
The vanishing act was another of his pet tricks; he'd drop out of sight regardless of circumstances. His manager, Red Carr, once lined up a big fight for Slats only to find that Slats was nowhere around. For five days he was gone. Police at Elkhart, Ind wired to Buffalo that he had been arrested for vagrancy. Another time-in New York-Slats told Carr he was going out to buy a hat. He was gone for half a week before he came back without the hat.
Once Slattery turned up missing in Venice. His companions were getting ready to have the canals dragged when they found him at 4 a. m., floating aimlessly around in an appropriated gondola.
Anyone could put the "bite" on him. That was another of his weaknesses That staunch heart of his was brimming with too much kindness. A buck? Sure. A fin? Sure. Fifty? Hell yes! He made more than that a second. So the gang hung on. Used his cars, his liquor, his money and used him for all he was worth. Once a delegation of 28 home-town pals dropped into his New York - hotel after a fight. They had spent all their money. How were they going to get home? Slats snapped his fingers. "Nothing to it," he said, and picked up the phone and ordered 28 Pullman berths for Buffalo.
What caused Slattery's rapid downfall as a fighter, as meteoric as his rise to fame? Maybe the trouble was too much too soon. Maybe it was a case of "too many parties and too many pals." One guess is as good as another. Slattery himself perhaps had the answer to the ride down. He once said that he'd give up fighting in a minute if he could play the piano. However, be never learned to play anything but the harmonica. Before Slat's first 15-round fight with Paul Berlenbach, the late Tex Rickard went to his dressing room with the idea of soothing, the nervous youngster. He found Slattery stretched out on the rubbing table trying, to play his harmonica with gloved hands.
But for a fighter who preferred music to mayhem, he made-and lost -a tidy fortune. In a career of 126 fights he earned and flung away $438,000. He could have been heavyweight champion of the world, according to most sports experts who saw him in action in his prime. Gentleman Jim Corbett made it a point to see every Slattery fight because, according to sports writers, he saw his own greatness mirrored in the lean Irishman. Gene Tunny has called him the greatest natural boxer of those times.
Slattery boxed frequently with Tunney when the latter was getting into shape for his second Dempsey fight during one furious session, Slats sent Tunney sprawling through the ropes. Newspaper stories said Tunney "slipped," but Slattery's followers have always maintained that it was a clean punch that nearly knocked the heavyweight champ out.
Slattery fought his last professional fight on August 22, 1932 in Offermann Stadium. He was knocked out in the second round by Charley Belanger, Canadian light-heavy weight champion.
(by Ed Dunn)
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
A book on Slattery will be out soon. 
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
21 Jan 1948 - Joe Louis and Gene Tunney Sharing a Meal Together
Re: bits and pieces scrapbook
The confusing Joe Gans v Jimmy Britt World Lightweight Title story...
....................
In both the 'Ring Record Book' and 'The Ring: Boxing The 20th Century' it is found that Gans relinquished the title in November 1904, “because of difficulty making the weight.” No exact date of the forfeiture is given in either source. The reason for this omission is simple – there is no date because there is no record to be found in any newspaper account of his era quoting Gans as saying that he gave up his lightweight title.
In an 'Illustrated History of Boxing' (Fleischer and Andre p 300) it is found that “Jimmy Britt claimed that Gans had declined to make weight and thereby forfeited his title.” The problem with Britt's claim is that Gans clearly did make the weight. Press accounts prove that Gans’ weight was a big issue in the days preceding the fight, but the fight nevertheless took place on Oct. 31, 1904, in San Francisco, as a lightweight championship match. The Oct. 28, 1904, San Francisco Chronicle reported that “Last night along the line there were all sorts of discussions upon this weight problem …it is the consensus of opinion that the colored lad is in for a hard time trimming off the surplus poundage. This being the first fight Gans ever made at 133 pounds, ringside.” The weight of 133 pounds, however, should not be considered as set in stone for the lightweight limit as the Frank Erne-Gans title fight of two years previous the combatants had agreed to a higher weight limit. Nat Fleischer wrote, (BD, 153) "The contest was for world lightweight championship and the men agreed to scale at 136 pounds." This fact is backed up by newspaper accounts; the Chronicle May 13, 1902 reported, "The weight for the bout was 136 pounds ringside." The now accepted weight limit of 135 pounds became standard a few years later, after Willie Ritchie won the title in 1912.
The Oct. 21, 1904, Chronicle reported the two fighters’ managers would meet at Harry Corbett’s to “discuss the question of the referee of the championship battle between Gans and Britt.” The Oct. 23 Chronicle wrote “To the casual visitor to Gans’ camp the lightweight champion looks a trifle drawn.” Gans himself said in the same issue “If Britt wins from me I hope he will abandon all his talk about the color line. If I am beaten the lightweight championship goes to him.” Clearly both the press and Gans considered himself champion going into the Jimmy Britt fight.
The controversy over Gans’ record seems to result from the way Gans won the fight with Britt – Britt fouled Gans in the fifth round and was disqualified. Britt was warned throughout the fight several times for fouls, including hitting low. The Nov. 1 Chronicle quoted referee Eddie Graney as saying, “He hit Gans three times while he was on his knees and there was only one thing that could possibly be done,” i.e., disqualify Britt.
Gans, then, retained the title by foul. At no time did Gans say he relinquished the title. After the fight, Gans told the Chronicle (Nov. 1, 1904) “I shall not give him a return match for two reasons. His fouls were so open that he is not entitled to another match, but besides that I am convinced I cannot be strong at 133 pounds, ringside.” Though admitting he was weak, he never said he gave up the title. He merely said that he couldn’t be strong at that weight, excusing what was reported to be an admittedly weak performance against Britt. But performing badly does not mean he lost, as we will see later on. But despite his performance, the Nov. 2 Chronicle had Gans’ manager, Al Herford, making this offer: “I will match Gans against Britt at 134 pounds ringside and will guarantee a purse of 15,000 at Baltimore.”
The November newspaper clippings on microfilm reveal that at no time did Gans abdicate the lightweight title or say he will no longer campaign at lightweight. There is no evidence whatsoever that Gans ever relinquished the title. The Nov. 19, 1904 National Police Gazette reported "Joe Gans and Jimmy Britt May be Matched Again for a Purse and The Lightweight Championship." If Gans was no longer going to fight at lightweight then why was he trying to negotiate a second Britt fight for the title?
The idea that Gans gave up the title in November 1904 seems to come from Jimmy Britt, who sought to rewrite the record books and erase his loss by appealing to the sentiments of the white press. Britt took Gans’ statement to mean that he could no longer make 133 pounds, leading Britt to believe he was to be the rightful champion. Britt claimed this because he believed publicly that he was the better man in the fight and “should” have won. This fact is backed up in Nat Fleischer's 'Black Dynamite' (172) "Britt and his adherents refused to yield. They declared the action of the referee was unwarranted and Britt in the eyes of the Californians was still the champion.”
The British Boxing Board of Control Boxing Yearbook 2002 on page 230 seems to quote Fleischer with the following reference:
“1904. 31 October Joe Gans W Dis 5 Jimmy Britt , San Francisco, USA. For over two years Britt had disputed the title, firstly drawing the 'colour bar' and later claiming that Gans was incapable of making 133 lbs. However, while Gans proved he could make the weight for this one it obviously left him weakened, something that was painfully exploited by Britt. The only thing that saved Gans was Britt's impetuosity. Having downed the coloured man twice in the fourth round, Britt was excused hitting him after the bell because of the din but there was no excuse in the fifth and he was finally disqualified after hitting his rival who was in the act of rising from another knockdown. Britt continued to claim the title on the grounds that the action of the referee was unwarranted and that, in the eyes of most Californians, he was still the champion.”
The first indication of this in the Californian press is the Nov. 19, 1904, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, where Britt is attempting to negotiate a match with former featherweight champion Young Corbett, whom he bested once before. Britt was quoted as saying to Corbett “You must remember that when we fought before you were the champion…I want you to know that I am the champion now…”
The Britt and Young Corbett fight in November didn’t materialize. Instead, Battling Nelson fought Corbett and knocked him out in the tenth round. Britt and Nelson then agreed to meet in a battle of premier lightweights, it was first called the "lightweight championship of America" in the Dec 19, 1904 Boston Globe. The question now becomes “How did the Britt-Nelson fight on Dec. 20, 1904, in San Francisco, come to be regarded as a contest for the ‘world lightweight championship’ in the official Ring, IBHOF, and British Boxing Board record books?”
The answer is found in the Dec. 20, 1904, edition of the Boston Globe: “Britt is the acknowledged lightweight champion of America. The decision Gans got over him, on a foul, is not considered seriously. The greater number of sporting men are convinced that the fight was a fake, and giving the decision to Gans did not help the colored boxer any. Britt showed that he was Gans’ master and that was enough. The fight tonight, therefore, is for the lightweight championship.” The San Francisco Chronicle in the Dec. 21, 1904, issue reiterates this claim: “In the opinion of the sporting men at ringside. The victory (of Britt over Nelson) carried with it the lightweight championship of the world. Gans showed in his fight with Britt that it is an impossibility for him to make 133 pounds ringside and remain strong. The lightweight limit is 133 pounds ringside. Before last night’s bout it was generally agreed that Britt and Nelson were the best men in the world at this weight.”
Not only is the above statement unfounded and unjust, other newspaper accounts make it clear that while the press was upset with Gans’ win over Britt in the short term, in the long term they came to grips with Gans’ victory and continued to recognize him as champion. The Jan. 17, 1905 San Francisco Chronicle says of Gans “his claim on the lightweight title has placed him in a position to dictate weight to prospective opponents.” This demonstrates by newspaper accounts that Gans was still considered as lightweight champion at the beginning of 1905 even by the Californian papers. After his second fight with Mike “Twin” Sullivan, Gans said in Jan 20, 1906 Chronicle, “I will make 133 pounds” against Jimmy Britt, “I can do that now” proving he still considered himself lightweight champion, which means he never gave up the title.
The Feb 4, 1905 'National Police Gazette', which is considered an authority on fistic matters reported, "Nelson and Gans Will Fight For Title" this is barely over 3 months after the Gans-Britt fight and about 6 weeks after Nelson lost to Britt in December. The Gans-Nelson fight didn’t come off at that time but the Police Gazette continues to report Gans as the champion. It seems Britt is claiming that he is the champion also, although Gans is still the recognized champion, note the following headline, Mar. 18, 1905 Gazette, "Jabez White is Here to Fight Jimmy Britt, or Joe Gans for the Worlds Lightweight Title."
Gans made the weight against Britt in their Oct 31, 1904 fight. He won and kept his title. For Britt or anyone else to claim “Gans can no longer make the lightweight limit” is guesswork. Do we strip champions of titles for guessing that they may not be able to make the weight the next time they fight? Clearly not. In fact, Gans made weight for subsequent lightweight championship fights, including Gans-Nelson bouts one through three, a rematch with Jimmy Britt (which incidentally Gans won by knockout) and other post 1906 bouts.
The press and public continued to recognize Joe Gans as lightweight champion. The racist “white lightweight championship” as it is referred to in The Boxing Register on Nelson’s record, between Britt and Nelson, was not taken seriously at the time. Consider the statement of San Francisco fight promoter Jim Coffroth, (Ring Magazine May 1943), "Gans greatest misfortune was that he lived in the low purse days of pugilism, and that he was sadly mismanaged. I can cite no better illustration of this than to point out in 1906, when Gans, then champion of the world, agreed to take a $10,000 guarantee of a $30,000 purse, agreeing that Battling Nelson, the challenger, was to get $20,000."
The argument that the Britt-Nelson affair was for the world’s lightweight championship is just not true. First, the idea that Gans couldn’t make the weight so he gave up the title comes from Britt, and is clearly false. Secondly, the notion that Britt “should” have won is absurd; what we are discussing is the official record, and the official record clearly shows that Britt was disqualified for hitting Gans while he was down. Consequently, the Britt-Nelson fight should be recorded in record books as nothing more than a “title claimant” bout, a bout where a white fighter claims a title that justly belongs to a black champion. When The Boston Globe referred to Britt as the "lightweight champion of America" as in the Dec. 19 edition, what it really means is the "white lightweight champion." The Boston Globe admitted that Gans was the true champion before the first Gans-Nelson fight. One must realize that Joe Gans was the first African American to hold a world championship. This was over 40 years before Jackie Robinson broke through in major league baseball.
(By Monte D. Cox)
....................
In both the 'Ring Record Book' and 'The Ring: Boxing The 20th Century' it is found that Gans relinquished the title in November 1904, “because of difficulty making the weight.” No exact date of the forfeiture is given in either source. The reason for this omission is simple – there is no date because there is no record to be found in any newspaper account of his era quoting Gans as saying that he gave up his lightweight title.
In an 'Illustrated History of Boxing' (Fleischer and Andre p 300) it is found that “Jimmy Britt claimed that Gans had declined to make weight and thereby forfeited his title.” The problem with Britt's claim is that Gans clearly did make the weight. Press accounts prove that Gans’ weight was a big issue in the days preceding the fight, but the fight nevertheless took place on Oct. 31, 1904, in San Francisco, as a lightweight championship match. The Oct. 28, 1904, San Francisco Chronicle reported that “Last night along the line there were all sorts of discussions upon this weight problem …it is the consensus of opinion that the colored lad is in for a hard time trimming off the surplus poundage. This being the first fight Gans ever made at 133 pounds, ringside.” The weight of 133 pounds, however, should not be considered as set in stone for the lightweight limit as the Frank Erne-Gans title fight of two years previous the combatants had agreed to a higher weight limit. Nat Fleischer wrote, (BD, 153) "The contest was for world lightweight championship and the men agreed to scale at 136 pounds." This fact is backed up by newspaper accounts; the Chronicle May 13, 1902 reported, "The weight for the bout was 136 pounds ringside." The now accepted weight limit of 135 pounds became standard a few years later, after Willie Ritchie won the title in 1912.
The Oct. 21, 1904, Chronicle reported the two fighters’ managers would meet at Harry Corbett’s to “discuss the question of the referee of the championship battle between Gans and Britt.” The Oct. 23 Chronicle wrote “To the casual visitor to Gans’ camp the lightweight champion looks a trifle drawn.” Gans himself said in the same issue “If Britt wins from me I hope he will abandon all his talk about the color line. If I am beaten the lightweight championship goes to him.” Clearly both the press and Gans considered himself champion going into the Jimmy Britt fight.
The controversy over Gans’ record seems to result from the way Gans won the fight with Britt – Britt fouled Gans in the fifth round and was disqualified. Britt was warned throughout the fight several times for fouls, including hitting low. The Nov. 1 Chronicle quoted referee Eddie Graney as saying, “He hit Gans three times while he was on his knees and there was only one thing that could possibly be done,” i.e., disqualify Britt.
Gans, then, retained the title by foul. At no time did Gans say he relinquished the title. After the fight, Gans told the Chronicle (Nov. 1, 1904) “I shall not give him a return match for two reasons. His fouls were so open that he is not entitled to another match, but besides that I am convinced I cannot be strong at 133 pounds, ringside.” Though admitting he was weak, he never said he gave up the title. He merely said that he couldn’t be strong at that weight, excusing what was reported to be an admittedly weak performance against Britt. But performing badly does not mean he lost, as we will see later on. But despite his performance, the Nov. 2 Chronicle had Gans’ manager, Al Herford, making this offer: “I will match Gans against Britt at 134 pounds ringside and will guarantee a purse of 15,000 at Baltimore.”
The November newspaper clippings on microfilm reveal that at no time did Gans abdicate the lightweight title or say he will no longer campaign at lightweight. There is no evidence whatsoever that Gans ever relinquished the title. The Nov. 19, 1904 National Police Gazette reported "Joe Gans and Jimmy Britt May be Matched Again for a Purse and The Lightweight Championship." If Gans was no longer going to fight at lightweight then why was he trying to negotiate a second Britt fight for the title?
The idea that Gans gave up the title in November 1904 seems to come from Jimmy Britt, who sought to rewrite the record books and erase his loss by appealing to the sentiments of the white press. Britt took Gans’ statement to mean that he could no longer make 133 pounds, leading Britt to believe he was to be the rightful champion. Britt claimed this because he believed publicly that he was the better man in the fight and “should” have won. This fact is backed up in Nat Fleischer's 'Black Dynamite' (172) "Britt and his adherents refused to yield. They declared the action of the referee was unwarranted and Britt in the eyes of the Californians was still the champion.”
The British Boxing Board of Control Boxing Yearbook 2002 on page 230 seems to quote Fleischer with the following reference:
“1904. 31 October Joe Gans W Dis 5 Jimmy Britt , San Francisco, USA. For over two years Britt had disputed the title, firstly drawing the 'colour bar' and later claiming that Gans was incapable of making 133 lbs. However, while Gans proved he could make the weight for this one it obviously left him weakened, something that was painfully exploited by Britt. The only thing that saved Gans was Britt's impetuosity. Having downed the coloured man twice in the fourth round, Britt was excused hitting him after the bell because of the din but there was no excuse in the fifth and he was finally disqualified after hitting his rival who was in the act of rising from another knockdown. Britt continued to claim the title on the grounds that the action of the referee was unwarranted and that, in the eyes of most Californians, he was still the champion.”
The first indication of this in the Californian press is the Nov. 19, 1904, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, where Britt is attempting to negotiate a match with former featherweight champion Young Corbett, whom he bested once before. Britt was quoted as saying to Corbett “You must remember that when we fought before you were the champion…I want you to know that I am the champion now…”
The Britt and Young Corbett fight in November didn’t materialize. Instead, Battling Nelson fought Corbett and knocked him out in the tenth round. Britt and Nelson then agreed to meet in a battle of premier lightweights, it was first called the "lightweight championship of America" in the Dec 19, 1904 Boston Globe. The question now becomes “How did the Britt-Nelson fight on Dec. 20, 1904, in San Francisco, come to be regarded as a contest for the ‘world lightweight championship’ in the official Ring, IBHOF, and British Boxing Board record books?”
The answer is found in the Dec. 20, 1904, edition of the Boston Globe: “Britt is the acknowledged lightweight champion of America. The decision Gans got over him, on a foul, is not considered seriously. The greater number of sporting men are convinced that the fight was a fake, and giving the decision to Gans did not help the colored boxer any. Britt showed that he was Gans’ master and that was enough. The fight tonight, therefore, is for the lightweight championship.” The San Francisco Chronicle in the Dec. 21, 1904, issue reiterates this claim: “In the opinion of the sporting men at ringside. The victory (of Britt over Nelson) carried with it the lightweight championship of the world. Gans showed in his fight with Britt that it is an impossibility for him to make 133 pounds ringside and remain strong. The lightweight limit is 133 pounds ringside. Before last night’s bout it was generally agreed that Britt and Nelson were the best men in the world at this weight.”
Not only is the above statement unfounded and unjust, other newspaper accounts make it clear that while the press was upset with Gans’ win over Britt in the short term, in the long term they came to grips with Gans’ victory and continued to recognize him as champion. The Jan. 17, 1905 San Francisco Chronicle says of Gans “his claim on the lightweight title has placed him in a position to dictate weight to prospective opponents.” This demonstrates by newspaper accounts that Gans was still considered as lightweight champion at the beginning of 1905 even by the Californian papers. After his second fight with Mike “Twin” Sullivan, Gans said in Jan 20, 1906 Chronicle, “I will make 133 pounds” against Jimmy Britt, “I can do that now” proving he still considered himself lightweight champion, which means he never gave up the title.
The Feb 4, 1905 'National Police Gazette', which is considered an authority on fistic matters reported, "Nelson and Gans Will Fight For Title" this is barely over 3 months after the Gans-Britt fight and about 6 weeks after Nelson lost to Britt in December. The Gans-Nelson fight didn’t come off at that time but the Police Gazette continues to report Gans as the champion. It seems Britt is claiming that he is the champion also, although Gans is still the recognized champion, note the following headline, Mar. 18, 1905 Gazette, "Jabez White is Here to Fight Jimmy Britt, or Joe Gans for the Worlds Lightweight Title."
Gans made the weight against Britt in their Oct 31, 1904 fight. He won and kept his title. For Britt or anyone else to claim “Gans can no longer make the lightweight limit” is guesswork. Do we strip champions of titles for guessing that they may not be able to make the weight the next time they fight? Clearly not. In fact, Gans made weight for subsequent lightweight championship fights, including Gans-Nelson bouts one through three, a rematch with Jimmy Britt (which incidentally Gans won by knockout) and other post 1906 bouts.
The press and public continued to recognize Joe Gans as lightweight champion. The racist “white lightweight championship” as it is referred to in The Boxing Register on Nelson’s record, between Britt and Nelson, was not taken seriously at the time. Consider the statement of San Francisco fight promoter Jim Coffroth, (Ring Magazine May 1943), "Gans greatest misfortune was that he lived in the low purse days of pugilism, and that he was sadly mismanaged. I can cite no better illustration of this than to point out in 1906, when Gans, then champion of the world, agreed to take a $10,000 guarantee of a $30,000 purse, agreeing that Battling Nelson, the challenger, was to get $20,000."
The argument that the Britt-Nelson affair was for the world’s lightweight championship is just not true. First, the idea that Gans couldn’t make the weight so he gave up the title comes from Britt, and is clearly false. Secondly, the notion that Britt “should” have won is absurd; what we are discussing is the official record, and the official record clearly shows that Britt was disqualified for hitting Gans while he was down. Consequently, the Britt-Nelson fight should be recorded in record books as nothing more than a “title claimant” bout, a bout where a white fighter claims a title that justly belongs to a black champion. When The Boston Globe referred to Britt as the "lightweight champion of America" as in the Dec. 19 edition, what it really means is the "white lightweight champion." The Boston Globe admitted that Gans was the true champion before the first Gans-Nelson fight. One must realize that Joe Gans was the first African American to hold a world championship. This was over 40 years before Jackie Robinson broke through in major league baseball.
(By Monte D. Cox)