Happy Littleton

Name: Happy Littleton
Alias: John H. Littleton
Birth Name: William Harrison
Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Birthplace: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Died: 1971-06-00 (Age:75)
Stance: Orthodox
Height: 175cm
Reach: 193cm
Referee: Record
Pro Boxer: Record

Happy Littleton began his professional boxing career in his home town of New Orleans in 1912 and quickly ran off five victories. He then went into the United States Navy and, except for three fights in 1915, his career as a professional boxer came to a halt until he left the service in 1919. However, he continued to gain experience during those years as a service boxer.

From 1919 to 1922 Littleton had a highly successful professional boxing career. He did have four setbacks, to Martin Burke, Harry Greb, Mike Gibbons, and Bryan Downey, but he gave Greb and Gibbons each a great fight and came back to hold Downey to a draw in 1922. He defeated Bob Moha, George Chip, Chuck Wiggins, England's Jack Bloomfield and Fay Keiser. Had there been world rankings in those days, Littleton would have been in the top five or ten middleweights until he retired after the second Downey fight.

Littleton's retirement was caused by problems with his vision. He wrote a letter to Bill Keefe of the sports department of the New Orleans Times-Picayune and announced his retirement, stating that he feared that to continue would lead to blindness, as had recently happened to another famous New Orleans fighter, the former bantamweight champion Pete Herman.