Tex Rickard Planted the Dempsey – Willard SuperFight in Toledo: Here’s Why

Published

6 years ago

June 30, 2019

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This coming July 4^th marks the 100^th anniversary of the Dempsey-Willard fight. More than a big fight, Dempsey vs. Willard came to be seen as the first big bang in the Golden Era of Sports, an era that eventually became synonymous with the Roaring 20s.

The fight was the handiwork of George “Tex” Rickard. America’s first great boxing promoter, Rickard had come to the fore in Nevada, first in 1906 in the boomtown of Goldfield where he was the chief architect of the lightweight title fight between Joe Gans and Battling Nelson, and then four years later in Reno where he manufactured (and refereed) a more historic event, the heavyweight championship fight between Jack Johnson and former title-holder James J. Jeffries.

Rickard’s third successful promotion was the March 25, 1916 heavyweight title fight between Jess Willard and Frank Moran at Madison Square Garden. Willard had dethroned Johnson the previous year, stopping the Galveston Giant in the 26^th round at a thoroughbred track on the outskirts of Havana. The gate receipts for Willard-Moran, Willard’s first title defense, were $151,254, the second-highest on record (surpassed only by Johnson-Jeffries at Reno), earning Rickard and his partners a tidy profit.

The fight would have produced an even larger gate if not for legal restraints. For one thing, the law then in effect in New York restricted fights to 10 rounds and outlawed official decisions. There were no judges and the referee lacked the authority to declare a winner. Bets were decided by designating a scorekeeper – typically a ringside reporter for a local paper – in the event that both combatants were still standing at the final bell.

The no-decision rule was hardly indigenous to New York. It was implanted in many other places during the first decade of the century when a wave of reform swept the land, devitalizing if not outright banning such “vices” as prizefighting and horse racing. Among other things, the rule was an incentive for champions to lollygag through title defenses as they could only lose their belt in the event of a knockout. Title fights were too often snoozers, an irritant that prevented boxing from reaching its full potential as a spectator sport.

After defeating Frank Moran, Willard sat on the title for three years, raking in big bucks in personal appearances that were often arranged in conjunction with a Wild West show. White folks flocked to see the champion pugilist of the world, the Kansas cowboy who had given the reviled Jack Johnson his comeuppance. And late in Willard’s decampment, Jack Dempsey shot out of the West like a comet, turning heads with a slew of fast knockouts. The high point was a 23-second blast-out of favored Fred Fulton on July 27, 1918 at a ballpark in New Jersey. Fulton, the Minnesota Plasterer, out-weighed Dempsey by 20 pounds.

It was clear that a fight between Willard and Dempsey would be a much bigger event than the Willard-Moran fight. But where to put it?

Ideally, it would bubble forth in a heavily populated area but New York was out as were Chicago and Philadelphia as the law in both jurisdictions mandated no-decision bouts no longer than six rounds. Forget San Francisco or, for that matter, anywhere else in California. In 1914, the voters approved a referendum that placed all boxing, amateur and professional, on the amateur plane, thereby restricting pro fights to four rounds.

The last remnant of old-time gloved fighting in the U.S. was found in New Orleans where the ceiling was 20 rounds. Rickard briefly considered placing Willard-Dempsey there but backed off because of climatic considerations; it figured to be awful hot and humid in New Orleans on the 4^th of July. True, the weather figured to be hot almost everywhere (and, as it turned out, it would be wickedly hot in Toledo), but Rickard was playing the percentages.

—

A community that wanted to host an important prizefight had to satisfy certain conditions. Foremost, the local organizers had to be willing to defray some of the promoter’s expenses. A big fight was a shot of adrenaline for a stagnant economy. Fight goers were conventioneers, of a sort, and had shown themselves to be the best kind of conventioneers; free spenders.

The spearhead of Toledo’s local organizing committee was Addison Thatcher. A gym operator and small-time boxing promoter, Thatcher had a thriving business that salvaged scrap metal from ships that went down in Lake Erie. A future Toledo mayor (running under the slogan “Feed the Poor and Don’t Ask Any Questions”) and a future failed candidate for Governor of Ohio, Thatcher was a man with considerable clout.

Through his sway, the city fathers agreed to put a 60-acre municipal park at Rickard’s disposal for his big wooden open air arena, leveling the ground where necessary to eliminate some of the prep work for Rickard’s construction engineers. (Addison Thatcher wasn’t motivated entirely by a sense of civic duty. He planned to cash in on the big fight by converting an empty warehouse into a dormitory and purportedly purchased 1,500 cots for this purpose.)

Equally important if taking a big fight into the hinterland (and from the standpoint of a New Yorker, anything west of Philadelphia was the hinterland), the place had to be easily accessible by rail. Chicago was America’s railroad hub and Rickard would eventually plant a big fight there (after the Illinois boxing law was liberalized to allow 10-round fights), but Toledo wasn’t too far behind. In fact, by some accounts, Toledo – roughly 55 miles from Detroit, less than 100 miles from Cleveland, and less than 200 miles from Cincinnati or Indianapolis — ranked second only to Chicago in passenger rail traffic. There were also ferries connecting Toledo to various points in Ohio and Michigan and to Windsor, Ontario, Canada, a short hop across the lake.

Another pre-condition, although this less overt, had to do with the culture. No out-of-town promoter would risk planting a big prizefight in a city with a distinct Victorian tone as he would inevitably butt heads with a strong anti-prizefighting lobby. Toledo wasn’t as libertine as New Orleans, or Denver for that matter, but it was relatively wide open, housing the most notorious red light district in all of Ohio. In the words of Ohio journalist Vince Guerrieri, Toledo appealed to Tex Rickard for its “moral flexibility.”

—

The Willard-Dempsey promotion turned a profit, but it was far less than what Rickard and his backers anticipated. The paid attendance was 19,650 in an arena built to house four times that number. The national heat wave and reports of price gouging by Toledo’s hotels and restaurants served to depress the turnout. But Jack Dempsey, a cruiserweight by today’s standards, slaughtered the six-foot-six, 245-pound Willard in such a spectacular fashion that he increased his stature a thousand-fold and Tex Rickard was off and running, soon to piggyback Dempsey into great spectacles that gripped the nation. (To illustrate what a big star Dempsey became, both of New York’s National League baseball teams postponed their home games on the day of Dempsey’s first fight with Gene Tunney in deference to it. An estimated 50,000 New Yorkers made the trek to Philadelphia to see the fight in person.)

It was the Golden Era of Sports, the Age of Wonderful Nonsense, and it dawned in the city of Toledo 100 years ago this Thursday. And let me take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy 4^th of July.

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Arne K. Lang

Related Topics:Addison Thatcher Arne K. Lang Boxing Frank Moran Fred Fulton Galveston Giant Jack Dempsey Jack Johnson Tex Rickard The Sweet Science Toledo Ohio TSS

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TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

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The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

3 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

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Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City

Published

6 days ago

April 12, 2025

David A. Avila

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In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.

No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.

“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.

Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.

Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.

In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.

That was a bad sign for Stanionis.

Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.

In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.

It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.

Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.

After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.

Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.

“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.

Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.

Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.

“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”

Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.

“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”

Other Bouts

Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.

The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.

“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.

Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.

Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.

Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.

In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.

“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”

In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.

“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”

After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.

Photo credit: Matchroom

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