Boxing Referees Were Tough in Bygone Days and Jere Dunn Was Toughest of Them All

Published

4 years ago

July 3, 2021

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Jere Dunn was a referee of some importance during the late nineteenth century, a period when professional boxing was in flux as the modern Queensberry rules of combat hadn’t yet taken a firm hold. Some fights still had no ceiling on the number of rounds, but these “fights-to-a-finish” were now almost always contested with gloves.

BoxRec lists only 12 assignments for Dunn which occurred between 1885 and 1891, but there were likely dozens more. We can infer that he was a ref of some importance because of the boxers with whom he shared the ring. He refereed fights involving five men who would be enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame: Nonpareil Jack Dempsey, Jake Kilrain, George Godfrey, Jack McAuliffe, and George Dixon.

Referees had to be tough in Dunn’s days when there were no judges. If a match had a specified number of rounds and went the full distance, the referee was the sole arbiter. Betting on fights was more common – at big fights, bookmakers circulated among the crowd before the opening bell and there was considerable action among ringsiders while a fight was in progress – and if it was hard to separate the fighters at the end of a bout, the ref’s verdict was bound to cause ill feelings; potentially a riot.

Often refs were freed from this obligation by contractual arrangements that specified that a fight had to be called a draw if both men were standing at the final gong. However, the high frequency of draws back in Dunn’s day – many fighters finished their career with more draws than wins and losses combined – was also due to squeamish referees who took the safest road and called a fight a draw if neither man was clearly dominant.

Jere Dunn was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. At age 15, he ran away to New York City. He served as a cavalryman on the Union side in the Civil War.

Dunn stood about five-feet-ten inches in height and had broad shoulders. In 1885, when he was promoting some boxing and wrestling shows in New Orleans, a writer for the Times-Picayune made this observation: “(Dunn) is a man of invincible courage and gamblers and fighters of every degree are in absolute fear of him…He has a square face, a well-trimmed dark beard, parted in the middle, and he always wears a perfectly fitting frock and high hat.”

By then, Dunn had shot and killed three men; an Army deserter with a bounty on his head, an alleged bank burglar, and a prizefighter of considerable repute. Dunn would allege that he shot each of them after a fierce struggle in which he had no recourse but to use his pistol.

The prizefighter was Jimmy Elliott who once had a tenuous hold on the world heavyweight title. Elliott was now in his forties and well past his prime – he had recently been badly punished by John L. Sullivan who knocked him out in the third round of their match in Brooklyn – but he was still a handy man with his fists.

Dunn and Elliott had their little set-to on March 1, 1883, in Chicago at the Tivoli, a restaurant, concert hall, and saloon on South Dearborn Street in the city’s notorious Levee district. There was bad blood between them. Dunn had arranged a rematch for Elliott with Sullivan and was out a considerable sum of money when Elliott backed out citing an injury. In a newspaper story, Dunn was quoted as saying that Elliott pulled out because he was yellow, or words to that effect.

In the Tivoli, the argument between Dunn and Elliott escalated into a gun battle. Needless to say, there are different versions of what took place. Most versions concur that Dunn opened fire first, striking Elliott in the arm or the chest. Regardless, the bullet only wounded him and a scuffle ensued that lasted for half an hour. At one point, said Dunn, Elliott held a cocked pistol against his chest, but the gun failed to discharge. The fray ended as Elliott was poised to smash Dunn over the head with the back of a chair. The chair became entangled in a chandelier, giving Dunn the split-second he needed to grab hold of his six-shooter and terminate the battle.

Jimmy Elliott

At his murder trial, Dunn’s attorney convinced the jury that his client did not instigate the fatal brawl and Dunn was acquitted on grounds of self-defense. It undoubtedly helped his cause that Jimmy Elliott was a notorious hot-head who had twice been sent to prison for various offenses, the second time resulting in a nine-year stay behind bars at a prison in Philadelphia following his conviction for assaulting and robbing a well-known black minstrel singer. Elliott, however, had many friends who would always believe that he had been murdered, shot dead in cold blood, and Jere Dunn would live out his days with a bullseye on his back.

Dunn would have been wise to keep a low profile, but that wasn’t his nature. In addition to refereeing big fights, he got involved in thoroughbred racing and became a conspicuous figure on the turf.

Dunn was in San Francisco with his wife on the morning of April 18, 1906, when the city was roiled by the devastating earthquake. He was a sick man at this time, wasting away from esophageal cancer, but it would be written that he got out of bed and went out in the street to comfort people who were frantic with worry.

Dunn died on June 27, 1906. He was 67 years old at the time of his death said one paper; 71 said another. Neither figure jibes with the story that he was 16 years old when the Civil War broke out, but whatever. Boxing referees were a lot tougher in Jere Dunn’s day and he was the toughest of them all.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 322: Super Welter Week in SoCal

Published

12 hours ago

April 18, 2025

David A. Avila

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Two below-the-radar super welterweight stars show off their skills this weekend from different parts of Southern California.

One in particular, Charles Conwell, co-headlines a show in Oceanside against a hard-hitting Mexican while another super welter star Sadriddin Akhmedov faces another Mexican hitter in Commerce.

Take your pick.

The super welterweight division is loaded with talent at the moment. If Terence Crawford remained in the division he would be at the top of the class, but he is moving up several weight divisions.

Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) faces Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs) a tall knockout puncher from Los Mochis at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, Calif. on Saturday April 19. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also features undisputed flyweight champion Gabriela Fundora. We’ll get to her later.

Conwell might be the best super welterweight out there aside from the big dogs like Vergil Ortiz, Serhii Bohachuk and Sebastian Fundora.

If you are not familiar with Conwell he comes from Cleveland, Ohio and is one of those fighters that other fighters know about. He is good.

He has the James “Lights Out” Toney kind of in-your-face-style where he anchors down and slowly deciphers the opponent’s tools and then takes them away piece by piece. Usually it’s systematic destruction. The kind you see when a skyscraper goes down floor by floor until it’s smoking rubble.

During the Covid days Conwell fought two highly touted undefeated super welters in Wendy Toussaint and Madiyar Ashkeyev. He stopped them both and suddenly was the boogie man of the super welterweight division.

Conwell will be facing Mexico’s taller Garcia who likes to trade blows as most Mexican fighters prefer, especially those from Sinaloa. These guys will be firing H bombs early.

Fundora

Co-headlining the Golden Boy card is Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 KOs) the undisputed flyweight champion of the world. She has all the belts and Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1, 3 KOs) wants them.

Gabriela Fundora is the sister of Sebastian Fundora who holds the men’s WBC and WBO super welterweight world titles. Both are tall southpaws with power in each hand to protect the belts they accumulated.

Six months ago, Fundora met Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz in Las Vegas to determine the undisputed flyweight champion. The much shorter Alaniz tried valiantly to scrap with Fundora and ran into a couple of rocket left hands.

Mexico’s Badillo is an undefeated flyweight from Mexico City who has battled against fellow Mexicans for years. She has fought one world champion in Asley Gonzalez the current super flyweight world titlist. They met years ago with Badillo coming out on top.

Does Badillo have the skill to deal with the taller and hard-hitting Fundora?

When a fighter has a six-inch height advantage like Fundora, it is almost impossible to out-maneuver especially in two-minute rounds. Ask Alaniz who was nearly decapitated when she tried.

This will be Badillo’s first pro fight outside of Mexico.

Commerce Casino

Kazakhstan’s Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0, 13 KOs) is another dangerous punching super welterweight headlining a 360 Promotions card against Mexico’s Elias Espadas (23-6, 16 KOs) on Saturday at the Commerce Casino.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the 360 Promotions card of about eight bouts.

Akhmedov is another Kazakh puncher similar to the great Gennady “GGG” Golovkin who terrorized the middleweight division for a decade. He doesn’t have the same polish or dexterity but doesn’t lack pure punching power.

It’s another test for the super welterweight who is looking to move up the ladder in the very crowded 154-pound weight division. 360 Promotions already has a top contender in Ukraine’s Serhii Bohachuk who nearly defeated Vergil Ortiz a year ago.

Could Bohachuk and Akhmedov fight each other if nothing else materializes?

That’s a question for another day.

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Charles Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) vs. Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs); Gabriela Fundora (15-0) vs Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1).

Sat. UFC Fight Pass 6 p.m. Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0) vs Elias Espadas (23-6).

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TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

3 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

4 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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