Fight:17659

During Jack McAuliffe's title defense with Mike Daly, Tom O'Rourke, the manager of Dixon, spoke to both Phil and Mike Dywer and also Dick Roche, all famous backers of the "Napoleon of the Prize Ring". O'Rourke told them that he currently held an excellent little fighter by the name of George Dixon who weighed about 112 pounds at the time. Dwyer told O'Rourke to bring Dixon to New York where they can try to negotiate a bout with Dixon and Cal McCarthy, the current and recognized bantamweight champion who was considered unbeatable against upcoming competition. They decided that if Dixon can defeat Eugene Hornbacker, a durable fighter who went 21 rounds with McCarthy on a previous occasion, Dixon would be matched up with McCarthy for the title. The bout (between Hornbacker and Dixon) was held in a German beer garden in New York City. In the first, Dixon carried the fight to Hornbacker and beat him from pillar to post. So devastating and brutal was the beating that the ringside wagering was basically called off. Hornbacker, surely knowing the end was near, fought back viciously until Eugene, trapped in a corner, took a right and a left that laid him out for ten plus minutes. This set up one of the most important and exciting bantamweight bouts in history.

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Source: "Black Dynamite Volume III: The Three Colored Aces" By Nat Fleischer