Just finished reading the book about this guy who fought during the Jack Johnson era. Was a lightheavyweight who won the light heavyweight championship of the world in 1922. Anyway Siki is probably one of the top 5 most colorful fighters of all time. Some of his antics -was known to walk his pet lion on the street while wearing a top hat and tuxedo -was known to fire a revolver in the air which somehow would prompt his two great danes to do tricks -drank champagne before fights -was fond of white women which was a big no no back than and had two white wives. -was actually payed to lose the fight that he won the lhw championship but instead got pissed off when he got knocked down during the fight because he expected the champ to beat him by decision and not take a beating. He got up a threw aggresive barrages of punches over the next couple of rounds and knocked out the champ ( i believe it was George Carpientier).the ref who was in on it tried to say the champ had tripped and knocked himself out but the crowd almost rioted so they gave it to Siki - First Muslim to win a world title -when threatened with deportation siki simply married a white women than abandoned her in Africa and sailed to america never to retun -Mike Tyson adopted his techinque of throwing the left hook. Both of there's are thrown exactly the same. -He was murdered at the age of 28. No one knows who did it. There is a fantastic book on him called Battling Siki: a tale of Ring Fixes, Race, and Murder. A must read for fans of classic boxing __________________
Interesting. I might be wrong but I am pretty sure that Battling Siki fought in World War 1 and at one point he took 6 or 7 or 8 soldiers (some of them germans I believe) prisoners and because he wanted to get rid of them, he locked them in some kind of cellar and threw a few hand grenades in there and killed them. I think I read this story in a book about Freddie Mills and Randolph Turpin - http://www.amazon.com/Fighters-Deat...sr=8-1&keywords=randolph+turpin+freddie+mills (Not sure if the story is true or not though. Siki got robbed pretty good against Mike McTigue.
Its a good book. The only quibble I had with it was the ham handed way he tried to make a case for scoring McTigue-Siki via newspapers. His conclusion on the fight is ultimately right but the way in which he arrived at that conclusion was a bit strange. Its well researched and he does discuss Siki's war record including the possibility that he wasnt a hero but possibly guilty of war crimes.
It is worth noting that the early black fighters who managed to slip through the colour bar, were often colourful and charismatic figures outside the ring. We see this with Joe Walcott, Jack Johnson, Siki of course, and John Henry Lewis.
It was a pretty good book. Better than "The *****cat of Prizefighting" (about Tiger Flowers), not as good as "Unforgivable Blackness." I have the full fight of McTigue-Siki in perfect quality. The most fascinating boring fight I've ever seen. I also have Norfolk-Tate. Gotta slow it down to see it, it's evidence of the beast that Norfolk was.
amazing though....mc tigue was a boxer who looked like he was actually scared of boxing...yet he had a great career on paper.
