Denver Jack THompson???

I researched the Memphis Commercial Appeal from November 9 thru November 19 and not only was the fight not mentioned but Sam Langford was not even discussed outside of the blurb I mentioned about his fight in Hot Springs. Unless one of the other Memphis papers covered the fight It doesnt look like it happened to me. Im not even seeing where the Phoenix AC was still in existence in 1920. It might be possible that the Commercial Appeal was allied with a rival fight club and as such didnt cover the Phoenix's bouts (Ive seen this before in other towns on occasion) but the commercial appeal covered all of the Phoenix AC's other bouts (in fact I have several clippings of those bouts from the Appeal) so I dont find this a likely excuse. I will reserve my final opinion until some of the other Memphis papers can be consulted but right now its looking unlikely this bout took place. I dont give credence to unsubstantiated wire reports. For the result to have hit the wire in a reputable fashion it would have had to have passed through one of the news bureaus, i.e. a local paper. If no local paper covered the bout then the likely scenario is that it was fabricated for some reason.

 

I don't have access to any Memphis newspapers at all. Here's the wire that advertised the bout:

1920-11-15 New Orleans States (New Orleans, LA) (page 11)
HAM LEAGUERS AT MEMPHIS.
MEMPHIS, Tenn., Nov. 15.--Sam Langford and Jack Thompson, negro heavyweights, will meet in an eight round bout at the Phoenix A. C. here tonight. A good battle is looked for.

It is weird if it was a fake. I don't know why Langford's manager would invent a bout like that, vs opponent Langford previously had beaten easily, and also considering it passed almost unnoticed by big cities newspapers, out of hundreds of newspapers for next-day I didn't see it anywhere even as a wire, except in Chicago Tribune, and two other newspapers mentioned the result very shortly on Nov 17 - the Anaconda newspaper I already quoted and one other small newspaper from Iowa City, IA. But then the result of the Hot Springs bout on Nov 17 received almost as little national coverage - that is 3-4 newspapers out of hundreds printed a short AP wire. Nobody seemed to care much about Langford's bouts anymore.

You said you looked up Langford's bout with Gahee. Boxrec lists it as taking place in Phoenix A.C. Is the name of the club listed wrong then?

 

Holy ****, the racism just oozes out of that.

 

Langford and Gahee boxed at the Southern Athletic Club. Its clear by their coverage of this bout that Memphis was still enamored with Langford so I dont think the argument that nobody cared about his fights and as such Memphis didnt cover it holds much weight.

 

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I don't know what to think of it. But i'd like to see at least another Memphis newspaper to confirm that the bout never had taken place. I suppose the example won't be representative of this Memphis bout, but I had seen newspapers that didn't have coverage of important local bouts because they had already printed it in another edition of the newspaper. Such was often the case with Cleveland Plain Dealer, or Baltimore American and Baltimore Sun, or Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times. But they usually did have pre-fight write-ups, if the Commercial Appeal had none of that either, then it might be a fake bout indeed.

 

There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a single mention of Sam or the bout. Ive run across the situation where there was a missing article because it was in another edition but never with the commercial appeal. Im like you, Id want to see another Memphis write up but my gut tells me this bout didnt take place.

 

I see several references to a scheduled bout for Jackson on November 15th with Sam McVea at the velodrome in Buffalo over either ten or fifteen rounds.

 

Langford did beat Thompson on Nov 15, 1920, in Memphis. Next-day Memphis News Scimitar reported it:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn98069867/1920-11-16/ed-1/seq-17/

 

Were all of those fighters really active and considered top fighters?
Pretty astonishing to think that one point in time we could have (theoretically) seen a top 8 tournament with

Jack Dempsey, Sam Langford, Harry Wills, Georges Carpentier, Jack Johnson, Jess Willard, Joe Goddard and Gene Tunney. And at least one person thought or was brave enough to say that Fulton was better (or on par with Dempey) than all of them!

PLus, presumably Tommy Burns seems to have only just missed out on a top 26 ranking with his loss to Beckett, while presumably (without checking) Sam McVey and Joe Jeanette also were active and missed out on being considered good enough for the top 26.

I wonder if any other era could srape up as many active ATGs as this particular snapshot.

By the way, surely that Joe Goddard was not the same Joe Goddard