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Tom Molineaux and the Mule Faced Boy: Deconstructing Slave Fight Folklore
Tom Molineaux and the Mule Faced Boy: Deconstructing Slave Fight Folklore
February is black history month in the United States and Canada, a tradition that dates to the 1970s. Nat Fleischer, the co-founder and publisher of The Ring magazine, was ahead of the curve. Fleischer authored Black Dynamite, a five-volume series released in 1938 that celebrated the achievements of black boxers in the prize ring.
Black Dynamite was seminal, especially Volume 1 which covered the bare-knuckle era. Post-1938, most of what would be written about antiquarian black prizefighters was culled from Fleischer. The challenge now for modern day boxing historians is to figure out how much of what he wrote is actually true. The inconvenient truth is that a lot of rubbish was published under Nat Fleischer’s byline.
Vol. 1 is rich in information about Tom Molineaux. An American slave by birth, Molineaux turned up in England about 1809 and after a few minor bouts succeeded in landing a fight with England’s topmost fighter Tom Cribb. They actually fought twice, first in December of 1810 and then again in September of 1811. In their first encounter, Molineaux was cheated of victory when a mob burst through the ropes and bullied the referee into giving Cribb extra time to recuperate when he was just about finished. In the rematch, contested without incident, Molineaux was knocked out.
The various retellings of these two fights differ in little details, but what is indisputable is that these fights, although ignored by the American press, gripped men of all social classes in England, notwithstanding the fact that prizefighting was a bootleg sport with matches necessarily held outside densely populated areas. Tom Cribb was recognized as the champion of England, tantamount to being the champion of the world, and it was a matter of considerable importance to the Brits that he did not yield his title to a foreigner, especially a black foreigner. His victory over Molineaux in their rematch inspired a great outpouring of affection. When he died, his admirers commissioned a handsome stone statue of a lion to ornament his tomb.
The dates and results of Molineaux’s prizefights in England are a matter of public record. But what about Molineaux’s background? And how, pray tell, did he get from point A to point B, how did he shake free of the shackles of slavery in the United States and wind up becoming one of the most famous pugilists in all of Great Britain?
Fleischer doesn’t identify his sources, but says that through arduous research he learned that Tom Molineaux was born into a family of great bare-knuckle fighters. His father Zachary and Tom’s brothers Elizah, Ebenezer, Franklin, and Moses were also renowned pugilists “and they outclassed all rivals in Virginia.”
Tom earned his freedom from bondage, says Fleischer, by defeating a slave from a rival planation. Tom’s master, Squire Algernon Molineaux (all of his slaves took his surname) was one of the wealthiest men in Virginia and wagered such an immense sum that he faced bankruptcy if Tom was defeated. Manumission was Tom’s reward.
On the subject of slave fights in general, Fleischer says, “Tournaments were held to determine which slave was plantation champion and, inevitably, these rivalries soon transcended plantation boundaries…The slaves (in inter-plantation fights with huge sums at risk) fought and trained on a reward-punishment basis, the best of their lot being excused from the gruesome field work and perhaps even gaining their freedom while the less talented might be denied food for several days or even put to death for an inept performance.”
Nat Fleischer’s credibility as a boxing historian was such that his rendering came to be accepted as gospel. The lurid 1957 best-seller Mandingo, the debut novel of the shameless Falconhurst series, calcified Fleischer’s perspective,
Falconhurst is the name that author Kyle Onstott gave to the antebellum plantation where his story was centered, a place where incest and miscegenation were rife and slaves were hideously dehumanized, even mutilated and murdered. And yes, brutal slave fights factor into the narrative.
The novel Mandingo spawned the 1975 movie of the same name and its sequel Drum, movies in which Ken Norton played a prominent role. Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 blaxploitation Western Django Unchained pays homage to Mandingo. A bare-knuckle fight to the death between two black slaves is a key plot point in the movie. Fights of this description would acquire the name Mandingo fights.
Tarantino’s movie heightened interest in slave fights, reviving the question of whether Mandingo fights actually happened. And by now, educators well-versed in African-American history could see that fights of this nature just didn’t pass the smell test.
A male slave had value to a plantation owner as a field worker and as a breeding mechanism and, like all his slaves, was property he could pass on to his heirs or sell if times got tough. A slave with the strength and stamina to become a champion prizefighter would logically be especially valuable. To risk a man of this caliber in a fight where he stood the risk of being severely damaged, makes no sense economically. It would be akin to a luxury car dealer entering his most expensive vehicle in a demolition derby.
There are a few first-person accounts of organized matches among slaves (I am aware of only two), but in no way do they resemble the battle in which Tom Molineux purportedly won his freedom. Betting on horse races was a popular pastime among Southern planters, but old newspapers contain no reports of inter-plantation prize fights and if it were true that life-changing sums were actually being bet on these competitions, they would have almost certainly attracted notice.
After winning his freedom, says Fleischer, Molineaux found his way to Baltimore where he found work as a stevedore on the docks. He then hired out as a deckhand on a boat to Liverpool. “The seas were rough,” says Fleischer, “and at times it appeared the vessel was about to take a dive into Davey Jones locker.”
The best boxing gyms were then in London. The sport’s wealthiest backers were also found there. So, Tom hied his way to London, trudging off on foot, says Fleischer, late in the winter of 1809 when the weather was inconducive to walking. He arrived penniless and hungry.
Wow, that was some walk, and in inclement weather no less. If one were driving from Liverpool to London, one would travel 220 miles.
The Mule Faced Boy
Many years ago, when I was in my early teens, I chanced upon Milo the Mule Faced Boy on a visit to Coney Island. More exactly, I chanced upon the gaudy mural on which he was depicted, the come-on that enticed passersby into the freak show where he was appearing. The commercial display of people with physical abnormalities came to be seen as exploitive, if not downright creepy, but it hadn’t yet run its course as a popular amusement.
In person, Milo, who appeared to be a man in his mid-20’s, didn’t look anything like the caricature of him on the mural outside. There was some misshapenness there, but I wouldn’t have drawn the correlation to a mule if it hadn’t already been stamped in my mind.
Milo made a short talk – or maybe it was the spieler who did all the talking; my memory is fuzzy – and the show, as it were, concluded with an exhortation to purchase his biography, a cheap little pamphlet that was within my limited means and so I bought it.
My goodness, what an exciting life Milo had led. It was a life chock full of harrowing adventures reminiscent of the Saturday matinee serials that inspired filmmaker George Lucas to create the Indiana Jones franchise.
That cheap souvenir is long gone. My mother likely tossed it away with my baseball cards and other clutter left behind when I went off to college. It is what mothers do, bless their souls. But I have come to learn that these flimsy biographies were standard fare for freaks that worked the fair circuit or appeared in so-called dime museums and that these little storybooks shared a common scaffolding, differing only in the details. They weren’t all written by the same person, but whoever got the ball rolling set the template and subsequent generations of ghostwriters adhered to the formula.
– – –
Tom Molineaux fought sporadically after his second match with Tom Cribb. He died in Ireland in 1818 at age 34.
In the last years of his life, Tom worked the fair circuit in the British Isles, giving exhibitions and undoubtedly regaling his audiences with a little talk about his escapades. His traveling companions would have been other freaks, both organic such as giants and dwarfs and self-made such as snake charmers and sword swallowers. He would have had a little biography for sale.
Take away all the embellishments and the saga of Tom Molineaux is still a remarkable story, but the embellishments have distorted the truth to where the real flesh-and-blood Tom Molineux is lost in the rubble of history. Brian Phillips, writing for Grantland in 2012, had it right when he wrote that if you were to look up Molineaux in an encyclopedia, “what you’ll find is less an authoritative account of the facts than two centuries worth of distilled legend.”
Molineaux was obviously a brave and resourceful man, a man with an adventurous spirit who led an incredibly exciting life. But that bit about his kinfolk — his father Zachary and his brothers, all bare-knuckle fighters of great renown – and the bit about the fabulous sums wagered on inter-plantation slave fights, why that’s all hokum, fictions born in the fertile imagination of a hired pen freelancing as a circus pitchman.
Can I prove it? No. But of this, I am quite certain.
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LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.
The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.
Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.
Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.
Co-Feature
In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.
The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.
A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.
Other Bouts
In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.
Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.
Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.
Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.
Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.
Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged. However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.
Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.
Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.
There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.
Photos credit: Al Applerose
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William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0
No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.
There were no knockdowns in this rematch.
The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.
It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.
Nothing changed in their second meeting.
Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.
The blows came in bunches.
In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.
Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.
Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.
During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.
But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.
“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.
Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.
“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.
Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.
“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.
Female Flyweight Battle
Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.
Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.
Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.
The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.
Neither fighter could take over the fight.
After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.
Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.
Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.
Puerto Rico vs Mexico
Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.
Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.
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Rematches are the bedrock for prizefighting.
Return battles between rival boxers always means their first encounter was riveting and successful at the box office.
Six months after their first brutal battle Mikaela Mayer (20-2, 5 KOs) and Sandy Ryan (7-2-1, 3 KOs) will slug it out again for the WBO welterweight world title this time on Saturday, March 29, at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.
ESPN will show the Top Rank card live.
“It’s important for women’s boxing to have these rivalries and this is definitely up there as one of the top ones,” Mayer told the BBC.
If you follow Mayer’s career you know that somehow drama follows. Whether its back-and-forth beefs with fellow American fighters or controversial judging due to nationalism in countries abroad. The Southern California native who now trains in Las Vegas knows how to create the drama.
For female fighters self-promotion is a necessity.
Most boxing promoters refuse to step out of the usual process set for male boxers, not for female boxers. Things remain the same and have been for the last 70 years. Social media has brought changes but that has made promoters do even less.
No longer are there press conferences, instead announcements are made on social media to be drowned among the billions of other posts. It is not killing but diluting interest in the sport.
Women innately present a different advantage that few if any promoters are recognizing. So far in the past 25 years I have only seen two or three promoters actually ignite interest in female fighters. They saw the advantages and properly boosted interest in the women.
The fight breakdown
Mayer has won world titles in the super featherweight and now the welterweight division. Those are two vastly different weight classes and prove her fighting abilities are based on skill not power or size.
Coaching Mayer since amateurs remains Al Mitchell and now Kofi Jantuah who replaced Kay Koroma the current trainer for Sandy Ryan.
That was the reason drama ignited during their first battle. Then came someone tossing paint at Ryan the day of their first fight.
More drama.
During their first fight both battled to control the initiative with Mayer out-punching the British fighter by a slender margin. It was a back-and-forth struggle with each absorbing blows and retaliating immediately.
New York City got its money’s worth.
Ryan had risen to the elite level rapidly since losing to Erica Farias three years ago. Though she was physically bigger and younger, she was out-maneuvered and defeated by the wily veteran from Argentina. In the rematch, however, Ryan made adjustments and won convincingly.
Can she make adjustments from her defeat to Mayer?
“I wanted the rematch straight away,” said Ryan on social media. “I’ve come to America again.”
Both fighters have size and reach. In their first clash it was evident that conditioning was not a concern as blows were fired nonstop in bunches. Mayer had the number of punches landed advantage and it unfolded with the judges giving her a majority decision win.
That was six months ago. Can she repeat the outcome?
Mayer has always had boiler-oven intensity. It’s not fake. Since her amateur days the slender Southern California blonde changes disposition all the way to red when lacing up the gloves. It’s something that can’t be taught.
Can she draw enough of that fire out again?
“I didn’t have to give her this rematch. I could have just sat it out, waited for Lauren Price to unify and fought for undisputed or faced someone else,” said Mayer to BBC. “That’s not the fighter I am though.”
Co-Main in Las Vegas
The co-main event pits Brian Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs) facing Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1, 19 KOs) in a contest for the WBO welterweight title.
Norman, 24, was last seen a year ago dissecting a very good welterweight in Giovani Santillan for a knockout win in San Diego. He showed speed, skill and power in defeating Santillan in his hometown.
Cuevas has beaten some solid veteran talent but this will be his big test against Norman and his first attempt at winning a world title.
Also on the Top Rank card will be Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington and Emiliano Vargas, the son of Fernando Vargas, in separate bouts.
Golden Boy in Cancun
A rematch between undefeated William “Camaron” Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) and ex-champ Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) headlines the lightweight match on Saturday March 29, at Cancun, Mexico.
In their first encounter Zepeda was knocked down in the fourth round but rallied to win a split-decision over Farmer. It showed the flaws in Zepeda’s tornado style.
DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also includes a clash between Yokasta Valle the WBC minimumweight world titlist who is moving up to flyweight to face former flyweight champion Marlen Esparza.
Both Valle and Esparza have fast hands.
Valle is excellent darting in and out while Esparza has learned how to fight inside. It’s a toss-up fight.
Fights to Watch
Fri. DAZN 12 p.m. Cameron Vuong (7-0) vs Jordan Flynn (11-0-1); Pat Brown (0-0) vs Federico Grandone (7-4-2).
Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. William Zepeda (32-0) vs Tevin Farmer (33-7-1); Yokasta Valle (32-3) vs Marlen Esparza (15-2).
Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Mikaela Mayer (20-2) vs Sandy Ryan (7-2-1); Brian Norman Jr. (26-0) vs Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1).
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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