ON THIS DAY JULY 5, 1909 - KETCHEL VS PAPKE

Discussion in 'Classic Boxing Forum' started by Dementia Pugulistica, Jul 5, 2025.


  1. Dementia Pugulistica

    Dementia Pugulistica Well-Known Member Full Member

    2,062
    1,208
    Nov 24, 2005
    The Michigan Assassin, the Illinois Thunderbolt, and the Crowd That Knew How to Watch a Fight
    When Men Were Men, and Tweets Were for Birds
    Let’s set the scene: July 5, 1909, Colma, California. The air is thick with anticipation, cigar smoke, and the kind of sweat that only comes from a crowd that’s actually present, not “engaged” from the comfort of their mother’s basement, furiously live-tweeting on “X” (which, in 1909, was just a letter, not a billionaire’s midlife crisis). Here, in a makeshift arena, two men—Stanley Ketchel, the “Michigan Assassin,” and Billy Papke, the “Illinois Thunderbolt”—prepared to settle a score the old-fashioned way: with fists, not hashtags.

    The top tunes of the year included “Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet” by the Haydn Quartet and “Shine On, Harvest Moon” by Harry Macdonough & Elise Stevenson. (Neil Young is old but not that old!) If you were feeling particularly rowdy, you might belt out “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”—a song about actually going outside, not just watching highlights on your phone.

    1909 wasn’t all fun and games. The Cherry Mine Disaster in Illinois claimed 259 lives, a grim reminder that life was hard, and death was often just a shift away. In April, a tornado outbreak swept through Tennessee, killing at least 62 and injuring over 200. If you wanted to “trend” in 1909, you’d better hope it wasn’t in the obituaries.

    High tech in 1909? The Model T was rolling off assembly lines, and Henry Ford was telling customers they could have any color they wanted, as long as it was black. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was built, and Alice Ramsey became the first woman to drive across the United States—without GPS, mind you. Radio was in its infancy, with Lee de Forest dreaming of broadcasting music to the masses, but for now, “wireless” meant Morse code, not Wi-Fi.

    Back then, if you wanted to “go viral,” you had to actually show up, not just show off. There were no influencers, only the influenced. No “content creators,” just people living contentedly. And if you wanted to roast someone, you did it to their face, not behind an anonymous handle.

    Not a Selfie Stick in Sight
    The crowd, estimated at 10,000, didn’t need a “like” button to show their approval. They roared, they jeered, they placed bets with real money, not Dogecoin. These were people who knew the difference between a right cross and a cross-post. They came for blood, not for a trending topic. If you wanted to go viral in 1909, you had to actually catch something—preferably not from the guy next to you.

    The Combatants: Ketchel and Papke
    Stanley Ketchel, a man whose idea of “training camp” was riding the rails and brawling in saloons, stood across from Billy Papke, a man so tough he made the Chicago stockyards look like a petting zoo. Their rivalry was already the stuff of legend: Papke had sucker-punched Ketchel out of his title the year before (or so the myth went—fake news isn’t just a modern invention), and Ketchel had clawed it back in a rematch. Now, for the fourth time, they met to decide who was the real king of the middleweights.

    The Fight: More Clinches Than a Modern-Day Dating App
    The bell rang, and the two men went at it with the kind of ferocity that would get you banned from every social media platform today. Papke, sporting a Chippendale-style protective cup (because nothing says “manly” like a little lace), spent much of the bout pulling Ketchel into clinches, wrestling, holding, and hitting—basically inventing the “hug it out” strategy a century before MMA.

    Ketchel, when he could break free, unleashed the kind of violence that would have every modern-day influencer clutching their pearls and calling for a safe space. The referee, poor soul, spent most of the fight trying to separate the two, probably wishing he’d taken up a safer profession, like lion-taming or moderating a YouTube comment section.

    The crowd, packed shoulder to shoulder, didn’t need a “story” to share. They lived it. They howled for action, booed the clinches, and cheered every clean punch. If someone tried to film the fight on their phone, they’d have been thrown out for witchcraft. These were people who knew how to watch a fight, not just watch themselves watching a fight.

    The Decision: Ketchel Retains, Papke Complains
    After 20 rounds of brutality, the decision went to Ketchel. The crowd, having witnessed a real contest, not a pay-per-view snoozefest, went home satisfied. Papke, ever the competitor, grumbled about the verdict, but in 1909, you didn’t file a complaint with the commission—you just fought again. And again. And again.



    When Legends Were Made, Not Manufactured
    Stanley Ketchel’s victory over Billy Papke in 1909 wasn’t just a fight—it was a spectacle, a cultural event, a snapshot of a time when men settled their differences in the ring, not in the comments section. The crowd of 10,000 didn’t need a hashtag to remember what they saw. They carried it with them, in stories told over beers, in songs sung at the piano, in the bruises and the glory of a night when the world stopped to watch two men fight for a title, and for something more: the right to call themselves champion.

    So here’s to Ketchel, Papke, and the crowd that knew how to watch a fight. May their memory outlast every trending topic, every viral video, and every fleeting fame that “X” can offer. Because in 1909, the only thing that went viral was the legend of a fight—and that’s something no algorithm can ever replicate.
     
    Pugguy, slash and Mike Cannon like this.
  2. RockyValdez

    RockyValdez Active Member Full Member

    535
    246
    Jun 9, 2013
    This was a controversial decision with a lot of experts convinced Papke deserved no worse than a draw.
     
    Dementia Pugulistica likes this.
  3. Dementia Pugulistica

    Dementia Pugulistica Well-Known Member Full Member

    2,062
    1,208
    Nov 24, 2005
    Controversy and boxing go together like a left hook and a glass jaw. From the days when bare-knuckle brawlers slugged it out in sawdust saloons to the neon-lit arenas of today, every era has had its share of eyebrow-raising decisions, phantom punches, and whispers of a fix. You can add more judges, wire the ring with AI, or count every jab with CompuBox, but you’ll never scrub the sweet science clean of debate and dispute. It’s the controversy that keeps the barroom arguments alive, the headlines bold, and the fans coming back for more. Strip away the drama and you’re left with just two men in a ring—add a dash of outrage, and suddenly, you’ve got history in the making. Boxing without controversy? That’s like a Bert Sugar column without a punchline—unthinkable.
     
    Pugguy and Shay Sonya like this.
  4. RockyValdez

    RockyValdez Active Member Full Member

    535
    246
    Jun 9, 2013
  5. Mike Cannon

    Mike Cannon Boxing Addict Full Member

    4,007
    7,090
    Apr 29, 2020
    Hi Buddy.
    Staying with Papke / Ketchell what is your take on the claim/story that Stan was hit full in the face as they were about to touch gloves in their second fight where by Papke won the title, there has been chat about Greb/Walker fighting on the street, which has lost a lot validity over the decades, do you see this incident as the same ? or does first hand accounts dispel the claim, regards the fight I had a book, well more a magazine, sent from America fifty years ago which had a big article on Stan, the beginnings, the fights, his personal life, and his association with one of the infamous Dalton gang, Emmet Dalton in fact, also peppered with unforeseen ( by me ) photos of the fighter and his fights, one in particular remains in the memory, and it was in the aforementioned title fight, it showed Ketchell on the canvas, well half on the canvas, and half trying to rise, his face a grotesque misshapen contours of bruises, both eyes almost shut tight, blood streaming from his broken nose, and lips lacerated, apparently it was one of many KDs, this one was the final one, with a big, bloated Jeffries wearing suit trousers, braces, and a striped shirt, and a cap that croupiers are fond of in a casino, when you think that less than 3 months later Stan turned the tables and KOd Papke to regain his title ( was he first to do ) according to this article Stan had bent the ears of his newspaper friends not long after the loss of title, and asked them to print story's that Stan was mourning the loss of his crown, was disinterested in training, and turned to alcohol to ease his suffering, so to induce Papke to agree to a return, which of course he did, the article went on to say that Papke visibly blanched when he saw a super fit and toned to perfection Ketchell bounce into the ring, again the piece claimed that Stan said to Papke at the instructions " it took you 11 rounds to stop a blind man, I will keep your eyes open, until I knock you out " we all know the ending.
    Who knows ?
    stay safe Rocky, chat soon buddy.
    Mike.
     
  6. slash

    slash Boxing Addict Full Member

    6,220
    2,532
    Apr 15, 2012
    Bravo
     
    Pugguy and Dementia Pugulistica like this.
  7. Dementia Pugulistica

    Dementia Pugulistica Well-Known Member Full Member

    2,062
    1,208
    Nov 24, 2005
    Ah, my dear friend, let me first extend to you a hearty handshake across the vast digital divide, a gesture as warm as a Brooklyn bakery on a winter morning, for your most gracious and perceptive comment regarding the article in question. To be called verbose! Well, that’s a compliment I’ll wear like a champion’s belt, gleaming for all to see under the bright lights of Madison Square Garden, because, you see, in the world of words, verbosity is the sweet science, the footwork and jab, the rope-a-dope and the haymaker all rolled into one.

    Your observation, my friend, is like a perfectly timed uppercut—unexpected, yet wholly appreciated. It lands not with malice, but with the gentle reminder that sometimes, to paint the Sistine Chapel of ideas, one must use not just a brush, but a whole hardware store’s worth of rollers, sponges, and maybe even a mop or two. If the article sprawled like a heavyweight bout going the full fifteen rounds, well, that’s only because the subject demanded it—a marathon, not a sprint, a journey across the Sahara with plenty of water stops for the thirsty reader.

    So, thank you, thank you a thousand times, for your kind words, which I accept with the humility of a journeyman fighter and the pride of a champion. May your days be filled with as many words as a library, and may your comments always be as sharp as a cutman’s razor. And remember, in the grand arena of discourse, it’s not just about landing the punch, but about telling the story, round by round, word by glorious word.
    TLDR - Thanks.
     
    Pugguy and RockyValdez like this.
  8. Dementia Pugulistica

    Dementia Pugulistica Well-Known Member Full Member

    2,062
    1,208
    Nov 24, 2005
    Hey Mike. As far as I know Papke punching Ketchel prior to shaking hands did in fact happen and it had a major influence on the outcome of the bout. Butler would be proud of him.

    That Grebb / Walker incident is weird because both claim victory but there were no eyewitnesses to the event that I am aware of and nothing mentioned in the papers. I’ve never seen anything that convinces me that the street fight ever happened. As far as I know the first mention of it was in Walkers autobiography. Fake news is nothing new. I think Mark Twain said “ if you don’t read the news you’re uninformed, if you do read the news you’re misinformed “

    “Ketchel was beaten so badly his mother couldn’t recognize him!” Amazing turn around just months later. A fighter would take a year off after a beating these days, and he’d be better off for it. Apparently the rumours of Ketchel mental state affected betting odds for that fight.

    The first boxer to regain a title? It may be a boxer known as Kid Mcoy that won a title in 1896, lost it and then regained it, but **** gets very murky going way back then, what was a genuine belt? Interesting times no doubt.

    Would’nt it be great to have some of those old magazines now?!
     
    Pugguy likes this.
  9. Mike Cannon

    Mike Cannon Boxing Addict Full Member

    4,007
    7,090
    Apr 29, 2020
    Hi Buddy.
    Thanks for prompt and informative reply, hope we have some more to discuss in the near future.
    stay safe DP, chat soon buddy.
    Mike.
     
    Pugguy and Dementia Pugulistica like this.