Who was the first boxer to use entance music?

Granddad said Ralph Dupas who was a welterweight from New Orleans came into the ring to blues music in the 50's.

 

I looked up "Ralph Dupas Boxer Entrance Music" on Google. I found this: "Ralph Dupas, a world-class welterweight from New Orleans who fought in the 1950s and '60s, entered the ring to blues music from time to time."

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/box...lks-music-evolution/xjbud3xfr2bx18ti7r4g8kzpy

 

Fantastic research!

 

Awesome.

 

Apolo Creed.

 

Your Pa told me he was in Jack Dempsey’s preflight entourage and they had someone playing the violin for the walkout.

 

I feel like it was probably a live band, either like a mariachi or possibly even earlier like some medieval lute player accompanying a bare knuckle fight between bob the butcher and English bill hotchkiss or something

 

As mentioned the actual answer probably is some 18th century fighter.


But certainly main event fighters had a fanfare played when fighting at the Royal Albert Hall, and that has been a boxing venue for over a century now.

 

Probably occurred at an arena like Chicago Stadium. When the stadium was built in 1929, it included a massive pipe organ and they hired an organist who would play music before, during and after events like hockey games.

Because of the large organ, and the frenzied crowds that attended games and fights, the place was nicknamed "The Madhouse on Madison." (It was on Madison St.).

The first event at Chicago Stadium was the Tommy Loughran-Mickey Walker title fight. The organist likely played while the crowd arrived and in between fights. So he may have played while the fighters entered. (The building nearly burned down that night when a barrel of oil left on the roof caught fire.)

I found a note that said in the 1950s there was riot after a fight at Chicago Stadium, the organist tried to stop the riot by playing the Star Spangled Banner during the melee (hoping patriotic music would stop them), and when people wouldn't stop fighting, he floored the volume pedal on the organ and slammed his hands down on the keys ... and the noise blew out all the lights inside the arena and basically stunned everyone (and probably destroyed many eardrums) to the point they staggered out.

That was a bad ass organist. (LOL)

They also had full-time organists at most baseball ballparks in that era. So it could've occurred at an outdoor fight at a ball park.

 

As Errol Flynn said in the 1942 movie Gentleman Jim, There Will Never Be Another John L.