Thoughts on Bartley Gorman... Educate me.

Not surprised. His reputation was formidable.

 

True, but if he did then it's partly due to him being cranky. You can see Lenny as more of the predatory of the two.

 

in Gorman's book there is a picture of him with one Don Halden, an area level UK HW who he (Gorman) allegedly fought on a pub car park in Rugeley. I used to work with Don's brother Roy - both have now passed on.

 

These guys are such bull**** artists. There’s tribute videos about Lee Duffy on YouTube and to my knowledge he was just a thug and a sociopath. There’s nothing praise worthy about him whatsoever. Blokes like him are a dime a dozen in any big city.
Even til his last moment he was getting into senseless fights of his own provoking. Turns out he picked the wrong bloke who knifed his guts out and no one gave a **** about saving him because he was such an arsehole. A fitting end really.

 

Who won the scrap?

 

There's a category in the martial arts world -- "Bullshido" -- where they put martial arts "masters" claiming undefeated, unverified records of hundreds of bareknuckle street fights. Frank Dux being a good example. (Claimed to have fought in a secret, illegal Hong Kong tournament; this was false, despite being made into the movie Bloodsport.) Their patter is similar to some of the stuff in the Gorman video, which is what set my suspicion off. Same claims to undefeated, unfilmed records. Similar spiritual emphasis, oddly. Similar tough talk about how they're hard men who fought life and death bouts -- none of that wimpy gloved boxing stuff. Similar self-exoticization.

Kimbo might be a good test case for the way these guys' records would really look. Unlike Shaw, Gorman, et al, Kimbo filmed his bouts, so we got to see them as his career developed. He was a very successful street fighting "hard man" sort of guy. He only had what? 7 or 8 street fights in his career? Many overmatched. He wasn't the monster Gorman's or McLean's supporters claim them to be.

I mean, Gorman does seem to have really good relatives in boxing, which is something. But still.

 

I’ve been studying him for 20 years now.

Have you read his autobiography?


I don’t really think that Lenny and Shaw ducked him.

It was a different world back then, with no social media etc.

It would have been very difficult to have made those fights if you think about the logistics of it.


Lenny was a street fighter who boxed on unlicensed boxing shows.

Roy Shaw had boxed, but he was almost 40 when he fought Lenny in the mid 70’s in Frank Warren’s outdoor marquees on the unlicensed boxing circuit.

Bartley was a traveller who fought bare knuckle for pride.

He wasn’t a prize fighter, as in - he made money from his fights.

He did it for the family honour and to be known as ‘The King of The Gypsies’

That was his ambition from being a small child.

So they were at different ages, from different backgrounds and with completely different circumstances.


How good was he?

Well if you read his book, two respected trainers of the time wanted him to turn pro after both giving him glowing references.

How far he’d have made it, is really guess work.

He admits himself that he lost the odd decisions on unlicensed boxing shows and as an amateur. But they were mostly 3 round fights. And that’s because he could probably have been out manoeuvred by a fighter with great speed or movement.


Bare knuckle boxing however, is almost a different sport altogether.

From my studies of him from over 20 years, the consensus is: He was pretty much unbeatable within his field.

All of the top bare knuckle fighters in England and Ireland had huge respect for him.

Uriah Burton ‘Big Just’ who was known as the ‘King of the Gypsies’ before Bartley, relinquished his title and didn’t fight him.

Dan Rooney who was the ‘King of the Travellers’ in Ireland, had great respect for him and never challenged him. Rooney had fought and beaten Aney McGinley and Joe Joyce, both of whom were considered the best fighters in Ireland, but who were both younger than Bartley. Bartley beat Dan Rooney’s brother, John, and Dan and John both visited Bartley in hospital years later when he was dying of cancer.

Henry Francis who was once considered one of the most dangerous travellers in the country in the 90’s, absolutely idolised Bartley. They even fought in 1995 when Bartley was 51 and Francis was in his prime. Francis got the better of things as Bartley was very drunk, but it never reached a conclusion as it was broken up by the police. Francis also visited him before he died and told him that he was his hero and that he was greatest knuckle fighter of all time.

Bartley never got the opportunity to fight all of the other highly respected fighters of his era, but he held the title for 20 years, and nobody ever disputed his claim. Even though they fought, Francis hadn’t challenged him, and again, neither did Rooney or the other Irish travellers.

According to Tyson’s Dad, ‘Big’John’ Fury, Bartley was a fighting machine.


The only way to have beaten him in a bare knuckle fight, was for him to either have given best, or for someone to have knocked him out.

Easier said than done, when you consider the following:

1. He had the heart of a lion and would never have given up.

2. There’s a passage in his book where he was attacked in Doncaster, at the famous St Ledgers meeting, where he was hit with a half shaft of a car. But apparently, it only made him take a knee.

So not only would someone have needed the power to have knocked him out, they also would have needed the toughness to have been able to have endured what Bartley had got in his arsenal.

He was big, immensely strong, he had very good boxing skills and he had huge power in either hand. And you can see that if you watch him hit his heavy bag bare fisted, in Shane Meadows’ 1995, 15 min short, titled - ‘King of the Gypsies’

Here it is below:

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A few years ago, I spoke to Shane’s aunty online, and she told me that it was still Shane’s dream to one day do a biopic on him.

So hopefully, that will still happen one day.


My studies of him have been quite fascinating.

Shane’s aunty has a Facebook page for the people who live in and around Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, where Bartley lived for most of his life. She was a personal friend of his, and Shane was friends with Bartley’s son growing up. Every now and again, Bartley’s name will pop up, and people will post photos of him and tell anecdotes, some of whom were featured in his autobiography.

There were also a few fan pages of him on Facebook too at one point. I’m not sure if they’re still there.

There’s also some knowledgeable people on the BoxRec forums who know of some of the fighters featured in his book.

I’ve also got a personal friend who knew of Henry Francis, who again, had a fearsome reputation back in the day. He tells me that everything in Bartley’s book is legit.

John and Peter Fury have also spoken of him in interviews from throughout the years.

I’ll post you a fairly recent one with John that you may not have seen.

It’s extremely moving:

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Great thread.

I’d have loved to have met him.

I’ve visited his grave in Rocester and have visited other places noted in his great book.

 

Bartley reigned as the King of the Gypsies for 20 years.

So he was known to hundreds of thousands of people all over Britain and Ireland.

 

He was known as the King of the Gypsies for 20 years, after Uriah Burton had relinquished his title.

Uriah Burton was revered by all travellers as the toughest traveller in Great Britain and Ireland.

Bartley didn’t get to fight all of the biggest names of his era, but then none of them refuted his claim or came to challenge him.

 

Bare knuckle gypsy fights weren’t really filmed until Dan Rooney fought Aney McGinley in 1990.

There’s no footage of Bartley as his fighting prime was in the 1970’s.

Nobody has been called the King of the Gypsies since Bartley Gorman retired.

The head of the Joyce clan is ‘Big’ Joe Joyce, who had a fearsome reputation in Ireland in the 1980’s. He was beaten by Dan Rooney, who was referred to as the King of the Travellers in Ireland in the 80’s and 90’s.

Bartley was in his 40’s by then, but was never challenged by Rooney.

 

Richy Horsley from Hartlepool had a fearsome reputation in the 90’s.

I have his autobiography.

He’s also recently done a great podcast online.

It’s a really great interview about his life.

He was a street fighter though.

He wasn’t a bare knuckle fighter.

He’s not a traveller.

I really recommend the podcast.

 

It’s hard to get them together to fight for obvious reasons.

The difference with Bartley, was that the respected fighters of his era never disputed his claim or challenged him.

They also visited him in his later life and told him that he was the best of his era.

So if you do your research on Uriah Burton, Dan Rooney and Henry Francis, it speaks volumes.

Burton who was absolutely revered by all travellers in Britain and Ireland for many years, relinquished his title and wouldn’t fight Bartley.

Dan Rooney never challenged Bartley, even though Bartley had reigned as the King for years, and he’d beaten Rooney’s brother.

Henry Francis was feared by all travellers in the 90’s, and Bartley was his hero.

So the circumstances are different here.

Of course, it would have been great if they’d all have fought. But again, if they wouldn’t challenge him, what did that say?

 

Back in 03 or 04, I was friends with a Brit that would come to the gym in Phoenix. One day he brought a friend and asked me to do some mitts with the guy. His friend punched real well with both hands, but like a guy that knows how to fight, more than like a boxer. He had a odd, rocking way of moving. The way he threw his right hand made me nervous because he brought it from an odd angle where I couldn't see it until it was very close and he whipped it. (I don't work mitts like the videos, catching punches way out there. I try to make it as much like boxing as possible so I catch them almost like I would if we were fighting and I was blocking punches.)
After a few rounds we got to talking. This guy told me that he had had a "couple hundred" unlicensed boxing matches in the UK. I asked him about the way he moved and he explained that the ring they fought in was made by pushing 4 tables together and that the kind of wobbled. He was a short man, very broad shouldered and it would have sucked to have to fight him.

 

Lee Duffy was a street fighter and a bully who endured a terrible childhood. (I’m not condoning his actions)

Bartley Gorman was a proud traveller with iron principles.

He grew up in a different world, in a different era, where his was determined to be the bare knuckle king of the travelling world, as his ancestors had been before him.

I understand where you’re coming from, in that things get exaggerated and these hard men are revered for the wrong reasons etc. But there’s a world of difference between Bartley Gorman and Lee Duffy.

 

Bartley gave him a hiding after Halden had attacked him.