Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser

Jack Dillon’s name doesn’t resonate with boxing fans today. But he was important in his time.

Ernest Coulter Price was born in 1891 and turned pro at age seventeen. According to legend, when asked his name by the referee before his first fight, he answered “Sidney Dillon” (the name of a racehorse in a stable where he’d worked). The referee misunderstood him, announced him as “Jack Dillon,” and Jack Dillon was his fighting name from then on.

Dillon stood a shade over 5 feet 7 inches tall. He earned renown as a small light-heavyweight, was known as “Jack the Giant Killer,” and compiled a 94-9-16 (65 KOs, 2 KOs by) ring record not counting an estimated 125 “newspaper decisions.” He defeated Battling Levinsky in 1914 to claim the world 175-pound championship and lost the title to Levinsky two years later. He fought Levinsky ten times, winning six with two losses and two draws.

Dillon was always willing to go in tough. But he fought too long, got hit too often, and drank too much. He died at age 51 in a state psychiatric hospital in Florida.

Jack Dillon by Mark Allen Baker (McFarland & Company) tracks Dillon’s life and ring career from beginning to end. To his credit, Baker has done an enormous amount of research. But his writing style is heavy. He falls short of recreating a long-ago era when boxing captivated America. The character portraits are one-dimensional. And the book reads as though, after studying hundreds if not thousands of newspaper clippings, Baker decided to insert every bit of information he found. There are descriptions of fight after fight after fight after fight after fight after fight. After a while, most of the fights no longer seem to matter.

And when Baker tries to liven things up, he lapses into hyperbole (e.g. writing of Dillon, “From the opening gong, it was clear to every opponent, regardless of size or skill, that they were destined for destruction . . . When he looked up [toward the heavyweight division], there wasn’t a heavyweight alive who didn’t fear for his life.”)

I also had the feeling that, to prove the case for Dillon’s greatness, Baker massages the facts a bit. For example, lobbying for the idea that Dillon was deserving of a shot at heavyweight champion Jess Willard, Baker argues that several fighters had beaten much larger men to claim the heavyweight crown. He then cites James Corbett’s victory over John L. Sullivan (a supposed 35-pound weight differential), Bob Fitzsimmons’s triumph over Corbett (26 pounds), and Tommy Burns over Marvin Hart (45 pounds).

The problem is, those numbers are suspect. Adam Pollack (a leading authority on boxing’s early gloved champions) says that there were no official weigh-ins for heavyweight fights way back when. Weights were sometimes announced by a fighter’s camp in the lead-in to a fight or otherwise shared with the public. But the numbers were often inaccurate.

Both The Ring Record Book and Pollack’s research point to far smaller weight differentials than the numbers put forth by Baker. That’s important because it goes to the issue of scholarship. And yes; when Jack Dempsey brutalized Jess Willard, he was outweighed by at least fifty pounds. But Jack Dillon was no Jack Dempsey.

Still, even with its flaws, Jack Dillon performs a service in that it brings attention to a forgotten fighter and puts a great deal of information at the fingertips of readers who want to know more about “Jack the Giant Killer.”

* **

Jody Heaps spent three decades as a senior creative director and executive producer for boxing-related projects at Showtime. In recent years, he has redirected his attention to projects of his own. His two most recent efforts are worthy of mention.

One Night in the Many Deaths of Sonny Liston is a 40-minute play that imagines the last night of Liston’s life in December 1970 and his death at the hands of a “statuesque, provocatively-dressed, Las Vegas showgirl in her late-twenties” who visits his home unannounced with a “gift” from Sonny’s mob associates – a small packet of adulterated heroin that by design will kill him.

The writing flows exceptionally well. The play humanizes Liston in a credible way. And the tension builds nicely. But the narrative strains credibility with the plot twist that Liston accepts his death as inevitable and shoots up knowing that the heroin will kill him.

More recently, Heaps has written, directed, and co-produced a ten-minute play titled A Mop of Angels that can be seen in its entirety on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hImmcG2pivM

Rich O’Brien is wonderful in the role of Spencer Olrich (an aging actor who has been replaced as the star of a successful action-movie franchise) and is now reading a play for minimal pay in a ninety-nine-seat black box theater in the middle of nowhere.

Or is that really who Olrich is?

Two themes – aging and the magic of theatre – are intertwined throughout the narrative. Olrich’s thoughts include:

*         “Old age is the most surprising event in a man’s life. And the cruelest. I thought that getting old would take a whole lot longer than it did. And the worst part, you never see it coming until it’s too late.”

*         “Nobody knows what happens after we exit this mortal coil. And nobody’s in any hurry to find out. But that fear of the unknown; that’s not the scariest part. You know what is? Being forgotten. You may die when your heart stops beating. But you cease to exist when nobody remembers your name.”

*         “This school board contends that theater is a luxury. And you’re right. Theater doesn’t stop wars or end famines or cure deadly diseases. Yet a life without theater would be no life at all. For theater is where we celebrate the joy of our humanity and mourn the pain of our existence; where we pretend to be others only to discover ourselves. To you school board members in your suits and your ties, theater may be a luxury. But for those of us who dream, theater is no more of a luxury than wings are to an angel.”

Theatrical writing is an often-thankless endeavor. But Heaps loves doing it and says, “I’ve gotten better as I keep plugging away at it. At least, I hope I have.”

Does Jody miss boxing?

“Not at all,” he answers. “I always had mixed feelings about boxing. I still enjoy conversations about it from time to time. But do I follow it? No.”

* **

If you’ve been to one final pre-fight press conference, you’ve been to all of them. That’s a slight exaggeration. But the comments do tend to be predictable. Herewith, an example of what you’ll hear from the promoter and main event fighters.

The promoter will speak longer than all of the fighters on the card combined. His opening remarks will be along the lines of:

“I’d like to thank [name of site] for hosting this great event. There’s a saying in boxing that you haven’t fought until you’ve fought at [repeat name of site]. I’d also like to give a shout out to [names of sponsors]. And most importantly, thank you to [insert name of entity or individual funding the fight card]. We have a massive stacked event on tap. This might be the best fight card in the history of [repeat name of site]. [Name of main event A-side fighter] is the fastest-rising star in boxing today. But he’ll be facing a huge challenge when he looks across the ring on [insert date] and sees [name of B-side opponent] standing across from him.”

Toward the end of the proceedings after almost everyone in attendance has lost interest, the B-side fighter in the main event will speak:

“What’s up, everybody. I’d like to thank [name of promoter], [name of network],[my whole team], and God. I had a great training camp. Fighting [name of opponent] at [name of site] is an opportunity I’ve been waiting for my whole life. I’ve been through some things that wasn’t all my fault. But this is a dream come true. It means everything to me. From the time I was a little boy, I dreamed of seeing my face on posters. Not in the post office like my uncle was, but for a fight like this. I’m in the best career of my shape. Or whatever. You know what I mean. I’m looking forward to putting on a show and winning this fight for my fans. [Name of opponent] is a good fighter. I take my hat off to him. But I’m going to shock the world on Saturday night.”

And last, a word from the main event A-side fighter:

“I got nothing to say today. I’m tired of being disrespected by [names of offending entities]. I don’t listen to what people say about me. But what they say about me really pisses me off. You can all suck my [body part of choice].”

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

          In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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