Jimmy 'The Little Tiger' Barry: 59-0 1890s Multi-Division Champion

Right-handed, 5’2”, 98–112 lbs.
72 bouts from 1891 to 1900
59W-39KO-0L-10D-2NC
First Bantamweight Champion
World 100 lbs Champ 1893
World 102 lbs Champ 1894
World 105 lbs Champ 1894
World 110 lbs Champ 1895
World 108 lbs Champ 1897
World 110 lbs Champ 1897
Hall of Fame Induction 2000
Born: 3/7/1870, Chicago, IL
Died: 4/5/1943

Joe Choynski: Barry I consider the greatest fighter I ever saw. He had everything: speed, science, stamina, ring generalship, courage and uncanny punching power. There were many great bantams in that day, but Barry outclassed them all

A flyweight fighter in the early days of gloved boxing, before the division was established, Jimmy Barry is one of a select few Hall of Famers who never lost a match. He was born in Chicago of Irish parents and fought in rough and tumble schoolboy bouts. The diminutive Barry came under the tutelage of former lightweight boxer Harry Gilmore, impressing him with his two-handed power. Barry’s first match was against Fred Larson at McGurn’s Handball Court in Chicago, and though Larson was more experienced and outweighed the newcomer by ten pounds, Barry knocked him out in the first.

Barry became a regular at McGurn’s, then ventured out of Illinois to the Columbian Athletic Club in Roby, Indiana, to face the well-regarded “Portland Cyclone” Jimmy Shea on July 10, 1893. Though he once again gave away a considerable amount of weight—fourteen pounds—Shea’s handlers threw in the towel at the start of the fourth round. Later that year, Barry knocked out touring Londoner Jack Levy in seventeen rounds to win what was billed as the World 100-lb Championship, and on June 2, 1894, he defeated Jim Gorman in eleven rounds at the famed Olympic Club in New Orleans to claim the world 102-lb title.

Next, “The Little Tiger” faced his greatest rival, Casper Leon, for the American paperweight title, contested at 105 pounds. Barry, a clever boxer and two-handed puncher, was considered the premier small man in the Midwest, while Leon was top in the East. The fight went twenty rounds before a Barry right turned the tide, leading to a knockout victory in the 28th. In a rematch on March 30, 1895, in Chicago, the police intervened and stopped the bout in the fourteenth round. Though the fight was called a draw, Barry was generally considered the winner. Leon fought him five more times, all either draws or no decisions.

Barry next faced Walter Croot at the National Sporting Club in London, seeking acknowledgment as the world paperweight champion. For the first sixteen rounds, the fight was fairly even, but in the seventeenth, Barry’s attack began to wear on Croot. In the twentieth, an exhausted Croot attempted to launch one last barrage in hopes of a victory, but Barry landed a right which dazed Croot and then knocked him out with a left to the head and a right to the jaw. Croot never regained consciousness and died the next morning. Charged with manslaughter, Barry was exonerated when it was determined that Croot died of a skull fracture sustained when his head hit the unpadded wooden floor.

Though cleared of wrongdoing in Croot’s death, Barry was deeply affected by the incident and immediately announced his retirement. After his return to the United States, he came out of retirement and fought nine more times, with two wins, seven draws, and no knockouts. Before the fatality, Barry generally won by knockout, and he admitted that Croot’s death affected his fighting style. In his last fight against future bantam champ and Hall of Famer Harry Harris, on September 1, 1899, some observers believed that Harris won and that the referee called the match a draw to enable Barry to again retire undefeated.


https://www.amazon.com/Boxing-Register-International-Official-Record/dp/1590134990

Thanks for read buds, anyone know of any world champions that retired unbeaten that predates Jimmy but comes after Varazdat?