Abe Hollandersky
Name: Abe Hollandersky
Alias: Abe Hollander Abe the Newsboy
Birth Name: Abraham Hollandersky
Hometown: New London, Connecticut, USA
Birthplace: Berzniki, Poland
Died: 1966-11-01 (Age:78)
Stance: Orthodox
Height: 163cm
Pro Boxer: Record
Career Review
Although the Ring Record Book listed Abe Hollandersky as first among boxers with the most fights from the 1940s to the 1970s, the majority of his purported 1,000-plus bouts were exhibitions, many on naval ships or Army and Navy training stations. As hundreds of his bouts were aboard ship, often during cruises, or in foreign countries where he traveled with the Navy, the majority have never been reported. The personal tally of his fights which he included in his book and which were published with few modification by Nat Fleicher's Ring Record Book for the year 1944 contain persistent errors, most notably in the years of the fights and the number of rounds. Hollandersky's most famous sparring partner was President Theodore Roosevelt with whom he may have exchanged a few playful blows when they met in September of 1906 aboard the Presidential yacht USS Mayflower. Roosevelt had Admiral Robely Evans create a position for Hollandersky as "Newsboy of the Navy", giving him access and transportation aboard all Navy vessals to sell newspapers.
In early 1912, where there is a gap in his boxing record, Abe sailed to Cuba. According to the Hartford Courier, he boxed several opponents aboard ship or at the Naval base than returned to New England to resume his boxing schedule.
His large personal tally of fights also included benefits, as well as training and sparring matches. He reputedly had over three hundred wrestling matches as well. According to the May 31 New York Times, he became Heavyweight Champion of Panama on May 30, 1913 when he defeated Jack Ortega in Panama City, though outweighed by around thirty-five pounds. Fighting as an underdog in both height and weight, Hollandersky won the favor of the crowd for his clean fighting and modest behavior, traits lacking in his challenger Ortega, who had done time in San Quentin prior to his coming to Panama. A number of more skilled American boxers followed Hollandersky to Panama City shortly after his championship win, diminishing his chances of retaining the title for long. Kid Norfolk, born in Norfolk, Virginia, was one of those boxers.
Hollandersky successfully defended his Panamanian Heavyweight title once in a rematch with Ortega in August of 1913, and then lost it to future International Hall of Fame boxer and "Colored" World Champion Kid Norfolk on January 18, 1914 in 25 grueling rounds in Colon, Panama. He fought the accomplished boxers Panama Joe Gans, Al Rogers, Navy champion Tommy Teague, Italian Joe Gans, Bill Scott (exhibition), Connecticut State Welterweight Champion Contender Dave Palitz, Connecticut Lightweight Champion and Yale boxing coach Mosey King, and one time Featherweight World Champion contender Austin Rice during his career. His most famous exhibition partners, both of whom he fought in New London included the great world champion Joe Walcott in November, 1918, and decade long world featherweight champion Abe Attell whom he fought in four friendly exhibitions in New London in 1916 near the end of Attell's boxing career.
During a conspicuous gap in his boxing record around 1907-8, he took a cruise with a portion of the Navy's Great White Fleet to Australia, aboard the USS Kearsarge, where he sold papers while in port, and gave a few boxing exhibitions for the entertainment of the crew, as was his habit.
Hollandersky acted as a boxing trainer for the Navy in WWI. He began fighting boxing exhibitions for the entertainment of Navy men possibly as early as 1906, continuing well past his boxing retirement to San Diego. He completed more sparring rounds while providing training to navy men during his world cruise around 1907-8, his work as a land-based boxing trainer for the Navy in 1919, and when he completed a long cruise, in early 1925 from New London to California via the Panama Canal, that went overland to San Pedro and then followed the "Good Will" cruise to Hawaii.
During his cruises, he fought exhibitions for the entertainment of the crew, and helped with training instruction for the boxing teams on some of the larger vessels. He was a knockout victim of hard hitting "Buffalo" Eddie Kelly as a nineteen year old boxer in 1906 in a New York club, two years before Kelly fought Abe Attell three times in World Featherweight Title matches. Hundreds of Hollandersky's exhibition matches were with the Navy, and records of only a tiny number of these fights have survived.
After retiring from professional boxing, he moved to Los Angeles around 1926 and appeared as an extra in as many as twenty movies, often with other boxers, though he continued to stage exhibitions for charities, and to provide training for Navy men. In 20th Century Film's 1933, The Bowery, Hollandersky worked with ex-Middleweight Champion Al McCoy and boxers "Fireman" Jim Flynn, heavyweight Frank Moran, and New York Jewish boxers Phil Bloom, and Joe Glick. In MGM's 1938, successful movie The Crowd Roars, Hollandersky was given a brief close up after appearing in a background gymnasium scene with boxers Larry Williams, Maxie Rosenbloom, Abie Bain, Phil Bloom and Joe Glick, as well as Jimmy McLarnin, Jack Roper, and Tommy Herman. Hollandersky also acted in Fox's 1928 "Dressed to Kill" and Paramount's 1930 "Roadhouse Nights".
A very small, but verified sampling of Hollandersky's better publicized exhibitions and benefits (which do not appear in his BoxRec record) include:
- Bantamweight champion George Dixon Memorial Fund at Bower's Minery Theatre, New York, January 23, 1908
- Buck Falvey, Three Round Exhibition to Draw, Feb. 26, Cannonball Athletic Club, New London, February 27, 1909, New London Day, "About 250 Pack Club Rooms of Popular Athletic Club"
- Austin Rice, Featherweight Contender, exhibition for "Nest of Owls order 1382", State and Bank St., New London CT., January 17, 1911
- Young Sherman, sparring exhibition, Elks Lodge, New London, May 24, 1911
- Paddy Fenton, fringe welterweight Contender, New London County Fair, six rounds, possible knockout, circa September, 1911
- Multiple exhibitions or prize fights, February 1912, possibly at Guantanamo Naval Base, Guantanamo, Cuba, or inland.(“Abe ‘the Newsboy’ Here,” New York-Tribune, New York, New York, 21 March 1912)
- Dave Palitz, 6 round exhibition, Richards Grove, Groton, Connecticut August 25, 1912
- USS Denver exhibition, off Panama City, boxed Sailors Mussbel, Medino, Koch, and Jiran, April 5, 1914
- "Steamboat" Bill Scott, 4 round exhibition in Variedades Theatre, Panama City, May 10, 1914
- Jimmy Perry of Pittsburgh, 53319, friend of Bill Crouse, off Panama, on Steamship Pastores, later USS Pastores, 6 rounds, 1913, Not fully verified, recorded in Abe's records, also "Killing the Goose", Winnipeg Tribune, p. 19, Mon, 23 August 1913
- Abe Attell, ex-Featherweight Champ, four 3 round exhibitions, Empire Theatre, New London, May 2-3, 1916 (New London's The Day, May 3, pg. 12, "The Two Abes Put on Lively Sparring Match")
- WWI War Benefit, 3 rounds with Dave Palitz, Chicopee, MA, December 19, 1917
- Exhibition, 4 rounds with Frank Ryan, Navy Welterweight Champ, in New London, May 16, 1918, State Pier
- United War Workers Campaign, 4 rounds vs. ex-welterweight champion Joe Walcott, New London, November 1918
- Last Exhibition with Austin Rice, two years before his death, three round exhibition at Groton Iron Works, New London, December 1919 ("Austin D. Rice Made a Good Record in Ring", Norwich Bulletin, Norwich, Connecticut, 18 January 1921)
- Welter and lightweight Billy Capelle, aka Willie Cappelli, Lost 4-6 round professional bout in San Pedro, CA., in February, 1922, "Our Navy", May 1922, pg. 237
- Navy Flood Relief benefit, fought former Navy champ Mike Hector, Long Beach Municipal Auditorium, February 3, 1937
- "Night of Memories" benefit for Wad Wadham, Hollywood Legion Stadium, October 9, 1937.
In late 1925, after cruising to Honolulu, Hawaii with the naval fleet for his last professional bout, Hollandersky posed with Jack Dempsey and Fidel LaBarba after he returned to Los Angeles to look for wrestling matches. The photo was probably taken at one of Dempsey's exhibitions around December and ran in a number of newspapers around December 19, 1925 including pg. 13 of the "Indianapolis Star" when both LaBarba and Dempsey's fighting schedule took them to Los Angeles. The heading in the "Star" read "Famous Boxing Champions Meet Again," perhaps implying Hollandersky had met them previously. Boxer Larry Williams and wrestler and actor Bull Montana were friends and work out partners for Dempsey, and Montana wrestled with Dempsey as part of his workout routines on many occasions, often in front of a large gathering of press. Both were acquaintances of Hollandersky as well.
Hollandersky authored his self published autobiography in 1930 entitled The Life Story of Abe the Newsboy with the U.S. Navy, Hero of a Thousand Fights. At page 384, and in his personal boxing record at the back each of his books, he claimed to have fought more than 1,100 bouts. According to his book, his last professional fight occurred in June of 1925 in Honolulu, Hawaii, before Governor Farrington, which he won. This bout was not covered in the Honolulu Star Telegram, but the details of Abe's travel's to Honolulu were, including his arrival and departure dates. Governor Farrington, provincial governor of Hawaii at the time, and according to Abe, in attendance at his last fight in Honolulu, had formerly been an owner of the Honolulu Star-Telegram.
At forty-two, Hollandersky married Freda Weinberg on June 7, 1931 at the Hebrew Sheltering Home for the Aged on Boyle Avenue in Los Angeles in front of actors, boxers and top Navy brass, several of whom had watched him box on board ship.
He died in San Diego on November 1, 1966, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery as was his wife Freda a decade later. He left no children. His tombstone is headed with his ring name, Abe the Newsboy.
- Fight record from the 1944 Ring Record Book, pages 484 & 485.
