ATG LIGHTWEIGHT TOURNIE: ROUND 1, FIGHT 5: PERNELL WHITAKER UD15 JACK MCAULIFFE

Jack "Napoleon" McAuliffe, seeded 13, was bequeathed his nickname for the outstanding generalship during his title reign which ran from 1886 to 1893, whereupon he retired. Whilst labelling James J Corbett “the grandfather of boxing” is inaccurate due the fact that boxing evolved as a culture, not at the behest of a single champion, if that title is to be handed to anyone, it should be handed to McAuliffe. His “ring science” as his advanced technique was labelled in the press of the day was one of the defining attributes of his reign. More important given the ruleset of the day – finish fights were the norm – was his incredible stamina and endurance which saw him win through in numerous wars of attrition where punch resistance and durability proved even more important than technical acumen.

McAuliffe, originally out of Cork, Ireland, first came to prominence in twice beating Jack Hopper for the American lightweight title before besting Bill Frazier in an over the weight match in Boston, in 1886. This is the year from which McAuliffe’s claim to the world title is generally recognized, a recognition that birthed true legitimacy for the lightweight division. This led, in 1887, to his twenty-eight round knockout of Canadian Harry Gilmore in defense of the title. Such were the difficulties of finding premises for fights during this era of semi-legality that the two ended up contesting the world’s championship in either a barn or a blacksmith’s with three ropes barracking a structural wall which formed the fourth. It was the twenty-seventh round before Gilmore gave ground and the twenty eighth before McAuliffe “struck him fully ten blows to the face…Gilmore finally fell senseless to the floor.”

His next defense was perhaps the most extraordinary fight in the pre-history of boxing, a seventy-four round war with a cobbles fighter named Jem Carney (or Carnay). An Irish immigrant in Birmingham, England, Carney found work hard to come by but was welcomed to the blood-soaked arms of skin fighting like a son. He set his old ways against the new ways of McAuliffe in a contest that was decided over a period of hours, not minutes. In the early 1880s he killed a man named Jimmy Highland in combat and embarked for America as feared as any prizefighter ever was. Taller by an inch and younger by a decade, McAuliffe was favored but Carney just refused to be broken. Dropped three times in the very first round, by the forty-fifth he “seemed a sure winner.”

McAuliffe stayed with him but by the seventy-first was “a gone man” with his corner repeatedly claiming for fouls that either didn’t exist or that did but were generally accepted as the price of doing business. It was now McAuliffe who suffered repeated knockdowns when the social compact that bound such early prizefights together began to unravel. News reached the ear of the barn’s owner that it was to be torched if McAuliffe lost. What happened next is uncertain, but one story that is told sees Dick Roche, a gambler from St Louis who had backed McAuliffe big, rush the ring with a wrecking crew in tow and the ring collapsing. Even as Carney roared for the fight to continue the referee named it a draw. There was no rematch.

He crushed Billy Dacey the following year and then met the celebrated Billy Myer in another draw, this time over sixty-four rounds. Once more the fight was controversial, this time because it was not brutal enough, but a scientific encounter that contained much “sparring.” His defeat the following year of Jimmy Carroll, too, was revelatory, Carroll dominating the late stages only for McAuliffe to save himself with a single punch in the forty-seventh.

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Pernell Whitaker, seeded four, is the greatest defensive specialist of whom extensive footage exists, not just at lightweight but in all of boxing. He was also essentially unbeaten at the lightweight limit. Nevertheless, his first encounter with a top lightweight, Jose Luis Ramirez, in 1988, was judged a loss by the professional judges in attendance. It is perhaps the most ridiculous theft ever captured on film; Whitaker was a clear winner.

His hunt for a strap met with success less than a year later against Greg Haugen, a fight in which he was no less clear a winner but which the judges managed to score correctly. Haugen was tough, illustrated by his reclamation of his trinket against Vinny Paziena over fifteen a year earlier. Before Haugen-Whitaker it was felt that Haugen would have to push Whitaker back, cut off the ring, take him late, drown him in that deeper water. The fight itself could not be more different then envisaged. Whitaker boxed aggressively, right in front of his man, shifting the angles slightly with tiny lateral moves and relying upon those wonderful feet to get him out of trouble (of which there was none) all the while driving Haugen back. Haugen was forlorn, robbed of his fight plan, reduced to pecking forwards with the jab before giving ground in front of Whitaker’s wonderful combinations.

This may be the most instructive Whitaker performance of all. He did not lose a single round, he established a horrible, clattering jab which he was happy to triple down on while opening up Haugen to the body; if he felt like it he led with the southpaw left, drove Haugen to the ropes, calmly picked his spots.

The unbeaten Lou Lomeli was the next ranked man to try his luck with Whitaker and the impression that Whitaker gave battering Haugen, namely that he was stiffer puncher than he was being credited for, was underlined by a vicious third round stoppage. Whitaker followed this with vengeance over Ramirez, his audition for recognition as the best jabber in all of boxing. It was another fight in which I did not score his opponent a single round, absurd domination against a world class fighter.

Freddie Pendleton gave him more problems with that right hand of his in 1990, but Whitaker was clearly the winner, Pendleton sagging by the time of the twelfth and final round before the great Azumah Nelson stepped up to hand Whitaker the nearest thing he would have to a close call at the poundage. Whitaker made this up to us with a single round destruction of the excellent Juan Nazario, who was fresh from an eighth round stoppage of Edwin Rosario but helpless before a primed “Sweet Pea.” Anthony Jones and Poli Diaz won perhaps a single round between them in dropping decisions in title fights before Jorge Paez provided some stiffer resistance in a clear losing effort at which point Whitaker departed the division, leaving all three major belts vacated in his wake.

Whitaker fought in what was a relatively weak era for lightweights, but he compensated for this in executing the most dominant spell of all the great lightweights. The great ease with which he outclassed ranked men was never repeated, before or since. More than that, he was so good that he was able to do that rarest of things, deconstruct boxing in such a way that it became just another sport. You play basketball, you play football, but you don’t play boxing – unless you are Pernell Whitaker.

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Who will win under the following rules?

15 round fight.
1940s referee.
8oz boxing gloves.
10 points must.

Cast your vote and explain yourself in a post below! You have 3 days.

 

Lightweight was as full of wars and madness as heavyweight back in the day. Just, the fighters were a little bit better is all. More durable. Faster. Technically superior.

 

24 hrs remain!

 

Pernell Whitaker won a dull, drab, foul marred affair against Jack McAullife to progress to the second round over the fifteen round distance. McAuliffe was firmly outboxed across the first three rounds and adapted in the fourth to searching for the inside but Whitaker's jab and movement kept him almost consistently off balance and even on the inside, Whitaker was able to take advantage of that fact to outland then move off. In the sixth, McAuliffe gained the inside and rather than trying to land punches, he tied Whitaker up and appeared to try to butt him, much to the indifference of the referee.

This led to a series of foul-filled rounds, with neither man drawing a warning until the tenth. Whitaker took over once more in the twelfth to close the show.