Edward
"Gunboat" Smith was an Irish American boxer, a film actor
and a
boxing
referee who fought professionally from 1909 to 1921. During his
career, The Gunner fought twelve different Boxing Hall of Famers,
regardless
of race, including
work as a sparring partner for champion Jack Johnson. Among the
all-time greats he fought were Jack Dempsey, Harry Greb, and Georges
Carpentier. Smith’s most notable victories were wins by decision
over the great Sam Langford, and against future Heavyweight Champion
Jess Willard. Both fights in 1913.
In
1914, at the peak of his career, Smith traveled to England to fight
the European champion Georges Carpentier. The fight took place in
front of 10,000 spectators at the Olympia in London. Unfortunately,
the fight ended in controversy. In the sixth round, Carpentier
stumbled or was knocked down. Smith followed through with a punch
while Georges still on the canvas. Though the punch was
unintentional, the referee stopped the fight anyway and, despite
protests, Smith was disqualified.
Smith
retired in 1921. He went on to appear as an actor in movies through
the 1920s and 30s. Later, he became a ring official, as seen here
refereeing the 1931 fight between Jack Sharkey and Primo Carnera.
Smith died in 1974.
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
Max Baer vs Primo Carnera, New York 1934
35mm HD Nitrate Theatrical Print Scan
Max
Baer KOs Primo Carnera in 11 rounds at Madison Square Garden Bowl,
New York on June 14, 1934. The film of this fight has long been
preserved and widely distributed over the years, though on the web it
is mostly found in very poor quality. The stills here, and the video
clip, are from from a rare 35mm nitrate print I acquired some years
ago and was just recently scanned to HD. As was the custom during
the depression years, the fight portions were shot at silent speed
(16-18 frames per second) to save on cost, with the crowd sounds
dubbed in later. The pre- and post fight portions were filmed at
standard sound 24fps speed to capture the ring announcements. In
this clip, I have slowed the speed 25% to approximate real time.
Though
Baer came out strong in the first two rounds, he was unable to KO
Carnera and fought in furies thereafter. This gave Carnera time to
recover, and it was Primo who often came forward, forcing the fight
through the middle rounds. By the 11th round, Carnera
was exhausted, and quit after a final barrage by Baer. I chose to
show Round 6 because it’s not only rare, but one of the better
rounds for Primo. The two trade blows in some good action and the
verbal exchanges are on display as well.
What
I like most about this footage is the clarity of the film and seeing
not only the fighter’s expressions, but the trash talking as well.
Baer and Carnera had been in the ring together before, as actors,
while filming the Hollywood movie The Prizefighter
and The Lady a year earlier.
The two no doubt relished getting down to actual combat.
Some
thoughts on Carnera: There’s no question that Carnera’s career is
padded by a number of fixed victories, but those fights served in
part as his boxing education. The softer competition bought him time
to develop his skills. But even at his best Primo, though athletic
and who certainly had his moments, was never a very skilled boxer.
Not that he didn’t try, but he suffered from
Acromegaly
and Gigantism, a
hormonal disorder that develops when the pituitary gland produces too
much growth hormone during adulthood, and accounted for Primo’s
massive 6’6’ 260lb size. The
illness meant, in short, that Primo’s brain was wired for a smaller
body. His nervous system had to work much harder to maintain balance
and coordination to perform than an unaffected person. He had great
strength but he didn’t have the reaction time a champion boxer
needs to combine speed and power, evade punches, and to anticipate
and react to his opponent’s moves. I appreciate that Primo went a
long way with what he had.
Saturday, May 21, 2022
The Rocky Marciano Tapes #6 - The Last Interview
Recorded hours before his death, Rocky Marciano was interviewed live on WFLD-TV Chicago. In this excerpt, Rocky offers his views on boxing and discusses his fight with Carmine Vingo. Marciano died in a small-plane crash in Iowa the following morning August 31, 1969.
The Rocky Marciano Tapes are produced from several exclusive, and unedited, recordings with the former Heavyweight Champion between 1968 and 1969.
Monday, May 16, 2022
The Rocky Marciano Tapes #5
This episode features an excerpt from Rocky’s freewheeling discussion with reporter Hy Gardner in 1969. Rocky talks about boxing and show business, respect of opponents, Ezzard Charles, fighting in Russia, the joy of combat, and singer Mario Lanza’s claim to have knocked out Marciano while sparring.
The Rocky Marciano Tapes are taken from several interviews with the former Heavyweight Champion, recorded in 1968 and in 1969. These unedited recordings have not been heard for decades. In this segment, Rocky talks about his dedication to training and conditioning for a fight.
Monday, May 9, 2022
The Rocky Marciano Tapes #4 - My Career
In
this episode, recorded in 1968, Rocky Marciano talks about the early
days of his boxing career, beginning while in the US Army through his
fight with Joe Louis. Rocky also speaks on how boxing has changed,
fighters
are less active
and his reaction the Murray
Woroner
Heavyweight Tournament Computer Series in 1967.
The Rocky Marciano Tapes are produced from several exclusive, and unedited, recordings with the former Heavyweight Champion between 1968 and 1969.
Saturday, April 30, 2022
The Rocky Marciano Tapes #3 - Rocky Talks About Ali
In
this episode, Rocky Marciano offers his assessment of Heavyweight
Champion Muhammad Ali’s career and the state of boxing in late
1968. This
interview took place a year before before Marciano met and
collaborated with Muhammad Ali on their Super Fight movie, and where
they later formed a friendship.
The
Rocky Marciano Tapes are produced from several exclusive, and
unedited, recordings with the former Heavyweight Champion between
1968 and 1969.
Thursday, April 28, 2022
The Rocky Marciano Tapes #2
Recorded in Miami 1968, Rocky
Marciano talks about his dedication to training.
The Rocky Marciano Tapes are produced from a series of private interviews with the former Heavyweight Champion, recorded in 1968 and in 1969. These unedited recordings have not been heard for decades.
The Rocky Marciano Tapes #1
In this segment, Rocky talks about the 1968 World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight tournament, that was promoted to determine a successor to Muhammad Ali.
The Rocky Marciano Tapes are produced from a series of private interviews with the former Heavyweight Champion, recorded in 1968 and in 1969. These unedited recordings have not been heard for decades.
Thursday, March 31, 2022
Irish Jerry Quarry Rare Sparring and Interview Footage
This is some great sparring
footage along with two brief interviews with Jerry Quarry. The first in 1968, is
prior to Jerry’s
fight with Ellis, where Jerry talks about Thad Spencer. The second is
while training for the fight with Ali in 1970.
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Stanley Ketchel vs Billy Papke
IV Extended
Collector’s Cut Colma,
California, July 5, 1909
To my knowledge,
there are only two surviving films of the legendary middleweight
champion Stanley Ketchel in action. One is the beautifully
photographed but infamous October 1909 mismatch against heavyweight
champion Jack Johnson. The other was Ketchel’s title defense in
July of that year, in the same arena, against rival and former
middleweight champion Billy Papke.
I first acquired an
extended print of the Ketchel-Papke fight in the 1970s. I was
disappointed with the fight. Papke, sporting a Chippendale-style
protective cup, fought much of the bout, pulling Ketchel into
clinches, wrestling, holding and hitting, while the referee struggled
round after round to keep the fighters separated. Even when viewing
on a large screen, the infighting made it hard to parse out the
action. When Ketchel did break away, it was exciting to see him dig
in with the ferocity he was famous for, but those moments seemed to
be few.
Over the years I
collected more versions of the film as they became available. None
were better, and those posted on Youtube were worse. When I finally
received a clean hi-res scan of the surviving footage, it changed my
perspective of the fight entirely. The clarity of the film made the
fight more exciting to watch, and it revealed the fight to be intense
and brutal and with Papke coming on in the final rounds. During many
of the clinches and infighting, the two fighters appear to be either
trash talking or baiting one another, especially Papke. Ketchel won
a very close decision.
With the recent
passing of our friend, the boxing historian and film collector, Steve
Lott, I’ve been inspired to reevaluate my film collection and how
to make it a more useful archive. It’s one thing to collect and
amass materials, but it’s another to create something with it and
share it in ways that’s of value to others. I thought about the
Ketchel-Papke film and sat down to review the copies I had. I found
that my extended print contained some footage not in the hi-res scan.
The hi-res scan also had portions that were new to me, and scenes
that were also corrupted.
The fight was held
outdoors under cloudy stormy conditions. The clarity is good for a
1909 vintage print, though of my three films, the quality is uneven.
The hi-res scan shows the complete camera frame, while my extended
print is inferior with the picture cropped and zoomed in.
The extended film
shows nine rounds of the fight over 30 minutes. They are allegedly
1,2,13,15,16,17,18,19,20. One thing I’ve learned over the years is
how early fight films, especially those that predate the 1930s, are
badly preserved and many survive as little more than relics of their
original form.
Once I sat down to
edit the footage, I realized that the Ketchel-Papke film was a jigsaw
puzzle. Some rounds were mis-titled or out of order, or not titled
at all, some with splices and jump cuts that made it difficult to
verify what round the action was taking place.
So I dug through
what evidence I could see in the film itself. The fight took place
over 90 minutes, under partly cloudy skies. In Round 16 you can even
see a cloud shadow pass over the audience. The fighter’s shadows
got longer as the sun moved into the afternoon, not to mention how
Papke and especially Ketchel became marked up as the fight
progressed. There’s also the changing pace of the action, though
honestly, Ketchel and Papke kept up the action with amazing stamina.
The best evidence
ended up being the round card display. At the end of most rounds, a
person can be seen at ringside, displaying a large sign with each
upcoming round number for the audience and for the cameras. The
teleprompter of 1909.
Based on what I can
determine, the film shows action from Rounds 2, 3, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16,
17 ,18 and with one additional round that could be either 19 or 20.
Most Youtube posts of this film are from the eleven minute Big Fights
Inc short, which does not show the end of the contest. In the
extended silent version I have, the round labeled as 20 shows Ketchel
eating a nasty right from Papke and then walking to his corner. This
turned out to be the end of Round 14, leading me to suspect that
Round 20 may not in the footage at all.
I’d like to
believe the remaining footage does show Round 20 and the end of the
fight, but it’s likely to be Round 19 instead. In this last
footage, we see the fighters are on the ropes in a far corner. As
they break, there’s a rush into the ring by the seconds. An
exhausted Ketchel is met by his handlers as he walks to his corner,
while Papke’s handlers dash across the ring to escort him away.
This could be a post fight celebration, or the excitement of handlers
assisting the fighters just before the final round. There’s a
similar scene at the end of Round 17, but you can see the round card
immediately hoisted up displaying Round 18. As the action comes to
an end of this particular round though, the card isn’t visible.
I spent several
weeks in front of a video editor matching and combing, often frame by
frame, the three prints of the film for this article. I’m calling
this a Collector’s Cut. It’s not a restoration. A restoration
involves having most if not all the original footage restored with
the aim of replicating its original form. As a collector, I assume
there is more footage out there, but I can’t verify that one way or
another, so I worked with what I have. A Collector’s Cut is a
partial reconstruction, and a work in progress. --Carl
Frazier-Quarry I is a personal favorite of mine. It was a classic
encounter, with Jerry and Joe at their physical peaks, held in Madison
Square Garden with the great Arthur Mercante as referee. Back in 1999
when I was working with James Quarry on the Jerry Quarry website, James
gave me a recording of a radio interview he did where he talked about
the foundation and Jerry’s career. I put this video together with is his
ringside account of the fight.
1972 sports newsreel featuring the years boxing highlights including
Ali-Chuvalo, Frazier-Stander, Foreman-Paez and Ali-Foster. Mostly
newsreel camera footage, not seen during the fight broadcasts.
Gene Tunney vs. Jack Dempsey II
Solders Field, Chicago
September 22, 1927
Graham McNamee NBC
Fight Film & Broadcast Sync
“The legendary battle of the Long Count between Jack Dempsey and
Gene Tunney had been recounted and retold during many intellectual
debates, heated arguments and bar fights for nearly a century. Motion
pictures of the knockdown dramatically captured the famous seventh round
and have since become part of boxing lore. However the blow by blow
descriptions that millions across the country heard is an obscurity.”—Frederick V. Romano
The film is famously shown in slow motion. The sequence begins nearly
a minute into the seventh round. As he had done throughout the fight,
Challenger Jack Dempsey advances toward Heavyweight Champion Gene
Tunney. As Tunney throws a left, Dempsey counters with a right that
catches Tunney to the head. Tunney, likely phased by the punch, fails to
see Dempsey’s looping left hook and straight right. Both punches
connect, and Tunney is staggered. He falls to the ropes where Dempsey
continues his attack. Tunney’s knees give way under a crushing left hook
and a right sends the champion to the canvas. Dempsey wrote that he hit
Tunney with all the punches he’d been throwing in his sleep over the
previous year. Referee Dave Barry gestures for Jack to follow the rules
and go to a neutral corner, but now it was Dempsey who appeared stunned
and amazed at what had just happened. Barry delays the count—at least a
few seconds go by, or for many boxing fans, a near eternity. Dempsey
walks directly behind the champion, then looking up, Dempsey finally
complies with Barry and steps away. The referee turns toward the fallen
champion, and ignoring the call of the timekeeper, restarts the count at
One. Through the count, Tunney sits up holding the lower rope. At three
he glances at the referee, otherwise he is still. His condition is a
mystery. At eight, Tunney pulls his feet under and stands at nine. For
the remaining two minutes Tunney retreats, unsteady at times, with
Dempsey in pursuit, charging and swinging mostly at the air in front of
Tunney’s head. Dempsey tries again and again trap to the champion, but
Tunney manages to stay just out of reach. The round ends. Tunney shoves
Dempsey away. The fight continues through the scheduled 10 rounds and
Tunney retains the title. Theater audiences witnessed films of the fight in the days and weeks
following the event. “The Long Count” as it came to be called, created
one of boxing’s greatest controversies. Did referee Dave Barry’s delay
of the count save Tunney from a knockout? Over the years, the film of
the seventh round would become boxing’s version of the Zapruder film, a
movie watched over and over, with every frame analyzed for what happened
and what might have been. Those first theater-goers, however, watched
in silence. 1927 was still the era of silent films. While the film remains a silent witness, the battle itself was heard
by millions as it was broadcast live on radio around the world. The
fight was announced by legendary sports commentator Graham McNamee.
McNamee was a pioneer in radio who specialized in baseball coverage. In
1923, he was hired to call the Harry Greb and Johnny Wilson fight, but
came away dissatisfied with the established formalities of commentary,
where by describing events as a casual viewer, describing the action in
past tense. This was akin to telling a story. McNamee began adding more
personality to his delivery, describing not just the action as it
happened, but embellishing or “coloring” the drama of the contest and
describing the atmosphere inside the venue. He amped up his tone,
sometimes breathlessly shouting the action. McNamee conveyed that he was
just as thrilled with the action as the fans listening. This style came
to be called play-by-play. McNamee announced both the 1926 and 1927 Tunney-Dempsey fights for
NBC. It’s been written that the second fight was especially dramatic,
and it was reported that between seven and ten radio listeners were so
caught up in the commentary that they suffered heart failure. NBC did not record Tunney-Dempsey broadcasts. In fact most radio
broadcasts of the 1920s were never saved. Radio was still a live medium,
and recording technology, primarily disc-cutting, was limited.
Recording discs could only capture a few minutes at a time. With the LP
and recording tape decades away, it was impractical to document
countless hours of broadcasts. Over the years I’ve reached out to fellow boxing collectors and asked
if they knew anything about a recording, but nothing was ever verified.
While doing a search a few months ago I came across lecture notes by
Matthew Barton, a curator at The Library of Congress. He referred to a,
“surviving radio broadcasts from 1927 … the Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney
long count heavyweight title fight … one of the reasons that we know
just how long the long count was is because it was recorded.” I
contacted Mr. Barton and it turned out he’s a very knowledgeable boxing
fan. We discussed the recording, and he referred me to several radio
historians who may be able to help with a copy. One source came through. The existence of the broadcast turned out to be an open secret. The
second Tunney-Dempsey air-check was indeed recorded—or more
appropriately, it was pirated. With borrowed disc-cutting equipment,
engineers at a small blues record label called Paramount of Port Washington, Wisconsin, captured McNamee’s broadcast on ten separate 78RPM recording discs. According to radio archivist Louis V. Genco, “Paramount was a small,
Wisconsin-based operation notorious among collectors today for the
indifferent quality of its recording work, even as it recorded material
by artists who are now very much in demand. Paramount (not Paramount
Pictures) did not own its own recording studio until 1929, and up to
that date depended on facilities rented from other companies, mostly in
the Chicago area. On the evening of the fight, engineers cut and
recorded the broadcast on a total of ten discs, each covering one round
of the action with McNamee’s call. The sound quality is hollow and
distant, leading to the conclusion that the recording was made by simply
placing a microphone before a radio tuned to a station carrying the
broadcast, most likely one of NBCs Chicago outlets.” A limited number of copies were replicated and distributed, sold
poorly, and the recording faded into obscurity. It’s unclear how many
complete sets still exist. Along the way, a transfer of the audio was
made for preservation. With both audio and fight film in hand, I wanted to bring the two
sources together to complete the movie. Matching exclusive sound and
picture, referred to as “rubber sync,” is something of a challenge. The
film was taken with hand-cranked cameras that varied in speed. The
footage (I have a print of the 1927 theatrical release) does not show
the entire three minutes of round 7. As for the audio, it’s low
fidelity, but the recording is stable, and it captures the entire round.
McNamee’s voice is prominent, with the crowd in the far background
except during peak moments of action. Once loaded into a video editor, I
looked for cues where the action, sound and commentary lineup—the
opening bell, the crowd responding to key moments of action, and the
referee’s count, were all clear reference points. McNamee’s narration
was less help than I thought. His delivery was not particularly smooth.
His speech halts at times, as if trying to find the right words. He’ll
pause, perhaps distracted, then chase the action again, sometimes
matching, sometimes lagging behind. My goal was to sync film and audio
to where McNamee was likely responding and speaking, just like anyone at
the fight or watching the film might respond. In 1940, the ban on the interstate distribution of boxing films was
lifted. The Long Count was seen by a much larger audience than when it
was first released, including the eyes of a new generation. Watching the
knockdown sequence in true-life speed, specifically from the time
Tunney hits the canvas to when Dave Barry begins counting, appeared more
of a technicality, than enough time for a groggy fighter to recover. As
a result, the controversy declined, but it has never died. The
spectacle is actually with the count itself, the drama of Barry’s
dramatic tolling of the count, with Dempsey waiting in the wings, and
Tunney’s Zen-like posture, making the world wait fourteen long seconds. The matching radio call with the Long Count film is no revelation,
but it offers a fresh perspective—to both see, and hear, the highlight
of this classic fight. There’s a thrill in watching this film with the
live sound. McNamee’s excitement is contagious. His call of the action,
though rough by today’s standards, is enjoyable for that very reason.
Unlike our perspective, with the film burned into collective memory, we
hear a man describe this historical event as it unfolds in front of him,
just a few feet away from the microphone. He has no idea what’s going
to happen next, nor the impact of those three minutes for years to come.
Jack Johnson vs. Jess Willard
100th Anniversary
Havana, Cuba, April 5, 1915
Fight Highlights and Rare Footage The Fight One hundred years ago today, the World Heavyweight Championship
changed hands. On the afternoon of April 5, 1915, for over an hour and a
half, champion and challenger battled through 25 three-minute rounds in
100+ degree heat in a ring standing at the finish line at the Oriental
Race Track in Havana, Cuba. The pace of the fight was more like a
baseball game than a boxing match, but it lacked neither drama nor
excitement. By the end of the contest, the 37-year-old champion Jack
Johnson had thrown every punch, tried every physical and verbal tactic
in his arsenal on his unyielding challenger.
Jess Willard, the
33-year-old, 6’6” giant, a man with limited skills but immense size and
strength, would not only withstand an hour of relentless attacks, but
stick to his fight plan of probing and leading with long left jabs
followed by overhand rights and uppercuts. After 20 rounds, Johnson was
leading on points. His lead was due to work rate rather than domination.
Willard was never seriously hurt and many of Johnson’s punches were
blocked by the challenger’s arms and gloves. As the champion slowed
down, Willard drove the once untouchable, unbeatable Jack Johnson into
exhaustion and retreat. Shortly into the 26th round, Willard scored with
two rights. The first one grazed the champion’s chin, and the second
slammed squarely against Johnson’s jaw, dropping him to the canvas where
he lay on his back as the referee counted him out. The crowd stormed
the ring and Willard was besieged by fans. Johnson was lifted to his
feet and led across the ring by his handlers.
Jerry Quarry vs. Alex Miteff
Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles
April 27, 1967
16mm Film & Network TV Audio, 10 Minutes Jerry Quarry was an immensely popular fighter during his career. His
story is familiar to all boxing fans of a certain age. After an
excellent amateur career, Jerry rose with great promise in the
professional ranks during the mid-1960s. After an unsuccessful bid to
win the heavyweight championship in 1968, Jerry fought on, at times a
brilliant though erratic performer. During the era where
African-Americans were most prominent in boxing, boxers like Quarry, an
Irish-American, thrived while facing enormous social pressures. His wins
against Thad Spencer, Floyd Patterson, Ernie Shavers, Ron Lyle, Jack
Bodell, and Mac Foster were thrilling and unexpected. But so were his
dramatic losses to Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, with equally unexpected
fails against George Chuvalo and Jimmy Ellis. The competition was
steep, but he was often his own undoing, unable to manage not only his
personal demons, but those who guided and misguided his career. However, appreciate him or not, the young Jerry Quarry was something
to see. In 1967, at nearly 22 years of age, he was lean, skilled,
athletic and conditioned. Just shy of his physical maturity, Jerry was
still light-years from his late career transformation into the heavy-set
brawler who came back and briefly peaked in 1973. Film and video of
Jerry during his early career however is scarce. Home VCR recorders were
not introduced until the end of the 1960s, so as with all broadcast
content up to that point, preservation was up to the networks and
venues. In those days, the networks disposed or reused much of their
post-broadcast video tape save for the most high profile coverage. Venue
films, often owned by promoters, were rarely stored long term.
Alex Miteff Of Jerry’s early fights, one of the surviving films is Jerry’s April
1967 match with heavyweight veteran Alex Miteff at the Olympic
Auditorium in Los Angeles. The fight was broadcast on network TV and
also filmed with a single in-house camera. Originally from Argentina,
the 32-year-old Miteff had a promising career of his own. After arriving
in the United States in the 1950s, Miteff was a contender, but
struggled against much bigger opponents than he had fought in his home
country, many of whom—including Zora Folley, Eddie Machen, Henry Cooper,
Billy Hunter, George Chuvalo and Muhammad Ali—were among the best of
the day. The Fight The Quarry-Miteff fight started quickly. Miteff had trained seriously
for the match and immediately brought the fight to Jerry. Jerry scored a
knockdown in the first round, but Miteff recovered and kept the
pressure on Quarry through round two. In the third round, Miteff began
to slow down and Quarry beat him to the punch repeatedly. Late in the
round as Miteff drove Quarry to the ropes, Jerry countered with a
sweeping left hook and Miteff collapsed. Alex beat the count, but Jerry
sent him down again and referee George Latka stopped the bout at 2:18.
It was Miteff’s last fight. The Film The fight was captured on 16mm color film with live audio. At some
point the film was transferred to video tape which has been in
circulation, though rare, among collectors for many years. On the
footage I received, the live sound glitches in and out. Though was no
home video recording in 1967, there were cassettes, and while the
official network broadcast is lost, someone captured much of the program
audio on a home tape recorder. A few years ago, I received copies of
both the video and audio sources and recently decided to see how much of
the fight could be pieced together. As it turned out, most of the three
rounds were captured in one form or the other. But there were problems.
The film was edited worse than a home movie, incomplete and out of
order. Random long shots of the ring are followed by close-ups and
audience cutaways. The knockdown is missing as is much of the third
round. The audio was noisy, distorted, and incomplete as well. At times,
it’s nearly impossible to hear the announcer’s call above the tape hiss
to determine what action is taking place. The Restoration Film editing is like solving a jigsaw puzzle. As each new piece finds
its place, the picture becomes clear. First I look for markers. The end
of rounds one and two were filmed, so I matched them with the ring
bells. Once those were locked in, I worked backwards into the footage.
The second round is nearly uncut, which filled the biggest gap. The
audio became a better editing guide after some fidelity was restored to
the recording by cutting the hiss and boosting the vocal range. Once
that was done, the announcer’s call of the action pointed to specific
moments I could also spot on the film. Slowly, sound and picture all
began to match up. This is by no means a complete production. In several portions the
audio runs where the picture is missing and vice versa. But it’s a
faithful working print of the fight in the correct sequence of events. I enjoyed watching both fighters in action, but especially Jerry. His
hands are quick, his footwork is fluid, and his counterpunching is
lightning fast. He looks relaxed and confident. Jerry’s use of the ropes
to trap and counter opponents is still one for the books, and we see
some of those tactics here. There’s also Jerry’s defense, which was
often more than a little transparent. Or as his brother James once
jokingly observed to me, Jerry “ate left jabs for breakfast.” It’s
jolting to see when Miteff does get through, as when he smacks Jerry
with a big right late in the first round. But Jerry answers and regroups
throughout the fight. The knockout punch is a work of art. This was Jerry’s last fight prior to the big stage. Six weeks later
he was in the ring with Floyd Patterson. Jerry was brought in as an
“opponent” for Patterson in the first round of the 1967-68 Heavyweight
Championship Tournament. But Jerry surprised the establishment by
overwhelming Patterson early, and holding the ex-champion to a draw. In
their October rematch, Quarry won a very close decision and went on to
the tournament finals. Quarry remained a leading heavyweight contender
for the next eight years.
Jack Sharkey vs. Primo Carnera I
Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, NY 1931
16mm Sound Transfer
Speed and Audio Restoration A recent article I wrote was accompanied with newsreel footage of
Jack Sharkey in training for his first fight with Primo Carnera in 1931,
including rare footage of Ernie Schaaf. As I described in the piece,
Sharkey went on to win a 15-round decision. The victory propelled
Sharkey back into contention and to his rematch with Max Schmeling for
the heavyweight championship in 1932. Sharkey was given what many regard
as a gift decision against Schmeling, and held the title for only one
year. I was planning to move on from there, but by chance I recently
found and acquired a rare 16mm print of that first Sharkey-Carnera
fight. The Film The print arrived marked as part of the Schlitz Famous Fights TV
series, which ran for a number of years beginning in the 1950s. Excerpts
of this film have been circulated for some time among collectors, and
versions have also been posted on YouTube, often as projector screen
videos or from old VHS tapes. I wanted to show a clean telecine transfer
of some of this film. A drawback of today’s boxing coverage is that it
widens the gap between contemporary HD quality and the analog films of
earlier eras. Younger viewers are used to seeing fights in amazing
detail and have, unfortunately, less appreciation for earlier boxing.
The networks today don’t help either. I’ve expressed before my
frustration with ESPN for showing classic footage on an as-is basis with
little or no picture restoration. Fortunately this print arrived in excellent condition, with few
breaks or scratches. The ring photography was average for the day. The
exposure was dark, but the density provides some extra detail often lost
in films of this period. Notably, many films made under the bright ring
lights were poorly exposed, sometimes to the point of completely
blowing out Irish complexions into a ghostly white. There is no live
audio, but the great Sam Taub provides the narration. Most famous as a
live blow-by-blow radio announcer, Taub delivers a classic style
narrative of the fighters and action.
The one drawback of the film is the projection speed. As Steve Lott
once explained to me, it was during the Depression of the 1930s that
film stock, like most everything, was in short supply. To conserve
footage, films were often taken at the silent speed of approximately 16
frames per second instead of the standard 24 frames per second
established for sound movies. Movie theaters may have slowed their
projectors to compensate at the time, but the surviving prints, such as
this one, runs at a speedy 24fps. This is why most early 20th century
fight films appear more like Keystone Cop movies than historic sports
events. For this video, I not only slowed the film down to standard
speed, but I kept Sam Taub’s narration is as well. If Sam sounds a
little lethargic, it’s because he’s actually speaking about a third
slower than normal, though I kept his voice at a natural pitch.
“…a long way to climb to reach that chin.”—Jack Sharkey The first Sharkey-Carnera fight was held at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn,
on October 12, 1931. It has largely been lost in history. It wasn’t a
title fight, and the rematch two years later was an upset that forever
cast a shadow over both fighters. This fight, however, appears to have
been a legitimate contest and a turning point for both boxers. Carnera
had come up the ranks very quickly, and suspiciously, and was still a
question mark as a title contender. Sharkey needed the win to secure a
rematch with Schmeling. The fight was not as close as some contemporary
descriptions indicate. Despite being five inches shorter and 60 pounds
lighter than Carnera, Sharkey shook the bigger man repeatedly throughout
the contest, including a knockdown in the fourth round. The Barrier Miner Daily
wrote, “Well advised by his seconds, Sharkey continued to rip into the
body, which forced Carnera to drop his guard. Then Jack would crack
Carnera’s jaw so hard that he wobbled repeatedly, but did not fall. The
eleventh and twelfth were like a terrier worrying a St. Bernard. Carnera
was weary and staggering in the fourteenth, and just before the final
bell reeled and swayed drunkenly on the verge of a knockout, as Sharkey
riddled his head with lefts and rights in a tempest of battering that
left him unable to defend himself.” It was a decisive win. Primo lost the fight but won the public’s respect. He proved to be a
courageous boxer, and while not a resourceful fighting machine, he was
durable, strong, and very agile for a man his size. Since the entire
film of the fight is nearly 50 minutes long, I’ve included only the last
two rounds. I wanted to show how Sharkey closed the show. Jack had a
good night, in front of 30,000 spectators who watched the match in
weather “so cold that most of the spectators wore mufflers and
overcoats.” Not only moving well to evade Carnera’s attacks, Sharkey was
very effective at getting inside Primo’s defenses, closing the distance
to finish the fight with the kind of action rarely seen today among
heavyweights. At the final bell, Sharkey rejoices, discarding his
mouthpiece and pushing referee Gunboat Smith aside as he follows Carnera
to his corner to pay respect.
Myth-making is a large part of boxing. It raises the sport above
statistics and enhances the historical narrative. The fact that boxers
engage today under many of the same rules as those a century ago links
boxers and fans generations apart as one community. And because boxing
is staged in a theater setting, where the action is clearly displayed,
it was naturally a focus of early motion pictures. Fight films have
enabled past events to be preserved and witnessed from one generation to
the next. Some boxer’s legacies have grown despite the lack of
surviving footage. The most notable is that of Harry Greb, who remains
among the all-time greats, though no film of Greb’s fights have been
seen for decades. Another boxer whose reputation has grown, despite a
limited film record is the African-American heavyweight contender, Harry
Wills. The Black Panther Born in 1889, Harry “The Black Panther” Wills began boxing
professionally in 1912. He was among the youngest of the one-generation
phenomenon of African-American boxers sometimes called “The Black
Lights,” who unofficially dominated much of boxing’s elite fighters
during the first two decades of the 20th century. Even today, Wills
looks impressive in photographs. At 6’2” (or taller, depending on the
record) Wills was a lean, imposing, chiseled 210-pound heavyweight. His
victories over greats like the aging Sam Langford are often noted, and
from 1917 through 1922 Wills had an amazing string of victories. It
established him as a top contender. Wills’ personal story, along with his rival Jack Dempsey, also
represents one of boxing’s most famous unfinished chapters. It’s a tale
about race in post-war America and about Harry Wills—an
African-American caught in the bitter tail wind of Jack Johnson divisive
legacy—who took every public and legal measure available to him to
secure a title fight with champion Jack Dempsey, but to no avail. Wills
never got to fight Jack Dempsey for the heavyweight championship, in
essence because he was black. Because of the unjust circumstances,
there’s always been a question of who would have won. Profiles of Wills
describe him as either a footnote or an uncrowned champion, depending on
the biographer. Hearsay and speculation has fueled debate for decades.
In any case, it’s clear that Harry Wills was a genuine force in the
division. I’ve always wondered how good Harry Wills actually was, and the real
story of his quest to fight Jack Dempsey. Going back to the records, I
searched firsthand accounts. What I discovered was not simply a
challenger who was turned away, but a convoluted trail of claims,
counter-claims, public demands, court battles, reluctant investors,
lawyers, feuding business interests, fearful politicians, and two boxers
trying to earn a living. Harry and Jack Sign the Dotted Line After the success of the Dempsey-Carpentier fight in 1921, boxing
exploded into the mainstream and Jack Dempsey’s career as world
heavyweight champion soared to great heights. Then it stalled. Dempsey
didn’t defend his title for the next two years, during which time Wills
and other prospective challengers were considered and reconsidered.
Dempsey has been criticized for not fighting enough during his reign. He
in fact wanted to stay active, but his manager Doc Kearns and promoter
Tex Rickard insisted on “saving him for the big fights.” This was a
profitable career strategy for managers, but rust-inducing for boxers. In early 1922, a national poll placed Harry Wills as the preferred
next challenger for Dempsey, just edging out contenders Tommy Gibbons
and Bill Brennan. It suggested that the public was ready for an
African-American to fight for the heavyweight title once again. Negotiations began. Dempsey himself lobbied for the fight, writes
Roger Khan in the biography A Flame of Pure Fire, and his handlers
relented, but conditionally. On June 11, 1922, Dempsey and Wills put
pens to contracts. But the powerful New York Commissioner William
Muldoon did not want the fight to take place in New York. To complicate
matters further, Muldoon and promoter Tex Rickard clashed over, of all
things, ticket prices. Muldoon wanted 40,000 tickets fixed at $2.00 for
the “working people.” Rickard refused. In retaliation, Muldoon blocked
the Dempsey-Wills fight from taking place in New York, even threatening
to halt all heavyweight fights until prices came down. Frustrated,
Rickard traveled to several states—even north to Montreal—to find a
welcoming venue. None wanted the fight or had the money to host the
event. When the contract deadline ran out, Wills sued. From then until
1926, as the legal proceedings dragged on, a potential Dempsey-Wills
fight was often in the news as either under consideration, being
planned, or “scheduled for next year,” but never became a done deal. Of Mice, Men and Money Dempsey, Wills, and their managers did not create the nation’s racial
problems. They were caught up in it. And the timing could not have been
worse. They were mired in the aftermath of Jack Johnson, the oppressed
first black heavyweight champion (1908-1915). Johnson’s victory over
champion Tommy Burns was an upset, and a racist campaign began to drive
Johnson out of boxing. First unsuccessfully beating Johnson in the ring,
and then by prosecuting Johnson in the courts. But Johnson fueled the
fire as well. He didn’t try to change people’s minds. His behavior out
of the ring unfairly stereotyped African-Americans, and with one
exception, he even refused to give the other great black boxers of his
day a chance to fight for the title. During the five years after the
Johnson-Jeffries fight, the heavyweight championship franchise, perhaps
the richest in all of sports, was reduced to Johnson and his nomadic
entourage, or as Tex Rickard harshly stated, a championship that “…ain’t
worth a nickel.” Rickard has been singled out as the culprit for blocking the
Dempsey-Wills fight, and there’s no question that he did not want a
black man to fight for the heavyweight championship again. Rickard was a
businessman above all, and evidence suggests that he simply didn’t want
to be involved in another controversial title fight for legitimate
reasons. The motivation for Rickard’s reluctance stemmed from his
experience promoting the Johnson-Jeffries fight in 1910. That year, he
had pulled every available financial and political string to make the
historic fight happen, even moving the event from California to Nevada
when California’s governor barred the match. His reward was to witness
race riots following the event and to be among those blamed. He
abandoned boxing for the next six years. It’s easy for us to look 90 years into past and cast judgment. And
are we so superior today with boxing in its post-decline? Not to mention
the four years waiting for an African-American champion to grant a
Filipino his rightful challenge? Big as boxing had become in 1921,
Rickard and the promoters were still at the mercy of political winds.
Even if the fight ended fair and square for either boxer, race relations
were bad enough so that no one knew what the public reaction might be.
There was a lot at stake, a great deal of money to lose, a social and
political cost, and possibly jail. Race riots were not going to be an
option. Harry Takes the High Road in Low Country Though Wills was black, he was not without means, money and
popularity. Suing your way into a fight without promoters may have been
like suing the stock market for not going up, but it got Wills’ case on
record. In the meantime, there were many other fighters other than Wills
in competition for Dempsey’s title, and the contenders battled one
another for position. But Wills and his manager Paddy Mullins choose not
to fight and thus eliminate any of his leading rivals including Tommy
Gibbons, Billy Miske, Georges Carpentier, Jim Maloney, Harry Greb, Young
Stribling, and Jack Delaney, none of whom drew the color line. Even
Gene Tunney offered in 1925. Rickard may not have wanted to take
chances, but Wills didn’t want to take chances either. By helping to
keep Dempsey in court instead of the ring—Wills also sued to stop both
the Dempsey-Firpo and Tunney fights—Wills may further have dimmed his
own prospects. Shelby and The Wild Bull 1922 came to a close without a Jack Dempsey fight. Money was being
lost and the champion and his manager Doc Kearns got fed up. They
traveled west in 1923 to promote a title fight without Rickard, and far
from the legal melee. Montana businessman Roy J. Molumby, offered
Dempsey and Kearns a $100,000 cash advance for a fight between the
champion and the contender Tommy Gibbons. The infamous Dempsey-Gibbons
fight got Dempsey back in the ring, where he won a 15-round decision.
But the event resulted in a financial bust, sending the town of Shelby
into bankruptcy. Lesson learned, Dempsey and Kearns returned to New
York. Meanwhile, the Argentine heavyweight, Luis Angel Firpo, had come to
the U.S. and replaced Wills as top contender with a string of savage
knockouts. Firpo was a wrecking machine in the ring and his knockout of
former champion Jess Willard had created a sensation. Firpo was matched
with Dempsey and the champion prevailed in their historic two-round war
at the Polo Grounds in New York City, September 14, 1923. In the months
following the fight, Dempsey broke relations with manager Kearns,
acquiring yet another legal adversary. For the next three years,
champion Jack Dempsey was a celebrity, a court defendant, and a
mismanaged boxer. Wills and Firpo In 1924, Wills was offered a golden opportunity. He accepted an offer
to fight the feared Luis Firpo, who had nearly dethroned Dempsey a year
before. Promoted by Tex Rickard, Wills and Firpo met at Boyles Thirty
Acres, New Jersey, on September 11, 1924. Jack Dempsey was at ringside.
This intriguing matchup has largely been lost to history. Both Wills and Firpo were knockout artists of roughly the same size.
Firpo was slightly heavier and an inch taller than Wills. The Times
Daily reported the odds at all but even on the day of the fight. The
fight went the full 15 rounds to end in a no-decision contest. The newspapers including the Quebec Daily Telegraph hailed Wills as a
winner who “took almost every round and in the second round floored his
opponent.” In front of an audience 75,000, it was the highest profile
fight of Wills’ career. But while the fight put Wills in the spotlight,
it also put him under the microscope. After three years campaigning as
top contender, some witnesses were not impressed. The Milwaukee Journal
headlined, “Harry Wills No Match for Champion Dempsey. Wills general
ability as a fighter would not be sufficiently high to stand the
champion off. Firpo not only telegraphs his wallops, but sends a letter
of warning…but Dempsey doesn’t telegraph. His punches come from a short
distance and behind them lurk oblivion.” Jack and Harry Sign Again There’s no doubt that Wills deserved a title fight, and even Dempsey
expressed his regrets at not having the fight to set the record
straight. The two respected each other. It was an injustice to Wills and
to history. But while Dempsey’s persona was larger than life, control
over his career was with Kearns and Rickard. It wasn’t his decision to
make. He deferred to his managers for nearly all business matters, and
if Dempsey lobbied, as he did to fight Wills in 1922, Rickard would talk
him out of it. There is no indication in any testimony that Dempsey was
afraid of Wills. No better proof of this came than when Dempsey and
Wills signed to fight for the second time. By March 1925, the New York Commission had reversed its position on
sanctioning a Dempsey-Wills match. The Commission now declared Wills as
Dempsey’s mandatory challenger and threatened to place Dempsey on the
ineligible list if he did not comply. The Associated Press reported on
July 17, 1925, that Dempsey appeared before the New York Licensing
Commission and formally accepted Wills’ challenge. With Kearns now out
of the picture, Dempsey was managing himself. On his own, with a new
promoter, Dempsey made a genuine good faith effort to be matched with
Wills. Show Me The Money Midwestern promoter Floyd Fitzsimmons, who had produced Dempsey-Miske
fight in 1920, proposed a Dempsey-Wills fight to be held in Michigan
City, Indiana. Dempsey was guaranteed $1,000,000 for the fight with
$300,000 due upon signing. Dempsey accepted the offer. On September 28,
1925, Wills, Dempsey, the promoter and investors met for the contract
ceremony. The event made headlines. Wills received a check for $50,000.
Fitzsimmons told Dempsey he would get his check the following day. The
next morning, Dempsey accompanied Fitzsimmons to the bank, ready to
receive the down payment. Fitzsimmons handed Dempsey a check not for
$300,000 but only $25,000. “It’s all I got right now, but there’s plenty
more where that came from,” said Fitzsimmons. Still willing to proceed,
Dempsey asked for cash instead: “I want to see this in green…and when
you give me the other two-seven-five, I’ll give you the contract.
Signed.” As the tellers counted out the cash, the issuing bank was
called and reported back that the Fitzsimmons account was empty. The
check bounced. Fitzsimmons couldn’t even deliver one dime of a down
payment. Dempsey walked. Not only had the fight fallen through again,
but now Dempsey was no longer licensed to fight in New York. The Panther Cries Wolf The heavyweight division continued to shake out; Tunney, Maloney,
Delaney, Wills, Sharkey, Uzcundun and others were now in contention. In
early 1926, Wills was offered $250,000 to fight Gene Tunney in a title
eliminator, with the winner to meet the champion. Wills turned it down.
Wills believed that fighting Dempsey was now a matter of entitlement. It
was fateful decision. A Wills-Tunney fight may have changed the course
of events. In any case the Tunney-Dempsey match was then scheduled. Still there seemed no end to the claims, even as the Dempsey-Tunney
fight approached. On August 6, 1926, the Evening Independent reported
that a Chicago matchmaker, Doc Krone, announced that a $300,000 check
was waiting for Dempsey in a Chicago bank. On August 22, the Telegraph
Herald reported that Wills’ manager Paddy Mullins tried to bluff Dempsey
once more into a contract, and then reportedly “failed to come forward
with $150,000” saying, “We’ll post the money immediately if Dempsey will
sign to fight Wills before September 23.” It was all too late. The
public wanted Dempsey back, and he was in the ring with Gene Tunney
three weeks later. Then everything changed. Dempsey lost in an upset to Tunney, who then
became champion. In October, Wills himself returned to the ring. At
Brooklyn National League Park, a young and hungry Dempsey-esque
heavyweight named Jack Sharkey brought Wills’ winning streak to an end.
According to Time magazine, “Sharkey chopped and hacked at Wills, closed
his eye, made his mouth bleed; all through the fight.” Wills reportedly
backhanded, butted, and hit Sharkey during the breaks in an effort to
discourage his opponent. After numerous warnings by the referee, Wills
was disqualified in the 13th round. Wills soldiered on for several more
fights, but retired from boxing in 1932 and became a successful real
estate investor. Discovering The Films For decades, the only surviving public footage of Wills in action was
the short, and incriminating, film of his 4th-round knockout by Paulino
Uzcundun in 1927. Issued by Official Films as part of a series called
Monarchs of The Ring, the 38-year-old Wills is seen clubbed to the
canvas in what was his last fight as a contender. It’s no measure of his
skills. I’ve interviewed several leading film collectors about
additional surviving footage of Wills, but nothing had been verified for
many years. However, I did locate several newsreels highlighting
footage of Wills posing for the cameras before the Firpo fight. They
provide a glimpse of his size and stance, but little else. Then, a rare
breakthrough. Footage recently surfaced of Wills and Firpo in mid-fight,
plus training footage, and 1st-round action against Irish Bartley
Madden in 1924. The Restoration Though only a few minutes long, the footage of Wills and Luis Firpo
is remarkably well preserved, and while the film of Wills-Madden is
poor, the action is clear. The Wills-Firpo footage suffers jump cuts and
gate slipping. I re-edited the shots into a new sequence and adjusted
the speed and exposure. The Milwaukee Journal’s assessment that Dempsey
need not “be cautious about meeting Wills in the ring” turns out to have
some validity. The footage shows Wills’ defensive style, but without
Jack Johnson’s speed or ability to control a fight. Wills’ greatest
assets may have been his size and strength. Though Firpo was strong, and
slightly larger than Wills, he displays none of the tenacity he did
against Jack Dempsey. Firpo throws, with little accuracy, one overhand
right after the other. Wills slips them with ease, but otherwise has no
tactical answer of his own, and the two spend most of the time dragging
one another around in clinches. The footage also includes the much-noted
2nd-round knockdown where “Wills floored Firpo with a right to the jaw.
When Firpo arose Wills swarmed him with a flock of rights” reported
United Press. The film tells its own version. The knockdown actually
comes as Wills hits Firpo on the break. Firpo is more surprised than
hurt and recovers quickly, as the two struggle for punching room. Wills
was 35 years old, (Firpo was 30), but even a 35-year-old healthy,
trained and experienced boxer will show flashes of youth for the first
few rounds. This 1st- and 2nd-round action suggests that Wills was
either a very slow starter, or as Firpo said, he was “more of a wrestler
than a boxer.” In the second film, Irish veteran Bartley Madden, who had also fought
Harry Greb, Gene Tunney, Fred Fulton, and Tommy Gibbons, brought
respectable ring experience. He was good enough to draw with Bill
Brenan, and I show clip of his KO of George Christian in 1923. The
Wills-Madden fight footage is dark and lacks detail, but the picture is
steady, and the action is clear. Wills won a 15-round decision. But even
in this losing effort, Madden exposes some of Wills’ weakness. Wills,
the much bigger man, stalks aggressively, but Madden, who was only
5’11”, appeared able to close the distance and hit Wills with relative
ease. This would have been fatal against Dempsey. Dempsey and Wills were a lot closer in size than has often been
suggested. At approximately 210 pounds, Wills was about 20 pounds
heavier on average than Dempsey, but only one inch taller. In an article
I wrote for boxing.com (“A Duel in the Sun”)
is a film of Jack Dempsey sparring with Big Bill Tate in 1919. Hired by
Doc Kearns in 1918, Tate had become a chief sparring partner in the
Dempsey camp, where he remained until 1927. At 6’6”, he was vital in
preparing Dempsey to fight Jess Willard. Tate was an African-American
who was also an experienced contender, and his experience included five
fights with Harry Wills, including one DQ win, two close decision losses
and a draw. In viewing the clips of Wills and Tate, it’s striking how
similar in style and technique they were. Had a Dempsey-Wills fight
actually gone forward, Tate would have provided a great tactical
advantage. And one has to wonder, what does it say that one man’s
opponent is another man’s sparring partner? A Panther in Winter In Roger Khan’s excellent biography of Jack Dempsey, he observes that
while the skills of Georges Carpentier have dimmed over the decades,
the skills of Harry Wills have grown. He also quotes Trainer Ray Arcel
in describing Wills as “a very good journeyman.” Arcel, who had
apprenticed with Wills’ trainer Dai Dollings, also told referee Arthur
Mercante, “Wills was big and none too fast. It was a terrible injustice
that Wills never got a title shot, but those big, slower guys were made
to order for Dempsey.” The sportswriter James P. Dawson, who wrote for
The New York Times, testified after Wills’ loss to Sharkey, “None who
saw last night’s battle can doubt that Dempsey would have annihilated
Wills four years ago, three years ago, or a year ago.”
References:
Roger Kahn “A Flame of Pure Fire”
Jack Cavanaugh “Tunney – Boxing’s Brainiest Champ”
Arthur Mercante “Inside The Ropes”
The New York Times
Time Magazine
The Times Daily
Alton Evening Telegraph
The Evening Independent
The Milwaukee Journal
The Quebec Daily Telegraph
The Telegraph-Herald
Rochester Evening Journal
The Border Cities Star