I can understand why the state of New York mandated that boxers under the age of 21 could only fight in bouts which were scheduled for a maximum of six rounds during the middle 1920s. But I can't understand why Jimmy Slattery was allowed to fight Paul Berlenbach in a scheduled fifteen-round bout with Berlenbach's world light-heavyweight title at stake in New York City less than a month after his 21st birthday during 1925. For one thing, Slattery never fought more than six rounds in any bout which took place in the state of New York before the scheduled fifteen-rounder with Berlenbach. - Chuck Johnston
AND Slattery had only been 10 rounds twice in his entire career to that point, against two C or D level middleweights. AND he had just been obliterated by a welterweight, who wasnt known for being a puncher, two month earlier. Definitely not the kind of background you want for a title challenger at 175. BUT Slattery was held in very high regard, particularly in New York. The KO loss was looked upon as something as an aberration and Rickard was trying to build up a major sequence of events whereby if Slattery showed well against Berlenbach he was scheduled to face Harry Greb for the middleweight championship a couple of weeks later. If Slattery beat Berlenbach (and this wasnt as long a shot as it looks after all of the knocks on Slattery above because Berlenbach was slow and not great at figuring out movers which Slattery was) then the Greb/Slattery fight would be for both the MW and LHW championships. Slattery did well against Berlenbach after a brief early scare and may have been in the lead when he was eventually stopped. Even despite losing his three biggest fights, two by KO (Greb, Shade, and Berlenbach) Slattery was held in continued high esteem in New York to the point that the commission and Rickard were still willing to keep his match with Greb but Slattery opted instead to take time off and reassess his career leaving Greb without a big payday he had been looking for.
It appears that there wasn't a rule in the state of New York prohibiting someone like Jimmy Slattery from fighting in a scheduled fifteen-round bout, but boxing commissions of the time seemed have much more power to make various rulings than their counterparts today. For instance, the New York State Athletic Commission refused to recognize Fidel LaBarba as the world flyweight champion after he won at least one version of the vacant title by winning a ten-round decision over Frankie Genaro in Los Angeles during 1925. It was reported that the reason for the ruling was that LaBarba was a minor at the time. I don't know if any boxing commission withheld recognition from another fighter for that reason. - Chuck Johnston
They could have prevented it but why would they? New York was getting a lot tax revenue from boxing and a Slattery-Berlenbach fight was admittedly a revenue generator. Thats besides the fact that Slattery was popular and held in high esteem. Combine that with the fact that he put on a good show, didnt disgrace himself, and indeed gave Berlenbach some problems and its easy to see why the commission would have weighed the pros against the cons and allowed it to take place.
I simply thought the whole situation involving the New York State Athletic Commission and a young Jimmy Slattery was very odd. Of course, I also found it baffling that four-round boxers from California were going to Australia to fight in twenty-round bouts or to the East to fight top fighters in bouts scheduled for at least ten rounds during the early 1920s. - Chuck Johnston
Its definately strange, but it was kind of a strange rule. They did the same thing with Young Stribling incidently albeit not a 15 rounder and who was his first distance contest in New York after turning 21? Jimmy Slattery. But in Striblings defense he had dozens of distance fights prior to his 21st birthday.
I disagree entirely. Berlenbach made the most of what he had but he was very protected and even then had some questionable decisions in his favor to preserve his standing. He was Tex Rickards baby and benefitted immensely from that. I would go so far as to say that he would be a footnote to boxing history without Rickard's intervention. I know thats controversial to say but consider that Mike McTigue was being forced by the NYSAC commission to defend his title against Harry Greb or Gene Tunney (either of whom would have beaten him). Rickard built Berlenbach by placing him on high profile undercards and then threw his weight around to get Berlenbach the shot at McTigue ahead of several more worthy challengers. Berlenbach won and then avoided Tunney, Greb, and several others like the plague. Instead he faces Marullo (who was beating him before a controversial DQ helped Berlenbach save face), Slattery, who had only been ten twice in his career and was coming off a KO loss to a light hitting welterweight, Delaney who was coming off a long and serious illness and was in such bad shape that Rickard wasnt even sure Delaney would pass the physical to fight and Berlenbach still came within a whisker of losing, and Young Stribling (who was his best defense) before a healthy Delaney finally took the title. Had Greb or Tunney or Tommy Gibbons, or someone of that calibre, been given the opportunity that they deserved Berlenbach would have at best been remembered as a challenger who lost to one of those guys and possibly he would have stayed fighting on undercards as a favored club fighter. The guy was a great athlete and a hard puncher, no doubt, but he was very limited and wouldnt have beaten any of the best fighters without help from the judges. As far as being a straight, out and out fighter. He was certainly a competitor and had a lot of determination but there were better "fighters." To me its kind of like calling Arturo Gatti or Mickey Ward the best fighter of their generation. Did those guys have heart and wear it on their sleeve? Yeah. But there were a lot of guys who got down in the trenches, fought their hearts out, and showed toughness, courage, will, and aggression and did it all better. Its sort of the difference between having someone powerful like an HBO or a Rickard behind you so that your limitations are minimized.
I was more talking about him winning an AAU wrestling title (or was it two?). Presumably he was wrestling folkstyle but if he was freestyle or catch or greco he'd still be pretty accomplished. Guys like him and Dan Hodge are sort of the decathletes of combat sports, Jack of all trades, hence the best fighter of his era. As for purely as a boxer, despite being light heavyweight champion I agree he wasn't one of the 10 best fighters of his era.
Oh yeah. If you think about all of the crossover athletes who came into boxing over the years Berlenbach, even being overrated, is easily one of if not the most accomplished of the bunch.
Taking a hard look at the career of Paul Berlenbach, I wonder why Nat Fleischer and some other people ranked him highly. Of course, Fleischer also gave Georges Carpentier a high rating. - Chuck Johnston
Considering Nat Fleischer was bankrolled by Tex Rickard and shared an office with him its not hard to see why he rated Berlenbach so highly.
