Hes kinda hard to figure. He seemed to run hot and cold. When he was "on" he was great. He could box, punch, and was pretty fast for somewhat musclebound guy. But he had some poor results against fighters that he was better than. Its hard to tell if this was because of personal outside of the ring issues, stylistic mismatches, or just his own limitations. He was a fascinating guy though. He started fighting at a very young age in Maryland and eventually ended up in Panama when the C**** was being built. Black fighters had more opportunities down there and sport was booming to entertain all of the workers and seamen. He was obviously an intelligent and enterprising young man because he used his earnings down there to open a gym where he also trained fighters and I believe even promoted fights. He really gained quite a rep down in Panama and used that to return to the United States at just the right time and get publicity and fights. Very shrewd guy.
As an aside he eventually went blind in one eye as a result of his fight out west against Lee Anderson and by the end of his career he was pretty well used up. I have a suspicion that he went punchy after he retired because I have an interview done with him in the 1930s and his memory seems very bad for a guy who was relatively young and he had trouble recalling details about his career.
At what point did injuries play an impact on his career ? Stylistically how do you feel he does H2H against Jack Dempsey if they met in 1920 ?
