Sporting Life - Friday 29 June 1883 LATE BOXING. JEM MACE'S ASSUALT AT ARMS. Last evening a brace of boxing contests, organised by this well-known exponent of the fistic art, were commenced at the Free Trade hall, Peter-street, Manchester. Results:—Light Weights.— Bout1: Jemmy Wright beat J. Dodd, after some smart exchanges. Bout 2: H. Conley beat D. Cuddy. Bout 3L S. Perry beat G. Westwood,—Punching was the order of this bout, and in the end Perry, who went "nap" for his man from start to finish, proved the trump card. Bout 4: W. Payce beat Phil Clare,— Both veterans wired in pluckily, but the former, who was the busiest of the brace, won handsomely. Bout 5: G. W. Strand beat H. Handley. Heavy Weights,—A. Greenfield (Birmingham) beat M. Galligan (Liverpool). The former, who had a long way the pull in weight, was all over his man, and in the end "whipped" his game little opponent. All-Weight Prize.—John Burke (London) beat J. Nixey. The wind-up was between Jem Mace and Herbert A. Slade, "the Maori." During the evening a handome cup was presented to the beneficiare by Mr. T. Early, of Bostonm U.S. The competitions will be concluded this (Friday) evening, and the meeting of Burke and Greenfield ought to prove a big "draw." We may add that Mace, with Slade and his party, will not leave England until Saturday week, July 7, having engagments next week in Scotland.
Burke seems to have been slightly better than Greenfield but never got the breaks in their fights. He also was pretty much on a par with Mitchell. Jack seems to me to be the best barometer of Sullivan as an out-of-condition John L dominated him. Burke operated well in the middle American ranks, ie Clow, Cleary, Nolan,Dalton, Glover, Kiraine and did well versus a green Corbett as well as drawing with an emerging Slavin.
The Sportsman - Saturday 13 December 1884 page 3 The interviewing which has for some time past been one of the distinctive features of American journalism has repeatedly been under suspicion, and people have not hesitated before now to assert that the whole system is rotten at the core, and that the American public are repeatedly galled by bogus accounts which are written from the fertile imagination of the sub-editor or the descriptive artist of the establishment. Whether the statements have always been justified or not I am unable to say, but at length I have obtained proof of a New York paper having for its own purposes stooped to deception of the most indecent character. A certain sporting print, the editor and proprietor of which pays as much attention to boxing and boxing men as a Fox would to a farmer's poultry yard, and for the same purpose, viz., what he can get out of it, has been working up a discussion as to which has the better right to be styled Champion pugilist of England, C Mitchell or Alf Greenfield. In a recent number of his journal this genetleman says that with a view of settling the question he cabled to all the chief sporting authorities in this country, and asked for their opinions. Then follow a number of copies of cables he asserts he sent with the answers thereto. Amongst these is one purporting to emanate from a writer on athletics, who is dubbed editorof Bell's Life. Tom Griffith assures me that he never saw such a cable, nor did anybody on the staff of the paper he represents, and that the reply (?) must have had birth in the imaginative brain of the gentleman who superintended the copy. Another message supposed to be sent to a representative of a Manchester paper is equally false, whilst the same remark applies to the message and reply said to have been sent to and received from Mr G. W. Atkinson. A lot more of these elaborately planned missives are given, all bearing dates and names and addresses, but after this exposure my readers will know what reliance to place on what they read in American papers.
Henry Sampson (Pendragon) of London's Referee stated in Dec 14 issue of his paper that he never received any such telegram and thus never replied anything like what Richard K. Fox quoted in his Dec 6 issue of NPG. Pendragon stated he couldn't really answer the original question, could Mitchell claim the championship by winning Madden's tournament? He didn't know. But as for Greenfield having any claims of the championship, he doesn't see anything such claim could be based on. Fox was simply trying to hype Greenfield, making things up.
Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I was looking into Alf Greenfield and stumbled across it. To add a few points: On 26th February 1880, Greenfield beat Jim Stewart and claimed the English championship, although his claim was disputed by some commentators. On 15th March 1880, the Sporting Chronicle described Alf Greenfield as "the champion boxer of England". In May 1881 Greenfield drew with Joe "Tug Wilson" Collins to defend his title, breaking his arm during the fight. He took over a year to recover from this injury, missing the competition won by Mitchell in 1882, but returned to the ring with an exhibition in January 1883. On 20th May 1883, Henry Sampson (Pendragon) of The Referee, who is mentioned above, stated that he did not believe that Mitchell was undoubtedly the best boxer England possesses, and that while he thought it would be a close thing, Greenfield would have the advantage if they fought. In June 1883, Greenfield won Jem Mace's English Heavyweight Championship Belt by beating Mick Gilligan and Jack Burke. I would therefore say that describing Alf Greenfield as Champion of England when he fought Sullivan in 1884 is reasonable.
