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EPISODE: Episode 1
This episode of Ring Talk with Lou Eisen explores the historic world featherweight title bout between George Dixon and Jack Skelly on September 6th, 1892 at the tournament of Champions in New Orleans. Join Lou as he dives into the background of the two boxers, the hype leading up to the fight, and the action that ensued in the ring. Hear vivid accounts of the fight and expert analysis from Lou as he takes listeners through a journey of one of the most important matches in the history of boxing.
Transcribed
Foreign [ Music ] welcome to ring talk.
I want to thank my producer, Eric Boyce here for um getting those great pictures of Jack Skelly and George Dixon uh.
The fight we’re talking about happened, uh September.
I believe it was September 6, 1892.
, uh um.
I just made a point yeah.
It was September 6, 1892 and that’s important because it was a three-day tournament in New Orleans.
So the first day September 5th was was lightweight champ Jack McAuliffe, who retired undefeated, who beat Billy Meyer and then George Dixon beats Jack.
Scully Skelly excuse me and then, of course, the famous fight on the seventh was uh James J Corbett, knocking out John O’Sullivan to win the world heavyweight title.
Now then, one of the interesting things about this, of course was this was uh the first time in New Orleans and one of the first times in the Deep South, since the Civil War ended 27 years earlier that a black man, George Gibson, fought a white man And that was always a dicey proposition, even in the 20s and 30s and even Beyond, because the crowd was full of Southerners in the South.
Obviously there’d be Southerners.
Who else were to be but Southerners with Confederacy leanings? And you know Dixon in the fight with Skelly and in most of his fights and Joe Gans went through this and Barbados Joel Walcott and I have a picture of them.
I’M going to show you in a sec.
This is George Dixon.
This is a fabulous book.
Written by my friend, Jason Winters and he’s Canadian, he was from africville and he was born July 29.
1870, as parents were Charles and Maria Dixon.
He had many siblings.
Uh died very young.
Unfortunately, he was you know, people ask me: he was probably the greatest fighter that ever lived period, end of sin people it was the greatest Canadian fighter and of course the problem with that question.
Is people asking her in their 30s or 20s or 40s and they don’t know from earlier so what’s amazing about George Dixon? Was he had over 800 fights and you’re? Looking at me saying? Well, that’s not possible you’re making that up, but it’s true now, unfortunately, BoxRec which does a great job has enlisted his 66 wins.
36 Kaos 30 losses.
57 draws.
That’S of fights that they could actually see.
In the newspaper where there were accounts of the fight Dixon had over 800 fights and for years that you know he claimed he had over 800 fights and other people said that that knew him and uh and people in the 30s 40s up to today.
So well, where are they then you couldn’t have had them couldn’t have if he made them up, you know, and it doesn’t count and obviously, and if, if they did happen, where are they I found them by accident? I didn’t go to a book or or some old Museum or library and go oh here.
They are during his career, Dixon would fight and he had to make money constantly.
So he had the official fights to defend the bantamweight feather rate title.
This is what I should mention: I’ve been remissing this off.
The top Dixon was the first black man ever to win a world Undisputed World Boxing title and he was Canadian and Canada Post won’t issue a stamp in his honor because they don’t think he’s worth it.
That’S pathetic and you know what the American Postal Service will do it before.
We do it and he deserves that.
So does George Godfrey and George budge Byers, and these are three black men who were Champions and have been ignored and forgotten, mostly in their own country.
It’S a George Dixon Center in Halifax, where people walk by and think he was some famous boxer athlete.
He was more than some famous boxer.
He was the most famous black man and one of the most famous man on Earth from 1890 until he died uh in January of of 1908.
, so Dixon held first black men to hold the world bantamweight title, lose it regain it.
First, black man to hold the world featherweight title lost it regained it.
He invented uh uh, the heavy bag.
He invented Shadow Boxing.
He was the first box of the Box in front of a mirror all the time, so he knew how he appeared to his opponents.
He could figure out his own weaknesses and correct them.
He he wasn’t the first Boxer to run long distances, but he was the first Boxer to run long distances in training and and interspersed it with Sprints.
So he’d run three to five miles: stop and then he’d start running Sprints for half an hour, stop run another two three miles and then run sprints and then run some more because he knew that in a fight you’re looking for spots and that there’s little quick Moments of action where it all heats up and at other times you’re looking for spots to pick your shots, so Dixon is born in Halifax.
Dixon’S background is very interesting Dixon and I love George Dixon and if you’re a Canadian I mean this man, it’s black history month every month should be Black History Month.
Dixon should be taught in schools, no Canadian in this country, from the time they’re born to the time they die should grow up ever without knowing who this man is.
He is Immortal in boxing circles, so his great-grandfather comes to United States in 1813.
.
That’S significant! That’S that’s the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States, Canada’s, not a country.
Then it’s called Canada by the First Nations people.
It’S a word meaning small village.
However, however um his great-grandparents are slaves, and so what they do is they make a deal with the British now I I should have, but I didn’t uh and my friend Jason Windows book.
He has the name of the actual ship.
They came up on the British ship so what happened – and you can tell I’m excited about this – so his grandparents Make a Deal they make a deal with the British we’ll give you the location of American Naval encampments here in the United States.
In return, you get us up to Canada and freedom and that’s what they did so.
Between 8 and 13 families came up on a British Naval destroyer and they were dropped off in Halifax now, unlike today, or you might go through customs or there might be people there to greet you to help you to give you food shelter wasn’t like that.
They just said: okay, Aaron Halifax, you n-word get off the boat you’re on your own, and that was it now.
Some of them had family that that um predated them in Canada they’ve been here before, and they got help from other members of the close-knit black community.
But for a large part, A lot of them like Dixon’s grandfather, had to go, and you know get a plot of land build his own house, build the latrine, find work and do it and feed his family with himself.
You know by himself hunting in that, while his wife looked after the kids – and you know, Dixon’s Father Charles – was born then later on, Dixon’s born in 1870.
, now Dixon uh himself.
You know the racism in Canada then was as vicious as it was in the United States.
You have to remember: Dixon was born five years after the Civil War ended, so the racism down there was no different than the racism here: uh slavery and anything in Canada.
Officially, in the early 1800s, I think around 18 12, but it but unofficially in the 1780s 1790s most of the slaves in Canada were held in Quebec, but but Dixon’s family was free, so Dixon’s there in the maritimes young young kid uh going to school.
Now I’m going to try to find you, I saw it earlier.
I should have put a marker here in it, but in this book uh yeah.
This is a picture of the young George Dixon.
This is a good looking young kid and I want you to remember this.
Look remember that, because I’m going to show you a picture of him just before he died and that’s Dixon as a young guy and he’s about 11 years old and Dixon uh.
How did he learned a box? Well, the myth of the story is he learned to box by? There was a big fat bully at school.
Who would pick on other kids and Dixon noticed that all the kids would stand here in front of the bully and trade punches and lose the bully was bigger and heavier.
So what Dixon thought was well he’s fat and heavy.
So he can’t fight like that.
For a long time so when it was Dixon’s turn to fight him, Dixon just kept running and the bully would swing and miss and fall down and when he got up Dixon kept hitting him in the stomach over and over and over until the bully couldn’t breathe And catch his breath and then Dixon hit him in the face and the bully cried and back down and that thus be it to all six separate Uranus.
That’S Viet dwell Tyrese, so uh Dixon’s family.
You know his parent, Charles and Maria, moved to to Boston.
Following a trend that other uh black Fighters, families had done, George Gottfried and George Bush Byers, because that’s you know or excuse me that would happen, because that’s that’s what that’s where Prosperity was? There was little you could do in Halifax if you were a black person back then, and when I say that I didn’t mean because of of their their faults, I meant, because there was no opportunity there were African Canadians who gone to medical school then and become Lawyers and obviously like today, we’re intellectually, brilliant and ready to work, but still because of the color of your skin.
They weren’t given jobs, so they had to go work as a porter.
Can you imagine going through medical, school and you’re going to be a doctor? You want to help society and all you’re good enough for is to be a porter on a train or to be a Steven door on the docks.
Dixon’S father was a Stephen or he worked on the docks and Dixon’s Uncle um Charles was a well-known Pastor in the area and his cousins were among the first hockey players.
Um George Foster, a friend of mine, wrote a great book called uh Black Ice they’re.
Among the first hockey players ever in Canada – and they were all black Canadians and so uh Dixon goes to uh Boston with his family and he gets a job as an apprentice with Elmer Chickering, a photographer and all these boxers are coming in and of course, he’s Talking to him and they’re, showing him stuff, and then one of them says you should pick up this book by this guy and it’ll show you what to do and that’s how he you know, started to uh learn about boxing now what I want to say.
I want to get back.
I got off my point of um that he had upwards of 800 fights and how I found them.
You’Ll see photos of Dixon where he has the regular fights and it’s in the newspaper and then you’ll see these other photos of these arenas and the arena will say.
George Dixon world champion takes on four people tonight, there’s a lot of those photos around and all the times they don’t mention that in local newspapers and different hamlets all throughout the United States, fights Four Guys four rounds each or six rounds each now.
He didn’t fight six rounds each because these weren’t skilled professionals – these were local Tufts, and so he knocked them out within one or two rounds.
It was easy work for him, but when you you know in a career that went, went almost uh 20 years and you look at him doing that.
You know four fights a night.
Let’S say 100 150 times a year: that’s 200 fights so not including his his regular license, fights so Dixon, I think, had close to from what I can count: uh upwards of 900 fights and and that’s incredible, regardless of the fact that they were scheduled for four Or six rounds, because a lot of Fights Back Then were scheduled for four and six rounds now so Dixon’s in Boston and the thing about Dixon is there’s no one, there’s no.
He learned from different people, but there’s no precursor for him that he can learn from.
In other words, there’s no George Godfrey who came from Charlottetown, who taught who taught George Bunch buyers, who ended up teaching Sam Langford.
So – and this is another Point – people say who’s the greatest Canadian fighter of all time.
While most Americans will tell you Sam Langford, he had way over 300 fights, he won most of them by knockout and Incredibly skilled.
He beat everyone from lightweight to heavyweight and, of course, another popular myth is, you know Johnson was afraid to fight him.
Johnson wasn’t afraid to fight him.
Johnson beat Langford in langford’s 20th Pro fight and it was Johnson’s.
I think, 90th Pro fight and he easily beat it, but he saw how good Langford was going to become and he he himself drew the color line.
So we have Dixon in Boston learning and and fighting and eventually what happens is a guy named Tom O’Rourke who, whose sister he married Tom O’Rourke, sees him and he’s a real as Joe Frazier would say: scam Booga.
This is a guy if he was upset at Dixon, went to smack him around became his manager.
He was a good judge of boxing.
He was able to to.
You know show Dixon the ins and outs Dixon when he first saw him had a great left jab and he could hook off the jab, but he didn’t use his right hand enough.
So O’Rourke was the one who showed him and Lennox Lewis showed me this once at his office when I was working for him, how you hide a right hand with your left jab and after that Dixon became unbeatable.
You know there’s a fight where he beats Johnny Murphy early in his career over 40 rounds knocks the guy out in 40 rounds in Dixon.
You look at him.
There’S no blemishes, no cuts, no bruises, nothing! That’S how good he was the only fight he can compare.
Dixon to today would be a guy like like lomachenko or or Devin.
Haney Dixon was the guy that when you came at him he would move out of the way and you would end up punching at air.
He was like fighting a ghost now his opponent, Jack Skelly, was born in New York.
Skelly was an amateur see back to that unboxing uh.
You had your Champions, but amateur boxing was looked on more favorably today or back then than pro boxing, because these guys were fighting for the love of it.
Apparently and, of course, anyone who knows anything Baba, she knows that amateur boxing is the most corrupt sport uh.
Next to professional boxing on the in the world, and you can tell that with the way Michael conlon got screwed at the Olympics and what happened with Roy Jones Jr at the Olympics.
So Jack Skelly was one of three great Jacks that came out of New York.
There was uh Jack Dempsey, not the heavyweight champ, but the non-perial or non-parallel the unparalleled, the great the one.
Only Jack Dempsey.
His real name was Kelly came from Ireland.
He was the middleweight champ and he only weighed 120 530 pounds.
But in those days there were no strict weight limits, so you have Jack Dempsey and then Jack McAuliffe, who became the lightweight champion and Dempsey, died young from uh tuberculosis, but one of his fights was here in Toronto: uh, I’m still looking for a record of it.
I’Ve read it everywhere against George Phil Jamie he’s the former Brit, who became a Canadian for the middleweight title, and then they fought in Fishkill New York, where, where um Dempsey just annihilating him, however, they stuck together Jack, Skelly, Jack Dempsey, Jack McAuliffe.
They trained together always and they worked together and at a barrel maker in in uh Barrel America, shop, beer, kegs and stuff and such in New York, but they train together, so they would show each other stuff.
Jack Skelly was a good, was a very good uh.
Amateur fighter and he had a good punch, but I wanted to show you here: there are some pictures of him uh that made me laugh because he does not look like a fighter in these pictures.
He yeah this is the one.
He looks like a scared.
Little boy and look at the look on his face and this was taken in in the early 1890.
I guess 92 and if you look at the picture, here’s the interesting thing about it: uh.
It said he won 170 and then I won 180 pound title really.
Look at him.
He weighs maybe 120 pounds 125 pounds and before he got in the ring he his manager had a big argument with George Dixon’s manager about what the weight would be because it was a featherweight fight, featherweight today’s 125.
, but back then Dixon, never weighed more than 100 910, pounds for any fight, but his manager said we’ll agree to come in at 117.
.
Skelly’S managers said we’ll agree to come in at 1 20.
and they argue and they.
Finally, they got down to 118.
and and uh skelly’s manager said how about 118 and a half and uh Tom O’Rourke wouldn’t budge, and for about five days they argued about half a pound and finally, they said just make a 118.
.
You know this is stupid, arguing over this, but that’s how Petty they became and – and it was 118.
– I don’t.
The only thing I can conclude about Skelly being an amateur champ at 170 or 180, is that he that may have been the upper limit or that may have been the weight of his opponent, but it certainly wasn’t his weight.
As I said, weight limits, weren’t codified back then they weren’t there wasn’t.
There was a level that you you’re supposed to reach that you couldn’t exceed, but you know you could fight for heavyweight if you over 150 pounds and you could fight as a middleweight as well.
So it wasn’t as strictly enforced, I should say, as it is today now, the Tournament of Champions was very special, because the great General Sullivan was going to defend his title against uh James J Corbett.
Now James J Corbett, uh was one of several James Shades.
That held the world heavyweight title, James, J, Jeffries and James J Braddock and, of course, braddocks didn’t have Jay as his middle name, but his manager, who was smart, Joe Gould, put it in because it was good for publicity.
So we have, we have uh.
Um Corbett beat Sullivan in 26 rounds.
That’S what everyone remembered, but Sullivan himself thought people should remember: Skelly and Dixon.
Here’S the interesting thing Sullivan drew the color line.
He wouldn’t fight a Black Fighter.
He just refused – and I mentioned this several days or several weeks ago.
He was supposed to fight George Godfrey twice, Canadian from Prince overnight in a black fighter, who’s the same height and and size, but he turned him down once when it was on a barge actually rumored to be on a barge another time.
Uh.
It was at uh, Madison Square Garden, where um Godfrey went and challenged him right there in the ring during an exhibition, and he just laughed at him just like parental weighted them off.
You know, which is a really racist thing to do, but it’s hard to look at people from that era and color them as completely one thing Sullivan for whatever reason: loved George Dixon so did Matt Fleischer the editor and founder of Ring magazine Ring magazine by the Way wasn’t created by Fleischer, it was created by Tex Rickard the promoter to to help uh publicize his fights.
It was an in-house publication to begin with so Sullivan, like Dixon and Fleischer, love, Dixon and Psalm fight and the reason a lot of people liked him is.
They said it’s because he was what African Canadians and Americans called high, yellow, very light-skinned black person, and because of that Fleischer who didn’t do any Research into Dixon said that its father was a white British officer who had impregnated his mother a former slave.
So his mother, as far as I know, was not a former slave and there is no white blood in Dixon’s line.
I’Ve spoken with the author Jason Wendy’s about this and we traced his line back.
You know to the very early 1800s late 1700s.
There are no white, there was no white blood in Dixon’s line.
Blood is blood, of course, but in other words, there’s no difference, but we there’s no white people in Dixon’s line and Dixon was a black man, but the racism of the time dictated.
They said that because he was a lady-skinned black man, he was smarter in the ring and he was more respected.
And if you read the articles from the newer New Orleans Picayune regarding the fight with Jack, Skelly they’ll say well he’s not even a colored man he’s.
He he’s a mulano he’s: half white half black.
He wasn’t that’s simply not true, but that’s a racist belief perpetuated by Matt Fleischer now Dixon was always hesitant to talk about his his background and he published a book by the way which my friend Jason, found a copy of and and photocopied and sent to me Called the lesson in boxing everyone in the world is looking for it.
There may be one other than the copy found at the University of Windsor uh, an original copy and pristine condition.
We don’t know how many other copies there are in the world.
There may be one or two more copies, but Dixon’s, just in the book writes about boxing and he’s showing you everything all his moves and he’s talking about growing up in Halifax and moving to Boston.
He does it briefly, and he doesn’t like talking about personal things.
He thought – and he had a point, that that was off limits, but he said he was born in Halifax Nova Scotia in a place called africville.
Africville wasn’t fully recognized because no town in Nova Scotia at that time or Canada would be unless they had a church which came about in in the Episcopal Church came about in 1949 in Africa, and a relative of Dixon’s was the pastor there, Charles Dixon and Dixon.
At that point, Africa field became recognized as a as a city officially in house in in Nova Scotia.
The problem, of course, was because it was black people there, not the problem, the racism uh that endured at that time and was endemic to that time.
The city thought well they’re, African Canadian, who cares so we’re going to have the town’s uh sewage dump beside that africville we’re going to put the slaughterhouse there, so the smells were terrible, even though the African Canadians then said hey we’re abiding by the law.
You know we’re citizens here too we’re not breaking the law, we’re not treating anyone poorly we’re kind to everyone, they didn’t care, they got treated horrifically so Dixon’s father saw this.
His mother saw this and they said we got to get to the United States.
So it’s believed Dixon went to the United States when he was around 11.
or 12.
.
When I spoke to Bert sugar, the great the late great writer uh historian of boxing was a mentor of mine.
He said: there’s Lost Years, um, there’s years between 11 and 14, where we don’t exactly know what happened or where he was, but to pick it up when he was 13 14 in Boston living with his family and – and you know, he’s growing up still a lot Of racism then, and he gets into boxing and he had yeah well, he starts fighting professionally hooks up a time at work.
As I said, and his career starts to move.
You know he starts beating good Fighters along the way he would be uh.
He won several titles and when you look at the titles that he won uh back, then they were called paperweight because they only weighed 105 pounds.
Dixon was just five foot three, he was a tiny guy and he was tremendously skilled.
So when you, when you read about him fighting a lot of the fights you know like with nank Wallace, went 70 rounds, their first fight and Dixon won.
He fought him again and no, I think, actually that was a draw.
Dixon fought him again and uh knocked him out in 40 rounds, so these were long fights and not necessarily a three minute round.
Sometimes they’re fought on the London prize Wing rules where a knock down end of the round, but a lot of them were three-minute rounds.
Fights went for two three hours and Dixon was in incredible condition, and this was a guy that did thousands of sit-ups a day every day, thousands of push-ups a day every day, chin UPS didn’t he didn’t drink at the beginning.
Didn’T smoke, uh didn’t eat sweets, just healthy vegetables, healthy food and treated his body like a temple in time that ended when he started getting screwed big time for money.
Problem with Dixon was Dixon loved action, he loved to gamble, and he would lose a lot of his money gambling, which is what led to his wife leaving him.
He handed up becoming an alcoholic which is quite sad and and in the end, die penniles and the only person who helped him, of course, was John O’Sullivan, which is rather ironic.
So one of the things I wanted to show you here uh, I I showed you the picture of Dixon before before the Skelly fight when he was about 11.
.
Now here’s a picture that I marked uh.
I want to show you.
I have it in another book in a bigger version.
I couldn’t find the other book it’s one of the problems of having so many boxing books.
This is a picture here.
Whoops sorry, this is um, okay, Dixon’s in the white hat.
So let me I’m on the wrong page.
Sorry.
This is Goofy anyways Dixon’s in the right Dixon’s and he’s not on the page he’s not he’s back.
Okay, there’s Dixon! Look at him: white hat George Dixon beside him sitting Barbados, Joe Walcott beside him, Joe Gans.
First, three black champions: ever I think the man beside Dixon standing in the white hat is George budget buyers.
Although I can’t confirm that so that’s Dixon there look at the look on his face.
Look how upset and downtrodden he looks he he is.
This is, after Years of Living Years of drinking and uh life has taken its toll on him.
Now he fights Jack, Skelly and Skelly is a great fighter great amateur fighter, but this was Kelly’s first professional fight.
Imagine that it’s like Loman Shankle did that in its first professional fight fought for a world title, he wasn’t the first Pete Rademacher did that against Floyd Patterson and dropped Floyd Patterson before Patterson knocked him out now, when you read about this and Colleen aycock’s wonderful book Here, the first black Champions, that’s Sam Langford, on the cover uh.
She gives you a blow by blow here of of the fight with Skelly.
Now it’s it’s from the new New Orleans times, picking I’m just going to read the last couple sentences.
What happened in this round in the eighth round was Skelly would lunge at Dixon and Dixon would get out of the way when Skelly would turn around he’d hit him with a double jab.
In the face constantly, he was closing his eyes come forward with the right hand in the ribs he broke his ribs.
He kept pounding him in the ribs to take his legs away, kept pounding him in the throat and he kept coming over.
He kept moving and, and he kept forcing um uh this guy to come after him.
He was countering him the whole time and by the eighth round, Skelly had taken such a beating and been chasing Dixon and hitting nothing that he was absolutely exhausted and he couldn’t keep his arms up and his Corner wanted to stop the fight after the seventh round.
But he said no chance so uh as as Skelly stood near his own corner with his seconds eager to him, but restrained by the rules.
Dixon caught him with a left hand on the jaw and sent him down and Dixon did not leave him this time and, as Kelly struggled up, made an effort to straighten out Dixon fainted with his left, because he was throwing his left jab constantly the whole time.
But he saw a better chance in quickly bringing the right into play, delivered a quick short, sharp half arm swing, the same kind of bitter B, if landed on yard uh, with the right on the point of skelly’s chin, cracked him on the chin short right hand.
Maybe four inches it traveled skelling went down in the Heap, he fell in sections legs body, arms collapsing in turn, and the head falling back as if the neck was actually broken.
It was a complete and total knock out, and that was the skill of of of um of George Dixon he’d maneuvered, this guy.
He got him to spend his energy and then he just knocked him out, and he did that to a lot of guys – and this was interesting because in this fight usually the crowd would be segregated, right, blacks on one side, whites on another, but Dixon said no.
I don’t want black sitting at the top, not seeing the fight.
He made a demand, I’m not fighting, and everyone wanted to see him fight because then he was recognized as the best fighter in the world pound for pound, so the audience has to be mixed.
So, for that only time on that day September 6 1892 – it was a mixed crowd now later on, the authorities were outraged and the government was outraged and so were the people, but by then Dixon his mom left.
He didn’t really care at that point and he controlled the fight from the first round on scally was an amateur.
He was a good amateur but Dixon that already had.
You know a couple hundred fights.
So this wasn’t.
This wasn’t new to him.
I mean this was 1892 Dixon turned Pro around 1887, the ages 17-18, and between that and the age of you know next four years you know he was fighting 50 60 70 times a year, so he had a lot of fights he was very experienced.
He was still learning from older Fighters and O’Rourke had showed him what to do with different situations and Iraq, of course, treating them.
As I said, horrifically bad stolen’s money and what money Dixon did get.
He wasted, as it was anyways because growing up poor and getting a lot of money from fighting.
You don’t know what to do.
You know no one’s there to say, listen, you’re going to retire one day and you want some money left over to live off of and of course, even though he was getting something like 17 500 for this fight, which in 1892 was an unheard of amount of Money for a fighter, and especially an African American or African Canadian fighter uh, he still had to give part of that to his to his manager and had to pay off various people.
The other thing you have to know about George Dixon – and this is one of the most important things, and it applies to Joe Gans and and Barbados, Joe Walcott and especially Jack Johnson Dixon, when he got in the ring, was not allowed by mutual agreement to knock The man out early, he would have been linked.
He had to agree when he was fighting a white person to let them get punches in and land punches and bloody, his nose a bit.
That was the deal because, if he just went in and fought to his full abilities and knocked Skelly out within a minute which he easily could have done, it’s likely that he would have been killed.
The other thing you have to know about Dixon was someone once said to Dixon.
How come you never fight along the ropes you’re, always in Center ring and Dixon pulled up his pant legs to reveal his legs from The Shins down and he had big chance of skin missing in his legs and what happened was when he got near the ropes In his opponent’s corner, the opponent’s Corner, man and and bigots in the audience would bash him on the leg with metal pipes, bats hit him with knives or straps and of course he couldn’t complain.
You complained you got shot, you complained, they would say fight’s over.
You lose and then the audience could attack him.
Dixon fought most of his fights, knowing there were people in the audience with guns who would have easily and readily killed him if he was if he was too much for that fighter.
So a guy like Sonny Liston, fighting back then wouldn’t have lived that long uh, based on how good he was in the ring and something like Muhammad Ali they just wouldn’t have put up with that.
They would not have allowed him fight.
Of course, sadly, without Lee his birthday was this: this past uh uh January 17th.
The sad thing about him, of course, was that uh they didn’t allow him to fight.
They did to him what they’d done to Jack Johnson, but I’m getting off topic here so because of that, because of the people going after him illegally when he was on the ropes Dixon had to do most of his fighting in the center of the Ring.
Dixon was an expert at leaning on the guy and positioning him with his shoulders.
He was an expert with his feet.
Dixon knew that he could put his lead left foot between his opponent’s feet, thereby immobilizing him not letting his opponent move to either side and then shoeshine him.
When I say I don’t mean that in the derogatory term I mean shoeshine, blinding dozens of blows to the stomach and to the liver and then bringing it upstairs.
Dixon was great when he was in clothes.
He would move back a step and throw a right uppercut, which was devastating and so Dixon.
If you find a book online, a lesson in boxing um, it’s just phenomenal uh what he could do, and I mean he knew everything he knew, how to throw the right hook.
The left hook.
He even mentioned the famous pivot punch, which was outlawed, which was like a spinning back kick in karate, but you do it with your elbow and your forearm, so you know every punch.
He knew what to do.
He knew what to do when whatever his opponent was doing and when he got in the room inspired to get ready for his fights, he didn’t just go all out and tried to kill the man.
You would say the guy, I’m fighting.
Does this you do that.
Let’S work on this situation, where he’s going to try to pin me in the corner and hold me there with his arm and I’m going to try to duck out, and he would do that.
Dixon was one of the guys who, if he knew he was fighting someone, he would watch the guy for a long time if he knew he would eventually fight him and look at his flaws.
That’S why he thought in front of the mirror to see what his opponent would be seeing.
He knew Jack Skelly he’d fought in several cards where it was a Pro-Am card and Skelly fought in the amateur part, and he fought in the Pro Part, after their fight and after the career, Skelly had five or six more fights and ended up winning three or Four fights and losing several fights, uh opened the restaurant and and then opened the bar, which failed became an actor, and that was invisible.
Adventure for him trained boxers, who were so so and eventually became a ring official and he died in uh in 1953.
He was actually an alternate judge for the Jack Dempsey, Jess Willard fight on July, 4th 1919.
um in a book called The Greatest Fighters.
Boxing’S greatest Fighters by bird sugar Albert gives an incorrect date for The Death of George Dixon.
He lists that it as 1909.
It was in 1905.
, it was January, 6, 1908, 2 p.
m, Bellevue Hospital in New York.
He was taking the Bellevue and he was there with uh by a friend who most people believe was John L Sullivan, who he said was the only friend he had and the only person that really cared about himself and supported him financially.
This is the conundrum of John O’Sullivan, who drew the color line and didn’t give black Fighters any respect, but he loved George Dixon, like he was a son and he wrote a column in many newspapers called jolts from George dick or from John O’Sullivan.
That’S what it was called and joltz from John L and and every almost every article he would say this guy was great and that guy’s great, but he wasn’t George Dixon’s, who was the single beds fighter pound for pound I ever saw and that will ever live.
So Dixon uh was survived by his father four brothers and a sister um.
His funeral was uh Tuesday January 7th, 1990, 1990 1908.
Thousands filed past his coffin uh.
Before that, excuse me uh in New York and then they brought him to Boston and um January 7th.
Wasn’T a funeral, I apologize.
That’S my mistake.
The funeral is January 9th on the Thursday at the Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston, where about two to three thousand people were inside another three to five thousand were outside and they they erected a memorial fountain.
For him in New York – and you know Skelly, as I said, died, May 1953.
, so Johnson’s final record or Johnson Dixon’s final record 66 wins 36 Kos 30 losses 57 draws, but really it should be.
I would estimate upwards of 900 fights of which, I would say he probably won.
You know well over 800 of them, uh fighting all across the United States.
He thought I think one fight he fought in in Canada, one or two fights in the Brunswick, and then that was it because, like most Canadian Fighters, if you’re good, you have to go down to the States to make real money you’re not going to make in Canada, unless you’re fighting canvas boxing Capital Montreal um.
So what I want to say is the people watching.
You can do me a favor and do yourself a favor and do all Canadian, a Canada favor.
You know contact uh your MP and get them to contact uh.
Canada, Post or contact Canada posts directly and get them to issue with stamp in George Jackson’s name.
The man deserves it.
First, black man ever to be recognized as a world champion in boxing Undisputed world champion.
Paperweight bad and weight featherweight lost the titles, regain them all invented Shadow Boxing in the heavy bag.
So this man has more first and more accomplishments than any other boxer that came after them and I’ll tell you something: if there’s no George Dixon, then there’s no Sam Langford, then there’s no George Cheval, then there’s no Lennox Lewis, there’s no Johnny colon.
There’S no Tommy Burns.
He was the first man to put Canada on the map in boxing and say we count we’re not only as good as the Americans in many cases, we’re better, in fact we’re the best in the world and that’s the story of The Immortal.
George Dixon, my name is Lou Eisen.
Please go to my sub stack Once Upon a Time in the prize ring the address.
Is there uh on the uh on your screen, and I will soon be posting an article this week about George Dixon.
I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend and be safe, be well see you next Sunday, foreign
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