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1920-1929
Boxing - History
The “manly art of boxing,” seemingly ingrained in many cultures and introduced
in the original Olympics in about 688 BCE, adopted the Marquis of Queensbury
rules in the late 1800s and made the sport less violent.
In 1892 gloves were 1st used in a heavyweight fight and have been standard
equipment ever since.
There are at least 11 weight classes, which negate the different weights that
opponents might have and make fights decided upon skill rather than size.
Boxing was done at various levels, both in an organized and less organized
manner.
Mining camps, lumber camps, and other “rough” places often had contests for
the amusement of the workers, who were interested in demonstrations of
strength and skill.
In cities, boxing was often engaged in by lower-class or working-class youngsters,
and it could serve as a way to gain fame and wealth.
Until the 1920s, many states did not allow organized bouts because they deemed
it too dangerous.
1920-1929
Ethnicity, Sexism, and Boxing
 Many ethnic groups were prominent in boxing in the
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1920s, most notably lower-class groups, often more
recent immigrants.
At the lower weight classes Italians and Jews were
very prominent.
Many of these fighters were from inner-city
neighborhoods and the young men fought on the
street from their early years.
Such fights would have been especially common
where there was some ethnic “overlap” and more
than one ethnic group “claimed” the neighborhood.
This still occurs today, but at that time fists
predominated, rather than guns.
1920-1929
Ethnicity, Sexism, and Boxing
 One of the greatest fighters was Benny Leonard,
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whose actual family name was Leiner.
The son of very observant Jews, he used the name
Leonard to prevent his parents from finding out about
his boxing and was amazingly successful.
He became the lightweight champion of the world in
1917 and held the crown until 1923.
Except for a disqualification in 1922, Leonard did not
lose a fight for 20 years from 1912 - 1932.
He had retired in 1925, but returned to the ring in 1932
after losing his fortune in the stock market crash of
1929.
1920-1929
Ethnicity, Sexism, and Boxing
 Many of Leonard's top rivals were Irish,
indicative of the great Jewish-Irish rivalry in
boxing at the time.
 Despite not being a recent immigrant group, the
Irish were often discriminated against in many
ways into the 20th century, and their social
progress was often impeded by this
discrimination.
 In boxing there was no such prejudice and the
Irish were also dominant in heavier weights.
1920-1929
Early Heavyweight Champions
 From the time of the 1st American
heavyweight world champion, John L.
Sullivan, who was champ from 1888 - 1892,
Irishmen dominated the weight class.
 Jack Dempsey (1919 – 1926) and Gene Tunney
(1926 – 1928) were the world champions in
this decade.
 The championship was open after Tunney's
retirement in 1928, until 1930.
1920-1929
Jack Dempsey
 Dempsey came out of the West and was “discovered” by promoter
George L. “Tex” Rickard fighting in mining towns in Colorado.
 Before being a fighter, Dempsey, who was from a large Mormon
family (10 brothers and sisters) in Manassa, Colorado, was a hobo
who found work as a peach picker and a ditch digger, among a
number of low-paying jobs.
 He defeated Jess Willard in 1919 for the heavyweight
championship and became an instant hero, particularly to the
working class.
 His rise to fame and fortune made it seem possible for many of the
downtrodden, uneducated masses to hope for similar success.
 Dempsey was a bruising 6′1″ and weighed 190 pounds, but could
take a punch; he was only knocked out once in his 60 fights, and
lost 7 total bouts.
1920-1929
Gene Tunney
 Tunney was from New York City, was a nondrinker, quite
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articulate, and a college graduate.
He was also from a working-class family, but served in WWI as a
Marine, and also became light-heavyweight champion of the
American Forces in Europe.
He fought as a light heavyweight upon his return, winning the
world title in 1922, then losing it to a middleweight Harry Greb.
He then defeated Greb 4 times in very bloody contests.
In 1926 he decided to move up to heavyweight and fought
Dempsey, defeating him twice before retiring from the ring in
1928 with a record of 65 victories, 1 loss, 1 draw, and 47
knockouts.
1920-1929
Racism and Boxing
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Racism in boxing made it difficult for African American fighters to compete for
world titles and a so-called Negro circuit developed in which the top African
American fighters fought each other, often many times.
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Sam Langford and Harry Wills, 2 top African American fighters, battled at least
14 times over a 5-year period.
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Wills was a savage puncher and no top white heavyweight was inclined to face
him.
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Besides the fear of losing and being battered, there was another fear of having
another African American champion, like Jack Johnson had been in the previous
decade.
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Johnson was an outstanding fighter who flaunted his excellence and his
blackness, much to the chagrin and anger of many whites.
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Anything resembling a repeat of that was simply unacceptable to whites who
wanted to perpetuate the myth of black inferiority.
1920-1929
Racism and Boxing
 Reinforcing this fear of black fighters flaunting their “blackness”
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after winning a championship was “Battling” Siki, born in Senegal
(a French colony) as Baye Phal in 1897.
After serving with valor in the French army in WWI, he returned to
his fighting career and in 1922, defeated Georges Carpentier in
Paris for the light-heavyweight championship of the world.
Following his victory, in which the referee tried to disqualify him
but was overruled by the ringside judges, Siki made a career of
partying and carousing.
He fulfilled the worst fears of white men by marrying 2 white
women and he soon was woefully out of shape for fighting.
He lost his title in 1923 in Ireland, then moved to the United States
where he compiled a mediocre record before he was shot in the
back and killed in New York City. The crime went unsolved.
1920-1929
Sexism and Boxing
 Women gained the right to vote via ratification of the 19th
Amendment to the Constitution in the United States in 1920, but
that right hardly extended to boxing.
 Women were prohibited from even attending prizefights until the
late 1890s.
 Some boxing promoters tried to get women accepted as
spectators at fights because they felt that it would make boxing
look more respectable and would allow it to be publicly allowed in
the many states that had prohibited public bouts.
 Tex Rickard, Dempsey's promoter, made arrangements for a
special section for women spectators at the Dempsey-Willard
fight in Toledo, Ohio, in 1919, and this was helpful in convincing
New York State to sanction bouts beginning in 1920.
1920-1929
Sexism and Boxing
 This newfound interest of women in boxing
led to the 1st female journalists covering
prizefights, often for the reporting of who
attended and what they wore, but also for
accounts of the fights themselves.
 Often distinctions were drawn between men
and women spectators and what their real
interests were in attending and observing
fights.
Boxing 1920-1929 –
The World Geography of Boxing
 Because of the various state regulations that sanctioned or allowed
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boxing, fights, even championship fights, were staged in some very
unusual or obscure locations.
Some weight classes were dominated by men from countries other
than the US, so many championship fights in those weight classes
were fought in other countries.
Within the US, the “checkerboard” laws governing the sport led to
championship bouts in mining camps, such as the 1908 bout that
pitted Jack Johnson against heavyweight champion Tommy Burns.
The champion had been avoiding Johnson, but a fight was finally
accomplished in Sydney, Australia, where Johnson won and became
the champion.
7 years later, Johnson lost the title to Jess Willard in Havana, Cuba.
Boxing 1920-1929 –
The World Geography of Boxing
 The 1st heavyweight champion of the 1920s, Jack
Dempsey, fought throughout the West before
winning the championship in 1919.
 Traveling to boxing matches would have been by
train, except within the confines of a large city,
where trolley cars were most common.
 The developed rail system that linked majorleague baseball easily in the Northeast also
allowed for fights and fans to travel almost
anywhere within the country.
 2 problems in attracting fans were price and time
to travel to the designated location.
Boxing 1920-1929 –
Media and Boxing in the Decade
 For those who could not go to the fights, there were 2 ways to get
up-to-the-minute accounts of the contests.
 1 was through teletype machines, which used the
telegraph/telephone wires to transmit accounts to various places
such as Times Square in New York.
 The accounts of the round, sometimes even the blow-by-blow
details, were then posted for large crowds to read and follow the
fight.
 The 2nd way was through radio broadcasting.
 Radio broadcast was easier and became more and more common
through the 1920s as radio networks were formed and made the
broadcasts more available.
Boxing 1920-1929 –
Media and Boxing in the Decade
 Graham McNamee, the broadcast announcer for the 2nd
Dempsey-Tunney fight became famous for his radio tones
immediately recognizable to fight fans.
 He had begun his career as an actor and singer in New York,
but, in 1923 he was chosen as an announcer for WEAF in
Newark after a tryout and rose to prominence as the most
well-known sports announcer of the decade.
 He 1st covered the Greb-Wilson bout for the middleweight
title in 1924 and also did color for Grantland Rice's
announcing of the 1923 World Series.
 By 1925 McNamee was receiving 50,000 letters and
telegrams a year from listeners.
Boxing 1920-1929 –
Boxing and the Law
 From its earliest inception, boxing was the subject of
fervent interest on the part of some fans, and they
often expressed their belief in their favorites by
placing bets on the outcome of fights.
 These wagers were often followed by various “side
bets” on the outcomes of rounds as people,
intrigued with gambling, found lots of ways to carry
out that interest.
 Most of the bets were relatively small amounts, but
as boxing and gambling became more and more
popular, larger amounts were bet and figures from
organized crime were often involved in this
gambling.
Boxing 1920-1929 –
Boxing and the Law
 As more money was bet on fights, gamblers found it profitable and more
“secure” to bribe certain fighters to “take a dive,” or lose a fight
intentionally.
 In some cases, a fighter might leave himself open for a powerful punch
from his opponent and then take a full count from the referee and lose.
 Or a fighter might not punch as well or not block punches as well and
allow punches to hit him, thus losing on a judges' decision.
 Sometimes the rumor of a ”fixed fight” would cause the judges to rule a
“no decision.”
 Boxers could be suspended or lose their licenses to fight if there was proof
or strong indications of them throwing a fight.
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Nevertheless, boxing was notorious for having crime figures involved with
the sport.
Boxing 1920-1929 –
Boxing and the Law
 In the 1920s the biggest legal battles for boxing were
simply to have the sport legalized in all states.
 It was recognized that boxing was often linked to
gambling, but the prevailing notion was that if the
sport was regulated in all states, there might be
tighter controls on fights and potential fixes, and the
game might have more overall “decorum.”
 When New York State decided to legalize and regulate
professional boxing in 1920, many formerly reluctant
states followed and allowed prizefighting.
 The result was that boxing commissions had
tremendous authority to regulate the sport in each
state.
Boxing 1920-1929 –
Boxing and the Law
 Boxing commissioners also saw the economic benefits for their
respective states, so there were often times that rumors or incidences
of bribery or questionable ethical conduct were ignored, so that a fight
might be staged in a particular locale.
 In 1922, more than $5 million in gate receipts were taken in at
prizefights in New York State at a time when the average American
income was $1500 per year.
 Boxing had become an important industry and promoting a fight
became significant, especially when the fight was not likely to be very
close.
 It was great promotion by Tex Rickard that made Jack Dempsey such a
big hero to millions of Americans in the 1920s, even though Dempsey
had managed to avoid serving in the military in WWI by claiming that
he was the sole support of his mother.
Boxing 1920-1929 –
Boxing's Decade in Summary
 The “glamour” title of boxing, heavyweight, was held by
only 2 boxers during the 1920s, Jack Dempsey and Gene
Tunney.
 African American fighters such as Harry Wills were never
allowed to fight for the title.
 Other top fighters in this decade were Harry Greb,
Benny Leonard, Mike McTigue of Ireland, Battling Siki,
Pancho Villa from the Philippines, and Jack Sharkey, a
heavyweight who defeated Tommy Loughran in 1928.
 The undisputed title was not decided until 1930 when
Sharkey lost to Max Schmeling of Germany for the open
title.