Heavyweight Champions from Ancient to Present (WIP)

Maybe add Yankee Sullivan, who claimed the title after Hyer retired, before losing to Morrissey, and Bill Poole who beat Morrissey when he was champion, but then got killed.

John J Dwyer also claimed the championship of America just before Sullivan.

There's a few later English champs you could maybe include, but a bit questionable, I've never looked that much into them, but it comes accross like a bit of a mess. Jack Knifton, Jem Smith, Ted Pritchard.

There's also the Australian champions, Larry Foley, then Tom Lees.

 

"pleasure speaking with you."

Same here.

"By political what do you mean?"

Not that you are political, but that the sanctioning bodies are. And a "political" decision could be justified or it could be just bizarre and self-interested.

I'll try again with Godfrey and Savold. In the five years prior to the IBU stripping Baer (or was it Braddock) at least one European had taken part in every championship fight--Schmeling, Carnera, or Uzcudun. Pierre Charles lost in 1932 to Carnera and in 1933 to Uzcudun. Carnera beat Uzcudun in an all-European championship fight. Baer becomes the #1 contender by KO'ing Schmeling and then KO's Carnera. The IBU now jumps in to demand that Baer fight Charles, who was hardly the top contender, or have his title stripped. Obviously, this was simply a crass effort to hijack the championship. Europeans had not been frozen out. Godfrey was picked as an opponent as he was a "name" who had been going downhill through the early thirties, and was 38. He wasn't even the colored champion I believe. Obie Walker had that claim. And Godfrey had been losing to ordinary white heavyweights like Jack Gross and Walter Cobb. Still, Godfrey proved better than Charles. Hardly any serious fan or observer/writer took this championship claim at all seriously.

The situation was different in 1949 with Savold. No European had fought for the title since 1938. The top Europeans, Bruce Woodc-ck and Olle Tandberg, had some wins over good Americans. The American boxing scene was dominated by the IBC, a monopoly run by gangsters. The IBC designated two Americans who were contracted to them, Charles and Walcott, to fight for the title vacated by Louis. Although in retrospect, and probably to most contemporary observers, Walcott and Charles were the best heavyweights out there, this was high-handed and the Europeans were justified in feeling frozen out. Matching Charles and Walcott with Woodc-ck and Tandberg with the winners fighting for the title in a final elimination would have cleared up matters fairly. The Europeans responded by staging their own title fight between Woodc-ck and the best available American contender, Savold. As with Godfrey, Savold upset the apple cart by winning. Few took his title claim seriously, but as no one was stripping a legitimate champion, his claim was less off the wall.

I see a big difference between stripping a legit champion and the issue of who gets to fight for a title vacated by a retiring champion.

Anyway, I hope this clears up this aspect of how I view these things.

 

This will need some verification obviously

Protestant Mercury December 28, 1681 (page 4)
Yesterdaya Match of Boxing was performed, before his Grace Duke of Albemarl, between the Dukes Foot-man and a Butcher, the latter won the Prize, as he hath done many before, being accounted (though but a little Man) the best at the Exercise in England

https://newspaperarchive.com/protestant-mercury-dec-28-1681-p-4/

 

Even if we accept it as true, it was a wrestling match, not boxing bout.
As for the other thread, where you asked somebody Russian-speaking to help with research, I'm not sure if Mr. Arly Allen passed this to you or Escudo, but I'll look into it when I have more time on my hands. It's just that I've been too busy last several months to do any significant research, and looking up that Metropolitan Kirill's ban on boxing will likely involve sources in old Russian, which I don't know (I'm not a linguist), but I'll try my best to get the exact wording of what's in there. When I have time.

 

Quoting from my email sent to Mr. Allen a couple of months ago:

It refers to the Primary Chronicle description of a battle between Kievan Rus' and pechenegs that had taken place in 992, during the reign of Vladimir I.

Two armies stood on two sides of river Trubezh and instead of attacking each other at once, they chose to negotiate. The Pecheneg khan offered both sides to choose one man, and they would then fight each other, and the army who's fighter was first thrown on the ground (wrestling match) would be considered loser. Prince Vladimir made announcement in his camp for a volunteer to fight the pecheneg man, but the later was so huge and terrible looking that nobody answered the call. Then an old man came to Vladimir and said he had 5 sons, but only brought four of them with him to the battle, the youngest son (who's name was listed in the Chronicle as Yan Usmoshvets) stayed at home, and he was a good wrestler who had never been thrown down before, and once killed a bull with one blow of the fist. They brought that young man to the field of battle to oppose the pecheneg man. They wrestled and the russian strangled the pecheneg to death and threw him to the ground. Then Russian army attacked the pechenegs and the latter fled.

This mix of young man killing a bull with one blow and the wrestling match (both of which were allowed in bareknuckle boxing) is used as an argument of it being a boxing match as well as a wrestling bout.

 

It's worth remembering that these books such as Boxiana were written when much less was known about the middle ages, and they were generally derided.
I'm also not all that convinced that this decree would stand for well over 1,000 years, before casually being brushed aside in the time of Broughton and Figg

As for that text I postes it seems bizzaire to me more isn't made of it. It's not just a bout, decades before Figg, we have a Duke watching it and someone seen as the best in England, which I don't think it'd be a great stretch to call a champion. It actually sounds fairly established, not a one off scrap.

 

this is one of the best threads ever, and not even just on ESB. deserves a sticky IMHO.

 

I'm here if ya'll need anything