Is Prince Edward to blame for one of Jimmy Wilde's losses?

1921-01-13, Royal Albert Hall, Kensington, London, United Kingdom, Jimmy Wilde 110 lbs vs Pete Herman 119½ lbs

Jimmy Wilde was the smallest of all world flyweight champions. His fighting weight was around 7 stone. With his pipe-stem arms and legs, he looked anything but a boxer. In fact he could hit with such devastating accuracy and power that the newspapers dubbed him ‘The Ghost With a Hammer in His Hand.’

In order to get fights Wilde frequently had to give away weight. Usually he emerged from these contests the victor, but when he was matched with the American Pete Herman, the Welsh fighter discovered that he had bitten off more than he could chew.

Herman was bantamweight champion of the world until shortly before he defeated Wilde. Soon after his return to the USA, he won his title back again. When he agreed to fight the flyweight champion he made it plain that the lightest weight he was prepared to weigh in at was 8 stone 6 pounds, while Wilde as usual would be a little over 7 stone.

Wilde and his manager assumed that the weigh-in would take place at ringside, immediately before the contest. Herman was having none of this. His contract stipulated that the weigh-in would take place at two o’clock on the afternoon of the bout, some eight hours before the contest was due to start.

For some reason Wilde and his manager Teddy Lewis were not informed of this. Shortly before the contest was due to start, the Welshman asked to see Pete Herman make the stipulated weight of 8 stone 6 pounds at the ringside. The reply from the American’s dressing room was swift and emphatic. Herman had observed the letter of his contract; he had weighed in at two o’clock and had no intention of revisiting the scales.

This threw the flyweight’s party into a panic. Herman would certainly have had a good meal since weighing in that afternoon. He would now probably weigh around 9 stone. That was far too much weight to expect Wilde to give away.

Wilde sent word to the promoter. Unless the American weighed in at 8 stone 6 pounds before entering the ring, the Welshman was going to call the fight off. Herman would not be budged. He had met the agreed terms. What he weighed now was no one’s business but his own.

The promoter was in a panic. Everything was going wrong with his Albert Hall promotion. Scaffolding for the lights had obscured the view of a number of patrons, who were complaining noisily. The other main event of the evening, between Bombardier Billy Wells and the American Battling Levinsky, had already been cancelled because Levinsky had injured a hand. Already the hall was in an uproar. When the spectators heard that the Wilde–Herman contest was going to be scrapped as well there could be a riot.

To make matters worse, sitting at the ringside was the Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VIII and Duke of Windsor. It was the first visit of royalty to a major boxing promotion. It would be a disaster if the Prince were to be forced to witness any disturbance outside the ring. Already Edward had climbed into the ring to make a reassuring and well-received little speech. Now he was waiting to see Wilde fight the American.

Pete Herman later declared that it was the Prince himself who went along to Jimmy Wilde’s dressing-room and asked him to go ahead with the bout. ‘Less than ten seconds he was in there,’ declared the bantamweight. ‘Then out comes Jimmy Wilde, skipping. He came in the ring, and then the fight took place.’

It is unlikely that the Prince of Wales would so break with protocol as to ask Wilde face to face to carry on with the contest. More probably he let it be known through one of his companions that he hoped to see the Welshman in action. As Wilde climbed into the ring, the Prince certainly stopped him and said, ‘Thank you, Wilde – and the very best of luck!’

Wilde wanted the American’s weight to be made public, so the MC obliged by saying that the contest was no longer considered as having been made at 8 stone 6 pounds, so all bets on the fight were off.

Herman was far too strong for Wilde from the beginning. He almost knocked the Welshman down in the second round and was on top for the rest of the contest. In the seventeenth round he knocked Wilde down several times, and the referee stopped the fight with the flyweight out on his feet. Jack Smith with the famous words: "I'm sorry, Jimmy; I have to pick you up because you don't know how to lie down."

Wilde’s manager may have been out-thought over the matter of the weigh-in, but at least he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had secured his man’s purse of $8000 in advance. The promoter decamped with the rest of the takings immediately after the bout, and Pete Herman never received a cent for his trouble.

Wilde did not fight again for over two years, but when he was offered £13,000 to defend his title against Pancho Villa in New York he accepted. It was a big mistake. He was so badly beaten in seven rounds that he claimed that it was not until four months afterwards that he was able to recognise anyone again.

For a time he became a boxing journalist. Promoters took to cashing in on his fame by introducing Wilde from the ring before big fights. This habit stopped when, before one bout between lighter fighters, Wilde, by then about sixty, took his bow and then, jerking a thumb at the two contestants in their corners, confided to the crowd, ‘I could beat the pair of them!’ The powerful promoter, Jack Solomons, was not amused and Wilde was seldom asked to take a bow from the ring again.

Clearly Mister Wilde knew what he was in for. Had there been no royal request Do y'all reckon Wilde would have given into the crowd at some point anyway, or do you reckon he'd've gone home with one less L?

As always, thanks for having a peek and I hope someone found this interesting.

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If for some reason a mod needs to delete this thread would that mod be so kind as to message me the reason so that I can adapt and stop getting threads deleted? I know if you read that in the wrong tone it can come off kinda bitchy. I don't mean to *****, it's an honest question not a passive aggressive jab. My last was probably my fault I'm sure but I'm not sure exactly what happened. Thanks buds.