Ah Wing
Name: Ah Wing
Hometown: Sacramento, California, USA
Birthplace: Auburn, California, USA
Died: 1917-11-04 (Age:41)
Pro Boxer: Record
Division: Bantamweight
Manager: Biddy Bishop [1]
Ah Wing was a descendent of "Ah Punch," President of the of the "Duck Lows"--a famous fighting tong of Auburn, Placer County, California. Wing was a cook by trade, and played the piano and cornet. [2]
Wing started boxing circa 1898, and was discovered by Biddy Bishop. [3] [4]
One newspaper report in 1903 stated that Wing was 27, which would make his birth date circa 1876.
In June 1906, a couple of months after the devastating San Francisco Earthquake, Wing performed a week of exhibition bouts at the Star Theater. [5]. And in July he was mentioned in a defamation suit filed by journalist Mabel Claire Ervin ('Queen Mab'), who sued a newspaper for implying she and Wing were intimate. [6] She later won that suit. [7]
Per the Sept. 4, 1909 Tacoma Daily News (Tacoma, WA, USA), Wing was of Chinese heritage. He had been born in Auburn, California. He started boxing at the Sacramento Athletic Club. Young Peter Jackson had been one of his sparring partners. (See cartoon.)
In November he had sought the arrest of his girlfriend for allegedly stealing his diamond ring. [8]
In January 1910 he got into a fight over a girl. [9]
In April 1910 he feared that there was a price on his head, placed by the Bing Kong tong. [10]
The November 5, 1917 Tacoma Tribune reported that Wing had died the day before at Sacramento when he fell in a barn while trying to catch pigeons. For many years, Ah Wing had been the only well-known Chinese-American boxer.