In 1939, after his career had ended, Harry Thomas came forward and confessed to throwing fights to both men. http://www.boxing.com/harry_thomas_for_the_good_of_the_game.html Harry Thomas: For the Good of the Game By Clarence George on February 9, 2015 This content is protected "Here's a chance for you to make yourself a nice piece of money and you won't get hurt." “Kid, this ain’t your night.”—On the Waterfront Harry Thomas, a tough but forgotten heavyweight from the Sweet Science’s Golden Age, fought from 1931 to 1939, winding up with a record of 41 wins, 32 by knockout, 15 losses, three by knockout, and two draws. He took on many of the hard boys of his era, including Dynamite Jackson, Unknown Winston, whom he bested two out of three, Charlie Belanger, Jack Trammell, Roscoe Toles, Jimmy Adamick, Al McCoy, Dick Daniels, and the great Joe Louis himself, fighting for at least a version of the heavyweight title. Harry also fought Max Schmeling at Madison Square Garden on December 13, 1937, losing by eighth-round TKO, and Tony Galento at Philly’s Convention Hall on November 14, 1938, losing by third-round TKO. Harry threw both fights. Or so he says. In an article that appeared in the October 30, 1939, edition of the Chicago Tribune, Thomas told Sports Editor Arch Ward all about it: “Those fake fights have been worrying me for a long time. I am revealing them now for the sake of younger boxers who may face the same temptations to which I succumbed. I’m glad to have the facts printed. For the good of the game they should have been made known long ago. “I knew it was wrong to take part in a fixed fight, but it was the only way I could make any real money. I came up the hard way. I never had a dollar I could call my own until the Schmeling bout. In fact, I was in debt. I’m thru with boxing, and it will ease my conscience to have these facts disclosed. “I never had made any money as a professional fighter. I was working for cheap purses. By the time training and incidental expenses were paid and I split my earnings with my manager I had little or nothing left. I was well along in years as fighters go. If I accepted offers to throw bouts to Schmeling and Galento I would make enough money for a nest egg. If I refused I wouldn’t get a chance to meet opponents who would attract big gates.” Crowed Ward, “This is an exposé of one of the biggest swindles in the history of boxing.” Thomas wound up with enough filthy lucre, according to the editor, “to buy timberland in northern Minnesota, two residences in Eagle Bend, Minn., and a 160 acre farm near that village.” What he didn’t wind up with, however, was a slew of “opponents who would attract big gates.” He had eight fights following his loss to Schmeling and only one after losing to Galento. Pretty small beer for the 1930s. True, he got a shot at Joe Louis four months after the Schmeling bout, but was that because he threw the fight? Or did his loss to the German have damn all to do with it? According to Thomas, his manager, Nate Lewis, arranged the fix with Joe Jacobs, who managed both Schmeling and Galento. “Here’s a chance for you to make yourself a nice piece of money and you won’t get hurt,” Jacobs reportedly told Thomas. “You got a chance to fight Max Schmeling. Now listen, Max don’t have to fight you. This is where you get some national recognition. You go out and look good for a few rounds and then lose by a knockout.” Says Thomas about his fight with Schmeling: “Things moved along as planned until the third round. Schmeling hit me a fairly hard right hand punch to the jaw. I could have gone down, but our agreement called for me to lose in the fourth. Before the end of the round I landed a left to the jaw that shook up Max badly. He apparently felt I was trying to double-cross him, because in the fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds he wouldn’t throw punches hard enough from which I could have gone down. Toward the end of the seventh he caught me with a glancing blow on the chin which wouldn’t have knocked down a young boy. However, I went to my knees to give him a sign I was ready to fall whenever he opened up. In the eighth round I whispered to him to keep throwing punches. I went down six or seven times, always coming up at the count of one or two.” As for the payoff: “There was a big pile of bills on the desk. Nate Lewis showed me that training expenses had amounted to $1,800. Then he started counting out money to me. I didn’t want to take all my earnings in cash. I took one thousand dollar bill and three or four hundred dollar bills and put them in my pocket. I intended to stop in Chicago on my way home and I wanted some cash for Christmas.” Thomas later claimed that he didn’t receive most of the money promised. Obviously unfamiliar with the adage of getting fooled not once but twice, the Galento fight was more of the same, with Thomas again getting shortchanged. And not just in boodle. Though the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission grudgingly awarded him his share of the purse, they banned him for life. Perhaps they heard that some of Galento’s punches “barely landed.” But was that because of the supposed fix? Or because this was the burly barman’s first fight since a near-fatal bout with pneumonia? “Galento was a bit shaky on his feet,” writes Galento biographer Joseph G. Donovan in Galento the Great, “but still that flame of fighting flickered. He rushed. He punched. He missed at times because of the lack of competitive action. He was short with blows. He looked weak for two rounds, but Galento started to show his old time spirit in the third round. And once he got the range, Thomas was a mark for body and head punches. Thomas was knocked down five times and stayed down after a barrage of head blows in the third round.” “Sure, I was a bit weak and punch shy,” said Galento, “but once I started to bang him in the head with my nightstick, you know, my left hook, he weakened.” “A punch to the temple hurt me more than anything else,” said Thomas after the bout. According to referee Tommie O’Keefe, “Galento’s blows were short and sharp.” And though slower than his pre-pneumonia self, he “still retained his powerful punch.” Joe Jacobs was a schemer, sure. In order to heat up demand for a championship bout with Joe Louis, he wanted “Two Ton” to take out the fighters the “Brown Bomber” had…only quicker. It took Louis five rounds to stop Thomas; it took Galento three. Convenient? It took Louis three rounds to stop Nathan Mann; it took Galento two. Was Galento-Mann also a matter of convenience? Well, as long as there’s no paranoia, that’s the main thing. Tell that to a hostile New York Times: “The crowd showed its disapproval in the third as Thomas went down five times, to the amazement of the onlookers, if not Galento. Newspapers were rolled up and hurled from all directions to the ring. Maybe Thomas was a target, too. Or both fighters. At any rate, as Thomas went up and down like a robot, the shower persisted and the roar of the aroused onlookers rolled across the arena.” The evidence is all Seesaw Margery Daw, not helped any by the December 13, 1954, issue of Sports Illustrated, in which Thomas introduced a new wrinkle, claiming that Nate Lewis acted as front man for Jim Norris, president of the International Boxing Council. An easy scapegoat, given Norris’ unsavory reputation as “a fixer of prize fights.” Too easy, perhaps, and the accusation got the horselaugh from many, especially as Thomas ridiculously claimed to have been offered $65,000 (well over a million in today’s money) to throw the Schmeling fight, though he only wound up with 15 grand (about $250,000 today). He was offered, he said, a more modest but still hefty $6,000 ($100,000 today) for the Galento dive. Thomas, who penned the article, further claimed that he’d been paid to “carry” Jimmy Adamick (a much more impressive and successful fighter than Thomas) when they fought at the Garden on February 18, 1938, the “Midland Mauler” winning by unanimous decision. He graciously conceded, however, that his bout with Joe Louis at Chicago Stadium on April 1, 1938, was “on the level,” the Bomber winning by fifth-round KO.
[PART 2]: According to Thomas, while Joe Jacobs came up with such lines as, “You can make more money on this one fight than you could make on that farm the rest of your life. You do business with us and you’ll be taken care of,” it was Norris who gave him his marching orders; it was Norris who was explicit: “You’ll have to take a dive, lose the fight by a knockout.” “The charge is libelous and absurd — a cheap device by a magazine desperately seeking to build circulation at the expense of boxing,” said Norris. “I did not promote the fights nor did I manage any of the fighters mentioned in the article.” Norris also observed that most of the people involved in the so-called scandal were dead, and “cannot conveniently defend themselves.” Nor inconveniently, for that matter. Arthur Donovan, who reffed the Schmeling bout, was no more impressed than Norris, saying that if Thomas “went into the tank, he certainly did it the hard way,” needing 11 stitches. It comes down to this: Harry Thomas was tough, sure, but good enough to pose a threat to even a pneumonia-weakened Tony Galento, let alone Max Schmeling, the first man to beat — indeed, stop — Joe Louis? Thomas’ claims — first whispered, then shouted — were held in so little regard that they utterly failed to stall either Galento or Schmeling’s careers, both of whom got cracks at Louis’ crown. I found Harry’s granddaughter, who kindly put me in touch with her mother. I learned that her father was good friends with Joe Louis and was often invited to the champ’s home. Harry was gracious in reciprocating, but Joe was wary — Harry’s was a white neighborhood and Joe didn’t want to rock the boat. But what did Harry have to tell his daughter about the fights he supposedly threw? What he told the Illinois and New York State Athletic Commissions: Not a blessed thing.
Plenty of top fighters have won fixed fights. Any prospect both past and present with a lot of investors behind him will rack up some wins against opponents, who are in on the deal and often without the prospect knowing anything about it. It just happens to be an unfortunate reality of the business. Arum, King, and plenty of other promoters have had to spread a lot of money around to make interested U.S. Attorneys look the other way with regard to fight fixes. This is also the case with MMA and other sports. I used to see fighters get offered bribes on the regular back in 2005-2007 when my buddy Big E ran his own fight promotion, since he wasn’t willing to pay local promoters to get fights.
What he is saying sounds somewhat implausible. I can't see him having much chance against either Schmeling or Galento either way!
Never got around to researching this thoroughly but I came across a few other stories on it. Judging by the timeline, it seems that this fiasco led to the Schmeling-Baer fight being nixed, Schmeling going into retirement, and Galento taking what was then the longest layoff of his career before fighting Max Baer. Prosecutors looked into the allegations but didn’t find enough evidence to corroborate them. Thomas apparently refused to testify.
I remember reading a piece by a promoter who admitting to fixing every fight possible. In a sport where a prospect is an investment and a loss that can happen at any time is a loss of that investment, it's pragmatic. We'll never know how many boxers 'wore the wraps'.
This is what Schmeling said about this fight in his autobiography. He had come to New York to watch the Louis-Farr fight. "The next day Mike Jacobs offered me a title fight with Joe Louis. There was, however, one condition attached--I first had to face the extremely strong Harry Thomas. That fight would put me in back in the public eye and serve as ballyhoo for the title match with Louis. I was in no position to refuse so I accepted and signed the contract. "On December 13 I knocked out Harry Thomas in the eighth round of the unexpectedly tough fight. I could have just as easily become a stepping stone for Thomas, and I expect that had been the intent. Directly after that, however, I got the contract for a title fight against Joe Louis. The matchup would take place on June 22, 1938 in New York." I think it interesting to get Schmeling's take. He feels that this fight was designed by Mike Jacobs to derail him. While the Louis-Schmeling rematch was certain to be a big gate, it was also dangerous for Mike Jacobs. Schmeling, after all, had KO'd Louis in 1936, and if he repeated the feat, the championship would have been in Germany with Jacobs out in the cold. So there is some logic to Mike Jacobs possibly hoping Harry Thomas would ambush Schmeling. But was Thomas really good enough for Jacobs to reasonably hope for an upset? One point which occurred to me about this. If Thomas could beat Schmeling, why wouldn't he? Such an upset would have vaulted him into a big money title shot against Louis the next summer. If he thought he had a chance, agreeing to a dive seems odd. Does anyone know what connection Jim Norris has with all this? What was he doing in 1937? Another question occurs to me. We know boxing was/is corrupt. But so were newspapers. Was Thomas paid for this revelation? If so, how much? The owner of the Tribune was a very wealthy man and could put out a few thousand for a good scandal. And was Thomas willing to provide whatever was needed to cash in? On balance, obviously the Schmeling camp might have reasons to fix the fight. Why Thomas would accept when a win over Schmeling would open the door to a title shot against Louis is more murky. A fix in the Galento case seems more plausible. Thomas had his shot and was on the way down. Galento was being built up for a Louis fight. Paying Thomas to tank early and Thomas accepting in this case seems ballpark.
Just on Jim Norris, I looked him up. His net worth at his death in 1966 was $250 million (the equivalent of about $2 billion today). He inherited a great deal of money from his wealthy father. Among his assets: Norris Grain Company, Rock Island Railroad Chicago Furniture Mart Bismarck Hotel (in Chicago) Madison Square Garden Chicago Blackhawks Detroit Red Wings Plus racing stables among other things. Someone with this much money and this sort of background seems out of place being into something as low and sordid as fixing boxing matches. Why would he need the money? Why commit crimes for what for him would be chump change? The Rock Island Railroad is interesting. It built a bridge over the Mississippi in 1856 which led to a famous court case about the rights of river traffic versus bridging the river. The Rock Island Railroad and the Bridge company were represented by an obscure former congressman named Abraham Lincoln. The case helped ignite his political comeback.
I am bumping this thread because I am interesting in knowing if anyone has any info on what connections Jim Norris would have had in 1937 to be supposedly involved in fixing the Schmeling-Thomas fight. Perhaps someone who is really informed about boxing history could lay out the facts.
I only had time to skim this but there was another Sports Illustrated blockbuster on this scandal in the December 13, 1954 issue: https://vault.si.com/vault/40887#&gid=ci0258bfef7010278a&pid=40887---012---image (you might have to scroll to page 12). They apparently gave Thomas a lie detector test and got testimony from other people confirming that Norris was involved in fixing fights. Seems like Thomas alleged that Norris weilded a lot of influence from the shadows, well before he became IBC president.
Thanks for putting this article up. The fact which most makes me wonder about Thomas and fixes is that he got a shot at Louis after losing to Schmeling and Adamick, although the Police Gazette spun this fight as a warm up for Louis and also a chance to gauge him against an opponent who had recently fought Schmeling. Still this raises questions. What works against Thomas is that he is talking to the press, and getting back up from a lie-detector test administered by a guy paid by I assume the publisher of the article. Thomas refused to cooperate with an official investigation in 1939 and testify under oath, so what credibility does he have? I always find these privately administered lie-detector test "proofs" phony. The gist of this story seems to be that Thomas was some sort of really tough fighter, but he lost to every good fighter he fought. Hard to see him in the same class as Schmeling. That is one of the big weaknesses of the case and Thomas' story. It does ring like a rather mediocre fighter trying to build himself up with claims he didn't do his best. This line was odd from the old bantamweight. "Norris told me that the Roscoe Toles-Jimmy Adamick fight was fixed." Toles KO'd Adamick in the second round. The KO put Adamick into a coma and ended his career. What is the guy talking about? Adamick might have been built up, but apparently they couldn't fix the John Henry Lewis and Toles fights. He basically ran up a good stat record against second-stringers, except for a KO of old Maxie Rosenbloom. Without film, how can we judge this. On paper, there is no evidence Thomas was a better fighter than Adamick at all. It does seem a bit convoluted to fix Thomas to lose to Schmeling and Adamick and then allow an honest fight with Louis with Thomas to defend against Schmeling if he won. It still leaves me wondering about Norris. He was after all a very wealthy young man. Why he would get into personally fixing fights and apparently running off at the mouth about it to all and sundry should raise some skepticism.