Was Les Darcy on his way to being the future middleweight king when he died?

Impossible to say.

He might have gone on to be one of the greatest ever, or he might have got beaten up by Harry Greb, then hit the bottle and fade into obscurity.

 

Do you think he could have continued to make the MW limit? He was a full 160 as a 21-year old.

 

You know, for 130 years fighters had discipline and maintained their weight. Only the last 30 did these lazy slobs have problems.

 

Your point is somewhat valid, John. But Les Darcy was not yet 21 years of age when he fought George Chip in his last bout. His 21st birthday was a month later.

To be sure, Darcy was weighing around 160 pounds for at least a year before his last bout. Most fighters put on weight when they are older. But at only 5 feet, 6 inches in height, could Darcy be successful while facing top fighters in the light-heavyweight and heavyweight classes? Another potential problem is that Darcy's judgement was extremely questionable, especially during the last months of his short life after his last bout. After arriving in the United States, Darcy didn't have a proven manager. It is doubtful that he was willing to submit to such an authority figure after leaving Australia.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Its certainly an open question. When he arrived in the USA he weighed about 180 pounds and fighting the stars in the USA at 158 as opposed to the Australian limit of 160 would have been a culture shock for him considering his fights in Australia were staged by his promoter, refereed by his managers brother in a ring with a specially designed path around it allowing his manager to move freely around the ring shouting instructions to him, etc. In short, Darcy would have been a small fish in a big pond here as opposed to the big fish in the small pond he was in Australia. He wasnt going to be able to pick and choose opponents who were fighting in a foreign land after spending weeks on a boat, eating strange food, etc. He turned down massive purses to fight guys like Mike Gibbons instead demanding more money to fight no hopers like Al McCoy. The public wasnt going to stand for that. I think he would have experienced a dose of his own medicine and how he handled it would have told us a lot about him that we simply dont know.

 

Steroids have had something to do with it too. And lack of competition in the weight classes, which causes the fighters to move up for the big-money bouts. And the tendency of the modern-day public to crave the big names as opposed to just a plain old competitive fight between fighters of comparable skill and weight.

 

Whilst not for one minute do I doubt your all round knowledge which has been proven here time and again, but how on earth do you know his weight when he arrived in the US of A ??? waitin to be schooled....

 

Because he discussed it and the difficulty/time it would take to get down to 158 in interviews when he arrived.

 

There were all kinds of plans for Darcy when he arrived in the States. An exciting conversation with Tex Richard was had if memory serves. The odd nutty rumour about a fight with him and Jess Willard.

What's certain is that Darcy was a specimen for his age. Mike Tyson-esque. He was also a neat operator as the film bares out. I tend to think he would have done well, made things more exciting, without necessarily cleaning house, perhaps taking out a few heavies along the way.

What an age and time to check out though, before The Great War had ended, before the economic boom, and when on the cusp of big bucks...

 

Good points, especially his short stature. Photos do support the fact that his frame was pretty well distributed. So maybe he would have been able to stay as a middleweight unless he had a very late growth spurt, which might not be impossible I suppose, but in my experience unlikely by that point.

 

One of the books I am writing is about the period of the middleweight division between the time that Ketchel was killed and Greb winning the title. It will deal quite a bit with Darcy.

 

Any light you can shed on circumstances like these surrounding his fights with Clabby or McGoorty, or did he just prove himself the better man?