Tom Molineaux and the Mule Faced Boy: Deconstructing Slave Fight Folklore

Published

5 years ago

February 4, 2020

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.

sepia

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.

milo2

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.

Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing Channel

To comment on this story in The Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Arne K. Lang

Up Next

Former 140-pound World Champ Johnny Bumphus Dead at age 59

Don't Miss

The Biggest HITS and MISSES from Boxing’s Latest Weekend

Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: Benn vs Eubank Family Feud and More

Published

1 day ago

April 24, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective,-Chap.-323:-Benn-vs-Eubank-Family-Feud-and-More.jpg

Next generation rivals Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. carry on the family legacy of feudal warring in the prize ring on Saturday.

This is huge in British boxing.

Eubank (34-3, 25 KOs) holds the fringe IBO middleweight title but won’t be defending it against the smaller welterweight Benn (23-0, 14 KOs) on Saturday, April 26, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.

This is about family pride.

The parents of Eubank and Benn actually began the feud in the 1990s.

Papa Nigel Benn fought Papa Chris Eubank twice. Losing as a middleweight in November 1990 at Birmingham, England, then fighting to a draw as a super middleweight in October 1993 in Manchester. Both were world title fights.

Eubank was undefeated and won the WBO middleweight world title in 1990 against Nigel Benn by knockout. He defended it three times before moving up and winning the vacant WBO super middleweight title in September 1991. He defended the super middleweight title 14 times before suffering his first pro defeat in March 1995 against Steve Collins.

Benn won the WBO middleweight title in April 1990 against Doug DeWitt and defended it once before losing to Eubank in November 1990. He moved up in weight and took the WBC super middleweight title from Mauro Galvano in Italy by technical knockout in October 1992. He defended the title nine times until losing in March 1996. His last fight was in November 1996, a loss to Steve Collins.

Animosity between the two families continues this weekend in the boxing ring.

Conor Benn, the son of Nigel, has fought mostly as a welterweight but lately has participated in the super welterweight division. He is several inches shorter in height than Eubank but has power and speed. Kind of a British version of Gervonta “Tank” Davis.

“It’s always personal, every opponent I fight is personal. People want to say it’s strictly business, but it’s never business. If someone is trying to put their hands on me, trying to render me unconscious, it’s never business,” said Benn.

This fight was scheduled twice before and cut short twice due to failed PED tests by Benn. The weight limit agreed upon is 160 pounds.

Eubank, a natural middleweight, has exchanged taunts with Benn for years. He recently avenged a loss to Liam Smith with a knockout victory in September 2023.

“This fight isn’t about size or weight. It’s about skill. It’s about dedication. It’s about expertise and all those areas in which I excel in,” said Eubank. “I have many, many more years of experience over Conor Benn, and that will be the deciding factor of the night.”

Because this fight was postponed twice, the animosity between the two feuding fighters has increased the attention of their fans. Both fighters are anxious to flatten each other.

“He’s another opponent in my way trying to crush my dreams. trying to take food off my plate and trying to render me unconscious. That’s how I look at him,” said Benn.

Eubank smiles.

“Whether it’s boxing, whether it’s a gun fight. Defense, offense, foot movement, speed, power. I am the superior boxer in each of those departments and so many more – which is why I’m so confident,” he said.

Supporting Bout

Former world champion Liam Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) tangles with Ireland’s Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) in a middleweight fight set for 12 rounds on the Benn-Eubank undercard in London.

“Beefy” Smith has long been known as one of the fighting Smith brothers and recently lost to Eubank a year and a half ago. It was only the second time in 38 bouts he had been stopped. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did it several years ago.

McKenna is a familiar name in Southern California. The Irish fighter fought numerous times on Golden Boy Promotion cards between 2017 and 2019 before returning to the United Kingdom and his assault on continuing the middleweight division. This is a big step for the tall Irish fighter.

It’s youth versus experience.

“I’ve been calling for big fights like this for the last two or three years, and it’s a fight I’m really excited for. I plan to make the most of it and make a statement win on Saturday night,” said McKenna, one of two fighting brothers.

Monster in L.A.

Japan’s super star Naoya “Monster” Inoue arrived in Los Angeles for last day workouts before his Las Vegas showdown against Ramon Cardenas on Sunday May 4, at T-Mobile Arena. ESPN will televise and stream the Top Rank card.

It’s been four years since the super bantamweight world champion performed in the US and during that time Naoya (29-0, 26 KOs) gathered world titles in different weight divisions. The Japanese slugger has also gained fame as perhaps the best fighter on the planet. Cardenas is 26-1 with 14 KOs.

Pomona Fights

Super featherweights Mathias Radcliffe (9-0-1) and Ezequiel Flores (6-4) lead a boxing card called “DMG Night of Champions” on Saturday April 26, at the historic Fox Theater in downtown Pomona, Calif.

Michaela Bracamontes (11-2-1) and Jesus Torres Beltran (8-4-1) will be fighting for a regional WBC super featherweight title. More than eight bouts are scheduled.

Doors open at 6 p.m. For ticket information go to: www.tix.com/dmgnightofchampions

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 9 a.m. Conor Benn (23-0) vs Chris Eubank Jr. (34-3); Liam Smith (33-4-1) vs Aaron McKenna (19-0).

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

Published

3 days ago

April 22, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

In any endeavor, the defining feature of a phenom is his youth. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper was a phenom. He was on the radar screen of baseball’s most powerful player agents when he was 14 years old.

Curmel Moton, who turns 19 in June, is a phenom. Of all the young boxing stars out there, wrote James Slater in July of last year, “Curmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.”

Moton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father Curtis Moton, a barber by trade, was a big boxing fan and specifically a big fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. When Curmel was six, Curtis packed up his wife (Curmel’s stepmom) and his son and moved to Las Vegas. Curtis wanted his son to get involved in boxing and there was no better place to develop one’s latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sport’s top practitioners came to train.

Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a father’s unrealistic expectations for his son, but when it came to boxing, the boy was a natural and he felt right at home in the gym.

The gym the Motons patronized was the Mayweather Boxing Club. Curtis took his son there in hopes of catching the eye of the proprietor. “Floyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,” says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floyd’s ear. “This kid is special,” they told him.

It costs a great deal of money for a kid to travel around the country competing in a slew of amateur boxing tournaments. Only a few have the luxury of a sponsor. For the vast majority, fund raisers such as car washes keep the wheels greased.

Floyd Mayweather stepped in with the financial backing needed for the Motons to canvas the country in tournaments. As an amateur, Curmel was — take your pick — 156-7 or 144-6 or 61-3 (the latter figure from boxrec). Regardless, at virtually every tournament at which he appeared, Curmel Moton was the cock of the walk.

Before the pandemic, Floyd Mayweather Jr had a stable of boxers he promoted under the banner of “The Money Team.” In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception – Gervonta “Tank” Davis, now one of boxing’s top earners.

When Floyd took to praising Curmel Moton with the same effusive language, folks stood up and took notice.

Curmel made his pro debut on Sept. 30, 2023, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the undercard of the super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo. After stopping his opponent in the opening round, he addressed a flock of reporters in the media room with Floyd standing at his side. “I felt ready,” he said, “I knew I had Floyd behind me. He believes in me. I had the utmost confidence going into the fight. And I went in there and did what I do.”

Floyd ventured the opinion that Curmel was already a better fighter than Leigh Wood, the reigning WBA world featherweight champion who would successfully defend his belt the following week.

Moton’s boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. “I grew up watching Floyd, so it’s natural I have some similarities to him,” says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz. Curmell says he did okay. He was then 15 years old and still in school; he dropped out as soon as he reached the age of 16.

Curmel is now 7-0 with six KOs, four coming in the opening round. He pitched an 8-round shutout the only time he was taken the distance. It’s not yet official, but he returns to the ring on May 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas where Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo are co-featured in matches conceived as tune-ups for a fall showdown. The fight card will reportedly be free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.

Curmel’s presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmel’s first professional fight with Kofi Jantuah the chief voice in his corner. A two-time world title challenger who began his career in his native Ghana, the 50-year-old Jantuah has worked almost exclusively with amateurs, a recent exception being Mikaela Mayer.

It would seem that the phenom needs a tougher opponent than Viamonte at this stage of his career. However, the match is intriguing in one regard. Viamonte is lanky. Listed at 5-foot-11, he will have a seven-inch height advantage.

Keeping his weight down has already been problematic for Moton. He tipped the scales at 128 ½ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road it’s reasonable to think he will blossom into a welterweight. And with each bump up in weight, his short stature will theoretically be more of a handicap.

For fun, we asked Moton to name the top fighter on his pound-for-pound list. “[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,” he said without hesitation,” great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.”

It’s notable that there isn’t a young gun on that list. Usyk is 38, a year older than Crawford; Inoue is the pup at age 32.

Moton anticipates that his name will appear on pound-for-pound lists within the next two or three years. True, history is replete with examples of phenoms who flamed out early, but we wouldn’t bet against it.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Arne’s Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

Published

5 days ago

April 20, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-First-Boxing-Writers-Assoc-of-America-Dinner-was-Quite-the-Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.

The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.

In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.

The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:

New York Times

New York News

New York World

New York Sun

New York Journal

New York Post

New York Mirror

New York Telegram

New York Graphic

New York Herald Tribune

Brooklyn Eagle

Brooklyn Times

Brooklyn Standard Union

Brooklyn Citizen

Bronx Home News

This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.

Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.

The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.

Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)

Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.

Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.

There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.

In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.

There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.

The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.

Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.

The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.

The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.

Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.

A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!