Did Benny Leonard ever fight a black fighter ?

It also shows how incomplete those NY records are at boxrec. Some of the fighters mentioned I wasn't even able to find.

 

Are you arguing that Wee Wee Barton, Kid Kines, Jack White and Young Joe Gans. were passed over for championship fights against Leonard? Sorry I just don't see it. They were not the Murders Row of Charley Burley, Holman Williams and Lloyd Marshall.

 

I don't know that you can say that, HE. The first half of the 20th century is a big strip of time (1900-1950) . I bet more great white fighters that fought blacks can be named than great white fighters that avoided them

 

A ton of white guys missed out on shots too...

 

True, but there weren't very many deserving black HWs up to that point either. Johnson got his. Jackson didn't.

His braintrust also steered clear of LaMotta. I can't consider the avoidance of Burley, etc. to be a racial thing. Plenty of blacks were getting title shots and winning titles in the 30s and 40s. To say that "most of the great white fighters of the 1st half of the 20th century avoided blacks" is inaccurate.

True, black AND white. But plenty of blacks got their shot in the 1st half of the century.

 

Why the hell don't we put the question of "did Benny Leonard ever fight a black fighter"
to rest once and for all ? The darn politically incorrect answer is YES. On Sept 1, 1917
Benny Leonard gave the top black lightweight of that time a shot at his title. Leo Johnson was known as the "Harlem Hotshot ".They fought in NYC,and Leonard flattened Leo Johnson in the very first round...Twenty days later Leonard gave Johnson another shot at his title and after the instructions by the referee, Leo Johnson reached over and mussed up Benny Leonards Brilliantine hair to rile Leonard up. Bad idea, for Leonard
dispatched Leo Johnson in the first round once again. One week later Benny Leonard
gave another black lightweight a money shot at his title on Sept. 27. 1917, named Eddie Dorsey who Benny Leonard promptly kod in the second round...So yes Leonard whose reputation as a standup guy, fought black fighters to give them a money shot ,and to
again bring up this thread once more asking this question that deserves a final answer.
YES HE DID...He cleaned out his LW division for seven years as no other lightweight ever did before or after, against white, black fighters, and even an Oriental fighter named Ah Chung...Benny Leonard was the first "equal opportunity employer "...

 

Errr... Care to name who Benny Leonard ducked, oh wise one?

Firstly, your enthusiastic facts are incorrect. Dempsey fought 3 black fighters, not one. He was a commodity, guided by the rules of commodity. Wills, Norfolk or and old Langford did not qualify for a good payday. I find it inexcusable that he Dempsey did not face Wills or Greb. However, I firmly believe he would have beaten, if not destroyed, both.

Care to tell me who Greb ducked in his 300 fights, black or white?

 

They only fought once.

 

S, they fought TWICE. I have before me an old rare book named
"Leonard the Magnificent ",published in 1947 by Nat Fleischer who saw all of Benny Leonards NY fights and thensome...Here is the timeframe of
their bouts:
July25,1917 Johnny Kilbane, PHIL...KO3
Sept 1- Leo Johnson, NYC KO1
Sept 3-Young Rector, Toronto KO5
Sept 12- Jimmy Paul NYC- ND6
Sept 14- Phil Bloom- Pittsburgh KO 2
Sept 21- Leo Johnson-NYC KO1
Sept 27- Eddie Dorsey-- Buffalo KO2
Oct 5--- Vic Moran- NYC KO2
An excerpt from the book : " Leonard gave freely of his time to all, regardless of race, color or creed. For a man of his ability, he was the
most congenial and easily handled athletic figure of his time. At a time when MIXED bouts were rare in New York City, and fighters, especially
champions, did their utmost to find a loophole to avoid meeting a colored man, Leonard took on the only two good Negro lightweights of period and
knocked them out, both in one week , in one and two rounds respectively. That's one of the reasons why Leonard was so popular ". Unquote...
This book by Nat Fleischer listed all of Benny Leonard's bouts...
At about 5ft 5" he cleaned out his division for 7 years ducking no one who had a shot against him...A beloved figure of the Golden Age of boxing was
Leonard the Magnificent...cheers...

 

Looks like an error. He knocks out the guy in one round and then in less than three weeks knocks him out again in one round .....

The article from the 22nd also could have noted it that this was the same fighter already KO'd in one round less than three weeks ago and doesn't say that at all. Also, as both (Fleischer) fights are listed as being in New York (Harlem S.C.) it seems probable the scribe writing for the NY Times or the reporter distributing to the NY Times would have heard, conveyed, known, or been told if Johnson had just been KO'd in one round earlier in the same month by Leonard - it isn't like Fleischer had listed it as another fight with Johnson in some other part of the US or even East Coast, etc.



http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FB0B16F83B5E11738DDDAB0A94D1405B878DF1D3



Fleischer was around sixty when he wrote the Leonard book and perhaps either he or his publisher were not as diligent as they might have been.

 

Only three New York City clubs staged bouts on Sept. 1, 1917:

Broadway S.C. - Sailor Joe Kelly ND10 Shamus O'Brien; Jackie Norman ND10 Dutch Brandt; Burt Spencer W-TKO5 Charley Barry

Clermont S.C. - Frankie Carbone ND10 Mike McTigue; Young Marino ND10 Joe Tiplitz; Benny Allen ND4 Young Devlin

Fairmont A.C. - Frankie Burns L-KO8 Irish Patsy Cline; Frankie Jerome ND6 Kid Rago

Now, boxrec also lists two bouts at Vanderbilt A.C., but
1) I think Jack Kincaid confused the dates, there was no card scheduled or reported for Vanderbilt on that day, that can be found in local newspapers. A card was scheduled at Vanderbilt for Aug. 31 (Frankie Wilson vs Battling Lahn/Benny McGovern, Happy Mahoney vs Danny Gilbride), and another one was scheduled for Sept. 3 (with Leo Johnson vs Walter Eddy).
2) It's absurd to think that Leonard was to fight at Vanderbilt A.C.
3) Leonard was expected to arrive at Toronto on Saturday (Sept. 1) according to same day Toronto World, for his Sept. 3 bout with Young Rector.

 

S, your argument is with Nat Fleischer, who presently is unavailable !...
At any rate Benny Leonard flattened both Leo Johnson and Eddie Dorsey
in one and two rounds in 1917 . He gave all a chance at his crown...

 

:good

Oftentimes NUMEROUS chances. Everyone deserving got their shot at Benny. Anyone using the term "ducking" or "avoiding" in conjunction with Leonard's name probably would have been laughed out of the conversation back then.