Joe Gans vs. Walter Edgerton (1st meeting)
Joe Gans beat Kentucky Rosebud by NWS in round 6 of 6
- Date: 1895-04-01
- Location: Monumental Amphitheater, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
GANS AND THE ROSEBUD.
The Maryland Boxer Wins the Bout and Outpoints His Opponent.
A great crowd was packed into the Monumental Theatre to see Walter Edgerton, colored, the Kentucky Rosebud, try to stop Joseph Gans, the colored lightweight champion of Maryland, in six rounds for $150, Gans gets the money.
Not only did the Rosebud fail to his endeavor, but had the match been on points merely the referee would have had to decide in favor of the Maryland man, who outfought and outgeneraled his man. Edgerton was the shorter, but he looked like a bunch of ropy muscles encased in a brown horsehide cover.
Gans opened on the defensive. The rosebud, after fiddling, led for the head and missed. Then he tried for Joe's headpiece again and again, failing to reach, while Joe waited to see how matters stood. Not a blow landed in the round.
In the second Gans reached the face of the Rosebud, who smiled, as if to say, "merely an accident." Gans then sent in a hard smash in the same place. This time the Bud smiled not. As the bell rang Gans landed again.
In the third round, as previously, Edgerton cornered his man to deliver a telling blow, but Gans danced away and sent in a hot one which turned the Bud half around and almost floored him. Edgerton tried to rush, but Gans met him and had the better of the round.
The fourth round was Edgerton's. Finding himself unable to reach the face, he played for the body and sent in a stinger on the wind. Many of these blows passed harmlessly under Gans's arm, and once in this round Gans found the face.
Gans had to take another on the wind in the fifth round. The Rosebud followed with rushes and had the better of the round.
In the sixth round Gans did some lively dancing to make the time pass away, and, the Rosebud getting anxious about his chances, started in for serious work. Gans found the Rosebud no longer dangerous, and thereupon he did some going in himself and had the better of the round, reaching the face freely in the last half.
--The Sun, 1895-04-02.
The Kentucky Rosebud, Walter Edgarton, the colored pugilist, who is matched to fight Griffo eight rounds before a kinetoscope, met Joe Gans, the champion colored lightweight pugilist of Maryland, in the Monumental amphitheater, Baltimore, last night. The Rosebud was to put Gans out in six rounds and get $150 and expenses for doing it. Gans was on the defensive the first part of the battle, but in the latter part of the final round he "sailed in" and had the better of the argument. About fifteen hundred people saw the fight.
--The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1895-04-02.