Hurt Business History: The tragic yet familiar partnership of Tom Molineaux and Bill Richmond
By: Ben Fowlkes
Some time in the winter of 1809, a friendless unknown named Tom Molineaux showed up in London telling anyone who would listen that he was the “champion of America” come to fight for England’s heavyweight title. This got a lot of laughs.
Molineaux was a stocky, muscular Black man who claimed to have been born a slave, possibly in Virginia, before earning his freedom in a series of no-holds-barred prizefights that enriched his owner to the point of overwhelming gratitude. He also claimed to have made his way to New York City, where he continued to make a living with his fists, before stowing away on a ship bound for England, the epicenter of professional pugilism at the time.
It’s hard to know how much of that is true. Boxing historians have questioned everything from the details of his Atlantic passage (more likely a crew member than a successfully hidden stowaway for the length of the journey, some say) to his release from bondage (would an early 19th-century slave-owner willingly part with a slave who continually won him money?), but like any good self-marketer in the fight game, Molineaux was never shy about mythologizing his own past. His eventual backers in the English prizefighting scene may have also seen the value in playing up his mysterious origins, and thus the story was born.
What most agree on, however, is that he appeared in London that winter as a raw, unschooled talent with an impressive physique, an abundance of ambition, and not much else. When he told people he’d come to fight Tom Cribb, the heavyweight champion of all England (which effectively made him the heavyweight champion of the world at the time), few took him seriously. If he wanted to break into the fight game of the London Prize Ring, they said, he should go see Bill Richmond.
In other words, the one Black fighter should seek out the other, since no one else would want anything to do with him.
The arc of the fighter-coach relationship that developed between the two men would be familiar to any modern fight fan. We’ve seen it so many times by now it’s become a tired cliche. A grizzled vet takes on a prospect who no one else seems to want. He puts some polish on his rough exterior, even when it’s a thankless task. The new kid learns fast and rises quickly through the ranks. Success goes immediately and irrevocably to his head, until soon no one can tell him a damn thing. Once the frustrated teacher can no longer control his pupil, he settles for exploiting him financially instead. It all ends in fiery human wreckage, as the fight game chews up and spits out another victim.
The saga of Molineaux feels archetypal now, but at the time it was novel. Then again, so was the very concept of a professional fighter. Prizefighting as we know it truly began with the bare-knuckle bouts of the London Prize Ring. They weren’t the first boxers – the Greeks were trading bare fists thousands of years earlier and the Romans even got the bright idea to add leather gloves, studded with metal to inflict maximum damage – but the Brits were among the first to maintain an active professional fight scene comparable to our own modern sport.
They had a consistent rule set, even a version of their own athletic commission to settle disputes, enforce rules, and make sure debts were paid. They had fans, often called “The Fancy,” who represented an uncommon mix of social classes for England in the time period. They even had media, like the early fight game chronicler Pierce Egan.
Richmond is generally regarded as the first Black fighter to break into this nascent sports scene. Born a slave in colonial America, he spent his early years in New York, in bondage to a wealthy loyalist there. It was his natural fighting ability that first caught the eye of Hugh Percy, the British general in command of New York at the onset of America’s war of independence in 1776.
In his excellent history, “Black Genesis: The History of the Black Prizefighter 1760-1870,” Kevin R. Smith relates Percy’s own recollections of first encountering Richmond, who was then just an 11-year-old boy:
“A young Blackamore was ostling the officers’ mounts, and fetching water to the horses, when a corporal of the Brunswicke division chaffed the black boy and he did make sport of the ostler’s colour. Two more Hessians joined in the folly, and one of them tripping the black boy a-purpose so that he dropped his water-can, spilling the lot. The stable-boy fetched his right hand sidelong to the corporal’s great beak of a nose, then he layed into the other two Hessians with both fists set flailing. The three men were taller than the Blackamoor boy, and their arms more prodigious of reach. Still he easily payed them in full for their merriment, and laced his right fist again and once more into their ears and shoulders, his left arm parrying and blocking their efforts to hit him in turn until at last, two of the Hessian rogues gave flight and ran, as the Brunswicke corporal fell to bleeding hard by the horse-trough. The Blackamore warrior triumphant, he fetched his water-can and went again to his work as if nought had occurred.”
The story goes that General Percy so enjoyed watching Richmond beat up grown men that he arranged fights between the boy and adult redcoat soldiers for the entertainment of his guests. Percy soon took possession of Richmond, either by buying him from his owner or just seizing him as the King’s property to help in the war effort, and afterwards Richmond became his servant. The young Richmond is even said to have participated in the hanging of Nathan Hale, a famous American spy. In several depictions of that event you can clearly make out a young man of dark complexion readying Hale for execution.
Percy brought Richmond back to England with him in 1778. Though Richmond probably didn’t have much choice in the matter, the relocation across the Atlantic gave him a better life than the one he likely would have lived if he’d remained a slave in America after the war. Percy enrolled him in a school in York, and afterwards Richmond became an apprentice to a cabinetmaker, a field he is said to have excelled in.
But even though life was better for a young Black man in England than it was in America at the time, it still wasn’t easy. All throughout his life, even after he was a famous fighter who’d befriended Lord Byron and put on a boxing exhibition at the behest of King George, Richmond faced all manner of racism, ranging from casual to at times aggressively violent. He had a reputation for levelheadedness, which mostly meant a willingness to absorb the racist taunts without flying into a rage, but he was also known to challenge his tormentors to settle things with a fight – provided they could do so as gentlemen, at the appropriate place and time.
This is how he found his way into the fight game while working as a personal valet to Lord Camelford, a famous ex-Navy captain. Camelford was a “sporting man” who loved to attend horse races and dog fights while dressed in the finest fashions of the time. He insisted that his valet also be decked out in eye-catching clothing while accompanying him, which made it even harder for Richmond to blend in with the crowd.
One day at the horse races, according to Smith, a local bully named Dockey Moore zeroed in on Richmond, berating him for his skin color and his clothes. When Richmond answered back, Moore challenged the much smaller Richmond to a fight, which Richmond gladly accepted. Away they went to find a flat piece of ground, and a half-hour later Richmond had beaten Moore into bloody submission. But Moore was a soldier, and his friends weren’t going to let it go that easily. The next time he showed up to the races, Richmond faced challenges from two members of the Inniskillings Dragoons. So he beat both of them up too.
You can see how a man might get a reputation this way, and so it was only a matter of time until Richmond ended up fighting for money. The trouble was his size. Richmond was not a big man, usually weighing no more than 150 pounds, and his first go with a much larger professional named George Maddox was a total mismatch that resulted in a one-sided beating. Richmond didn’t fight again for almost a year. But in that time, he studied the fight game intensely and eventually developed his own style to negate the size disadvantage.
“At some point he realized that his speed and agility were his best assets and that they could be used in a manner to offset a stronger or larger man,” Smith writes. “He was also a true believer in the benefits of a good defense. Thus, Richmond developed a ‘strike and duck’ or a ‘hit and get away’ style that was quite revolutionary for its time.”
Richmond would go on to have great success in the London Prize Ring, eventually earning the nickname “The Black Terror.” His most notable bout came in 1805, when, despite being in his early forties, he challenged the young up-and-comer Tom Cribb, who was a couple decades younger and, depending on the source, anywhere from 20 to 50 pounds heavier than Richmond. But instead of being just another brutish slugger, Cribb actually had some technique. He became known for his ability to “mill on the retreat” – basically a counterpunching style that allowed him to fight going backwards while still prioritizing defense to minimize the damage he took.
Cribb defeated Richmond after 90 minutes of fighting, though the fight itself might have been more stalemate than fierce combat. It effectively ended Richmond’s career in the ring, apart from a few carefully selected one-off returns, while vaulting Cribb to a heavyweight title fight against the great Jem Belcher, who he dispatched in a little over a half-hour.
Richmond retired from the ring after the loss to Cribb, but maintained a connection to the fight game in two ways. One was by training and cornering other fighters, leveraging his reputation as a “scientific” boxer to rebrand himself as a coach to pros and amateur enthusiasts alike. The other was by leaning into the classic second act of pro fighters at the time – opening a pub.
Richmond ran The Horse and Dolphin on Saint Martin Street, right near the famous Fives Court, a noted rallying point for London’s sporting crowd. It put him directly in the center of London’s pugilistic scene, and was a generally successful business venture for him. It was here Molineaux was directed once he circulated word of his plan to fight Cribb for the heavyweight crown. This might have been partially because of Richmond’s reputation as a trainer and teacher of technical boxing, but it was also pure racism. Who was going to train one Black man from America if not the other Black man from America?
A Visit to the Fives Court’, 1822. Scene showing a prizefight in progress at a venue in St Martin’s Street, Westminster, London.
Most accounts agree that Molineaux wasn’t an actual boxer when he arrived on English shores. Prizefighting as the British knew it hadn’t yet firmly taken root in America. The bouts that Molineaux participated in were much more likely no-holds-barred brawls in the “rough and tumble” style. Particularly when he was matched against other slaves, they might have often been fatal encounters.
But the London Prize Ring had specific rules, even if the sport of prizefighting itself was technically outlawed by then. There was no biting, kicking, scratching, or headbutting allowed. Rounds ended only when one fighter hit the ground, either from a punch or a throw, but to go down without cause was considered a potentially disqualifying foul. Breaks between rounds typically lasted 30 seconds, after which point the referee would call time and fighters had to “come to scratch” – stepping up to a line in the dirt to mark their readiness to begin the next round – or else be counted out. A fighter could be knocked cold at the end of one round, but if his seconds managed to wake him up in time to answer when time was called for the next round, he could continue.
Molineaux knew nothing of these rules or of the finer points of boxing as it existed at the time. But he was a physical specimen, standing about 5’8” and weighing around 200 pounds of chiseled muscle. Just the sight of him stripping off his shirt before a bout was said to sway betting odds. He also had an excellent teacher in Richmond and he learned quickly, even if Richmond had to undo some bad habits, like his tendency to throw his right hand with a kind of hammerfist style.
It’s unclear whether Richmond thought of Molineaux as a genuine prospect or simply a novelty good for generating some interest and a quick buck, but he soon matched him against a novice fighter trained by his old rival Cribb. Molineaux dropped the man early and often, but took more than an hour to finally put him away. By then, Pierce Egan wrote, Molineaux had beaten the man so badly that “it was impossible to distinguish a single feature in his face.”
The English fight crowd was intrigued right away. Molineaux looked the part, and he could fight, but he also had personality. He was often described as loud and outgoing, even arrogant. He liked to drink and he loved women, many of whom loved him right back as they announced their intention to “try the black.” With his love of attention and his eye-catching physique, he became a famous local fighter in a very short period of time.
While the fighting at the time was done by people lower down on the socioeconomic ladder, it was financially supported by the upper classes. Fighters typically had to find a backer or a patron to put up the stakes for their fights, and Molineaux attracted significant attention from people like Lord George Sackville, who was ready to match him up against Cribb right away.
Richmond, however, insisted that Molineaux needed more experience. Then, as now, the fight game was susceptible to instant hype, getting overly excited about a new talent based on little actual evidence.
“Mostly Tom was a curiosity: a boisterous, black American prizefighter who rather fancied himself and his accomplishments,” Smith writes. “For the most part, the Fancy regarded Molineaux as ‘spice.’ That is to say, he brought a new life and a new interest into a sport, which had recently seen some of its slower days in England. Cribb had been champion for several years and had, for all intents and purposes, cleaned up his challengers. Without a worthy challenger for the champion, the game had fallen into a small decline.”
Many looked at Molineaux as the cure for that ailment, and Molineaux was more than happy to stoke that fire.
He continued to refine his craft under Richmond, improving both his punching technique and his footwork. In August of 1810, just about a month after his first win on English soil, he fought and defeated a well-known boxer and sailor named Tom Blake, known in the fight game as “Tom Tough.” This time an even bigger crowd showed up to watch, and Molineaux eventually knocked Blake out cold with a right hand. More than the victory itself, he had clearly improved enough to convince those who mattered in the fight scene that a worthy challenger for Cribb had been found at last.
The two would meet for the first time later that same year, just about five months after Molineaux’s debut bout. But by then, the curiosity surrounding Molineaux had turned to anxiety. It was fun having him around as a loud, brash American who fought a couple of also-rans and injected some quick entertainment into a floundering fight game. But once they truly began to consider the possibility that Molineaux might beat Cribb – that the heavyweight title of England might be held by an American, and a Black man at that – that was when “the jealousy commenced,” according to Egan.
It took a concerted effort from Molineaux and Richmond to goad the partially retired Cribb into taking the fight, and a condition of his eventual agreement was that he be given time to get in fighting shape. In later preparation efforts, he trained with an infantry captain named Robert Barclay who had risen to national fame when he walked 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours to win a bet of 1,000 guineas. Barclay was regarded as something of a fitness guru and an amateur boxing enthusiast, and he was something of a revolutionary how he trained Cribb using a regimen that consisted of sparring as well as long hikes and short runs.
The fight was set for December 18, 1810, in a field some 30 miles outside London. Right away, Richmond didn’t like the timing. Giving Cribb time to prepare after a long period of inactivity was a mistake, he thought, and fighting outdoors in the cold winter months was something Cribb was far more accustomed to than was Molineaux. Still, after such an effort to call out Cribb, the challenger couldn’t dictate terms. Molineaux and Richmond had to take it or leave it, even if it meant meeting the champion in a cold, stinging rain.
“Notwithstanding the rain came down in torrents, and the distance from London, the Fancy were not to be deterred from witnessing the mill,” Egan wrote. “And who waded through a clayey road, nearly knee-deep for five miles, with alacrity and cheerfulness, as if it had been as smooth as a bowling-green, so great was the curiosity and interest manifested upon this battle.”
Théodore Gericault’s “Boxeurs,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1922
Thousands turned out even in these conditions, and the fight they witnessed that day is still considered one of the greatest and most significant of the bare-knuckle era. In an article later collected in his book, “Boxiana; or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism,” Egan provided a round-by-round summary of the fight. He repeatedly referred to Molineaux as “the moor,” and noted that betting odds started out heavily in favor of Cribb, with many betting that Molineaux wouldn’t last 30 minutes with the champion.
After Cribb threw Molineaux to the ground to end the first round, Egan wrote of the second:
“The moor rallied with a left-handed blow, which did not tell, when Cribb planted a most tremendous one over his adversary’s right eye-brow, but which not have the effect of knocking him down, he only staggered a few paces, followed up by the Champion. Desperation was now the order of the round, and the rally re-commenced with uncommon severity, in which Cribb showed the most science, although he received a dreadful blow on the mouth that made his teeth chatter again, and exhibited the first signs of claret (blood). Four to one (odds) on Cribb.”
The battle continued back and forth like this. In the fourth round, Molineaux went down off a slip on the wet, soggy ground. The fifth saw both fighters plant their feet and throw nonstop for about 30 seconds, according to Egan, which thrilled the crowd but also left them confused as to how to adjust the odds. (“The knowing ones were lost for the moment, and no bets were offered.”)
In the eighth Molineaux stood up to such punishment that Egan claimed Cribb was now feeling “somewhat mistaken in his idea’s of the Black’s capabilities.” To begin the ninth, Egan wrote: “The battle had arrived at that doubtful state, and things seemed not to prove so easy and tractable as was anticipated, that the betters were rather puzzled as to how they should proceed with success.” After Molineaux rallied to flatten Cribb with a punch that broke through his guard, Egan described the faces of those who had bet on the champion as “panic-struck.”
After this point, the picture painted by Egan’s description is less of boxing than it is of surviving. A “war of attrition,” we’d call it in the modern fight game. Both men exhausted. Both men hurt and bleeding and peering at each other through swollen slits of eyes. Both of them standing shirtless in a cold rain, trying to work up the energy to throw a punch with any force, when often enough a swing and a miss was enough to send them tumbling to the wet ground.
The next major swing happened in the nineteenth round. By this point, Egan wrote, “to distinguish the combatants by their features would have been utterly impossible, so dreadfully were both their faces beaten.” (Though, he also helpfully pointed out, looking at their faces was unnecessary since the men had different skin colors, lest we ever be allowed to forget it even for a moment.)
The crucial moment came when Molineaux battered Cribb back against the ring ropes and then trapped him there, holding Cribb and holding the ropes in such a way that Cribb “could neither make a hit or fall down” as Molineaux punished him. An argument ensued about whether this was legal or whether the referee should break them up, but while this discussion was going on most sources agree that an incensed crowd rushed the ring and pried Molineaux’s hands from the ropes, possibly breaking one of his fingers in the process. Finally Cribb went down, with Egan noting that if Molineaux hadn’t been too tired to throw punches with any real force, the blows he took in that round might have “proved fatal” to the champ.
What happened between that point and the end of the fight is still the subject of some controversy. Several sources say that in the twenty-eighth round Cribb threw a punch from too far out, missed, and was knocked out by a counter from Molineaux that left him completely incapable of making it to scratch in time for the start of the next round.
That should have given Molineaux the victory and with it the title. But according to this version of events, one of Cribb’s cornermen bought him extra time to recover by complaining to the referee that Molineaux had been using bullets secreted away in his closed fists in order to give his punches extra weight. An argument followed. Confusion ruled. An already exhausted Molineaux was left to stand there in the rain displaying his empty hands while Cribb was allowed to recover. And then the fight went on.
If true, this would be a delay tactic familiar to modern fight fans. We’ve seen corners who “accidentally” spilled water or ice on the canvas, or just conveniently forgot to remove the stool at the end of the break between rounds, all to buy their fighters more time. Several contemporary sources agree that this happened. Egan’s round-by-round account makes no mention of any of this, and instead states only: “Cribb received a leveller in consequence of his distance being incorrect.”
Is it possible Egan was so biased in favor of his fellow Englishman that he omitted this entire controversy? Absolutely. At other points in his account of the fight, he seems slow to give Molineaux credit for anything other than surprising the crowd with his ability to withstand punishment. Then again, he did note the earlier interference from the spectators, and mentioned that they’d probably injured Molineaux’s hand when prying his fingers loose from the ropes. Later, after Molineaux’s death, Egan would write that “his colour alone prevented him from becoming the hero of that fight,” so it would seem he allowed for at least some unfairness to Molineaux in the bout.
Whatever the case, the fight technically went on until the fortieth round, though Egan wrote that the thirty-fourth was “the last round that might be termed fighting.” Molineaux was fading, and after Round 39 he is said to have told his corner that he “could fight no more.” Richmond rallied him up to try another round, but Molineaux soon fell as much from total exhaustion as accumulated damage. Cribb was declared the winner. And still the champion.
The fight itself, as well as the possibility that he may have been cheated out of the title in one or more ways, was hard for Molineaux to swallow. Days after the fight a letter was published under Molineaux’s name (likely written for him since he was said to be illiterate), challenging Cribb to a rematch and noting that his “friends” thought he might have won the fight if the weather had not been “so unfavourable.”
He added: “As it is possible this letter may meet the public eye, I cannot omit the opportunity of expressing a confident hope, that the circumstances of my being of a different colour to that of a people amongst whom I have sought protection, will not in any way operate to my prejudice.”
This was an appeal more to the British sporting crowd than to Cribb. Poking at their pride in their own sense of fair play, Molineaux suggested he’d been robbed without explicitly saying it. As the modern fight game knows, the fans hate nothing more than a loser who makes excuses. And yet sometimes, especially to the loser, those excuses are nothing more than totally valid reasons.
Cribb wasn’t overly eager to do it again. He publicly accepted the challenge, but only under the condition that they fight for an increased purse of 250 guineas a side – a sum he knew Molineaux and Richmond couldn’t easily raise. Until his price could be met, Cribb would wait.
In the meantime, Richmond found other fights for Molineaux, some against much lesser fighters who had no real hope of beating him. On at least one other occasion Molineaux again faced trouble from a white crowd that couldn’t stand to see him beat a white fighter, rushing the ring and trying to tip the scales in his opponent’s favor.
Richmond never had much control over Molineaux outside the ring, but as they toured the countryside for a series of exhibitions and money fights, the relationship between them unraveled further. Molineaux had become a very famous man in England, and he wanted to enjoy it in the form of women, fancy clothes, and what passed for fast living at the time. Soon, observers began to speculate that Richmond had given up on trying to keep Molineaux reasonably sober and in something close to fighting shape, and was instead intent on wringing all the money he could out of his fighter in order to recoup his investment before it all fell apart.
Cribb and Molineaux finally met for the second and final time in September of 1811, with an even bigger crowd – some estimates pegged it at 20,000 – there to see the rematch. Cribb was even fitter and trimmer than in the first fight, having put in a full training camp with even greater focus this time. Molineaux, who may have been suffering from the early stages of tuberculosis by then, was very much the opposite. He and Richmond had been part of a touring fight troupe, earning money with shows and exhibitions right up until fight time in order to pay back the debt they’d gone into trying to raise the money for the second Cribb fight.
If the first fight was a glorious clash of titans, the rematch was more of a gross spectacle. Cribb easily battered the out of shape Molineaux, doubling him over with body punches that pounded at his now soft belly. Still, Molineaux had that same tremendous heart and punching power that he’d started with. In the fifth round, he knocked Cribb down with damaging blows that had Cribb’s supporters genuinely worried. But his condition soon betrayed him, and Cribb took over the fight.
In the ninth, Cribb knocked Molineaux out so severely that there was no hope of him making it to scratch in time to continue. The fight should have ended there, but Cribb refused to accept the victory. Maybe he wanted to make a point after the accusations that he’d been given too much to recover in the first fight. Maybe he was just angry at Molineaux for some of the things he and Richmond had been saying about the champ in an effort to entice him into a rematch. Whatever the cause, he seemed to want to punish Molineaux, and so he insisted on giving him nearly two minutes to recover.
When the bout resumed, Cribb pummeled him mercilessly, at one point breaking Molineaux’s jaw with a punch. Again Molineaux failed to come to scratch in time, and again Cribb refused to accept victory. Even though Molineaux was clearly finished, Richmond pushed his fighter out for another round. In the eleventh, Cribb knocked him completely unconscious to settle the matter for good. The whole thing took just under twenty minutes.
Richmond’s association with Molineaux dissolved right there. Some sources say he abandoned his fighter the same day, leaving him to make his own way home with a broken jaw and battered body. In a distinguished life as a fighter, trainer, and businessman, it’s one of the only critiques anyone could plausibly lodge against Richmond – but it’s a bad one.
In his historical novel, “Black Ajax,” George MacDonald Fraser depicts Richmond as thoroughly fed up with a man in whom he’d placed his own vicarious hopes. In a chapter from Richmond’s perspective, Fraser imagines his lasting animus toward Molineaux.
“He could ha’ been the Champion, the black Champion of England! He threw it clear away. I used to dream ‘bout that Championship, long ago, when I was a young miller, and thought myself a prime chicken. But I soon saw ‘twould never be, for me, and time passed – and then came Tom, and when Buck Flashman and Pad Jones showed me what was in him, oh, ten times what there ever was in me, or any other fighter I ever saw, black or white … then I dreamed again, and knew such a burning ambition as I’d never felt for myself – to see him cock o’ the Fancy, Champion of England, and pay back all those years and sneers and see their pride humbled and their insults thrown back in their teeth. … Guess you think the Championship of England ain’t worth that much hate? Mister, you don’t know the English. Guess you think I must be dicked in the nob to feel the bitterness I feel? Mister, you ain’t a nigger … and you never been a slave.”
Molineaux would go on to have several more fights of an increasingly depressing nature. He was clearly unwell, but continued on anyway, making what money he could off the lasting power of his name. In some fights he seemed to break with reality, talking to people who weren’t there and accusing opponents of fouls that never happened. Eventually he was destitute, taken in by a few Black soldiers who took pity on him in Galway, where he died on August 4, 1818.
The boxing historian Henry Downes Miles, author of “Pugilistica,” later described him as “illiterate and ostentatious, but good tempered, liberal, and generous to a fault. Fond of the gay life, fine clothes and amorous to the extreme, he deluded himself with the idea that his strength of constitution was proof against excess. He was a brave but reckless and inconsiderate man, on whose straightforwardness and integrity none who knew him ever cast a slur; nevertheless he was the worst of fools, inasmuch as he sacrificed fame, fortune and life; excusing himself by the absurd plea that he was a fool but no one but himself.”
It’s fair to say that without Molineaux and that first fight they shared, Cribb’s legend would never have grown so immense. For a time he was the country’s most famed sportsman. He also ran a pub, and one which bears his name and likeness still stands in London today. His triumphs were eventually celebrated with the presentation of a belt made of lion skin. It was probably the first championship belt ever awarded, and it helped establish the tradition that continues now, some two centuries later.
What’s strange is that, while the story of Cribb and Molineaux captivated England at the time, there was almost no mention of it in Molineaux’s home country. In America, the exploits of a Black fighter apparently weren’t considered newsworthy. Back home, the slave who’d very nearly become a champion by beating the British at their own game was still just another nobody, hardly even worth mentioning. The familiar arc of the life he’d lived, however, was doomed to be repeated again and again.
Cool image of what Tom Molineaux might have looked like that day, the first Black fighter to challenge for the bare-knuckle title. Standing in his corner, freezing temperatures, rain pouring down his face, about to go 35 rounds with the great Tom Cribb, a man that had dominated the prizefighting ring for 14 years.
Tom Molineaux from a drawing by George Sharples, illustration for Pugilistica The History of British Boxing by Henry Downes Miles, circa 1900. This is the image of Molineaux that was used for his 1993 Sporting Profiles "Heroes Of The Prize Ring" trading card.
This is my favorite image of Tom Molineaux, it's a beautiful illustration published by Dighton in 1812 and just might be the closest image we have as to what Molineaux really looked like.
Just stepped outside for a moment, man it's cold, 18 degrees. We were just hit by a snowstorm and freezing rain is due to start in an hour. My hands are red and numb from being outside. It really makes you appreciate what the humans that lived during the ice age went through. I mean can you just imagine having to live outside permanently in those type of conditions, having to hunt and kill animals just for food and clothing, trying to make a fire to keep warm and cook the raw meat.
''I had been fighting less than three years, and had engaged in less than 40 battIes when I met Gene Tunney before an enormous crowd in the Philadelphia National League Hall Park. Even then, Gene was regarded one of the greatest mittmen of America. He had fought a great number of stars, and the only blot on his record was a 15-round decision that Harry Greb won over him. He was bigger and stronger and older than l, and it was the consensus of opinion that my manager, Joe Smith, had picked too big a job for me.
It looked as though the guessers were right when Tunney knocked me down in the first round for the count of nine. My strength came back quickly, and I had no difficulty in lasting out the rest of the three minutes.
From then till the seventh round I boxed Gene - and I think I outboxed him. At any rate, though the match was a fast and scientific exhibition, neither of us were hurt.
In my corner, between the seventh and eighth rounds, I made up my mind that I would drop boxing; that I would make a whirlwind finish of it, and slug the matter out with the ex-marine.
When the bell rang I shot out my corner, smashing away with both hands. Boxing had always been my forte, and this switch on to a Battling NeIson sort of offensive evidently surprised Gene. At any rate, I drove him across the ring, peppering him with rights and lefts - bang, bang, bang!
Gene couldn't get set, I battered him to the ropes before he rallied. At the bell we were thumping each other lustily, the crowd was howling it's heart out. That was my big moment. Some of the newspaper men had said that l wasn't a fighter, but a boxer; that if I had real savagery of attack to back up my skill I would become a champion some day.
I proved it to them in the three minutes of that final round. Better yet, I proved it to myseIf.
There were no decisions given in Philadelphia in those days, and the papers disagreed as to the winner. They all concurred in the beIief that I had decisively outfought Gene Tunney in the final round, and that my attack balanced up the knockdown he had scored in the opening canto.
Believe me, I'll never forget the sensation when I sIammed the great marine around the ring.''
"The Philly Phantom'', Tommy Loughran. He was an all-time great light heavyweight who moved up to heavy and slayed a few giants. Very clever boxer. Love this image of Loughran.
Tommy Loughran: Poetry In Motion
By: Mike Casey – Some fighters, the truly great fighters, transcend the boundaries of time and technique. They render academic the arguments of those who would tell us that you can draw a definitive timeline between the great and the not-so-great fighters in boxing history. The special few slice through all the doubts and debate because we instinctively know that they would have stood up and flourished on any stage in any pocket of time. Watch Tommy Loughran on film and you will see a timeless boxer of sublime skill and elegance who could fit snugly into any era and still be the master and commander of deft skill and graceful movement among the 175-pounders. Watch him ghosting around Jim Braddock, who, we tend to forget, was being described as a sensational young contender and a terrific hitter in 1929 before being shunted into the sidings and re-emerging as the Cinderella Man. Loughran, the maestro from Philadelphia, The Phantom as many called him, was a natural who made lesser man square up to their mirrors and wonder why they couldn’t duplicate moves that seemed so ridiculously easy.. Lean and athletic, fast and fluid, there was nevertheless an almost slow and casual air about the way in which Tommy jinked and danced and slotted perfect punches through the tightest of guards. He was so often referred to as a dancing master, yet he didn’t have to dance that much in order to avoid incoming blows. That handsome head would shift this way or that and the blow would meander off into no man’s land like an errant torpedo. Unlike many of today’s pretenders, who only seem to read half the instruction book before dangling their arms by their waists and getting smashed on the chin, Loughran held his hands low because he first learned how to avoid being hit. He drilled himself tirelessly in his quest to become as perfect a boxer as he could ever be. He berated himself for his mistakes and practised even harder. You can see it in his great balance and skilful movement and the way in which he could move forwards, backwards, sideways or suddenly go on the offensive with equal ease and grace. How Jim Braddock tried to nail Tommy down in their Yankee Stadium battle for Loughran’s world light heavyweight championship. But Jim couldn’t fathom Tommy from a distance and found himself tied in knots when he tried to take the fight inside. What’s he going to do next? That’s what Braddock seemed to be asking himself. Loughran was equally adept at throwing shadows as he was at throwing punches. When he seemed set to fire the jab, he would lead with a fast left hook. His left-right combinations were thrown with that deceptive, lightning speed that appears almost slow and lazy to the naked eye. Braddock, with typical honesty, would later say, “I figured I had to try to fight Tommy, not box him, because, as far as boxing goes, I would have been outclassed, and he beat me in 15 rounds easy with his boxing ability. He was a guy you could never hit with a good solid punch.” Did Tommy Loughran have a significant weakness in his boxing make-up? Well, if we are nit-picking, Tommy was no big hitter. He couldn’t sock like Archie Moore, Bob Foster or the oft-forgotten Astoria Assassin, Paul Berlenbach. But such were Loughran’s exceptional boxing skills, it would be somewhat trite to play up his lack of a killer punch, since he so rarely required knockout power in his prime years as a 175-pounder. Nicolino Locche and Maxie Rosenbloom were no less adept at prospering without the big wallop. Look at their sprawling records and try to spot the KO wins without a magnifying glass. My good friend and fellow historian, Mike Hunnicut, was all too eager to talk about Tommy Loughran. Mike owns an extensive film collection of the great fighters and has studied Tommy many times. Here’s what the good Mr H says: “Loughran was just a boxing master, able to figure out and do different things all the time. He was able to consistently creep up on his opponents without them or their trainers – all of whom knew what he was doing – able to stop him doing it! He had tireless legs. If, as he was coming in, his opponent tried a barrage, Loughran was off to the sides or off to the races. He could do that for 15 rounds without too much difficulty. He was also a master at slipping, feinting and tying up opponents. This takes a lot of experience, practice and conditioning, which Loughran obviously had. “Any light heavyweight who can post wins over Harry Greb, Max Baer, Mickey Walker and Jack Sharkey has to be something very special, which Loughran was. He fought and found ways to beat so many top class fighters of all styles, from tough sluggers and one-man riot squads to the slickest of boxers like himself. His footwork was such that at times he seemed to be skating in the ring, whilst simultaneously picking out punches in mid-air. “Tommy was a phenomenon, who remained so due to his utter obsession to his craft. He truly did train as much as any fighter in history, with wall-to-wall mirrors to study himself, various diagrams for footwork, and analysing every single move and punch in constant preparation for his opponents and their styles, strengths and weaknesses. His trainer Joe Smith would throw fast punches at Tommy’s face, while Loughran stood near a wall, to master slipping and rolling. “Tommy Loughran was one of a kind, like Willie Pep and a few select others. Tommy is synonymous with the word ‘boxing’” Meticulous In the early 1970s, Loughran described his painstaking pursuit of perfection to author Peter Heller. While Tommy was never one to be hindered by modesty, there is great truth in what he said: “I think that nobody has ever put in the time and effort and practising and studying boxing, doing different things, like I did. I was so meticulous about everything I did insofar as my training was concerned, my movements, my balance, my sense of co-ordination and my footwork was tied in with all the movements. Of course, I was fortunate too in having a manager who had been a fighter himself. Joe Smith had had 300 fights and he didn’t have a mark on him. Very good looking. “I worked in the basement of my home. I had a little gym fixed up there and I had mirrors and I studied myself in the mirrors, punch the bag, skip rope, shadow box, and I studied my movements in these mirrors in such a way hat I knew exactly how I appeared to every fellow that I was boxing.” Loughran was born in Philadelphia in 1902 and had his first professional fight as a 17-year old in 1919. Like most fighters of his tough and competitive era, there is really no telling how many fights he had before wrapping up his career in 1937. The BoxRec database has his total standing at 174. Loughran himself claimed to have had 227 bouts, which is entirely possible. Whatever the official figure, and we might never know, it is the quality of his opposition that jump off the page and stagger the eye, most of whom Loughran vanquished or held even in the old days of newspaper decisions. If ever a man could drop names to impress, it was Loughran. He fought Jimmy Darcy, Bryan Downey and Mike McTigue. Tommy locked horns with Harry Greb six times and gave Gene Tunney such a battle of wits and skill in their 1922 clash that Gene would never entertain the clever Philadelphian again. Loughran took on Johnny Wilson, Jack Delaney, Young Stribling, Georges Carpentier, Jimmy Slattery, Leo Lomski, Pete Latzo, Mickey Walker, Ernie Schaaf, Jim Braddock, Max Baer, Johnny Risko, Paolino Uzcudun, Jack Sharkey and Arturo Godoy. Boxing historian Tracy Callis says of Loughran, “Tommy was a beautiful boxer to watch in the ring, a man with picture perfect form. He moved well – fast on his feet, smooth, quick, elusive – displaying the ultimate in boxing savvy. He was not a paralysing puncher, but he did everything else well. A boxer supreme, clever Tommy could handle large men or small men with ease. “His talent at movement and boxing tactics was admired greatly by Jim Corbett, the famous and innovative heavyweight champion, who attended many of Tommy’s bouts. Many boxing people and historians assert that Loughran perfected moves that Corbett had not yet worked on.” Loughran performed more than honourably when he graduated to the heavyweight division in an era when holding the 175lb crown was never going to make a boxer rich. That harsh fact was a great pity to some of the great men who reigned at that weight, notably Loughran, who was never better than when he was bossing his natural domain. This, then, is primarily an appraisal of Loughran the light heavyweight at his classic best. Was Tommy a Fancy Dan? Stylistically, yes. But here was a pugnacious man of grit and huge self-belief who would fight all-comers and actually relished the chance of sparring with Jack Dempsey. Loughran wouldn’t suffer the put-down from anyone, in or out of the ring. Not surprisingly, perhaps, it was Tunney who made Tommy bristle the most. Gene’s unfortunate habit of making a compliment sound like a thinly veiled insult never ceased to grate with Loughran. In 1928, former welterweight legend Jack Britton, considered to be an excellent judge of fighters, offered his opinion on Loughran. Said Jack, “There’s only one fighter in the game I wouldn’t bet against in a fight with Tunney. And you’ll probably laugh when I mention his name. Tommy Loughran. You know, you can’t knock out a fellow or beat him if you can’t hit him.” To this, Tunney allegedly replied, “I understand that Tommy is a very nice fellow and a gentleman. But as to fighting – ah! That’s different!” Loughran quietly seethed over the fact that Tunney had got to the fading and distracted Jack Dempsey first in 1926. Never shy in promoting his own credentials, Tommy said, “I licked Dempsey in his training camp and I know I could have knocked him out in a real fight, but Tunney had the jump and got the chance. I came near beating Tunney when I was just a novice and I know I can take him now because all he can do is back away and counter.” As a person, Tunney impressed Loughran even less. “Who does he think he is?” Tommy barked. “He wasn’t born any better than I was. He never could fight and I can. He didn’t win the war and neither did I.” It seems that Loughran’s nose was put out of joint when he clashed with Tunney at a classy hotel in Newark, where Gene believed he was the exclusive guest of honour. Tunney was shocked to see Loughran and a few other fighters in the lobby. The story goes that Gene approached Tommy and gave him a somewhat frosty handshake. The ensuing conversation reportedly went as follows:- “What are you doing here, Tommy?” “Just waiting around.” “I’m awfully glad to see you in a place like this.” “What are you talking about?” “Why, I mean that it is good to see some of the boxers in respe4ctable places. It will help the public get a different opinion of the business if they see boxers in places like this.” Loughran was apparently boiling by this point and replied, “You don’t know how to act in a respectable place and I do. If I didn’t, I’d let you have one.” Well, folks, we take this story as we will. For while Tunney’ aloofness made many people quietly fume, so Loughran was just as full of himself in his own earthier way. Both men might have been more greatly admired if they had tempered their confidence with a dash of humility. Loughran told the tale of Jim Corbett marvelling at Tommy’s skill and telling him he did things in the ring that Jim could only dream of doing himself. Georges Carpentier was another who apparently confided to Loughran that Tommy was the greatest thing since sliced bread. These stories might well be true, but should the recipient of such praise really shout it from the rooftops? Some years ago, golfer Greg Norman walked into the press room after shooting a particularly outstanding round and declared, “I was in awe of myself out there.” Now, one surely shouldn’t express such thoughts out loud. Your writer immediately wanted to reach for the sick bag. Greg, the so-called Great White Shark, was promptly lambasted for this faux-pas by a famous rugby player who had jumped through far tougher hoops. One began to understand why Norman’s fellow Aussie, Jack Newton, cut from tougher cloth, had re-christened Greg the Great White Fish Finger. Loughran, likewise, could never sufficiently emphasise how he had given Jack Dempsey fits in their sparring session of 1926, as Manassa Jack prepared for his first battle with Gene Tunney. Well, I can entirely believe that the lithe and young Loughran gave the rusty Dempsey the run-around. But to hear Tommy tell it, the ring was awash with Jack’s blood and broken bones: “Geez, boy, what I didn’t do to him. The year before, he had had a nasal job, his nose was all shortened, and they didn’t know whether it would stand up under punishment. I let him have it on the nose. Blood squirted in all directions. He stepped back and cussed me out loud and when he did, I grabbed him and turned him around and put him up against the ropes.. Geez, I poured it on him. I gave him such a beating. I hit him in the belly, hit him with uppercuts, hit him with a hook, caught him with another. I had his eyes puffy, his nose was bleeding, he was spitting out blood. I had him cut under the chin and I think his ear was bleeding. I don’t know whatever held him up. He always came tearing back in, no matter how hard I hit him.” The impression is gained from this is that Dempsey was lucky to make it to the Tunney fight without the aid of a body cast. Yet within this windy tale of Tommy’s is a great pearl of wisdom and truth which stood him in good stead and made him a wonderfully spirited fighter as well as a wonderful boxer. “Confidence is what it takes,” he said. “Those two rounds with Dempsey gave me confidence in myself. I learned an important lesson that day: never to be defeated by fear. There are so many people that are, you know.” A Slashing 15-Rounder! Fear and near defeat came knocking at Loughran’s door in his astonishing and thrilling fight with the big-punching Leo Lomski at Madison Square Garden on January 16, 1928. Tommy was defending his light heavyweight championship for the second time, having relieved Mike McTigue of the title and seen off the challenge of the brilliantly clever but wasteful Jimmy Slattery. Lomski was a true assassin of the ring, a gifted hitter from Aberdeen, Wisconsin, who willingly engaged Loughran in what one reporter aptly described as ‘a slashing 15-rounder’. It was a torrid test of endurance that proved to be one of Loughran’s finest hours. Like that other great boxing master, Benny Leonard, Tommy demonstrated that he was also a tough and pugnacious competitor who could rough it in times of crisis and battle his way back from the brink of defeat. The 15,000 people who saw the see-saw battle in the Garden shouted themselves hoarse as Lomski came out like a train in the first round and decked Loughran twice. Tommy showed outstanding powers of recuperation and fighting heart in surviving the crisis. When the fog cleared from his brain, his agile mind worked out the answer. He realised that fancy boxing alone would not douse the fire of the rampant Lomski. Moving carefully and punching accurately, Tommy set about slowing Leo down with a tattoo of hard jabs and stinging right crosses. It was a hugely admirable comeback, for Loughran really was clattered in that epic first round. Lomski’s first knockdown punch, a crunching right to the jaw, sent Tommy crashing down by the ropes and very nearly forced him head over heels. Lomski could hit like a kicking mule – look at the man’s record. He would surely run riot in today’s 175lb division. Badly shaken, Loughran was up on his feet at ‘six’, but couldn’t extract himself from the eye of the storm. Another big right to the jaw dumped him again later in the round, and it seemed that the untouchable phantom had finally solidified and become a vulnerable target. Loughran’s mind was all over the place when he got back to his corner. “What round did I knock him down in?” he asked his seconds. Yet, like all fighters touched with greartness, he found a way to re-connect his brain to his body. He held his own in the second round, lost the third, but then steadied himself up and began to show his mettle in full. Lomski, for all his formidable power, wasn’t nearly Tommy’s equal in either skill or versatility. Yet Tommy didn’t just outwit Leo for the rest of the way. Loughran brought the Garden crowd to fever pitch by outpunching Lomski in a series of ferocious exchanges. Left hooks and right crosses sent the blood flowing from Lomski’s left eye, but Leo never stopped trying and hammered back to have Loughran in fresh trouble in a thrilling sixth round. Once again, Tommy shook the cobwebs from his head and finally assumed control of the fight. Stiff jabs and right crosses repeatedly jerked back Lomski’s head as Loughran began to pull clear. Lomski, however, proved Tommy’s equal in courage and persistence. Leo kept punching away, hurting Loughran with some powerful rights to the heart in the tenth round. But the steam was going out of Lomski’s punches, even though he was obviously loving every minute of the violent scrap. A smile of pleasure would often crease his face as he piled in and tried to smash down the boxing master. Despite going down to a brave points defeat, Leo had become the first man since Tunney to put Loughran on the floor. Elite Boxing historian and writer Mike Silver is among those who rates Loughran among the elite of master boxers. Says Mike, “Tommy was without question one of the greatest pure boxers of all time. He was a classic, stand-up defensive stylist in the mould of Jim Corbett, Mike Gibbons, Gene Tunney and Jack Delaney. “In his prime as a light heavyweight, Loughran combined accurate left jabs with superb footwork, timing and balance, in addition to a ton of experience. He was adept at slipping, riding or blocking counter punches and tying up an opponent when necessary. Loughran never plodded or shuffled. He bounced. His rhythmic footwork, along with that ubiquitous jab, was the key to his success. It was like watching a ballroom dancer who, through endless hours of practice, has perfected every little nuance of his art. And let’s not forget that Tommy had to overcome certain limitations, specifically his oft-broken right hand, which he rarely threw. Imagine if the man could punch! “Loughran effortlessly moved in or out and from side to side, often just a few inches out of range of his opponent’s punches, but always in position to jab or counter with the occasional hook, uppercut or cross. And he did all this as a practically one-armed fighter! Loughran often seemed to become more effective in the later rounds of a fight, due mostly to his opponents becoming ever more frustrated and rankled as they failed to hit him with a solid punch. Tommy knew his profession inside out and it showed. If you want to become a fighter and improve your chances of walking away from this sport with your mind intact, copy Tommy Loughran’s style.” Mike Silver believes that Loughran’s great vision and foresight in the ring were among his greatest gifts. “He had great boxing ‘eyes’ in the sense of his awareness and perception of what was going on in the ring and what he had to do to win. Loughran knew where the next punch was coming from and he knew exactly where his own punches were going. It was as if he had some kind of boxing radar. His co-ordination of hands and feet was superb. He was a constantly moving target and was very cool under pressure or when tagged, and rarely hit with the same punch twice. Significantly, in every film available, he is never ever trapped in a corner or on the ropes. He did not have that extra dimension of being a hard puncher, which makes his consistent performances against so many quality opponents for so long all the more remarkable.” Punchers While Loughran couldn’t punch that hard, he could handle the punchers just fine. Against Mickey Walker and the young Max Baer, Loughran was the consummate matador, wrong-footing the bulls with constant movement and dazzling artistry. Walker gave it all he had in trying to take Tommy’s light heavyweight crown at the Chicago Stadium on March 28, 1929. But Mick didn’t have enough to beat Loughran. Referee Dave Miller somehow had Mickey winning the ten rounds battle, but the judges and neutral observers saw Loughran winning handily. Tommy’s trusty jab, almost metronome-like in its reliability, kept the frustrated Walker at bay for most of the contest. Zipping right crosses also checked Mick’s advances. As the fight neared its end in the tenth round, Tommy went through the gears with that certain assuredness and smoothness that only the true naturals possess. His slipping and ducking was exemplary. Scoring with three straight lefts, he ducked a left and right to the head, stepped inside of a right and made Walker miss with a long left. Mickey was then struck by two more lefts and two more rights to the head before finally finding Loughran with a wild shot to the jaw. Mickey put in his usual sterling effort, but, like so many others, he found that hitting Loughran cleanly was akin to trying to pick a fly out of the air. The still maturing Max Baer was given a rare boxing lesson by Loughran in their heavyweight ten-rounder at Madison Square Garden on February 6, 1931. Tommy’s master class was watched by a fascinated audience of 12,000, the biggest of the indoor boxing season up to that point. Loughran was way ahead of the powerful and willing young Baer, stepping elegantly around the heavier man and rapping him constantly with accurate jabs. Many reporters were reminded of Tommy’s classic boxing performance in retaining his light heavyweight championship 18 months before against Jim Braddock. Loughran’s victory over Baer was unanimous from referee Jack Dempsey and the two judges. The Associated Press gave Tommy all ten rounds. Loughran’s speed of hand and foot against Baer was a reminder of how Tommy had ruled the 175lb division with such class and dominance. He kept Max off balance all night long with stinging jabs and whipping right uppercuts. Baer rushed and swung in an earnest effort to sweep away his smaller tormentor, but Loughran simply wouldn’t be caught. Baer himself couldn’t hide his admiration of Loughran’s handiwork. Max often emitted a wry smile as he repeatedly winged his famous right hand wide of the target. Only in the third and ninth rounds did Loughran get a little too full of himself. On both occasions he attempted to slug with Baer, but Tommy quickly returned to his traditional boxing after getting banged with a few lusty clouts. Max, at just over 200 pounds, outweighed Loughran by more than seventeen-and-a-half pounds that night. How Great? In this writer’s opinion, Tommy Loughran’s place in the pantheon of the truly great light heavyweights is beyond question. On his very best night, he might just have taken all of the elite names, such as Tunney, Langford, Ezzard Charles and Archie Moore. Let us remind ourselves that Tommy was still maturing when Tunney only edged him. I was interested to get the thoughts of the aforementioned Mike Silver on Tommy’s all-time standing, and here are Mike’s views: “I think he definitely ranks among the golden dozen light heavyweights of all time. Is he beating a prime Ezzard Charles or Billy Conn? I honestly can’t say for sure. Tough call with John Henry Lewis too. A great boxer with a good jab and speed would have the best chance against Loughran. Tunney shaded him. But I would never count Loughran out against any other great. Archie Moore would be too slow, I think, but always dangerous with his punching power. “But in almost 200 fights, Loughran was stopped only three times and never as a light heavyweight. I don’t see Bob Foster knocking him out. Loughran is avoiding Foster’s hook and outpointing him. And don’t forget Loughran did much better as a heavyweight than Foster. This wasn’t because Tommy had a better chin – you just couldn’t nail him. “I would love to have seen Loughran against Harold Johnson – a purist’s delight. Let’s face it, today Loughran would be heavyweight champion.” Now there’s a debatable point to end on!
Ok, from here on out I'm just going to take it easy and post a little bit of information about each fighter and some photos, I'm not going to try to cover every fight and every little detail of their life and career, getting too stressful with my OCD and everything. I'm never satisfied. I've bitten off more than I can chew.
A deep dive on Tommy Loughran's from the guys over at boxing forum 24, these guys know boxing like the back of their hand.
Credit: boxing forum 24
A deeper dive on Tommy Loughran's greatness.
By: Ioakeim Tzortzakis
Irresistibly tempting
The Phantom of Philly wasn't your stereotypical Philadelphian fighter. He wasn't a mean and rugged toughie, but an educated operator of the fistic arts. His sophistication lead to one of the greatest careers in the sport's history. But let's start from the beginning.
Tommy was an Irish immigrant, the youngest of 3. He attempted to enlist in the army aged 14 during WW1, but was rejected. He then dropped out os school 2 years later, both in order to work, and in order to learn how to Box. He turned professional just a year later as a Lightweight, winning his debut match against Eddie Carter by 2nd round KO. He then went on fighting against debut fighters, experienced journeymen and trial horses, winning most of those bouts and gaining experience, while also suffering a serious right hand fracture against Jules Ritchie, an injury that played a big part in his fighting style.
Some of these aforementioned trial horses included Pat Bradley, Jimmy Darcy and Fay Keiser, who had faced men such as Harry Greb, Jeff Smith and Leo Houck. Tommy beat them all. This gave him the opportunity to face and defeat Bryan Downey, a man who had shared the Ring with guys like Jack Britton, Ted Kid Lewis, Soldier Bartfield and Johnny Wilson for the world title, even managing to get the better of Britton twice. Tommy then faced his first truly significant opponent, the soon to be Light Heavyweight champion of the world, Mike McTigue. Despite McTigue being a far more experienced fighter, having had twice the amount of fights that Tommy had until that point, and having shared the Ring with many elite Boxers, he still couldn't prevail over Tommy's superior ability.
After easily defeating Jimmy Darcy again, Tommy would face the legendary Harry Greb, the future Middleweight champion of the world, arguably the greatest fighter to ever live. Unfortunately for him, he bit off more than he could chew against him, despite giving a good account of himself, managing to hold Greb back for a while. A month later, he faced Greb's biggest rival, the future world Heavyweight champion, Gene Tunney. Tunney proved himself too much for him as well, knocking him down in the first round and winning the fight according to most newspapers.
Soon after, Tommy found himself facing some of the best men available, much to his detriment, as he would not collect that many blemishes on his record until much later, when he was past his prime. After his loss to Tunney, he easily lost to Lou Bogash, twice more to Harry Greb, and he went 1-1 against both Jeff Smith and Mike McTigue, fighting for the world Light Heavyweight title against the latter, which could only be won by KO'ing him, something he did not manage to do. He then boxed a draw against Jimmy Delaney, who would be ranked #10 in the first Ring Magazine rankings a year later.
But then, he managed to actually get the better of Harry Greb in their 4th bout, with the Omaha Report Herald claiming that he had been a solid victor. He then found himself victorious against Ted Moore, who would be ranked as the #10 Middleweight in the world a year later, as well as Roland Todd, who would be ranked #9 at Middleweight 2 years later. He once again met with Harry Greb, but Greb did what he usually did, and won against an opponent who had previously beaten him. Although, it was noted that he was probably on the decline.
Tommy then faced and overcame the former Middleweight champ, the man Greb had defeated to take the title, the now #5 rated Johnny Wilson. He then came up short against the #4 rated Middleweight and future Light Heavyweight champion Jack Delaney, prior to being held to a draw against the #5 rated Light Heavyweight, Ad Stone, with the judges being divided and the referee calling it a draw. Lady luck would still not smile upon him, as he yet again lost, this time to the #2 rated Light Heavyweight, the excellent Young Stribling. Some small semblance of fortune would be bestowed upon him, as he would then Box an aging Harry Greb to a draw.
In-between a loss and a draw against the #4 rated Young Stribling and the #2 rated Jack Delaney respectively, he would defeat the future contender Martin Burke. After them, he would also beat the #8 rated Tony Marrulo, prior to losing to the #6 rated Ad Stone. And with that, the dreadful span of 1922-1925 would finally come to a close. It was all uphill from here on. He would beat Ad Stone in a rematch, the #11 rated Yale Okun twice, as well as the aging former Light Heavyweight champion Georges Carpentier, who cut and hurt him early, prior to Tommy coming back and winning the fight with a nearly fully closed right eye.
He would then proceed to defeat the future top 5 rated Light Heavyweight George Manley twice, the #10 rated Heavyweight Johnny Risko 3 separate times, the #9 rated Martin Burke, the #8 rated Jimmy Delaney, and the #14 rated Tony Marrulo again. Sandwiched in-between these fights was also his second fight with the relatively unremarkable Chuck Wiggins, which showcased the fan unfriendly style of Loughran, which left him suspended for 2 months due to ''stalling''. In May of 1927, Loughran would also finally be victorious over his now #5 rated rival, Young Stribling, prior to beating Marrulo again in July. That same month, Jack Delaney forfeited his Light Heavyweight title, thus cancelling his scheduled bout with McTigue, who was then scheduled to fight Tommy for the NYSAC title.
Loughran boxed him silly, McTigue's success amounted to a desperate rally at the final bell, and thus the NYSAC title was his. 2 months later, he also beat Jimmy Slattery for the NBA and Ring belt, which were gained in his fight against Maxie Rosenbloom. It was a good fight, with Jimmy having some success in the initial and final rounds, but Loughran got the better of it.
Loughran then successfully defended his championship against his #2 contender, Leo Lomski, in a fight where he had to get off the floor twice in the 1st round. He then defeated the #8 rated Joe Sekyra in a non title bout, prior to beating the #10 rated Middleweight, Pete Latzo, in his 2nd defence. Most thought that Latzo should have gotten the win, thus a rematch was scheduled. Before the rematch, Loughran got a win against the undefeated Armand Emanuel, which was also criticised by observers. Then, Tommy genuinely beat Latzo in their rematch, although the latter claimed a foul that was dismissed.
An entrepreneur named Harry M. Pollock wanted to schedule a big 45 rounder between Loughran and Mickey Walker, but it fell through. Instead, he faced him in a normal 10 rounder in 1929, and Tommy managed to out-jab and outclass the great Middleweight and Welterweight champion. By this point, he was looking to move up to Heavyweight, deciding to leave the division after his victories over the future top 3 rated Heavyweight Earnie Schaaf, and over Jim Braddock, the future Heavyweight champion. He would then face Jack Sharkey, yet another one of the men who would play hot potato with the Heavyweight title, but unfortunately for Tommy, he was dropped in the third round, and despite rising up, he was clearly not in any condition to continue.
After beating the European Heavyweight champion, Pierre Charles, he would suffer 2 bad losses to the #7 rated Earnie Schaaf, prior to getting off the floor to defeat King Levinsky, who would be rated in the top 5 a year later. He was clearly in decline, but that didn't stop him from defeating Jack Gross and another soon to be HW champ in Max Baer, as well as from avenging his 2 losses to Schaaf, leaving their rivalry at 2-2. After defeating the #3 rated HW Tuffy Griffiths and Jack Gross again, dropping a decision to Sekyra and defeating Paulino Uzcudun, his decline was for all to see, as he would get dropped 3 times against Levinsky and lose the rematch. After going 1-2 against Steve Hamas, a future divisional #1, he would lose to the #3 rated Stanley Poreda.
A come backing Loughran would manage to defeat Levinsky, Hamas and Sharkey this time around, although he would lose for the first time against his former rival Johnny Risko. And it was all downhill from there, he would initially lose against the gigantic but limited Ray Impelletiere on a cut, but would win due to the fans demanding that the bout continued, which allowed Tommy to get the better of it. He got his title shot against Primo Carnera, but aside from some good moments, he would lose a wide decision. He would then lose to the #7 rated Walter Neusel, Johnny Risko, Jose Carattoli and would go 1-1-1 against future Joe Louis opponent Arturo Godoy. He would manage to defeat the #9 and #8 rated Al Ettore and Impelletiere twice, but he would also lose and draw with Al McCoy and Tommy Farr. That said, he would go 1-1 with the #8 rated Sonny Boy walker in his last 2 fights, leaving the sport on a somewhat good note.
I know one thing, Tommy Loughran had a wicked left hand, and one of the best jabs in boxing history, he could jab the ever living crap out of you with that left hand and he could hook you with it as well. And he used it well to set up other punches, it was one hell of a weapon. This is my favorite card of Tommy Loughran, the 1948 Leaf Boxing, they did a great job capturing that left hand. On the bottom is the image of Loughran used for the card.
Start off here, Tommy Loughran was an ambitious fighter and he wanted to reach the mountaintop and become world heavyweight champion. In 1934, Tommy would get his big chance against the Italian giant Primo Carnera in Miami. Loughran spotted champ Primo 86 pounds in the fight. But Carnera's size proved to be too big an obstacle for the South Philly fighter. Loughran lasted the 15-round distance but could not take the championship. Carnera won the unanimous decision, defended his title, and broke one of Tommy's toes by stepping on it, or so the story goes. Good shots of the great Tommy Loughran jab, right in the face of Primo Carnera. My God, Carnera was an incredibly big dude, Primo Carnera held a massive weight advantage over Tommy Loughran, weighing 270 lbs (122 kg) compared to Loughran’s 184–186 lbs (83–84 kg). Carnera outweighed Loughran by 86 freakin' pounds. It was the largest-ever weight difference in a title fight until Nikolay Valuev fought John Ruiz for the WBA heavyweight title on December 17, 2005. Carnera also had a significant height advantage, standing 6'5" or 6'6" compared to Loughran at 5'11". Loughran was a beast to even consider getting in their with a man the size of Carnera. There's a funny quote by Carnera himself about this fight, I chuckle every time I read it.
''I don't know if I really beat [Tommy Loughran], but it was a good fight. Before I went into the ring I ate two big garlic buds. I like 'em. Every time he'd get close to me, I'd step on his feet and I'd pull him into my chest and breathe on him. Like I said, I don't know if I beat him, but he sure was groggy walking away from those clinches.''
"Philly Phantom" Tommy Loughran defended the light heavyweight championship with a 10 round split decision over "Toy Bulldog" Mickey Walker in Chicago, Illinois on March 28th in 1929. Walker, still the middleweight champion, had serious difficulty with Loughran's lead hand.
The Associated Press reported: “Loughran, the Philadelphia Irishman easily retained his crown last night by repulsing the pug-nosed, heavy-firing middleweight champion Walker, over the 10 round route in the new $7,000,000 Chicago Stadium.
Loughran obtained the verdict of the two judges, Eddie Klein and Phil Collins. The referee, Davey Miller, cast his ballot for the challenger. Loughran won because he was a superb boxer. He waged a running, jabbing fight and belted Walker with resounding smacks whenever the New Jersey bulldog made his characteristic, two-fisted rush. Walker had but one chance last night. That was in the 5th round when he nailed the champion with a terrific right cross to the jaw. Sensing victory, the bulldog rushed, aiming his fists at the same spot.
But Loughran tied him up each time, shook the cobwebs and stalled the round out. It was the only exciting round of the match and from that time on, the tide turned steadily to the champion."
The top photo is Tommy Loughran pictured with Joe Louis, Tony Canzoneri, James Braddock, and The Ring magazine founder Nat Fleischer. The bottom photo is just the fighters together. A lot of greatness in these photos. The top photo was actually made into a cover for The Ring magazine in 1936.
Classical vs Jazz. Pittsburgh vs Philly. Harry Greb vs Tommy Loughran. One hell of a rivalry. Harry Greb and Tommy Loughran fought 6 times between 1922 and 1924. Greb won the majority of their matchups, with a record of 4 wins, 1 loss, and 1 draw. But nevertheless, Loughran beat him, and believe me when I say, Harry Greb was one of the hardest men to defeat in boxing history. Loughran was truly a great fighter.
One of my favorite fight pose sequences of Tommy Loughran. I love trying to put these sequences together, it's like a little puzzle with pieces and you get a feeling of satisfaction when you put the pieces together. You can tell the photos were taken at the same shoot because of various things, the gear they're wearing, the environment they're in, stuff like that.
Tommy Loughran with Georges Carpentier before their bout on June 17th, 1926.
Credit: Philadelphia Inquirer
"Had Tommy relied upon his boxing skill to pull him through, had he been satisfied to simply defend himself as he tried to peck the Frenchmen to piece, he would have left the ring a beaten man. But the Philadelphia ace did no such thing. On the contrary, he carried the bout to his foeman, he smashed away at him with his right, he outguessed him, he outgeneraled him and last, but by no means least, he knocked him down for the count of nine."
Loughran scored the knockdown in the 7th round with a right hand to the jaw. Loughran also had a big 10th round, in which he pummeled Carpentier, and had him reeling and bleeding from the mouth. Carpentier staggered Loughran with a left hook in the 3rd round, which also cut him under the right eye. Loughran fought with his left hand up in the bout, protecting against the power reputation of Carpentier's right hand. Carpentier did his best work with the left hand in the bout."
On July 18, 1929 at Yankee Stadium in New York light heavyweight champion Tommy Loughran defended his title against future heavyweight champion Jimmy Braddock. Loughran won a unanimous 15 round decision in defense of his crown. The top photo is from the contract signing and the other two are from the fight, great shots.
Tommy Loughran defeated Jack Sharkey in their second meeting via a 15-round split decision on September 27, 1933, at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. However, Sharkey won their first encounter with a third-round knockout on September 26, 1929. These are images from the first Loughran-Sharkey fight.
Tommy Loughran defeated Max Baer by a 10-round unanimous decision on February 6, 1931, at Madison Square Garden in New York. Jack Dempsey served as the referee for the bout. Loughran outboxed the heavier Baer to secure the victory. It's ironic because Max Baer would become world heavyweight champion three years later by defeating Primo Carnera for the title.
But just look at the pattern developing here, Tommy Loughran blazed quite a trail, I've already covered wins over Mike McTigue, Georges Carpentier, Harry Greb, Mickey Walker, James Braddock, Jack Sharkey, Max Baer. My goodness, that's one hell of a resume, and I haven't even mentioned his wins over Johnny Risko, Jimmy Slattery, Jeff Smith, Young Stribling, and Paulino Uzcudun, which I can't seem to find any photos of so I guess I'll leave off here. Great, great fighter was Tommy Loughran.
These are awesome exhibit cards of Tommy Loughran, it's the Red version, these cards came in regular gray colors but they also came in other colors, I've seen them in Red, Pink, Blue, Green, and Yellow. The colored versions are more rare and difficult to find.
Oh this is cool, I actually ran across this photo from the Tommy Loughran vs Paulino Uzcudun fight, an image of Loughran using that famous jab on Uzcudun. Loughran had a phenomenal jab, he could stick you in the face with it all night long.
Tommy Loughran training for Jack Sharkey in 1929. The top photo shows him strengthing himself by rowing in a rowboat and the bottom photo shows him putting in roadwork with his trainer Turk Duncan.
Tommy Loughran lands a shot to the body of Ernie Schaaf on March 13th, 1931.
Credit: Associated Press
"Tommy Loughran, one of the smartest of ring warriors, showered a bewildering array of annoying jabs on Ernie Schaaf in MSG last night to win the 10 round decision. The Philadelphian jabbed Schaaf into total ineffectiveness and kept him off balance with the same weapon. He used it for a barrage of hooks and as a means of opening a path for right crosses and uppercuts. Tommy won 7 of the first 8 rounds, but eased up in the last two rounds enough for Schaaf to gain an edge in both."
'"I think that nobody has ever put in the time and the effort and praticing and studying boxing, doing different things, like I did. I was so meticulous about everything that I did insofar as my training was concerned, my movements, my balance, my sense of coordination, and my footwork was tied in with all the movements.'"
One of my favorite sequences of photos of Tommy Loughran, rocking the headband. These photos were taken after his victory over James Braddock, he was calling his family to tell them about the win and showing off the gloves from the fight. You can actually see the wounds on his face from the fight.
Comments
Awesome drawing of Tom Molineaux.
Very detailed article.
Hurt Business History: The tragic yet familiar partnership of Tom Molineaux and Bill Richmond
By: Ben Fowlkes
Some time in the winter of 1809, a friendless unknown named Tom Molineaux showed up in London telling anyone who would listen that he was the “champion of America” come to fight for England’s heavyweight title. This got a lot of laughs.
Molineaux was a stocky, muscular Black man who claimed to have been born a slave, possibly in Virginia, before earning his freedom in a series of no-holds-barred prizefights that enriched his owner to the point of overwhelming gratitude. He also claimed to have made his way to New York City, where he continued to make a living with his fists, before stowing away on a ship bound for England, the epicenter of professional pugilism at the time.
It’s hard to know how much of that is true. Boxing historians have questioned everything from the details of his Atlantic passage (more likely a crew member than a successfully hidden stowaway for the length of the journey, some say) to his release from bondage (would an early 19th-century slave-owner willingly part with a slave who continually won him money?), but like any good self-marketer in the fight game, Molineaux was never shy about mythologizing his own past. His eventual backers in the English prizefighting scene may have also seen the value in playing up his mysterious origins, and thus the story was born.
What most agree on, however, is that he appeared in London that winter as a raw, unschooled talent with an impressive physique, an abundance of ambition, and not much else. When he told people he’d come to fight Tom Cribb, the heavyweight champion of all England (which effectively made him the heavyweight champion of the world at the time), few took him seriously. If he wanted to break into the fight game of the London Prize Ring, they said, he should go see Bill Richmond.
In other words, the one Black fighter should seek out the other, since no one else would want anything to do with him.
The arc of the fighter-coach relationship that developed between the two men would be familiar to any modern fight fan. We’ve seen it so many times by now it’s become a tired cliche. A grizzled vet takes on a prospect who no one else seems to want. He puts some polish on his rough exterior, even when it’s a thankless task. The new kid learns fast and rises quickly through the ranks. Success goes immediately and irrevocably to his head, until soon no one can tell him a damn thing. Once the frustrated teacher can no longer control his pupil, he settles for exploiting him financially instead. It all ends in fiery human wreckage, as the fight game chews up and spits out another victim.
The saga of Molineaux feels archetypal now, but at the time it was novel. Then again, so was the very concept of a professional fighter. Prizefighting as we know it truly began with the bare-knuckle bouts of the London Prize Ring. They weren’t the first boxers – the Greeks were trading bare fists thousands of years earlier and the Romans even got the bright idea to add leather gloves, studded with metal to inflict maximum damage – but the Brits were among the first to maintain an active professional fight scene comparable to our own modern sport.
They had a consistent rule set, even a version of their own athletic commission to settle disputes, enforce rules, and make sure debts were paid. They had fans, often called “The Fancy,” who represented an uncommon mix of social classes for England in the time period. They even had media, like the early fight game chronicler Pierce Egan.
Richmond is generally regarded as the first Black fighter to break into this nascent sports scene. Born a slave in colonial America, he spent his early years in New York, in bondage to a wealthy loyalist there. It was his natural fighting ability that first caught the eye of Hugh Percy, the British general in command of New York at the onset of America’s war of independence in 1776.
In his excellent history, “Black Genesis: The History of the Black Prizefighter 1760-1870,” Kevin R. Smith relates Percy’s own recollections of first encountering Richmond, who was then just an 11-year-old boy:
“A young Blackamore was ostling the officers’ mounts, and fetching water to the horses, when a corporal of the Brunswicke division chaffed the black boy and he did make sport of the ostler’s colour. Two more Hessians joined in the folly, and one of them tripping the black boy a-purpose so that he dropped his water-can, spilling the lot. The stable-boy fetched his right hand sidelong to the corporal’s great beak of a nose, then he layed into the other two Hessians with both fists set flailing. The three men were taller than the Blackamoor boy, and their arms more prodigious of reach. Still he easily payed them in full for their merriment, and laced his right fist again and once more into their ears and shoulders, his left arm parrying and blocking their efforts to hit him in turn until at last, two of the Hessian rogues gave flight and ran, as the Brunswicke corporal fell to bleeding hard by the horse-trough. The Blackamore warrior triumphant, he fetched his water-can and went again to his work as if nought had occurred.”
The story goes that General Percy so enjoyed watching Richmond beat up grown men that he arranged fights between the boy and adult redcoat soldiers for the entertainment of his guests. Percy soon took possession of Richmond, either by buying him from his owner or just seizing him as the King’s property to help in the war effort, and afterwards Richmond became his servant. The young Richmond is even said to have participated in the hanging of Nathan Hale, a famous American spy. In several depictions of that event you can clearly make out a young man of dark complexion readying Hale for execution.
Percy brought Richmond back to England with him in 1778. Though Richmond probably didn’t have much choice in the matter, the relocation across the Atlantic gave him a better life than the one he likely would have lived if he’d remained a slave in America after the war. Percy enrolled him in a school in York, and afterwards Richmond became an apprentice to a cabinetmaker, a field he is said to have excelled in.
But even though life was better for a young Black man in England than it was in America at the time, it still wasn’t easy. All throughout his life, even after he was a famous fighter who’d befriended Lord Byron and put on a boxing exhibition at the behest of King George, Richmond faced all manner of racism, ranging from casual to at times aggressively violent. He had a reputation for levelheadedness, which mostly meant a willingness to absorb the racist taunts without flying into a rage, but he was also known to challenge his tormentors to settle things with a fight – provided they could do so as gentlemen, at the appropriate place and time.
This is how he found his way into the fight game while working as a personal valet to Lord Camelford, a famous ex-Navy captain. Camelford was a “sporting man” who loved to attend horse races and dog fights while dressed in the finest fashions of the time. He insisted that his valet also be decked out in eye-catching clothing while accompanying him, which made it even harder for Richmond to blend in with the crowd.
One day at the horse races, according to Smith, a local bully named Dockey Moore zeroed in on Richmond, berating him for his skin color and his clothes. When Richmond answered back, Moore challenged the much smaller Richmond to a fight, which Richmond gladly accepted. Away they went to find a flat piece of ground, and a half-hour later Richmond had beaten Moore into bloody submission. But Moore was a soldier, and his friends weren’t going to let it go that easily. The next time he showed up to the races, Richmond faced challenges from two members of the Inniskillings Dragoons. So he beat both of them up too.
You can see how a man might get a reputation this way, and so it was only a matter of time until Richmond ended up fighting for money. The trouble was his size. Richmond was not a big man, usually weighing no more than 150 pounds, and his first go with a much larger professional named George Maddox was a total mismatch that resulted in a one-sided beating. Richmond didn’t fight again for almost a year. But in that time, he studied the fight game intensely and eventually developed his own style to negate the size disadvantage.
“At some point he realized that his speed and agility were his best assets and that they could be used in a manner to offset a stronger or larger man,” Smith writes. “He was also a true believer in the benefits of a good defense. Thus, Richmond developed a ‘strike and duck’ or a ‘hit and get away’ style that was quite revolutionary for its time.”
Richmond would go on to have great success in the London Prize Ring, eventually earning the nickname “The Black Terror.” His most notable bout came in 1805, when, despite being in his early forties, he challenged the young up-and-comer Tom Cribb, who was a couple decades younger and, depending on the source, anywhere from 20 to 50 pounds heavier than Richmond. But instead of being just another brutish slugger, Cribb actually had some technique. He became known for his ability to “mill on the retreat” – basically a counterpunching style that allowed him to fight going backwards while still prioritizing defense to minimize the damage he took.
Cribb defeated Richmond after 90 minutes of fighting, though the fight itself might have been more stalemate than fierce combat. It effectively ended Richmond’s career in the ring, apart from a few carefully selected one-off returns, while vaulting Cribb to a heavyweight title fight against the great Jem Belcher, who he dispatched in a little over a half-hour.
Richmond retired from the ring after the loss to Cribb, but maintained a connection to the fight game in two ways. One was by training and cornering other fighters, leveraging his reputation as a “scientific” boxer to rebrand himself as a coach to pros and amateur enthusiasts alike. The other was by leaning into the classic second act of pro fighters at the time – opening a pub.
Richmond ran The Horse and Dolphin on Saint Martin Street, right near the famous Fives Court, a noted rallying point for London’s sporting crowd. It put him directly in the center of London’s pugilistic scene, and was a generally successful business venture for him. It was here Molineaux was directed once he circulated word of his plan to fight Cribb for the heavyweight crown. This might have been partially because of Richmond’s reputation as a trainer and teacher of technical boxing, but it was also pure racism. Who was going to train one Black man from America if not the other Black man from America?
A Visit to the Fives Court’, 1822. Scene showing a prizefight in progress at a venue in St Martin’s Street, Westminster, London.
Most accounts agree that Molineaux wasn’t an actual boxer when he arrived on English shores. Prizefighting as the British knew it hadn’t yet firmly taken root in America. The bouts that Molineaux participated in were much more likely no-holds-barred brawls in the “rough and tumble” style. Particularly when he was matched against other slaves, they might have often been fatal encounters.
But the London Prize Ring had specific rules, even if the sport of prizefighting itself was technically outlawed by then. There was no biting, kicking, scratching, or headbutting allowed. Rounds ended only when one fighter hit the ground, either from a punch or a throw, but to go down without cause was considered a potentially disqualifying foul. Breaks between rounds typically lasted 30 seconds, after which point the referee would call time and fighters had to “come to scratch” – stepping up to a line in the dirt to mark their readiness to begin the next round – or else be counted out. A fighter could be knocked cold at the end of one round, but if his seconds managed to wake him up in time to answer when time was called for the next round, he could continue.
Molineaux knew nothing of these rules or of the finer points of boxing as it existed at the time. But he was a physical specimen, standing about 5’8” and weighing around 200 pounds of chiseled muscle. Just the sight of him stripping off his shirt before a bout was said to sway betting odds. He also had an excellent teacher in Richmond and he learned quickly, even if Richmond had to undo some bad habits, like his tendency to throw his right hand with a kind of hammerfist style.
It’s unclear whether Richmond thought of Molineaux as a genuine prospect or simply a novelty good for generating some interest and a quick buck, but he soon matched him against a novice fighter trained by his old rival Cribb. Molineaux dropped the man early and often, but took more than an hour to finally put him away. By then, Pierce Egan wrote, Molineaux had beaten the man so badly that “it was impossible to distinguish a single feature in his face.”
The English fight crowd was intrigued right away. Molineaux looked the part, and he could fight, but he also had personality. He was often described as loud and outgoing, even arrogant. He liked to drink and he loved women, many of whom loved him right back as they announced their intention to “try the black.” With his love of attention and his eye-catching physique, he became a famous local fighter in a very short period of time.
While the fighting at the time was done by people lower down on the socioeconomic ladder, it was financially supported by the upper classes. Fighters typically had to find a backer or a patron to put up the stakes for their fights, and Molineaux attracted significant attention from people like Lord George Sackville, who was ready to match him up against Cribb right away.
Richmond, however, insisted that Molineaux needed more experience. Then, as now, the fight game was susceptible to instant hype, getting overly excited about a new talent based on little actual evidence.
“Mostly Tom was a curiosity: a boisterous, black American prizefighter who rather fancied himself and his accomplishments,” Smith writes. “For the most part, the Fancy regarded Molineaux as ‘spice.’ That is to say, he brought a new life and a new interest into a sport, which had recently seen some of its slower days in England. Cribb had been champion for several years and had, for all intents and purposes, cleaned up his challengers. Without a worthy challenger for the champion, the game had fallen into a small decline.”
Many looked at Molineaux as the cure for that ailment, and Molineaux was more than happy to stoke that fire.
He continued to refine his craft under Richmond, improving both his punching technique and his footwork. In August of 1810, just about a month after his first win on English soil, he fought and defeated a well-known boxer and sailor named Tom Blake, known in the fight game as “Tom Tough.” This time an even bigger crowd showed up to watch, and Molineaux eventually knocked Blake out cold with a right hand. More than the victory itself, he had clearly improved enough to convince those who mattered in the fight scene that a worthy challenger for Cribb had been found at last.
The two would meet for the first time later that same year, just about five months after Molineaux’s debut bout. But by then, the curiosity surrounding Molineaux had turned to anxiety. It was fun having him around as a loud, brash American who fought a couple of also-rans and injected some quick entertainment into a floundering fight game. But once they truly began to consider the possibility that Molineaux might beat Cribb – that the heavyweight title of England might be held by an American, and a Black man at that – that was when “the jealousy commenced,” according to Egan.
It took a concerted effort from Molineaux and Richmond to goad the partially retired Cribb into taking the fight, and a condition of his eventual agreement was that he be given time to get in fighting shape. In later preparation efforts, he trained with an infantry captain named Robert Barclay who had risen to national fame when he walked 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours to win a bet of 1,000 guineas. Barclay was regarded as something of a fitness guru and an amateur boxing enthusiast, and he was something of a revolutionary how he trained Cribb using a regimen that consisted of sparring as well as long hikes and short runs.
The fight was set for December 18, 1810, in a field some 30 miles outside London. Right away, Richmond didn’t like the timing. Giving Cribb time to prepare after a long period of inactivity was a mistake, he thought, and fighting outdoors in the cold winter months was something Cribb was far more accustomed to than was Molineaux. Still, after such an effort to call out Cribb, the challenger couldn’t dictate terms. Molineaux and Richmond had to take it or leave it, even if it meant meeting the champion in a cold, stinging rain.
“Notwithstanding the rain came down in torrents, and the distance from London, the Fancy were not to be deterred from witnessing the mill,” Egan wrote. “And who waded through a clayey road, nearly knee-deep for five miles, with alacrity and cheerfulness, as if it had been as smooth as a bowling-green, so great was the curiosity and interest manifested upon this battle.”
Théodore Gericault’s “Boxeurs,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1922
Thousands turned out even in these conditions, and the fight they witnessed that day is still considered one of the greatest and most significant of the bare-knuckle era. In an article later collected in his book, “Boxiana; or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism,” Egan provided a round-by-round summary of the fight. He repeatedly referred to Molineaux as “the moor,” and noted that betting odds started out heavily in favor of Cribb, with many betting that Molineaux wouldn’t last 30 minutes with the champion.
After Cribb threw Molineaux to the ground to end the first round, Egan wrote of the second:
“The moor rallied with a left-handed blow, which did not tell, when Cribb planted a most tremendous one over his adversary’s right eye-brow, but which not have the effect of knocking him down, he only staggered a few paces, followed up by the Champion. Desperation was now the order of the round, and the rally re-commenced with uncommon severity, in which Cribb showed the most science, although he received a dreadful blow on the mouth that made his teeth chatter again, and exhibited the first signs of claret (blood). Four to one (odds) on Cribb.”
The battle continued back and forth like this. In the fourth round, Molineaux went down off a slip on the wet, soggy ground. The fifth saw both fighters plant their feet and throw nonstop for about 30 seconds, according to Egan, which thrilled the crowd but also left them confused as to how to adjust the odds. (“The knowing ones were lost for the moment, and no bets were offered.”)
In the eighth Molineaux stood up to such punishment that Egan claimed Cribb was now feeling “somewhat mistaken in his idea’s of the Black’s capabilities.” To begin the ninth, Egan wrote: “The battle had arrived at that doubtful state, and things seemed not to prove so easy and tractable as was anticipated, that the betters were rather puzzled as to how they should proceed with success.” After Molineaux rallied to flatten Cribb with a punch that broke through his guard, Egan described the faces of those who had bet on the champion as “panic-struck.”
After this point, the picture painted by Egan’s description is less of boxing than it is of surviving. A “war of attrition,” we’d call it in the modern fight game. Both men exhausted. Both men hurt and bleeding and peering at each other through swollen slits of eyes. Both of them standing shirtless in a cold rain, trying to work up the energy to throw a punch with any force, when often enough a swing and a miss was enough to send them tumbling to the wet ground.
The next major swing happened in the nineteenth round. By this point, Egan wrote, “to distinguish the combatants by their features would have been utterly impossible, so dreadfully were both their faces beaten.” (Though, he also helpfully pointed out, looking at their faces was unnecessary since the men had different skin colors, lest we ever be allowed to forget it even for a moment.)
The crucial moment came when Molineaux battered Cribb back against the ring ropes and then trapped him there, holding Cribb and holding the ropes in such a way that Cribb “could neither make a hit or fall down” as Molineaux punished him. An argument ensued about whether this was legal or whether the referee should break them up, but while this discussion was going on most sources agree that an incensed crowd rushed the ring and pried Molineaux’s hands from the ropes, possibly breaking one of his fingers in the process. Finally Cribb went down, with Egan noting that if Molineaux hadn’t been too tired to throw punches with any real force, the blows he took in that round might have “proved fatal” to the champ.
What happened between that point and the end of the fight is still the subject of some controversy. Several sources say that in the twenty-eighth round Cribb threw a punch from too far out, missed, and was knocked out by a counter from Molineaux that left him completely incapable of making it to scratch in time for the start of the next round.
That should have given Molineaux the victory and with it the title. But according to this version of events, one of Cribb’s cornermen bought him extra time to recover by complaining to the referee that Molineaux had been using bullets secreted away in his closed fists in order to give his punches extra weight. An argument followed. Confusion ruled. An already exhausted Molineaux was left to stand there in the rain displaying his empty hands while Cribb was allowed to recover. And then the fight went on.
If true, this would be a delay tactic familiar to modern fight fans. We’ve seen corners who “accidentally” spilled water or ice on the canvas, or just conveniently forgot to remove the stool at the end of the break between rounds, all to buy their fighters more time. Several contemporary sources agree that this happened. Egan’s round-by-round account makes no mention of any of this, and instead states only: “Cribb received a leveller in consequence of his distance being incorrect.”
Is it possible Egan was so biased in favor of his fellow Englishman that he omitted this entire controversy? Absolutely. At other points in his account of the fight, he seems slow to give Molineaux credit for anything other than surprising the crowd with his ability to withstand punishment. Then again, he did note the earlier interference from the spectators, and mentioned that they’d probably injured Molineaux’s hand when prying his fingers loose from the ropes. Later, after Molineaux’s death, Egan would write that “his colour alone prevented him from becoming the hero of that fight,” so it would seem he allowed for at least some unfairness to Molineaux in the bout.
Whatever the case, the fight technically went on until the fortieth round, though Egan wrote that the thirty-fourth was “the last round that might be termed fighting.” Molineaux was fading, and after Round 39 he is said to have told his corner that he “could fight no more.” Richmond rallied him up to try another round, but Molineaux soon fell as much from total exhaustion as accumulated damage. Cribb was declared the winner. And still the champion.
The fight itself, as well as the possibility that he may have been cheated out of the title in one or more ways, was hard for Molineaux to swallow. Days after the fight a letter was published under Molineaux’s name (likely written for him since he was said to be illiterate), challenging Cribb to a rematch and noting that his “friends” thought he might have won the fight if the weather had not been “so unfavourable.”
He added: “As it is possible this letter may meet the public eye, I cannot omit the opportunity of expressing a confident hope, that the circumstances of my being of a different colour to that of a people amongst whom I have sought protection, will not in any way operate to my prejudice.”
This was an appeal more to the British sporting crowd than to Cribb. Poking at their pride in their own sense of fair play, Molineaux suggested he’d been robbed without explicitly saying it. As the modern fight game knows, the fans hate nothing more than a loser who makes excuses. And yet sometimes, especially to the loser, those excuses are nothing more than totally valid reasons.
Cribb wasn’t overly eager to do it again. He publicly accepted the challenge, but only under the condition that they fight for an increased purse of 250 guineas a side – a sum he knew Molineaux and Richmond couldn’t easily raise. Until his price could be met, Cribb would wait.
In the meantime, Richmond found other fights for Molineaux, some against much lesser fighters who had no real hope of beating him. On at least one other occasion Molineaux again faced trouble from a white crowd that couldn’t stand to see him beat a white fighter, rushing the ring and trying to tip the scales in his opponent’s favor.
Richmond never had much control over Molineaux outside the ring, but as they toured the countryside for a series of exhibitions and money fights, the relationship between them unraveled further. Molineaux had become a very famous man in England, and he wanted to enjoy it in the form of women, fancy clothes, and what passed for fast living at the time. Soon, observers began to speculate that Richmond had given up on trying to keep Molineaux reasonably sober and in something close to fighting shape, and was instead intent on wringing all the money he could out of his fighter in order to recoup his investment before it all fell apart.
Cribb and Molineaux finally met for the second and final time in September of 1811, with an even bigger crowd – some estimates pegged it at 20,000 – there to see the rematch. Cribb was even fitter and trimmer than in the first fight, having put in a full training camp with even greater focus this time. Molineaux, who may have been suffering from the early stages of tuberculosis by then, was very much the opposite. He and Richmond had been part of a touring fight troupe, earning money with shows and exhibitions right up until fight time in order to pay back the debt they’d gone into trying to raise the money for the second Cribb fight.
If the first fight was a glorious clash of titans, the rematch was more of a gross spectacle. Cribb easily battered the out of shape Molineaux, doubling him over with body punches that pounded at his now soft belly. Still, Molineaux had that same tremendous heart and punching power that he’d started with. In the fifth round, he knocked Cribb down with damaging blows that had Cribb’s supporters genuinely worried. But his condition soon betrayed him, and Cribb took over the fight.
In the ninth, Cribb knocked Molineaux out so severely that there was no hope of him making it to scratch in time to continue. The fight should have ended there, but Cribb refused to accept the victory. Maybe he wanted to make a point after the accusations that he’d been given too much to recover in the first fight. Maybe he was just angry at Molineaux for some of the things he and Richmond had been saying about the champ in an effort to entice him into a rematch. Whatever the cause, he seemed to want to punish Molineaux, and so he insisted on giving him nearly two minutes to recover.
When the bout resumed, Cribb pummeled him mercilessly, at one point breaking Molineaux’s jaw with a punch. Again Molineaux failed to come to scratch in time, and again Cribb refused to accept victory. Even though Molineaux was clearly finished, Richmond pushed his fighter out for another round. In the eleventh, Cribb knocked him completely unconscious to settle the matter for good. The whole thing took just under twenty minutes.
Richmond’s association with Molineaux dissolved right there. Some sources say he abandoned his fighter the same day, leaving him to make his own way home with a broken jaw and battered body. In a distinguished life as a fighter, trainer, and businessman, it’s one of the only critiques anyone could plausibly lodge against Richmond – but it’s a bad one.
In his historical novel, “Black Ajax,” George MacDonald Fraser depicts Richmond as thoroughly fed up with a man in whom he’d placed his own vicarious hopes. In a chapter from Richmond’s perspective, Fraser imagines his lasting animus toward Molineaux.
“He could ha’ been the Champion, the black Champion of England! He threw it clear away. I used to dream ‘bout that Championship, long ago, when I was a young miller, and thought myself a prime chicken. But I soon saw ‘twould never be, for me, and time passed – and then came Tom, and when Buck Flashman and Pad Jones showed me what was in him, oh, ten times what there ever was in me, or any other fighter I ever saw, black or white … then I dreamed again, and knew such a burning ambition as I’d never felt for myself – to see him cock o’ the Fancy, Champion of England, and pay back all those years and sneers and see their pride humbled and their insults thrown back in their teeth. … Guess you think the Championship of England ain’t worth that much hate? Mister, you don’t know the English. Guess you think I must be dicked in the nob to feel the bitterness I feel? Mister, you ain’t a nigger … and you never been a slave.”
Molineaux would go on to have several more fights of an increasingly depressing nature. He was clearly unwell, but continued on anyway, making what money he could off the lasting power of his name. In some fights he seemed to break with reality, talking to people who weren’t there and accusing opponents of fouls that never happened. Eventually he was destitute, taken in by a few Black soldiers who took pity on him in Galway, where he died on August 4, 1818.
The boxing historian Henry Downes Miles, author of “Pugilistica,” later described him as “illiterate and ostentatious, but good tempered, liberal, and generous to a fault. Fond of the gay life, fine clothes and amorous to the extreme, he deluded himself with the idea that his strength of constitution was proof against excess. He was a brave but reckless and inconsiderate man, on whose straightforwardness and integrity none who knew him ever cast a slur; nevertheless he was the worst of fools, inasmuch as he sacrificed fame, fortune and life; excusing himself by the absurd plea that he was a fool but no one but himself.”
It’s fair to say that without Molineaux and that first fight they shared, Cribb’s legend would never have grown so immense. For a time he was the country’s most famed sportsman. He also ran a pub, and one which bears his name and likeness still stands in London today. His triumphs were eventually celebrated with the presentation of a belt made of lion skin. It was probably the first championship belt ever awarded, and it helped establish the tradition that continues now, some two centuries later.
What’s strange is that, while the story of Cribb and Molineaux captivated England at the time, there was almost no mention of it in Molineaux’s home country. In America, the exploits of a Black fighter apparently weren’t considered newsworthy. Back home, the slave who’d very nearly become a champion by beating the British at their own game was still just another nobody, hardly even worth mentioning. The familiar arc of the life he’d lived, however, was doomed to be repeated again and again.
This is really cool, Tom Molineaux vs Tom Cribb on the cover of The Ring magazine in April 1948.
A cover illustration from "Famous Fights in the Prize Ring" featuring Tom Molineaux and Tom Cribb, published in London, circa 1883.
Cool image of what Tom Molineaux might have looked like that day, the first Black fighter to challenge for the bare-knuckle title. Standing in his corner, freezing temperatures, rain pouring down his face, about to go 35 rounds with the great Tom Cribb, a man that had dominated the prizefighting ring for 14 years.
Tom Molineaux from a drawing by George Sharples, illustration for Pugilistica The History of British Boxing by Henry Downes Miles, circa 1900. This is the image of Molineaux that was used for his 1993 Sporting Profiles "Heroes Of The Prize Ring" trading card.
Another drawing of Tom Molineaux from George Sharples.
This is my favorite image of Tom Molineaux, it's a beautiful illustration published by Dighton in 1812 and just might be the closest image we have as to what Molineaux really looked like.
Great book about Tom Molineaux.
Just stepped outside for a moment, man it's cold, 18 degrees. We were just hit by a snowstorm and freezing rain is due to start in an hour. My hands are red and numb from being outside. It really makes you appreciate what the humans that lived during the ice age went through. I mean can you just imagine having to live outside permanently in those type of conditions, having to hunt and kill animals just for food and clothing, trying to make a fire to keep warm and cook the raw meat.
''I had been fighting less than three years, and had engaged in less than 40 battIes when I met Gene Tunney before an enormous crowd in the Philadelphia National League Hall Park. Even then, Gene was regarded one of the greatest mittmen of America. He had fought a great number of stars, and the only blot on his record was a 15-round decision that Harry Greb won over him. He was bigger and stronger and older than l, and it was the consensus of opinion that my manager, Joe Smith, had picked too big a job for me.
It looked as though the guessers were right when Tunney knocked me down in the first round for the count of nine. My strength came back quickly, and I had no difficulty in lasting out the rest of the three minutes.
From then till the seventh round I boxed Gene - and I think I outboxed him. At any rate, though the match was a fast and scientific exhibition, neither of us were hurt.
In my corner, between the seventh and eighth rounds, I made up my mind that I would drop boxing; that I would make a whirlwind finish of it, and slug the matter out with the ex-marine.
When the bell rang I shot out my corner, smashing away with both hands. Boxing had always been my forte, and this switch on to a Battling NeIson sort of offensive evidently surprised Gene. At any rate, I drove him across the ring, peppering him with rights and lefts - bang, bang, bang!
Gene couldn't get set, I battered him to the ropes before he rallied. At the bell we were thumping each other lustily, the crowd was howling it's heart out. That was my big moment. Some of the newspaper men had said that l wasn't a fighter, but a boxer; that if I had real savagery of attack to back up my skill I would become a champion some day.
I proved it to them in the three minutes of that final round. Better yet, I proved it to myseIf.
There were no decisions given in Philadelphia in those days, and the papers disagreed as to the winner. They all concurred in the beIief that I had decisively outfought Gene Tunney in the final round, and that my attack balanced up the knockdown he had scored in the opening canto.
Believe me, I'll never forget the sensation when I sIammed the great marine around the ring.''
"The Philly Phantom'', Tommy Loughran. He was an all-time great light heavyweight who moved up to heavy and slayed a few giants. Very clever boxer. Love this image of Loughran.
Tommy Loughran: Poetry In Motion
By: Mike Casey – Some fighters, the truly great fighters, transcend the boundaries of time and technique. They render academic the arguments of those who would tell us that you can draw a definitive timeline between the great and the not-so-great fighters in boxing history. The special few slice through all the doubts and debate because we instinctively know that they would have stood up and flourished on any stage in any pocket of time. Watch Tommy Loughran on film and you will see a timeless boxer of sublime skill and elegance who could fit snugly into any era and still be the master and commander of deft skill and graceful movement among the 175-pounders. Watch him ghosting around Jim Braddock, who, we tend to forget, was being described as a sensational young contender and a terrific hitter in 1929 before being shunted into the sidings and re-emerging as the Cinderella Man. Loughran, the maestro from Philadelphia, The Phantom as many called him, was a natural who made lesser man square up to their mirrors and wonder why they couldn’t duplicate moves that seemed so ridiculously easy.. Lean and athletic, fast and fluid, there was nevertheless an almost slow and casual air about the way in which Tommy jinked and danced and slotted perfect punches through the tightest of guards. He was so often referred to as a dancing master, yet he didn’t have to dance that much in order to avoid incoming blows. That handsome head would shift this way or that and the blow would meander off into no man’s land like an errant torpedo. Unlike many of today’s pretenders, who only seem to read half the instruction book before dangling their arms by their waists and getting smashed on the chin, Loughran held his hands low because he first learned how to avoid being hit. He drilled himself tirelessly in his quest to become as perfect a boxer as he could ever be. He berated himself for his mistakes and practised even harder. You can see it in his great balance and skilful movement and the way in which he could move forwards, backwards, sideways or suddenly go on the offensive with equal ease and grace. How Jim Braddock tried to nail Tommy down in their Yankee Stadium battle for Loughran’s world light heavyweight championship. But Jim couldn’t fathom Tommy from a distance and found himself tied in knots when he tried to take the fight inside. What’s he going to do next? That’s what Braddock seemed to be asking himself. Loughran was equally adept at throwing shadows as he was at throwing punches. When he seemed set to fire the jab, he would lead with a fast left hook. His left-right combinations were thrown with that deceptive, lightning speed that appears almost slow and lazy to the naked eye. Braddock, with typical honesty, would later say, “I figured I had to try to fight Tommy, not box him, because, as far as boxing goes, I would have been outclassed, and he beat me in 15 rounds easy with his boxing ability. He was a guy you could never hit with a good solid punch.” Did Tommy Loughran have a significant weakness in his boxing make-up? Well, if we are nit-picking, Tommy was no big hitter. He couldn’t sock like Archie Moore, Bob Foster or the oft-forgotten Astoria Assassin, Paul Berlenbach. But such were Loughran’s exceptional boxing skills, it would be somewhat trite to play up his lack of a killer punch, since he so rarely required knockout power in his prime years as a 175-pounder. Nicolino Locche and Maxie Rosenbloom were no less adept at prospering without the big wallop. Look at their sprawling records and try to spot the KO wins without a magnifying glass. My good friend and fellow historian, Mike Hunnicut, was all too eager to talk about Tommy Loughran. Mike owns an extensive film collection of the great fighters and has studied Tommy many times. Here’s what the good Mr H says: “Loughran was just a boxing master, able to figure out and do different things all the time. He was able to consistently creep up on his opponents without them or their trainers – all of whom knew what he was doing – able to stop him doing it! He had tireless legs. If, as he was coming in, his opponent tried a barrage, Loughran was off to the sides or off to the races. He could do that for 15 rounds without too much difficulty. He was also a master at slipping, feinting and tying up opponents. This takes a lot of experience, practice and conditioning, which Loughran obviously had. “Any light heavyweight who can post wins over Harry Greb, Max Baer, Mickey Walker and Jack Sharkey has to be something very special, which Loughran was. He fought and found ways to beat so many top class fighters of all styles, from tough sluggers and one-man riot squads to the slickest of boxers like himself. His footwork was such that at times he seemed to be skating in the ring, whilst simultaneously picking out punches in mid-air. “Tommy was a phenomenon, who remained so due to his utter obsession to his craft. He truly did train as much as any fighter in history, with wall-to-wall mirrors to study himself, various diagrams for footwork, and analysing every single move and punch in constant preparation for his opponents and their styles, strengths and weaknesses. His trainer Joe Smith would throw fast punches at Tommy’s face, while Loughran stood near a wall, to master slipping and rolling. “Tommy Loughran was one of a kind, like Willie Pep and a few select others. Tommy is synonymous with the word ‘boxing’” Meticulous In the early 1970s, Loughran described his painstaking pursuit of perfection to author Peter Heller. While Tommy was never one to be hindered by modesty, there is great truth in what he said: “I think that nobody has ever put in the time and effort and practising and studying boxing, doing different things, like I did. I was so meticulous about everything I did insofar as my training was concerned, my movements, my balance, my sense of co-ordination and my footwork was tied in with all the movements. Of course, I was fortunate too in having a manager who had been a fighter himself. Joe Smith had had 300 fights and he didn’t have a mark on him. Very good looking. “I worked in the basement of my home. I had a little gym fixed up there and I had mirrors and I studied myself in the mirrors, punch the bag, skip rope, shadow box, and I studied my movements in these mirrors in such a way hat I knew exactly how I appeared to every fellow that I was boxing.” Loughran was born in Philadelphia in 1902 and had his first professional fight as a 17-year old in 1919. Like most fighters of his tough and competitive era, there is really no telling how many fights he had before wrapping up his career in 1937. The BoxRec database has his total standing at 174. Loughran himself claimed to have had 227 bouts, which is entirely possible. Whatever the official figure, and we might never know, it is the quality of his opposition that jump off the page and stagger the eye, most of whom Loughran vanquished or held even in the old days of newspaper decisions. If ever a man could drop names to impress, it was Loughran. He fought Jimmy Darcy, Bryan Downey and Mike McTigue. Tommy locked horns with Harry Greb six times and gave Gene Tunney such a battle of wits and skill in their 1922 clash that Gene would never entertain the clever Philadelphian again. Loughran took on Johnny Wilson, Jack Delaney, Young Stribling, Georges Carpentier, Jimmy Slattery, Leo Lomski, Pete Latzo, Mickey Walker, Ernie Schaaf, Jim Braddock, Max Baer, Johnny Risko, Paolino Uzcudun, Jack Sharkey and Arturo Godoy. Boxing historian Tracy Callis says of Loughran, “Tommy was a beautiful boxer to watch in the ring, a man with picture perfect form. He moved well – fast on his feet, smooth, quick, elusive – displaying the ultimate in boxing savvy. He was not a paralysing puncher, but he did everything else well. A boxer supreme, clever Tommy could handle large men or small men with ease. “His talent at movement and boxing tactics was admired greatly by Jim Corbett, the famous and innovative heavyweight champion, who attended many of Tommy’s bouts. Many boxing people and historians assert that Loughran perfected moves that Corbett had not yet worked on.” Loughran performed more than honourably when he graduated to the heavyweight division in an era when holding the 175lb crown was never going to make a boxer rich. That harsh fact was a great pity to some of the great men who reigned at that weight, notably Loughran, who was never better than when he was bossing his natural domain. This, then, is primarily an appraisal of Loughran the light heavyweight at his classic best. Was Tommy a Fancy Dan? Stylistically, yes. But here was a pugnacious man of grit and huge self-belief who would fight all-comers and actually relished the chance of sparring with Jack Dempsey. Loughran wouldn’t suffer the put-down from anyone, in or out of the ring. Not surprisingly, perhaps, it was Tunney who made Tommy bristle the most. Gene’s unfortunate habit of making a compliment sound like a thinly veiled insult never ceased to grate with Loughran. In 1928, former welterweight legend Jack Britton, considered to be an excellent judge of fighters, offered his opinion on Loughran. Said Jack, “There’s only one fighter in the game I wouldn’t bet against in a fight with Tunney. And you’ll probably laugh when I mention his name. Tommy Loughran. You know, you can’t knock out a fellow or beat him if you can’t hit him.” To this, Tunney allegedly replied, “I understand that Tommy is a very nice fellow and a gentleman. But as to fighting – ah! That’s different!” Loughran quietly seethed over the fact that Tunney had got to the fading and distracted Jack Dempsey first in 1926. Never shy in promoting his own credentials, Tommy said, “I licked Dempsey in his training camp and I know I could have knocked him out in a real fight, but Tunney had the jump and got the chance. I came near beating Tunney when I was just a novice and I know I can take him now because all he can do is back away and counter.” As a person, Tunney impressed Loughran even less. “Who does he think he is?” Tommy barked. “He wasn’t born any better than I was. He never could fight and I can. He didn’t win the war and neither did I.” It seems that Loughran’s nose was put out of joint when he clashed with Tunney at a classy hotel in Newark, where Gene believed he was the exclusive guest of honour. Tunney was shocked to see Loughran and a few other fighters in the lobby. The story goes that Gene approached Tommy and gave him a somewhat frosty handshake. The ensuing conversation reportedly went as follows:- “What are you doing here, Tommy?” “Just waiting around.” “I’m awfully glad to see you in a place like this.” “What are you talking about?” “Why, I mean that it is good to see some of the boxers in respe4ctable places. It will help the public get a different opinion of the business if they see boxers in places like this.” Loughran was apparently boiling by this point and replied, “You don’t know how to act in a respectable place and I do. If I didn’t, I’d let you have one.” Well, folks, we take this story as we will. For while Tunney’ aloofness made many people quietly fume, so Loughran was just as full of himself in his own earthier way. Both men might have been more greatly admired if they had tempered their confidence with a dash of humility. Loughran told the tale of Jim Corbett marvelling at Tommy’s skill and telling him he did things in the ring that Jim could only dream of doing himself. Georges Carpentier was another who apparently confided to Loughran that Tommy was the greatest thing since sliced bread. These stories might well be true, but should the recipient of such praise really shout it from the rooftops? Some years ago, golfer Greg Norman walked into the press room after shooting a particularly outstanding round and declared, “I was in awe of myself out there.” Now, one surely shouldn’t express such thoughts out loud. Your writer immediately wanted to reach for the sick bag. Greg, the so-called Great White Shark, was promptly lambasted for this faux-pas by a famous rugby player who had jumped through far tougher hoops. One began to understand why Norman’s fellow Aussie, Jack Newton, cut from tougher cloth, had re-christened Greg the Great White Fish Finger. Loughran, likewise, could never sufficiently emphasise how he had given Jack Dempsey fits in their sparring session of 1926, as Manassa Jack prepared for his first battle with Gene Tunney. Well, I can entirely believe that the lithe and young Loughran gave the rusty Dempsey the run-around. But to hear Tommy tell it, the ring was awash with Jack’s blood and broken bones: “Geez, boy, what I didn’t do to him. The year before, he had had a nasal job, his nose was all shortened, and they didn’t know whether it would stand up under punishment. I let him have it on the nose. Blood squirted in all directions. He stepped back and cussed me out loud and when he did, I grabbed him and turned him around and put him up against the ropes.. Geez, I poured it on him. I gave him such a beating. I hit him in the belly, hit him with uppercuts, hit him with a hook, caught him with another. I had his eyes puffy, his nose was bleeding, he was spitting out blood. I had him cut under the chin and I think his ear was bleeding. I don’t know whatever held him up. He always came tearing back in, no matter how hard I hit him.” The impression is gained from this is that Dempsey was lucky to make it to the Tunney fight without the aid of a body cast. Yet within this windy tale of Tommy’s is a great pearl of wisdom and truth which stood him in good stead and made him a wonderfully spirited fighter as well as a wonderful boxer. “Confidence is what it takes,” he said. “Those two rounds with Dempsey gave me confidence in myself. I learned an important lesson that day: never to be defeated by fear. There are so many people that are, you know.” A Slashing 15-Rounder! Fear and near defeat came knocking at Loughran’s door in his astonishing and thrilling fight with the big-punching Leo Lomski at Madison Square Garden on January 16, 1928. Tommy was defending his light heavyweight championship for the second time, having relieved Mike McTigue of the title and seen off the challenge of the brilliantly clever but wasteful Jimmy Slattery. Lomski was a true assassin of the ring, a gifted hitter from Aberdeen, Wisconsin, who willingly engaged Loughran in what one reporter aptly described as ‘a slashing 15-rounder’. It was a torrid test of endurance that proved to be one of Loughran’s finest hours. Like that other great boxing master, Benny Leonard, Tommy demonstrated that he was also a tough and pugnacious competitor who could rough it in times of crisis and battle his way back from the brink of defeat. The 15,000 people who saw the see-saw battle in the Garden shouted themselves hoarse as Lomski came out like a train in the first round and decked Loughran twice. Tommy showed outstanding powers of recuperation and fighting heart in surviving the crisis. When the fog cleared from his brain, his agile mind worked out the answer. He realised that fancy boxing alone would not douse the fire of the rampant Lomski. Moving carefully and punching accurately, Tommy set about slowing Leo down with a tattoo of hard jabs and stinging right crosses. It was a hugely admirable comeback, for Loughran really was clattered in that epic first round. Lomski’s first knockdown punch, a crunching right to the jaw, sent Tommy crashing down by the ropes and very nearly forced him head over heels. Lomski could hit like a kicking mule – look at the man’s record. He would surely run riot in today’s 175lb division. Badly shaken, Loughran was up on his feet at ‘six’, but couldn’t extract himself from the eye of the storm. Another big right to the jaw dumped him again later in the round, and it seemed that the untouchable phantom had finally solidified and become a vulnerable target. Loughran’s mind was all over the place when he got back to his corner. “What round did I knock him down in?” he asked his seconds. Yet, like all fighters touched with greartness, he found a way to re-connect his brain to his body. He held his own in the second round, lost the third, but then steadied himself up and began to show his mettle in full. Lomski, for all his formidable power, wasn’t nearly Tommy’s equal in either skill or versatility. Yet Tommy didn’t just outwit Leo for the rest of the way. Loughran brought the Garden crowd to fever pitch by outpunching Lomski in a series of ferocious exchanges. Left hooks and right crosses sent the blood flowing from Lomski’s left eye, but Leo never stopped trying and hammered back to have Loughran in fresh trouble in a thrilling sixth round. Once again, Tommy shook the cobwebs from his head and finally assumed control of the fight. Stiff jabs and right crosses repeatedly jerked back Lomski’s head as Loughran began to pull clear. Lomski, however, proved Tommy’s equal in courage and persistence. Leo kept punching away, hurting Loughran with some powerful rights to the heart in the tenth round. But the steam was going out of Lomski’s punches, even though he was obviously loving every minute of the violent scrap. A smile of pleasure would often crease his face as he piled in and tried to smash down the boxing master. Despite going down to a brave points defeat, Leo had become the first man since Tunney to put Loughran on the floor. Elite Boxing historian and writer Mike Silver is among those who rates Loughran among the elite of master boxers. Says Mike, “Tommy was without question one of the greatest pure boxers of all time. He was a classic, stand-up defensive stylist in the mould of Jim Corbett, Mike Gibbons, Gene Tunney and Jack Delaney. “In his prime as a light heavyweight, Loughran combined accurate left jabs with superb footwork, timing and balance, in addition to a ton of experience. He was adept at slipping, riding or blocking counter punches and tying up an opponent when necessary. Loughran never plodded or shuffled. He bounced. His rhythmic footwork, along with that ubiquitous jab, was the key to his success. It was like watching a ballroom dancer who, through endless hours of practice, has perfected every little nuance of his art. And let’s not forget that Tommy had to overcome certain limitations, specifically his oft-broken right hand, which he rarely threw. Imagine if the man could punch! “Loughran effortlessly moved in or out and from side to side, often just a few inches out of range of his opponent’s punches, but always in position to jab or counter with the occasional hook, uppercut or cross. And he did all this as a practically one-armed fighter! Loughran often seemed to become more effective in the later rounds of a fight, due mostly to his opponents becoming ever more frustrated and rankled as they failed to hit him with a solid punch. Tommy knew his profession inside out and it showed. If you want to become a fighter and improve your chances of walking away from this sport with your mind intact, copy Tommy Loughran’s style.” Mike Silver believes that Loughran’s great vision and foresight in the ring were among his greatest gifts. “He had great boxing ‘eyes’ in the sense of his awareness and perception of what was going on in the ring and what he had to do to win. Loughran knew where the next punch was coming from and he knew exactly where his own punches were going. It was as if he had some kind of boxing radar. His co-ordination of hands and feet was superb. He was a constantly moving target and was very cool under pressure or when tagged, and rarely hit with the same punch twice. Significantly, in every film available, he is never ever trapped in a corner or on the ropes. He did not have that extra dimension of being a hard puncher, which makes his consistent performances against so many quality opponents for so long all the more remarkable.” Punchers While Loughran couldn’t punch that hard, he could handle the punchers just fine. Against Mickey Walker and the young Max Baer, Loughran was the consummate matador, wrong-footing the bulls with constant movement and dazzling artistry. Walker gave it all he had in trying to take Tommy’s light heavyweight crown at the Chicago Stadium on March 28, 1929. But Mick didn’t have enough to beat Loughran. Referee Dave Miller somehow had Mickey winning the ten rounds battle, but the judges and neutral observers saw Loughran winning handily. Tommy’s trusty jab, almost metronome-like in its reliability, kept the frustrated Walker at bay for most of the contest. Zipping right crosses also checked Mick’s advances. As the fight neared its end in the tenth round, Tommy went through the gears with that certain assuredness and smoothness that only the true naturals possess. His slipping and ducking was exemplary. Scoring with three straight lefts, he ducked a left and right to the head, stepped inside of a right and made Walker miss with a long left. Mickey was then struck by two more lefts and two more rights to the head before finally finding Loughran with a wild shot to the jaw. Mickey put in his usual sterling effort, but, like so many others, he found that hitting Loughran cleanly was akin to trying to pick a fly out of the air. The still maturing Max Baer was given a rare boxing lesson by Loughran in their heavyweight ten-rounder at Madison Square Garden on February 6, 1931. Tommy’s master class was watched by a fascinated audience of 12,000, the biggest of the indoor boxing season up to that point. Loughran was way ahead of the powerful and willing young Baer, stepping elegantly around the heavier man and rapping him constantly with accurate jabs. Many reporters were reminded of Tommy’s classic boxing performance in retaining his light heavyweight championship 18 months before against Jim Braddock. Loughran’s victory over Baer was unanimous from referee Jack Dempsey and the two judges. The Associated Press gave Tommy all ten rounds. Loughran’s speed of hand and foot against Baer was a reminder of how Tommy had ruled the 175lb division with such class and dominance. He kept Max off balance all night long with stinging jabs and whipping right uppercuts. Baer rushed and swung in an earnest effort to sweep away his smaller tormentor, but Loughran simply wouldn’t be caught. Baer himself couldn’t hide his admiration of Loughran’s handiwork. Max often emitted a wry smile as he repeatedly winged his famous right hand wide of the target. Only in the third and ninth rounds did Loughran get a little too full of himself. On both occasions he attempted to slug with Baer, but Tommy quickly returned to his traditional boxing after getting banged with a few lusty clouts. Max, at just over 200 pounds, outweighed Loughran by more than seventeen-and-a-half pounds that night. How Great? In this writer’s opinion, Tommy Loughran’s place in the pantheon of the truly great light heavyweights is beyond question. On his very best night, he might just have taken all of the elite names, such as Tunney, Langford, Ezzard Charles and Archie Moore. Let us remind ourselves that Tommy was still maturing when Tunney only edged him. I was interested to get the thoughts of the aforementioned Mike Silver on Tommy’s all-time standing, and here are Mike’s views: “I think he definitely ranks among the golden dozen light heavyweights of all time. Is he beating a prime Ezzard Charles or Billy Conn? I honestly can’t say for sure. Tough call with John Henry Lewis too. A great boxer with a good jab and speed would have the best chance against Loughran. Tunney shaded him. But I would never count Loughran out against any other great. Archie Moore would be too slow, I think, but always dangerous with his punching power. “But in almost 200 fights, Loughran was stopped only three times and never as a light heavyweight. I don’t see Bob Foster knocking him out. Loughran is avoiding Foster’s hook and outpointing him. And don’t forget Loughran did much better as a heavyweight than Foster. This wasn’t because Tommy had a better chin – you just couldn’t nail him. “I would love to have seen Loughran against Harold Johnson – a purist’s delight. Let’s face it, today Loughran would be heavyweight champion.” Now there’s a debatable point to end on!
Ok, from here on out I'm just going to take it easy and post a little bit of information about each fighter and some photos, I'm not going to try to cover every fight and every little detail of their life and career, getting too stressful with my OCD and everything. I'm never satisfied. I've bitten off more than I can chew.
A deep dive on Tommy Loughran's from the guys over at boxing forum 24, these guys know boxing like the back of their hand.
Credit: boxing forum 24
A deeper dive on Tommy Loughran's greatness.
By: Ioakeim Tzortzakis
Irresistibly tempting
The Phantom of Philly wasn't your stereotypical Philadelphian fighter. He wasn't a mean and rugged toughie, but an educated operator of the fistic arts. His sophistication lead to one of the greatest careers in the sport's history. But let's start from the beginning.
Tommy was an Irish immigrant, the youngest of 3. He attempted to enlist in the army aged 14 during WW1, but was rejected. He then dropped out os school 2 years later, both in order to work, and in order to learn how to Box. He turned professional just a year later as a Lightweight, winning his debut match against Eddie Carter by 2nd round KO. He then went on fighting against debut fighters, experienced journeymen and trial horses, winning most of those bouts and gaining experience, while also suffering a serious right hand fracture against Jules Ritchie, an injury that played a big part in his fighting style.
Some of these aforementioned trial horses included Pat Bradley, Jimmy Darcy and Fay Keiser, who had faced men such as Harry Greb, Jeff Smith and Leo Houck. Tommy beat them all. This gave him the opportunity to face and defeat Bryan Downey, a man who had shared the Ring with guys like Jack Britton, Ted Kid Lewis, Soldier Bartfield and Johnny Wilson for the world title, even managing to get the better of Britton twice. Tommy then faced his first truly significant opponent, the soon to be Light Heavyweight champion of the world, Mike McTigue. Despite McTigue being a far more experienced fighter, having had twice the amount of fights that Tommy had until that point, and having shared the Ring with many elite Boxers, he still couldn't prevail over Tommy's superior ability.
After easily defeating Jimmy Darcy again, Tommy would face the legendary Harry Greb, the future Middleweight champion of the world, arguably the greatest fighter to ever live. Unfortunately for him, he bit off more than he could chew against him, despite giving a good account of himself, managing to hold Greb back for a while. A month later, he faced Greb's biggest rival, the future world Heavyweight champion, Gene Tunney. Tunney proved himself too much for him as well, knocking him down in the first round and winning the fight according to most newspapers.
Soon after, Tommy found himself facing some of the best men available, much to his detriment, as he would not collect that many blemishes on his record until much later, when he was past his prime. After his loss to Tunney, he easily lost to Lou Bogash, twice more to Harry Greb, and he went 1-1 against both Jeff Smith and Mike McTigue, fighting for the world Light Heavyweight title against the latter, which could only be won by KO'ing him, something he did not manage to do. He then boxed a draw against Jimmy Delaney, who would be ranked #10 in the first Ring Magazine rankings a year later.
But then, he managed to actually get the better of Harry Greb in their 4th bout, with the Omaha Report Herald claiming that he had been a solid victor. He then found himself victorious against Ted Moore, who would be ranked as the #10 Middleweight in the world a year later, as well as Roland Todd, who would be ranked #9 at Middleweight 2 years later. He once again met with Harry Greb, but Greb did what he usually did, and won against an opponent who had previously beaten him. Although, it was noted that he was probably on the decline.
Tommy then faced and overcame the former Middleweight champ, the man Greb had defeated to take the title, the now #5 rated Johnny Wilson. He then came up short against the #4 rated Middleweight and future Light Heavyweight champion Jack Delaney, prior to being held to a draw against the #5 rated Light Heavyweight, Ad Stone, with the judges being divided and the referee calling it a draw. Lady luck would still not smile upon him, as he yet again lost, this time to the #2 rated Light Heavyweight, the excellent Young Stribling. Some small semblance of fortune would be bestowed upon him, as he would then Box an aging Harry Greb to a draw.
In-between a loss and a draw against the #4 rated Young Stribling and the #2 rated Jack Delaney respectively, he would defeat the future contender Martin Burke. After them, he would also beat the #8 rated Tony Marrulo, prior to losing to the #6 rated Ad Stone. And with that, the dreadful span of 1922-1925 would finally come to a close. It was all uphill from here on. He would beat Ad Stone in a rematch, the #11 rated Yale Okun twice, as well as the aging former Light Heavyweight champion Georges Carpentier, who cut and hurt him early, prior to Tommy coming back and winning the fight with a nearly fully closed right eye.
He would then proceed to defeat the future top 5 rated Light Heavyweight George Manley twice, the #10 rated Heavyweight Johnny Risko 3 separate times, the #9 rated Martin Burke, the #8 rated Jimmy Delaney, and the #14 rated Tony Marrulo again. Sandwiched in-between these fights was also his second fight with the relatively unremarkable Chuck Wiggins, which showcased the fan unfriendly style of Loughran, which left him suspended for 2 months due to ''stalling''. In May of 1927, Loughran would also finally be victorious over his now #5 rated rival, Young Stribling, prior to beating Marrulo again in July. That same month, Jack Delaney forfeited his Light Heavyweight title, thus cancelling his scheduled bout with McTigue, who was then scheduled to fight Tommy for the NYSAC title.
Loughran boxed him silly, McTigue's success amounted to a desperate rally at the final bell, and thus the NYSAC title was his. 2 months later, he also beat Jimmy Slattery for the NBA and Ring belt, which were gained in his fight against Maxie Rosenbloom. It was a good fight, with Jimmy having some success in the initial and final rounds, but Loughran got the better of it.
Loughran then successfully defended his championship against his #2 contender, Leo Lomski, in a fight where he had to get off the floor twice in the 1st round. He then defeated the #8 rated Joe Sekyra in a non title bout, prior to beating the #10 rated Middleweight, Pete Latzo, in his 2nd defence. Most thought that Latzo should have gotten the win, thus a rematch was scheduled. Before the rematch, Loughran got a win against the undefeated Armand Emanuel, which was also criticised by observers. Then, Tommy genuinely beat Latzo in their rematch, although the latter claimed a foul that was dismissed.
An entrepreneur named Harry M. Pollock wanted to schedule a big 45 rounder between Loughran and Mickey Walker, but it fell through. Instead, he faced him in a normal 10 rounder in 1929, and Tommy managed to out-jab and outclass the great Middleweight and Welterweight champion. By this point, he was looking to move up to Heavyweight, deciding to leave the division after his victories over the future top 3 rated Heavyweight Earnie Schaaf, and over Jim Braddock, the future Heavyweight champion. He would then face Jack Sharkey, yet another one of the men who would play hot potato with the Heavyweight title, but unfortunately for Tommy, he was dropped in the third round, and despite rising up, he was clearly not in any condition to continue.
After beating the European Heavyweight champion, Pierre Charles, he would suffer 2 bad losses to the #7 rated Earnie Schaaf, prior to getting off the floor to defeat King Levinsky, who would be rated in the top 5 a year later. He was clearly in decline, but that didn't stop him from defeating Jack Gross and another soon to be HW champ in Max Baer, as well as from avenging his 2 losses to Schaaf, leaving their rivalry at 2-2. After defeating the #3 rated HW Tuffy Griffiths and Jack Gross again, dropping a decision to Sekyra and defeating Paulino Uzcudun, his decline was for all to see, as he would get dropped 3 times against Levinsky and lose the rematch. After going 1-2 against Steve Hamas, a future divisional #1, he would lose to the #3 rated Stanley Poreda.
A come backing Loughran would manage to defeat Levinsky, Hamas and Sharkey this time around, although he would lose for the first time against his former rival Johnny Risko. And it was all downhill from there, he would initially lose against the gigantic but limited Ray Impelletiere on a cut, but would win due to the fans demanding that the bout continued, which allowed Tommy to get the better of it. He got his title shot against Primo Carnera, but aside from some good moments, he would lose a wide decision. He would then lose to the #7 rated Walter Neusel, Johnny Risko, Jose Carattoli and would go 1-1-1 against future Joe Louis opponent Arturo Godoy. He would manage to defeat the #9 and #8 rated Al Ettore and Impelletiere twice, but he would also lose and draw with Al McCoy and Tommy Farr. That said, he would go 1-1 with the #8 rated Sonny Boy walker in his last 2 fights, leaving the sport on a somewhat good note.
I know one thing, Tommy Loughran had a wicked left hand, and one of the best jabs in boxing history, he could jab the ever living crap out of you with that left hand and he could hook you with it as well. And he used it well to set up other punches, it was one hell of a weapon. This is my favorite card of Tommy Loughran, the 1948 Leaf Boxing, they did a great job capturing that left hand. On the bottom is the image of Loughran used for the card.
Start off here, Tommy Loughran was an ambitious fighter and he wanted to reach the mountaintop and become world heavyweight champion. In 1934, Tommy would get his big chance against the Italian giant Primo Carnera in Miami. Loughran spotted champ Primo 86 pounds in the fight. But Carnera's size proved to be too big an obstacle for the South Philly fighter. Loughran lasted the 15-round distance but could not take the championship. Carnera won the unanimous decision, defended his title, and broke one of Tommy's toes by stepping on it, or so the story goes. Good shots of the great Tommy Loughran jab, right in the face of Primo Carnera. My God, Carnera was an incredibly big dude, Primo Carnera held a massive weight advantage over Tommy Loughran, weighing 270 lbs (122 kg) compared to Loughran’s 184–186 lbs (83–84 kg). Carnera outweighed Loughran by 86 freakin' pounds. It was the largest-ever weight difference in a title fight until Nikolay Valuev fought John Ruiz for the WBA heavyweight title on December 17, 2005. Carnera also had a significant height advantage, standing 6'5" or 6'6" compared to Loughran at 5'11". Loughran was a beast to even consider getting in their with a man the size of Carnera. There's a funny quote by Carnera himself about this fight, I chuckle every time I read it.
''I don't know if I really beat [Tommy Loughran], but it was a good fight. Before I went into the ring I ate two big garlic buds. I like 'em. Every time he'd get close to me, I'd step on his feet and I'd pull him into my chest and breathe on him. Like I said, I don't know if I beat him, but he sure was groggy walking away from those clinches.''
Hmm, this is a photo of Primo Carnera facing off with Tommy Loughran, my goodness, look at the sheer size difference. What a great photo.
Tommy Loughran against "Bold" Mike McTigue. McTigue was a good technician. They fought four times with Loughran winning the series 3-1.
"Philly Phantom" Tommy Loughran defended the light heavyweight championship with a 10 round split decision over "Toy Bulldog" Mickey Walker in Chicago, Illinois on March 28th in 1929. Walker, still the middleweight champion, had serious difficulty with Loughran's lead hand.
The Associated Press reported: “Loughran, the Philadelphia Irishman easily retained his crown last night by repulsing the pug-nosed, heavy-firing middleweight champion Walker, over the 10 round route in the new $7,000,000 Chicago Stadium.
Loughran obtained the verdict of the two judges, Eddie Klein and Phil Collins. The referee, Davey Miller, cast his ballot for the challenger. Loughran won because he was a superb boxer. He waged a running, jabbing fight and belted Walker with resounding smacks whenever the New Jersey bulldog made his characteristic, two-fisted rush. Walker had but one chance last night. That was in the 5th round when he nailed the champion with a terrific right cross to the jaw. Sensing victory, the bulldog rushed, aiming his fists at the same spot.
But Loughran tied him up each time, shook the cobwebs and stalled the round out. It was the only exciting round of the match and from that time on, the tide turned steadily to the champion."
The top photo is Tommy Loughran pictured with Joe Louis, Tony Canzoneri, James Braddock, and The Ring magazine founder Nat Fleischer. The bottom photo is just the fighters together. A lot of greatness in these photos. The top photo was actually made into a cover for The Ring magazine in 1936.
Classical vs Jazz. Pittsburgh vs Philly. Harry Greb vs Tommy Loughran. One hell of a rivalry. Harry Greb and Tommy Loughran fought 6 times between 1922 and 1924. Greb won the majority of their matchups, with a record of 4 wins, 1 loss, and 1 draw. But nevertheless, Loughran beat him, and believe me when I say, Harry Greb was one of the hardest men to defeat in boxing history. Loughran was truly a great fighter.
Tommy Loughran and Harry Greb facing off and during one of their six fights.
One of my favorite fight pose sequences of Tommy Loughran. I love trying to put these sequences together, it's like a little puzzle with pieces and you get a feeling of satisfaction when you put the pieces together. You can tell the photos were taken at the same shoot because of various things, the gear they're wearing, the environment they're in, stuff like that.
Tommy Loughran with Georges Carpentier before their bout on June 17th, 1926.
Credit: Philadelphia Inquirer
"Had Tommy relied upon his boxing skill to pull him through, had he been satisfied to simply defend himself as he tried to peck the Frenchmen to piece, he would have left the ring a beaten man. But the Philadelphia ace did no such thing. On the contrary, he carried the bout to his foeman, he smashed away at him with his right, he outguessed him, he outgeneraled him and last, but by no means least, he knocked him down for the count of nine."
Loughran scored the knockdown in the 7th round with a right hand to the jaw. Loughran also had a big 10th round, in which he pummeled Carpentier, and had him reeling and bleeding from the mouth. Carpentier staggered Loughran with a left hook in the 3rd round, which also cut him under the right eye. Loughran fought with his left hand up in the bout, protecting against the power reputation of Carpentier's right hand. Carpentier did his best work with the left hand in the bout."
Great training sequence of Tommy Loughran.
On July 18, 1929 at Yankee Stadium in New York light heavyweight champion Tommy Loughran defended his title against future heavyweight champion Jimmy Braddock. Loughran won a unanimous 15 round decision in defense of his crown. The top photo is from the contract signing and the other two are from the fight, great shots.
Tommy Loughran defeated Jack Sharkey in their second meeting via a 15-round split decision on September 27, 1933, at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. However, Sharkey won their first encounter with a third-round knockout on September 26, 1929. These are images from the first Loughran-Sharkey fight.
Tommy Loughran defeated Max Baer by a 10-round unanimous decision on February 6, 1931, at Madison Square Garden in New York. Jack Dempsey served as the referee for the bout. Loughran outboxed the heavier Baer to secure the victory. It's ironic because Max Baer would become world heavyweight champion three years later by defeating Primo Carnera for the title.
But just look at the pattern developing here, Tommy Loughran blazed quite a trail, I've already covered wins over Mike McTigue, Georges Carpentier, Harry Greb, Mickey Walker, James Braddock, Jack Sharkey, Max Baer. My goodness, that's one hell of a resume, and I haven't even mentioned his wins over Johnny Risko, Jimmy Slattery, Jeff Smith, Young Stribling, and Paulino Uzcudun, which I can't seem to find any photos of so I guess I'll leave off here. Great, great fighter was Tommy Loughran.
These are awesome exhibit cards of Tommy Loughran, it's the Red version, these cards came in regular gray colors but they also came in other colors, I've seen them in Red, Pink, Blue, Green, and Yellow. The colored versions are more rare and difficult to find.
Tommy Loughran chopping trees while training for Young Stribling in 1929.
Nice training sequence.
Cool little collectible item, a matchbook for Tommy Loughran's restaurant on 20 South 15th Street in Philadelphia.
Another nice sequence of fight pose photos.
The last photo in the above post was used for the image of Tommy Loughran on the cover of The Ring magazine in 1927.
Tommy Loughran milking a cow!
Oh this is cool, I actually ran across this photo from the Tommy Loughran vs Paulino Uzcudun fight, an image of Loughran using that famous jab on Uzcudun. Loughran had a phenomenal jab, he could stick you in the face with it all night long.
Absolute sick image of Tommy Loughran up close with the tuxedo, I actually own this type 1 original photo.
A sequence of Tommy Loughran dressed as Santa Claus with his family at Christmas.
Tommy Loughran pulling friends on a cart.
Tommy Loughran training for Jack Sharkey in 1929. The top photo shows him strengthing himself by rowing in a rowboat and the bottom photo shows him putting in roadwork with his trainer Turk Duncan.
Nice sequence of Tommy Loughran posing near a wooded area.
Tommy Loughran lands a shot to the body of Ernie Schaaf on March 13th, 1931.
Credit: Associated Press
"Tommy Loughran, one of the smartest of ring warriors, showered a bewildering array of annoying jabs on Ernie Schaaf in MSG last night to win the 10 round decision. The Philadelphian jabbed Schaaf into total ineffectiveness and kept him off balance with the same weapon. He used it for a barrage of hooks and as a means of opening a path for right crosses and uppercuts. Tommy won 7 of the first 8 rounds, but eased up in the last two rounds enough for Schaaf to gain an edge in both."
'"I think that nobody has ever put in the time and the effort and praticing and studying boxing, doing different things, like I did. I was so meticulous about everything that I did insofar as my training was concerned, my movements, my balance, my sense of coordination, and my footwork was tied in with all the movements.'"
Looks like these two images of Tommy Loughran may been take at the same photo shoot.
One of my favorite sequences of photos of Tommy Loughran, rocking the headband. These photos were taken after his victory over James Braddock, he was calling his family to tell them about the win and showing off the gloves from the fight. You can actually see the wounds on his face from the fight.
Tommy Loughran training on a bike in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1934.
Tommy Loughran playing a round of golf down in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1934.
Tommy Loughran on the cover of The Arena magazine in June 1931.
Nice sequence.