Fred Fulton v Jack London, 1917

These are good questions which have occured to me also. I couldn't find anything in the New York Times about it. On the other hand, this bout is listed both by boxrec and by Cyberboxing Zone in Fulton's record. The bout was not listed in Fulton's record in the 1976 Ring Record Book.

The best thing would be to check with Henry on what boxrec bases this fight on.

One thing, boxing was really on the edge in April, 1917, in New York State. It barely survived a vote on April 18 in the legislature.

The New York Times did cover Fulton's loss to Morris a few weeks earlier. Fulton lost badly and this could have dropped him as a serious contender until he rallied with his victory over Langford.

It is also possible London fought under different names, not an unusual practice back then, and had more experience than the boxrec record shows.

 

I managed to unearth a little info about when and where this fight might have been.

Boxrec lists the fight as occuring on this card-only New York, New York is listed as a site-April 27, 1917.

Jimmy Kane-Charley Hayes
Eddie Dorsey-Kid Burns
Leo Johnson-Stanley Yaokum
Jack London-Fred Fulton

The New Times on April 27, 1917, does have article saying there will be a card at the Harlem Sporting Club that night headlining Leo Johnson and Stanley Yoakum. These are the only fighters mentioned.

I could not find a mention of the results of the Johnson-Yoakum fight in the Times over the next two days. They apparently did not cover the card.

Perhaps someone with access to other New York papers can provide additional info.

 

The fight never happened.

 

Embarrasing. And to think a poster here argued Fulton deserved top contender status over Harry Wills. LOL

 

Just my own research. Ive searched several New York papers and none mention Fulton-London nor do they even mention it being scheduled. If Fulton had been stopped by London this would have been huge news. In 1917 Fulton was considered the #1 contender and you rightly mentioned that it made waves when he lost to Morris. Had he been knocked out by a light heavyweight of such low calibre as London it would have dropped him out of serious contention and you can also bet that it would have been brought up for years afterwards whenever he was scheduled to fight and yet its never mentioned. Im not even sure how this fight entered some of the records on the web but my guess is that it came from an old record book and was originally a fight that London had participated in with someone else that somehow got mixed in with Fulton's record. This was not uncommon in some of the older record books from 1910s, 20s, and 30s. London was a pretty terrible fighter. Ive done quite a bit research on him. Im not aware of him ever fighting under another name but Jack London was not his real name, I do know that. He was little better than a sparring partner level fighter at his best and Id wager my next paycheck that on his best day and Fulton's worst Fulton would have still been able to defeat him, likely by one sided stoppage.

 

To be fair to the people who acorded him that honour at the time they did not have the benefit of hindsight.

They couldnt look back and see the final records of Wills and Fulton so they had to go with what was happening at the time.

If the general forum had existed tin 1916 all the talk would be:

"When is Willard going to fight Fulton?".

"Is Fulton the futur of the division?".

"Wills is just beating up and edging old men like Langford and Fulton just showed him how it should be done".

 

All the known facts seem to indicate that.

This is a report from the NY Times, April 22, 1917 - a mere five days before the fight is alleged to have taken place.


"Fred Fulton, the Minnesota heavyweight, who until a few weeks ago was regarded as a likely contender for championship honors, has broken away from his manager, Frank Force, and in the future will have his pugilistic interests guided by Mike Collins, who was Fulton's former manager. The big Minnesotan has announced his intention of trying to obtain a return bout with Carl Morris, but says that he will never again box in this city."


How is it he's declaring he will never again fight in NY if he was already scheduled to fight there just a few days later?? :huh

 

Off what I have been able to gleam from the New York Times, all the evidence indicates this fight did not take place.

That said, I would really like to know what is the evidence which convinces Boxrec and the Cyberboxing Zone that it did. I assume they must have strong positive evidence.

After all, it would have to occur to any researcher that this seems to be a very unlikely fight and so one would think it would take proof to get it into the records of two record keeping organizations.

 

I'm very curious about that too. I think I'll drop a line over at those forums and see what they say.

 

I have an account of the Langford that was featured in NY papers, and it doesn't mention anything about a loss to London. Then again, it doesn't mention anything about any of Fulton's previous fights.

 

I checked Harry Greb's fight with London later in 1917. I forget the exact wording, but London was described as something like unknown or obscure--that is strange if he beat Fulton. No mention is made of him beating Fulton.