Pittsburgh the best fight city ever?

Hi LT.

Are you sure about this? Because there is no mention of Chip training in New Castle at that time and I've read almost every Pittsburgh Press sports section from 1896-1911. True, Chip began fighting in Madison, but it was in Pittsburgh where he truly established himself and his reputation as a fighter of note.

Jimmy Dime and Red Mason joined forces and to start the National A.C. and open the Duquesne Gardens in 1908(seminal events in Pittsburgh boxing history). I may be wrong, but I haven't seen anything to indicate Chip training up in New Castle at this time or at any time leading up to his first bout in Pittsburgh in 1910. He was fighting almost exclusively out of Pittsburgh that year. With Dime as official DG matchmaker and Chip as one of it's main stars it wouldn't have made much sense for them to be commuting up and back from New Castle to train, especially considering how much fighting Chip was doing in Pitt and how involved Dime was with the National A.C. there.

From what I've been able to gather, when the National A.C. dissolved Dime snatched some of the Duquesne Gardens brightest stars (Patsy Brannigan, Chip and Tom McMahon) and brought them up to New Castle to live and train. But by then all three had already become fistic stars in Pittsburgh and thus were usually considered to be Pittsburgh fighters.

Considering all that and the fact that he fought a disproportionate number of his bouts in Pittsbugh (as compared to New Castle or Madison) I think it's fair to say that the Smoky City has as much a claim on Chip as any place. That town made George Chip.:good

 

I mean you gotta give some major props to London for being a historical epicenter of the sport.

 

Not Bristol?

 

Pretty sure.

Chip started fighting while working in the coal mines around Madison, hence the "Madison Miner" tag. He fought pickup fights around Madison (Madison, Greensburg, Latrobe) for a year or so before he was sent to Jimmy Dime by his financial backer for polishing. After that point Chip spent most of his time between New Castle and Madison.

Chip began training in Dimes gym in New Castle in early-mid 1909. It was almost a year later before he started fighting in Pittsburgh.

He didnt fight many fights in New Castle because there was a bigger market down in Pittsburgh. If you compare the number of shows being promoted per year in New Castle to those being promoted at the same time in Pittsburgh during Chips career they dont even compare, nor did the gates or the purses.

It made financial sense to go where the money was. Chip didnt just fight in Pittsburgh he fought all over. Its true he fought in Pittsburgh more than New Castle but of his nearly 200 fights less 25% of those were fought in Pittsburgh.

I think you could make the case if Chip lived in New Castle but trained in Pittsburgh and was managed out of Pittsburgh. Similar to Tony Zale being from Gary but training out of and being managed out of Chicago. But Chip was definately a New Castle fighter.

Its kind of similar to the situation with Marvin Hagler. Hagler was a Brockton fighter. He fought far more bouts in Boston but nobody calls him a Boston fighter, or shouldnt anyway. There was an established culture of boxing in Brockton there just wasnt a market for it like there was in Boston. So, you trained in Brockton, you hailed from Brockton, you were molded by Brockton, but when you wanted to make money you went to Boston.

Chip trained in New Castle, was molded in New Castle, and spent the majority of his life in New Castle, but he went where the money was. He fought more in Pittsburgh than he did in New Castle but he fought more everywhere else than he did in Pittsburgh and New Castle combined.

Dime would supply the clubs in Pittsburgh with fighters and because of this a natural rivalry built up between the two cities that was great for business. I think by the time Chip began fighting regularly in Pittsburgh Dime was also providing fighters to Tom Bodkins rival American Club.

Chip always claimed New Castle as his home and while I have seen him associated with Madison mostly early in his career, Ive never seen him called "George Chip of Pittsburgh."

The Dime stable was fiercely proud of its New Castle roots and likely would take offense to being lumped with Pittsburgh.

A good resource for Chip's early days in New Castle is a site called newspaperarchive.com. They have the New Castle News from early in Chips career. You can find articles on his coming to New Castle throughout.

Google News is also a good resource. They have a couple of papers from Pittsburgh and Chip is always either mentioned as being from Madison or New Castle. They always talk of him "coming here" and rarely if ever refer to him as a "local boy"

 

No, my family is from New Castle and later Ohio. I just dont see how Pittsburgh could claim Chip. He certainly never pretended to be a part of Pittsburgh boxing and would have argued against it.

I dont believe that simply having a number of fights in one location makes you "from" that location. Especially not if you are not based out of it or trained out of it.

Im sure there are quite a lot of boxers who fight out of their home base but fight much more in other locations. Doesnt make them from where they are fighting.

If the Klitchko brothers fought most of their fights in the USA would they be Las Vegas or New York fighters? Doubtful.

I dont ever hear anyone calling Lennox Lewis an American fighter despite the fact that he fought more bouts here than anywhere else.

 

Yes Vic, Bossio was just 1/2" over 5 ft. So many years gone by , but I still recall him today...After his discharge from the service did he start to box...Tough and game guy was Bossio, to even tackle the preying mantis
that was Sandy Saddler, who belonged with the likes of Harry Greb and Fritzie Zivic...Anything goes...

 

br, who can say truly...Pittsburgh had my alltime favorite fighter Harry Greb and Billy Conn, New York had Benny Leonard, and Gene Tunney, and Philly had also so many great fighters from Lew Tendler and after...Tough towns make tough fighters I would think....But NO city had as many great fighters and trainers at ONE time as New York city when Stillman's gym
saw the greatest array of boxing trainers as Ray Arcel, Whitey Bimstein, Freddie Brown, Charley Goldman, Chickie Ferrera, Nick and Dan Florio,
ply their trade from the 1920s to the 1950s...Along with the greatest fighters in the WORLD training at any given day....As a youngster I would go there every Saturday for many years rubbing shoulders with great fighters and trainers...How could you top New York of those glorious boxing days ?:good

 

An excellent post sir. Thank you for the detailed response:good. I am currently in the process of writing a book on the history of boxing in Pittsburgh and these details are important.

As stated before, I am up to 1911 in the newspapers and Chip is still being called the "Madison Miner" with little mention of him being a "New Castle" fighter (though he was being trained by Jimmy Dime). I wonder when Chip officially settled in NC. Have you seen any census reports? I'm curious to know where exactly he was living in 1910, when he fought 10 of his 13 bouts in Pittsburgh (2 others just south of Pitt in Greenburg). With him fighting so often there and Dime busy playing matchmaker at Duquesne Gardens it's hard to imagine that they were in such perpetual motion between New Castle and Pittsburgh. Are we positive that they didn't live in the Smoky City in 1910?

Anyone here have access to census records?

There was such a cross-pollination between the two towns and I think that's where the confusion is. Patsy Brannigan spent his formative years in Pittsburgh but eventually left and became part of the Dime stable. Tom McMahon was from Spring Valley, Illinois and was a pupil of Billy Papke. But he moved his operations to Pittsburgh, where he became a Duquesne Gardens attraction and acquired the name "the Pittsburgh Bearcat". I haven't quite pinpointed when he hooked-up with the Dime stable, but he took his nickname up to New Castle with him. Plus Jimmy Dime was so hands-on involved in Pittsburgh boxing that it is difficult to extract him from it and say that he was strictly a New Castle guy. He played a seminal role in the development of the Sweet Science in Pittsburgh.

I have come across newspapers here and there that refer to Chip as a "Pittsburgh fighter", especially those from Australia. But you are correct in that he absolutely considered himself to be a New Castle boy. Then again, shouldn't Madison have some claim here?

Looking forward to your post...