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How Good Was Ill-Fated Luther McCarty, the Best of the ‘White Hopes’?
Luther McCarty “is the embodiment of all that goes to make a ring champion, the possessor of speed, hitting ability, an aptitude for learning the finer points of the fistic sport and the gamest man to ever lace on a glove.” So read a widely circulated newspaper story that made the rounds in June of 1912.
The author of this puff piece (it bore no byline) was undoubtedly a reporter on the take. In this era, the sports sections of newspapers were full of stories that blurred the distinction between honest reporting and hyperbole. That being said, there was a growing sentiment among the cognoscenti that Luther McCarty had the best chance of all the Caucasian heavyweights of knocking Jack Johnson off his pedestal. Johnson’s title reign was then in its fourth year.
Eleven months after the story ran, it became a moot point. On May 24, 1913, 110 years ago this month, Luther McCarty dropped dead in the opening round of a fight with Arthur Pelkey in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The decedent was only 21 years old.
If stories about McCarty are true, he packed a lot of living into his short time on this earth. Before finding his niche as a prizefighter, McCarty — who in old photos bears an uncanny resemblance to the renowned University of Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne when both were of the same age — was at various times a seaman, a lumberjack, a coal miner, a cowboy, and a stunt-rider whose act was sponsored by a tobacco company.
McCarty was born in Nebraska, near Lincoln according to some sources and near McCook according to others (the towns are 225 miles apart). He spent a good portion of his youth in Clay Center, Kansas, and had his first documented fight in Culbertson, Montana, a ranching community. When he became a well-known sports personality, both Sidney, Ohio, and Springfield, Missouri claimed him.
McCarty’s father was literally, not figuratively, a snake oil salesman. Billing himself as Dr. White Eagles, he roamed the Midwest in a gaily covered wagon from which he sold snake oil, touted as a cure for all ills. His wife, who traveled with him, reportedly died from a rattlesnake bite in about 1910 while staying in a hotel in Peoria, Illinois. The snake, a prop, escaped from its box which was kept in their room. (Mrs. White Eagles was presumably McCarty’s step-mother. One of the first stories about him said that his mother was an Irish immigrant who died when Luther was a mere toddler as she was giving birth to a stillborn child.)
It was in Springfield, the Queen City of the Ozarks, where McCarty came to the fore. His conquest of Oklahoma railroad engineer Carl Morris on May 3, 2012, was a national news story. Carrying 235 pounds on his six-foot-four frame, Morris, the “Sapulpa Giant,” was two inches taller and 20 pounds heavier than McCarty who knocked him out in the sixth frame.
McCarty spent the next five months campaigning back east with mixed results. Veteran slugger Jim Stewart spoiled his New York debut, winning a 10-round newspaper decision at Madison Square Garden.
The opposite coast proved far more salubrious. McCarty’s push to regain lost luster began on Oct. 12, 2012, in San Francisco with a smashing second-round knockout of Al Kaufman. Two months later, on Dec. 10, he was in Vernon, California (a town in Los Angeles County), looking across the ring at Fireman Jim Flynn.
This fight was framed as an “eliminator” with the winner going on to fight Al Palzer for the White Heavyweight Championship of the World.
Jim Flynn, called Fireman Jim because he had worked on steam-powered locomotives shoveling coal into a furnace, was a battle-tested veteran. Six years earlier, he had given Tommy Burns a tough tussle in a failed bid for Burns’ world heavyweight title. Burns stopped him in the 15th-round. More recently, he had challenged Jack Johnson, losing by disqualification in the first and ultimately only heavyweight title fight ever staged in New Mexico.
The late money was on Fireman Jim who went to post a small favorite. Those that bet against McCarty had egg in their face when the referee halted the massacre in the 16th round. Flynn “was beaten to an almost unrecognizable mass,” wrote a ringside reporter. “His face was puffed until it was almost unrecognizable and his eyes were swollen shut. His seconds had to assist him from the ring, while McCarty walked out fresh as a daisy.”
Al Palzer, an Iowa farm boy, had been fighting for only two years, but he was a strapping lad, carrying 227 pounds on a six-foot-four frame, and, in the vernacular of a gambling man, he came from a good barn. His manager, Tom O’Rourke, had built George Dixon from scratch into a fighter still recognized in many quarters today as the greatest bantamweight of all time.
Al Palzer’s signature win had come against the highly-touted British import Bombardier Billy Wells, the heavyweight champion of England. Knocked groggy in the first two rounds, Palzer got off the deck to stop the Bombardier in the third frame.
Once again McCarty entered the ring a slight underdog and, once again, he made a mockery of the odds. Palzer rarely took a backward step but was repeatedly beaten to the punch. The referee halted the mismatch in the 18th round, whereupon Palzer “reeled drunkenly to his corner and cried like a child.”
In those days, the best measure of a mega-fight was the number of telegraphers at ringside. There were plenty that afternoon at promoter Tom McCarey’s arena in Vernon; round-by-round reports were flashed to newspaper offices and poolrooms around the country. In faraway Pittsburgh, where the New Years Day fight started at 6 pm local time, the Pittsburgh Press (“The People’s Paper”) hired a megaphone man to read the round-by-round bulletins to the crowd standing outside in the cold. Other newspapers did likewise.
McCarty had two more fights before his ill-fated bout with Arthur Pelkey, winning newspaper decisions over Fireman Jim Flynn and Frank Moran, in Philadelphia and New York respectively. Then it was on to Calgary to defend his belt against journeyman Pelkey in a bout staged in a 7,000-seat wooden arena built by Tommy Burns who had taken up residence in Calgary as his career was winding down.
The bout was barely 90 seconds old when Pelkey hit McCarty with a blow that landed just above the heart and McCarty collapsed to the canvas. It was a pedestrian punch – a straight jab in a feeling-out round – but Luther McCarty had drawn his last breath. The general feeling was that the punch had aggravated an old neck injury that McCarty had suffered when he fell off a horse, a reckoning that absolved the principals of manslaughter. “The same thing might have happened to anyone walking down the street or eating dinner,” said Tommy Burns.
It was an earie scene made more haunting in memory by interconnected events.
Before the opening bell, the pastor of Calgary’s St. Augustine’s Anglican church was brought into the ring to say a few words. “He told [the combatants] not to forget in their chase of fame that they had a creator and to prepare to meet him.” As McCarty lay prone on the canvas before the stupefied gathering, a ghostly ray of sunlight came through an opening in the structure and shrouded McCarty’s lifeless body. Adding to Tommy Burns’ anguish, on the night of May 25, the day after the fight, a fire of uncertain origin burned his arena to the ground.
An era usually lasts generations and doesn’t come into focus until a considerable amount of time has elapsed. Interestingly, boxing writers were using the phrase White Hope Era when the “era” was just getting started and it was a short-lived phase that effectively ended in Arthur Pelkey’s next fight when he was knocked out by journeyman Gunboat Smith. Pelkey’s vaunted punch, wrote a reporter, was merely a suspicion.
(True, Jess Willard was dubbed a White Hope, but by 1915, when he de-throned Jack Johnson, he wasn’t tagged as such by the promoters as the label had become a term of derision. A little-known fact is that there were a number of so-called White Hope Tournaments during the late 1930s in the U.S. and Canada, but these promotions, conventionally restricted to men with no prior boxing experience — men off the street, but some ringers always slipped in — were tournaments in name only. Precursors of the “Tough Man” competitions popular in the 1980s and 1990s, they died out when Joe Louis came to be widely admired for more than just his fistic prowess.)
Newspaper reports leave the impression that Luther McCarty was a bigamist. Several days after he died it was reported that his widow, who he met in Ohio, was working in a hash house in Fargo, North Dakota. However, his inheritance went to another woman, a lady in Springfield, Missouri, with whom he had a young daughter. And whatever his faults, it appears that Luther, despite his tender age, was no fool with his money. His estate included $8,200 (roughly $250,000 in today’s dollars) on deposit in a Los Angeles bank and four oceanfront lots on a beach near Boston.
Now let’s cut to the chase and address the question we asked in the title of this article: How good was Luther McCarty, by which we mean how would he have fared if thrust against a prime Jack Johnson?
I think the answer is plain. He would have been in way over his head.
It goes without saying that Johnson was more fluid, but he also packed a harder punch. McCarty tattooed Fireman Jim Flynn and Al Palzer with every punch in his repertoire round after round after round, but both men were still standing when the bouts were terminated. Also, “strength of schedule” counts for something and McCarty’s fellow White Hopes were a motley lot. The craze to find someone to upend Johnson flooded the sport with lumbering mediocrities whose exertions would have been better deployed doing chores around the farm or unloading freight.
To call Luther McCarty a cut above the others, no matter how true, is damning him with faint praise. He was, however, a colorful character in one of the most interesting phases in American boxing history.
Arne K. Lang’s third boxing book, titled “George Dixon, Terry McGovern and the Culture of Boxing in America, 1890-1910,” rolled off the press in September. Published by McFarland, the book can be ordered directly from the publisher or via Amazon.
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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 11th 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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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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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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