Thoughts on Billy Miske, his rating at HW, LHW and P4P??

St.Paul, Minn. July 12-Tommy
Gibbons easily outpointed Billy Miske
here Monday night in ten rounds in
the principal bout of the first legal
boxing carnival staged under the provisions
of the boxing law enacted by
the last Minnesota legislature; Both
are St. Paul fighters. Nearly 4,000
spectators witnessed the contest

 

So where do we rate Miske? Behind Greb and Gibbons for sure. Norfolk too. Ahead of Brennan and Meehan. Dillon and Levinsky? At best ,level. Fulton is a harder call, I go with Billy.

 

Id rate him right in there with Brennan. His series with Brennan was as close as it could be until the last fight which I throw out because the outcome is extremely suspect. Meehan is harder to rate because he undoubtedly possessed tools but I dont really think he ever took his career seriously.

 

I have no doubt that Brennan was washed up but he was fighting a guy that was literally at deaths door and should have been in bed waiting for the grim reaper. Miske was dead a month later. When you combine that with the fact that everybody present felt Brennan laid down for Miske and punished him accordingly its pretty obvious that the fight cant be taken entirely on its merits. As for Boxrec well, if you consider that the final word on a man's record then we cant really discuss much. Your talking about the no decision era when even small towns often had three newspapers, all of which gave an account of a fight and yet boxrec more often than not quotes AP reports which were more often than not written by one of the managers of one of the fighters. basing ND wins and losses on AP reports is lazy at best and completely misleading at worst. The majority of local papers covering the St. Louis bout felt Brennan won. The Tulsa bout was awarded to Miske but the fans felt Brennan deserved the victory. He was so popular off of his "loss" to Miske that he was given a July 4 bout with Greb in Tulsa that same year and he and his manager argued bitterly for a different referee feeling that the previous referee of the Miske bout had treated Brennan unfairly and awarded the decision to Miske incorrectly. The other bout they had was held in Miske's hometown so the advantage was surely with him if not in friendly newspaper decisions than definately in home court advantage and a pro Miske crowd. So you have one decision for Brennan, one official decision for Miske that was unpopular, one suspect KO for Miske, and a hometown newspaper decision for Miske. Yeah, Id say the series was close. Hell, Ive never read the St. Paul and Minneapolis reports but with six papers between the twin cities you might find that Brennan even won a few of those decisions...

 

1915, Anyone know more on this?
BILLY MISKE IS BARRED
Referee Charges Him With
"Stalling."
PITTSBURGH. April 5.—Billy Miske,
St. Paul heavyweight, te barred from
further participation in bouts in Allegheny
county, according to orders Issued
yesterday by Sheriff W. S. Haddock.
The Sheriffs action came us the result
of a signed statement made by Referee
Jack Dillon, of the Greb-Miske fight
here last Monday night,in which he
stated thai it was his belief that MIske
"stalled" in the bout by not giving the
public his best efforts.
As a further result, investigations into
the charges of Dillon are being conducted
by both tho police department
and the district attorney's office.

 

That was 1919 not 1915. The ref, Jack Dillon (not the fighter) did an attrocious job of refereeing and was criticized by the press so in trying to save face he put the blame on Miske saying Miske wasnt trying his hardest. An investigation was launched and no evidence of wrong doing was found. It was much ado about nothing and blew over very quickly. The investigation came to a head when Dillon was asked why, if he had the power (which he did) to call the fight a NC did he not if he suspected something was fishy. This was his duty as stated in the local rules. Dillon made up some lame excuse that didnt hold water with anyone and once it became obvious that he had a bad night and made it worse with his allegations it was forgotten. Dillon was a policeman and fairly respected so nobody wanted to drag his name through the mud.

 

Thanks Klompton and you are right, 1919.