Beau Jacks Blindfolded No holds Barred Fights at 15 Yrs Old?

'Battles Royal'. They were around for a pretty scary amount of time. Jack Johnson fought in a few at the turn of the century when he was an unknown, IIRC he was first spotted by Jack Curley and George Siler at one which he won in Illinois.

At some smaller boxing shows promoters would round up between four and ten black youths and chuck them in the ring together. In some cases they would be blindfolded although this seems to be the minority. They were mostly skinny, unskilled kids and would wail away at each other until there was one man standing. Their 'purse' would be the nickels and dimes the crowd would chuck into the ring at the end of the fight.

There was some seriously wacky **** on small show undercards back then. Before the Johnson/Choynski fight in Galveston the prelim was two one-legged black lads fighting each other, which sounds incredible but is verified by a few sources.

 

battle royals began in the slave era....went on after the slavery ended, still was done mostly by black men.

 

Battle royals were not no holds barred.

 

THIS.

and more accurately done TOO black lads!

first heard about it reading on Joe Gans who often came out the victor.

 

I thought Marciano took part in one or more of these as a kid. I read that in a book a long time ago, I'm pretty sure.

 

I'm not home right now - so I'll update my post when I get a hold of the book.

But in "Bare Fists" - Bob Mee tells of a 'bare-knuckle' match between two unnamed men. One of whom had no arms, I repeat, NO ARMS ... AND WON. His tactics included: kicking and head butting.

This in the 17 or 1800's.

 

I have Beau on tape being interviewed on his battle royal days.
They all went down at some southern country club-golf club.

 

Has anyone ever done a list of the top 10 blindfolded fighters?

 

I think both Ray robinson and Willy Pep spoke of battle royals. Usually in 1900's it was with kids fighting, all races. Naturally a lot of guys would not do it, some would.

 

That's nothing. In his youth a young Boston Tom McMustache (not to be confused with the later Young Boston Tom McMustache) would often allow himself to be bound hand and foot, whereupon he would do battle with an angry billygoat by squirming up to it inchworm-style and biting it to death. His pay for such a display was two straw pennies.

 

little did the racist slave owners know that they were sowing the seeds for 50 some years of racist white guys being annoyed by the site of black guys beating up white guys on TV

 

Beau was in a noisy restaurant at the time of the interview so the acoustics sucked!
I can recall him saying he developed a strategy to win based on,
Lay low
Keep low
You hadta keep low!