Was Louis L'amour ever a fighter...some assistance needed

Louis L'amour was a world-renowned author, most famously known for his Western novels (He wrote over 50.)

He claimed to have won 51 of 59 fights as a professional fighter. Yet, I can't find any information on Boxrec nor on Wikipedia about any profesional record.
Perhaps he fought under another name?

Can anyone shed some light on this?

This is from his official site:

"...In the years after leaving Jamestown Louis had a sporadic career as a professional boxer. Having been well taught by his father and older brothers, Louis made extra money from an occasional prizefight and, in the year just after his family left Jamestown, he often fought in the ring for the money to buy gas so that they could move on. On more than one occasion a run of luck allowed him to box full time. Over the years he spent time in dim gymnasiums in cities all across the west, first as a boxer, then as second and finally as a trainer, seeing the world of fighters, managers, gangsters and gamblers first hand. Louis ended his fighting career by coaching several successful Golden Gloves teams; the first few in Oklahoma, the last, an army team that went to the Tournament of Champions in Chicago. Louis freely drew from this experience for many of the boxing stories in the collections "

This content is protected

", "

This content is protected

" and "

This content is protected

".


PS-I would ask on the forums there, but you need to register and besides I might it paydirt here first.

 

Okay, thanks Ezzard. I had no idea L'amour was a fibber.

 

Just out of interest, I think I'll post this question on the official site and see what bites I get.

If nobody there can give me a pointer as to some sort of record and such, then I think we'll have our answer.

 

I've just hung an enquiry out there. Let's see what happens.

 

This is what I've been wondering as well. I'm skeptical, but let's see...

 

I had the following reply: (among others.)

"LL fought professionally, ie. for money in formal, organized, bouts. However, he was never ranked (so far as I know) and fought in the 1920s, prior to complete record keeping ... the records were complete when it came to major fights but many of the tank-town bouts were not recorded.
Like many fighters of the time he fought under several names, each designed to match a level of fitness or his assumption as to how well he'd do ... this was to allow him to lose under one name and win under another so as to build a cleaner record. Obviously, once a fighter became known he could no longer do this.

I have found many advertisements and fliers for LL's boxing in old papersand historical societies but I have never seen him (or anyone I could confirm was him) mentioned in the more official boxing records. His self quoted 'winning 55 out of 59' professional fights seems to be pure malarky as I have discovered more than four losses and nowhere near 50 fights. I assume that amatuer and professional LL might well have fought more than 50 times, it is virtually impossible to track all the bouts and all the names he might have had but LL's 'record' seems fiction unless it is somehow a truth that is built on a foundation of fiction, say 68 fights under many different names with many fights conviently forgotton about.

Having done a lot of research on this issue, I can not imagine a boxing historian being able to track a minor fighter around the country and get a record of all his fighting in that era ... unless they knew the man's life and were researching it like a biography rather than just looking at the atheletic records. Seriously, I found a flier for LL, boxing under another name, in an 'archive' in Santa Rosa, NM that was a dusty basement with broken windows and rain blowing in onto the stacks of old documents. You needed a gas mask to survive the dust. I only knew it was LL because the dates matched his claim and the other person on the ticket was a psudonym for is adopted brother!

So, he had professional fights, just none anyone would care about or could easily find."

I'm happy with this answer, and it does seem that he at least had some experience in the ring.