Did Black Figters Hold Back from fighting their best against Whites in early 1900's?

Sure, but that's true of a lot of guys. Ask Wesley Ramey (Gans' contemporary).

That may be true too. I don't know. This is the first time I've heard that. Do we have anything from that era which would support this? Just wondering where the writer of this piece got his info. And even if this is so, do we blame it on race? Would Gans be the first guy, white or black, to be threatened by gangsters?

 

I can't buy into the 1930 boxing landscape being a level playing field for the black fighter, Sorry
Irving Rudd was a guy i new and spoke to more than once, He often elaborated on this, as doz Paul Gallico in Farewell To Sport, as doz the before mentioned Nagler book.



books.google.com/books?isbn=1592286593
- 2005 - Preview - More editions
... like the Rockland Palace, Harlem's answer to Madison Square Garden. Still, according to fight publicist Irving Rudd, who worked The Palace: "There were two sets of unwritten rules, one for the fights between blacks and blacks and the other between black and whites.

 

Yes, it is a matter of degrees and a matter of how blatant it was at the top versus at the bottom.

Do you really think Tiger Flowers beat Harry Greb? Have you read the clippings?

Joe Louis, John Henry Lewis, a fair amount of others seemed to get a fair shake. But then again, on the lower levels, the ones that haven't survived as "history" who knows what happened...

 

I think the Harry Greb who lost to Tiger Flowers did a lot to make furious some kingpin underworld figures. Remember you first read this little jem here.

 

Of course he did... and it just goes to prove that the most important color in boxing has always been green.

 

Green White Brown Black in that order

 

Brown doesn't get a place on the bus?

I guess that says a lot.

 

typo

 

Brown has a station wagon, says the Mexican.

 

Maybe not perfectly "level", but definitely not as lopsided as these fanciful scribes would have you believe. The many black champions and title challengers that arose during that era is irrefutable evidence that they are wrong in their hyperbolic statements regarding race.

Once again, these writers give us nothing but generalized sound bites but with nothing specific to back it with. It reminds me of all the nonsense about Charley Burley not getting a title shot because he was black. Over the decades it's been so easy for writers to ignore the facts and simply plug into the zeitgeist by adopting this unsupportable premise. One need only look at who was at the top o' the heap at the time. Plenty of blacks, holding world championships and receiving title shots.

 

Irving Rudd worked there!! Is he lying?? Whats not smoking gun?
How could Irving Rudd walk into a court of law, introduced himself
Render this testimony and not win an open and shut case?
Hows that an unsupportable premise?

 

Actually Slaks, no he wouldn't . It would take a lot more than ""There were two sets of unwritten rules, one for the fights between blacks and blacks and the other between black and whites" for a judge to pound his gavel and declare guilty on all charges. The first thing the Defense Attorney would ask on cross-examination would be "Can you give us several examples of this?"

That is basically all I have been asking for since this thread began. Specific examples. What were these "unwritten rules" he speaks of? What supports the notion that Baby Joe Gans would have gotten a title shot had he been white (during a time when blacks were GETTING title shots)? Let me see some examples of black fighters who were "usually committed to defeat by obligation" as Barney Nagler and Gerald Early insist. Where are examples of "angry white mobs" rushing the ring after a black fighter knocks out or gets the decision over the white fighter? Where is the evidence that supports Joe Gans, the "Old Master", being nothing but a starving wage slave, throwing fights and doing nothing but what he was told under the tyrannical hand of Al Herford?

I'm as much for learning and taking in new info as any poster here. I don't have a problem with adopting ALL of this stuff others have claimed as being true and accurate. I just think that we should all require a bit more in the way of examples that support these assertions. When someone is saying (yes, even someone who was "there") something that flies in the face of the historical evidence I see right in front of me, I begin to have my doubts about what has been said. I need more than just the word of some guy reflecting on his memories from years back. That isn't always a reliable source, as anyone who has listened to old time fighters recounting their losses can tell you!

 

I think both the main posters in this important and interesting debate know the importantance of some kind of first hand evidence and also the difficulty in getting it. Has either of you Larry Gain's (auto?)biography, it might be interesting in this context.
I personally feel that the cuffs were more on in the heavyweights especially 1910-40 and suspect Godfrey and Gains were examples.
As kind of an aside I feel that the McVea, Jeannette, Wills, Clarke, Langford, Jim Johnson, Thompson etc series contained a load of set-ups with that colour-green- as the main factor.