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EPISODE: Episode 7
This week Lou discusses the epic September 3rd, 1906 world lightweight title fight between champion Joe Gans and challenger Battling Nelson.
Discussing the greatest boxing controversies throughout history, Lou Eisen offers his opinions and insights in this fantastic live-streamed series of episodes. Watch live on TalkinFight.com every Sunday at 2pm ET.
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Transcribed:
[, Music, ] hi good afternoon, i’m lou eisen, and this is ring talk.
If, first of all, i want to thank my producer, eric boyce, who puts up the great graphics and sets all this up, i’m just the fat schlub that comes on and yammers on about the fight, but uh.
If you want to thank people for the information on all the uh great shows, we have on talking fights thank eric and his father, of course, graham boyce.
So the thing about the graphic that eric put up you can look at it.
You’Ve got nelson on the left and jogans on the right.
You can see how emaciated gans is.
Gans was in the beginning stages of tuberculosis, and you know i was born in 1960, so you got booster shots then, and and and there were vaccines – not nothing like that – existed back then a million people in the first century in the first 10 to 20 years From 1900 to 1920 died in the united states of tuberculosis, there was nothing you can do and gans was ravaged and thin to begin with, and what they put him through for this fight, which we’re going to get into in a sec, was unbelievable.
So at this time we’re talking about september 3rd, uh, 1906 in gold field, nevada.
Now here’s what’s what i do here usually during shields, i adjust my uh adjustable backpack, that’s what happens when you get old.
So this is an interesting time in american history and to me, american history is world history.
So 1906 is 41 years after the end of the american civil war, and that was really the one more to talk about the world awards.
But after this american civil war, there was an area known an era.
Excuse me known as reconstruction, where they were trying to rebuild the south and in so doing, because blacks had been emancipated by abraham, lincoln and the emancipation proclamation that they were trying to fulfill the promise.
It’S one thing to write that blacks were free and have rights, but now african americans wanted those rights and and wanted to be able to exercise them and they were doing that in reconstruction and then it it blossomed under grant and then near the end of grants.
President grant’s term and after that it completely turned and uh reconstruction died, blacks had no rights, it didn’t matter that they were emancipated.
They were really nothing more, not nothing more, but in the eyes of racist whites and that racism still sadly persists to this day.
They were looked at as indentured servants, so you have may have been a slave on a plantation and now, instead of being a slave you’re earning a dollar or two a week.
So really, there is no difference and the lynchings and the murders and the rapes went on and joe ganz was born into this in 1874, jogan’s father was actually a professional baseball player and and people would say well how can he be a professional baseball player because Blacks weren’t allowed in baseball well.
This was before cap.
Anson had actually instituted that rule that he didn’t want.
Blacks in in organized baseball and gans was born november 25th 1874.
This was nine years after the american civil war ended, and just to give you an example, um the first black man to ever be a world champion undisputed world champion of boxing was the canadian from halifax my hero, george dixon, two.
I have several boxing heroes.
Muhammad ali nikki ferlano was another of my boxing girls, but george dixon was born 1870 five years after the end of the civil war.
Gans was born nine years after the american civil war and reconstruction was very an ultra violent period.
Uh his birth name, uh was joseph safis butts.
He was born in baltimore, but his father couldn’t look after him when when they got divorced – and he gave him to a friend maria gant and the name got misprinted in the paper as gans and it sounded better than gant and they never uh corrected it.
He wasn’t able to care for his son, so the foster mother was maria jackson gant, as i mentioned, and she loved joe like joe, was her really was her son and joe considered her his mother.
He adored her and the only thing he really cared about in his life was her welfare.
So she instilled in him that, even though there’s racism, and even though you’re black, you can still overcome that with hard work, determination, courage and toughness, and he took all these values that his mother uh, instilled in him and became the best fighter in the world pound.
For pound he was considered by nav fleischer, the founder of ring magazine uh, to be the greatest lightweight of all time: um [, Music ].
This is an argument that goes on all the time.
People would consider roberto duran as the greatest lightweight of all time and i agree, but you also have to have joe ganson there and benny leonard the sport changed from then until the time of of roberto duran, but the problem with people do these top 10 lists Online and talk about so-called experts talk about who’s, the best lightweight of all time, they’re only counting fighters from durant on they don’t know the whole history of the sport, so they’re, not talking about battling nelson or an ad will gasp or benny, leonard or or uh Joe gans, what’s interesting about duran is he had the same trainer as benny leonard rare cell and marcel said leonard was the greatest lightweight that ever lived, so arcel was one of the top one or two greatest trainers of all time.
He was the first modern trainer in boxing, so if he says leonardo was the best ever you have to sort of go with that now gans wanted to fight for the lightweight title.
He got a chance against frank earn and when he fought frank earned, i believe in buffalo earned.
It was an accidental headbutt everywhere i read, they say you know that was terrified of him burn was getting, it was a gans was ahead in the fight, but ern had butted him and it was a horrible gash.
We’Ve seen those gashes, you know uh on various fighters and the blood was just gushing into gan’s eyes.
His corner said he can’t stop it and and the doctor there said you’re gon na lose your eye.
So gans did the smart thing and quit people didn’t care.
Being bigger at the time ernst said, i gave him a chance, he he quit so he doesn’t get another chance.
So what does gans do? Gans had a manager named al herford who, as i said in my upcoming book, boxing’s greatest controversies, he belongs in the dung high on the dung heap of boxing managers.
Al herford was a bigot and a criminal who serio serially abused black fighters physically and especially financially.
You know he stole about 95 percent of gans purses, which is why you know gans was indigent for most of his life, because hereford just took all his money and when gans fired him, he banned gans against couldn’t get a fight.
So if gans was supposed to get five or ten granford fight, he might get a thousand or two thousand if he was lucky, the rest was stolen by hereford, even though there was a contract and even though they had a written contract.
That gans was to get eight or nine grand could have gone to court still would have lost.
They were all bigoted, nothing you could do about it back then.
So gans knew that he had to get a fight with her and burn.
Wasn’T going to give him another fight, and then he got together with terry mcgovern, which is what i cover in my book and gans was friends of mcgovern who was not bigoted.
Mcgovern’S manager, uh sam harris, who was a broadway producer, uh, got together with al herford and gans agreed to throw the fight against mcgovern ganz was five six five, seven, the government’s five two five three gans was bigger, stronger, heavier, much harder, hitter, better chin and um Mcgovern dropped him something like eight times in two rounds.
It bogus was 1900 boxing was banned in chicago at that time, until joe lewis came and won the world title 37, almost 40 years.
So so actually sorry, it was banned until dempsey fought tiny in chicago.
By mistake, so that would have been 26 years, so he he humidity through the fight and he got a lot of grief from people and they call them all sorts of names.
The fact that they were racist to begin with they just added on to the fact that now he was a cheater and and gans didn’t want to throw the fight, but his manager assured him.
You do that.
You get another title fight he did, but it wasn’t for several years after that and when he fought franker and again he knocked him out in a minute and 20 seconds in fort erie ontario uh.
This brings up a major point in the life of joe gans and a lot of great fighters, especially black fighters, but all champions benny leonard included uh.
They had trouble getting fights sam langford, the great canadian fighter, uh the greatest fighter to never win the world title.
A lot of these guys couldn’t get fights because they were too good and it’s you know stuff that lomanchenko has gone through.
Ally went through guy if george foreman guys are they’re so good.
No one wants to fight them, and so what gans had to do was he would agree not to hurt the guy for the first seven or eight rounds.
And after that you know the metaphorical hand or figure of handcuffs could come off and gans could fight and do what he could do best.
Gans was a brilliant fighter.
He was a great tactician.
He was technically brilliant.
He he made no mistakes.
He was a fighter without a fly.
He had a lethal right hand, uh gans, um, had 147 wins, 101 ko, so gans had power to hurt people and great fighter and uh just did an incredible defensively.
He pioneered the shoulder roll.
You know a good hundred and something years long before floyd mayweather ever did against was very hard to hit with a flush shot, which is why a lot of white fighters such as nelson were head biting him and thumbing him and elbowing him holding him and butting Him stepping on his feet, spitting in his face, kicking him biting him.
They did all that to slow him down and the referees, of course let it all go by so gans is now the world champion.
He’S beaten, frank, ernest battling nelson, it’s coming up in the ranks there’s eight years difference and by the time they fought uh for their their uh title fight.
Uh in 1906, gans has probably passed his prime uh.
You know he was 31 and nelson was 24 and nelson was just entering his prime nelson.
That claimed the world title several years before when he fought jimmy britt and the thing is britt.
Wasn’T the world champion britt was the white world champion, gets people to say? Well, that’s it no more jokans! I mean these bigots who ran the sport, thought they could do that.
They actually thought we could just get rid of gans by declaring a white person to be champion even that, even though it has no basis in evidence.
You know, and of course this goes on all the time now of today’s criminal regulatory body.
So these two guys are fighting and gans is continuing to defend his title and they signed a fight in goldfield nevada.
It was a big fight and it was one of the biggest fights uh and one of the first major fights of tax records.
Career tex rickard, who died in 1929 from the gangrenous appendix uh, was the first great promoter in the sport.
He prospered by moving to argentina and making millions off of raising cattle and he all okay, argentinian cattle still prized to this day, and that’s mainly because of record moved to to the yukon where he ran a saloon and took advantage of the gold boom didn’t go.
Looking for gold, but he you knew they knew his saloon – was a safe place where all the games are above level, all the casino games, and that you could hide your or store your gold and money with him and he’d be sure to give it back to You when you wanted it and he made a fortune doing that he made it and lost it in gambling himself.
Then you know moved down to goldfield nevada.
When there was a gold strike there made money there.
He had the only house in goldfield nevada that had indoor plumbing, so he was originally from texas.
He he was a real wildcatter.
He really took a lot of risks.
He was married with a young daughter uh.
He died of tuberculosis and his wife died shortly after uh from repercussions from the heart childbirth.
So rickard was looking for something in his heart to replace his pain and that’s why he went up to alaska and he thought you know a good way to fill a saloon would be fights because any time i see a fight on the street, hundreds of people Gathered so he charged people mittens and then, when he went back to goldfield he did that there as well, and so you know he really used his head and he realized that money talks.
So, just to say this fighter is fighting this fighter, even though the fighters are well known, that’s not enough, so he would offer them outrageous amounts of money and he would display the money in the front of a bank where there were armed guards.
Golding, the money guarding the money which was displayed in gold, so this got people interested and excited uh in the fight.
What’S interesting about the gans fight, they fought three times: um gans won the first fight which i’m talking about today by disqualification in the 42nd round.
Uh referee was george seiler, but next two fights he was stopped uh by by uh nelson, but he was deep in the throes of tuberculosis at that point.
On this particular day on september 3rd, it was a fight to the finish people listed, often as a 45 round fight, but it wasn’t really a 45 round fight.
It almost lasted 45 rounds, but it wasn’t a 45 round fight.
It ended in the 42nd round.
Nelson was managed by a man named billy, noah nolan, who was notorious.
He was known as the butch cassidy of um a boxing manager.
He was just a swindler criminal uh scalawag um, a bomb um confederate gambler thief and fit in perfectly in professional boxing.
At that time and gans who, by 1906 had trouble making the weight limit by the way was 133 forward lightweight, not 135, as it is today and gans as he got older, like a lot of us had trouble making weight, he usually walked around at 147.
He was five six and a half, but what nolan wanted to do was usually he had to wait in three times, so you could weigh in at you know eight in the morning 10 in the morning and maybe 12 in the afternoon, and then you had three Or four hours or, however long until fight time to rehydrate, you wouldn’t allow that no gans had to agree.
I mean nolan said to him because you’re an n word, you have to do this and gans did didn’t, couldn’t, say anything and not only could he not say anything but his manager, al herford, didn’t stand up for him at all.
He didn’t care all he’s.
Thinking about is getting his money.
In fact, herford made so much money off the gans because he would bet on him to win, but because ganz was so superior in talent, he would say: don’t start trying or don’t hurt him or knock him out to the eighth or ninth round.
So her freaking bet on the exact round gans would win by knockout and make even a bigger killing with the bookies.
So, with regards to the weigh-in gans had to weigh in at 12 130 and three and the fight was to start between 3 15 and 3 30 and the contract stipulated he didn’t just have to today.
A fighter will weigh in in his underwear or wearing a towel and then subtract the weight of the underwear or towel back then gans had to include the weight of his trunks as an athletic supporter and his shoes when he weighed in so he had to weigh In at 130 and a quarter pounds, you know two and two quarter pounds almost under the wealth under the lightweight limit, and he said that would be no problem and and it wasn’t.
But when you look at him he was so thin and because he weighed in last time i think around three o’clock and the fight started at 3, 30.
half an hour was not enough time to rehydrate.
If he had weighed in at 8, 9 and 10, he would have had five hours in which you’ve had a meal, digest it and then drink.
You know as much water as he could didn’t have that nelson did nelson was allowed to weigh in early in the morning three different times, but they were performed rewinds.
No one even looked at his weight on the scale he was allowed to do what he wanted, because he was white and the other ridiculous part was gans.
Who was the undisputed champion received 11 grand and they said you’re a black guy.
You have no rights, you’re, not a person.
This is what you get take it or leave it.
Uh nelson, the challenger got twenty two thousand five hundred and when you added various incentives uh into it and and money from the uh gate, uh and i said from the gate but money from concessions, it came up to almost thirty two thousand dollars, so cans had To weigh in you know, under these strict conditions, and it didn’t really help him also back, then i heard him back.
Then there were no nice cities in the ring.
It wasn’t like you knocked a guy, i mean today we go nuts when you see a guy get knocked down and then, when he’s on the campus, the other guy hits him and people go.
Oh, my god, you hit him and he was down.
You got to disqualify the guy never happened back, then they didn’t have the rules back then, in 1906, that you went to a far this new neutral corner or standing a count.
Referee didn’t get in between you and say move back.
I didn’t happen so throughout the fight you know, um nelson would gouge dan’s eyes with his thumb.
He’D hit him with a scissor punch where he used his thumb.
He’D hold him in a headlock and head bottom and use his elbows forearms he’d use the laces to rub on his face he’d spit at him and, as i mentioned last week, gans often would bathe in a tub of his own urine to make himself so smell.
So wretched that the fighter he was fighting would just have the hardest time not throwing up during the fight.
Nelson was just they called him.
Jack, london, the writer, the abysmal brute, his other nickname, was the durable thing but and gan’s nickname was the old master which he was.
But nelson was just an unrepentant uh virulent, anti-black bigot and he hated black fighters.
He made no bones about that um.
He did everything he could to foul them to demean them verbally uh, outside the ring in the ring and physically in the ring.
He just treated him like garbage.
He thought that was his right.
He was born in copenhagen, denmark and then moved to chicago with uh to hedge which, with his uh parents.
You know when gans died years later in the 50s, very few active fighters or fighters that knew him showed up because he was genuinely disliked in his life.
Not many people like gans or rod.
Nelson excuse me, everyone loved jokans, even the people that were bigots in the crowd when they saw what nelson was doing to him.
They were saying: okay, that’s enough! That’S enough! You know let the man fight come on.
We came even see a fight, it’s not really entertaining to see nelson kick him bite him gouge him knee him head butt him album, put him in a headlock, throw him to the canvas, that’s not really a fight, and we didn’t pay to see that come on The referee george shiloh, wouldn’t do anything he didn’t disqualify uh nelson to later on and he wouldn’t and the reason was, as i said last week, fans back then most of them were lower class uh.
There were some upper class people, but regardless of that, they paid a lot of money for tickets and to disqualify a guy after five six seven ten rounds, the fans would have ride it because to them a fight with 30 or 40 rounds.
You know by the eighth ninth tenth round: gans have committed a hundred and fifty two hundred thous flagrant fouls.
I mean he came running.
He went running at gans with his head like this right into his face.
He would hold this by his arms and and do that so george seidler did nothing because the fans paid to see a fight and what these guys were getting paid was more than what the fans made in three or four years.
So if, if not longer so a fan would say, i paid this much, it’s going to take me another year to save up for to see a big fight, and then you stop it in six rounds.
That’S not fair! I want my money back, so they had to let the fight go on uh, a certain dif uh distance.
In the early rounds it was all gans.
Nelson was a crude fighter.
There really aren’t any fighters today.
You can compare them to.
You could say frank.
The animal fletcher from a while ago, but nelson didn’t have a game plan, didn’t really have much style.
He didn’t jab his way in.
He didn’t move his head back and forth.
He wasn’t a stick and move fighter.
He wasn’t even a face.
First, a guy comes in a basic slugger.
He was a dirty filthy, evil, uncouth thug, that was badly nelson, and so he came into the ring, and you know he would he would constantly grab uh gangs hit him in the kidneys hit him behind the head.
Elbow on the head, but him the fight’s on youtube, but the film i’ve seen in the fight.
It’S so grainy, it’s almost unwatchable somewhere.
There has to be a good copy of it, but i haven’t found it yet.
So nelson is doing this and gans used a similar defense to that of muhammad ali ganz would often move back right, so he would move back to avoid nelson’s shot, which was easy to do, because nelson telegraphed all his punches and he would use the shoulder roll.
He would slip and he would slide and when nelson would come in he’d hit him with a double jab and then come up with a right, uppercut, followed by a left hook and a right hand, and he was beating the living hell out of nelson.
You know eight nine ten rounds.
Nelson’S lips were shredded his head, his nose was broken.
He had bleeding ear, but it didn’t matter because nelson almost seemed to get stronger and enjoy the fight more.
The more you hit him nelson would come in and gans would hit him three four five six shots in a row to the head and not pity pat punches punches.
Where you go wow.
How did he take that and he took it? He took it uh how he took those shots, i’ll, never know, but he took them and and ganzo’s pounding his head like a tetherball back and forth and nelson just would you know, bang his gloves together and keep coming forward and keep throwing punches.
I know that uh, i would say around um 12th round.
A very interesting thing happened: um nelson slipped and fell to the canvas he was down on the canvas and, as i mentioned before, there are no niceties he didn’t have to go to the opposite corner, whatever gans would have been in his right to punch him in The face he could have done that, but instead he helped him up um and uh ife, i’m glad you like this and gans helped nelson up with both hands.
Nelson accepted it and then repaid him by grabbing his head and head-butting him, and the thing was he did knock him down later in the fight, but when, when um, when gans knocked him down, he really hurt him.
He hit him in the 15th.
I believe it was with her right hand and during the 15th nelson was elbowing him and head butting him kneeing him gan’s man to wrangle himself free, create some distance with his jab, come over with a thunderous right hand, and it spun almost took nelson’s ear off It spun him around and he went down on the canvas and everyone in the arena and goldfield thought.
That’S it he’s done and he got up at the counter too.
He couldn’t wait to get in.
He was almost indignant when a punch missed him.
That’S how much punishment he could take and he was seriously hurt at that time i mean he was he was pounded, but um.
You know he also had nelson out numerous times during the fight out in his feet, where nelson eyes rolled and – and you could see that every punch he landed uh.
The cans was landing over and over and over was directing him in a different position.
So ganson landed a left hook and he’d hit him, and the left hook would hit him here on the right and they would spin him around and land the right hook and spin around the other way.
Nelson just soaked it all up, gans, couldn’t believe it and the fans couldn’t believe it.
They would think how much punishment could a man take and, of course, a guy who fights like that has a short shelf life while it’s there it’s exciting, but in the end it’s the law of diminishing returns.
You also have to remember one reason: nelson could take it was he was 24.
He was just coming into his prime and gans was 31 in the beginning, throws of tuberculosis and he was just a little bit past his prime, but he was fighting his best at the end of the 15th round.
Uh nelson’s left eye was closed.
He was bleeding from both ears and his mouth and his nose and he had numerous cuts on his face.
I mean the audience.
The crowd in attendance thought you know, he’s he’s either going to be knocked out or killed, but he’s not leaving here alive.
So, as i mentioned before, nelson was born 1882 june 5th and seven years younger um gans did everything he could during that fight used all of his skill um to to defeat nelson uh to outsmart him.
You see on the tape they clinch quite a bit, but you could see.
Gans was the bigger man.
I almost get a sense that sometimes when they were clenching that gans could have easily overpowered nelson but didn’t want to because it wouldn’t have been in the fans.
Favor they would not have liked that to see a black man manhandling a white man, so i don’t know how much of it was gan’s letting nelson in the fight.
You know giving him a chance to make it look close or nelson, just being able to have a superhuman ability to absorb punishment and keep coming, because that’s what he was doing throughout the fight and it became a war of attrition.
How much could how many fouls could gans take as opposed to how much actual real punishment could nelson take and you’re thinking it was so hot? They said it was.
It was like opening a hot oven and trying to breathe with that warm steamy, hot oven, air coming onto you and that’s the you know they fought 120 degrees or whatever was 110, and it was very difficult to breathe and gans beginning tuberculosis was even more difficult For him you know, he’s gulping air he’s he’s drinking water back then.
You know a lot of times up until recently, they’d spit the water out, not realizing that you’re, probably better taking it in because you’re dehydrating tremendously during fight, and also especially in that heat, you’re, dehydrating and you see in between rounds.
Each fighter has four or five guys fiercely waving towels at them, while another person is holding an umbrella over them to protect him from the sun.
So gans is clinching after he’s being fouled he’s hitting nelson uppercuts on the inside, he’s pounding him to the belly, but really he’s tearing his face up his nose up and nelson just keeps taking it.
He refuses to be beat.
He keeps coming after gans.
He figures.
Gans is seven years older yeah, he had to know.
Gans was a sick man.
Gans had had the disadvantage of having to weigh in just before the fight, so he was losing weight rapidly.
He was losing strength, but still at times as the fight went on from the 10th to the 15th to the 20th to the 25th round.
Gans would have his brief moments as spurts, where he would show his magic in the ring and he could pull out the round.
But the longer the fight went on the more nelson kept grinding him down.
Nelson kept, as i said, using all the foul tactics taking shots into his kidneys into his liver, trying to thumb his eyes, trying to gouge his eyes.
Head-Butting him elbowing him and referee george seiler, doing nothing about it and gans being the gentleman that he was didn’t.
Complain knowing that, if he complained it wouldn’t have done anything anyways, but even though most of the fans in the audience wanted gans to lose eventually his humanity and his refusal to complain under the most adverse conditions won over a lot of even the most uh vile.
Bigoted fans and they started screaming at the referee to start warning nelson and it wasn’t until the 15th round.
I believe, where referee george siler just said to nelson tap them on the show and said: stop the headbutting.
You know just stop it and, of course, nelson.
Just ignored him, he didn’t care, there were no rules in boxing.
As far as he was concerned, there was a fight.
Today we know a fight as a professional prize fight.
The nelson would just beat the man to death.
Kick him bite him head bottom thumb him.
Gouge him step on his toes spit on him knee him in the crotch.
Whatever you can do to win, that was nelson and the fight goes on for for uh 20 rounds 25 rounds.
It keeps going on and on and on and uh it was.
It was difficult because he’s a man who’s losing strength in the ring, he’s losing he’s not in good health, but he’s determined to win and he keeps hanging in there and they’re both wondering what is holding each other up.
So we get to the 30th round.
You know and then blazing heat 35th round and people are starting to think the fight should be stopped because nelson’s eyes are closed.
I mean he’s got to be turned by his corner in the right direction.
So he said.
Sometimes you know when your eyes are closed.
You can sense where someone is or someone’s moving and that’s basically how he held how he sensed uh, gans gans would hit him.
So he knew where the punch was coming from and he raced after him, but he was just getting beaten to a pulp severely and because of that you know his eyesight was his eyes were closed.
He couldn’t see he’s losing a lot of blood, but he doesn’t care because to him, it’s who comes out on top in the end, and while this is going on when he’s clinching with gans he’s jumping up the head, but him you know, he’s he’s lacing him With the gloves he’s hitting him on top of the head, you know he’s bringing his knee up to his crotch he’s hitting him low he’ll, put him in a headlock and hit him in low three or four times and as the fight went on and the fans Became more unruly and started to scream and threaten the referee.
George seiler and nelson sadler became a bit more adamant very reluctantly, albeit to stop nelson from doing this, and so the warnings became more and more.
You have to stop doing this, this you’re losing every round, but you can’t keep fouling him.
If you keep fouling him you’re going to lose, i’m going to disqualify you and nelson just said: there’s no way: you’re not going to disqualify a white man fighting a black man.
Black man has no rights.
So, therefore, you cannot disqualify and he didn’t say that, but that was his opinion and that was everyone’s opinion back there and that’s the way the sport was run back then, and so they kept fighting and fighting.
You know 30 rounds.
35.
36.
38Th round.
You know 40th round they come out for the 41st round.
They’Re, both exhausted they can both barely move.
Gans is literally dying from tuberculosis.
Nelson is beaten to a pulp.
How he lived is beyond anyone’s knowledge.
The fight should have been stopped a long time before, although nelson just refused to let the fight be stopped.
But, unlike today you know a fighter could do that back.
Then it wasn’t really the referee who could do that he should have, but he didn’t.
We get to the 42nd round and when you watch the tape it ends quickly, they’re fighting in close and they’re clinching, and then they move to the side.
Ropes and they’re.
Fighting and gans just goes down rolls over grabbing his crotch and seiler weighs it off waves.
It off and he disqualifies him – he qualifies.
Nelson and people were happy in the audience, but they were shocked.
Nelson was furious, gans didn’t really know he was insensible at that time or in sensei, because he’d been hit so hard in the testicles and he was so exhausted and he’s trying to catch his breath.
They had to put ice on his testicles to help.
You know to help revive him.
It took him a long time to get to his corner and to be helped and carried back to his dressing.
Room and and nelson was furious, but you know he couldn’t really blame anyone, but himself he fouled gans over 42 rounds.
You know a good five six hundred times.
At least i mean you can’t imagine that going on today, but then again, a fight wouldn’t last that long today, um yes, you’re right, i i fee most of the fight was fought in close of many body exchanges.
So when you watch the fight there’s very few times when there is distance between them and at times it’s frustrating because they’re holding each other and as they’re holding each other, you know they’re fighting, while they’re flinching they’re, throwing body shots and gans was the bigger man And the stronger man uh nelson was durable and much dirtier a much dirtier fighter and everything went with him.
The ganz was the stronger man and his punches wore nelson down destroyed nelson’s face and just savaged nelson’s ribs, the nelson.
His advantage was the fouls.
It was purely a thousand the fouls to headbutts the thumbs, the gouges stomping on his toes the elbows, all that was taking effect lacing his eyes on on gans, but he wasn’t complaining, like all the fighters do today turn to the ref he he knew.
That was his lot.
That was a lot of black fighters back then, and he had to take it so the fight’s over and gans wins lying on the canvas after 42 rounds.
I think the fight was like 118 minutes or something uh.
I mean it was a long long, long, 120 minutes.
It was a long fight and gans emerges still as the world champion and but a very scarred world champion because he’s taking such a horrendous beating.
Now a lot of people look at that fight and they say well that was the end of games.
It wasn’t gans, went on and and fought six more times in a row and beat some all-time greats.
He beat jimmy britt rudy unholds.
He also beat george memsick, who was a great fighter from backhand kid herman, which you can see great video of it on tape on youtube, as well as beating bob blackburn and spike robson.
So they fought again uh two years later and this time it was in coleman, california and nelson stopped him in 17 rounds by that time.
In 1908, just two years before he died before before gans died.
Uh gann in 1908 was here.
George dixon died panning list.
Two at the age of 37.
gans uh went 17 rounds.
He really had tuberculosis, then, and he was suffering and he still managed to go 13 rounds and of course, unfortunately, for gans, the referee was the worst.
I think outside of lawrence cole, in the history of boxing jack welch, who was a house referee for bulgars, and he allowed fighters to to uh, especially white fighters, to fell black fighters and any fighter that bought him bought him off.
Welsh was always for sale.
Uh.
Just an out-and-out criminal uh nelson made sure that he paid him enough that he would ignore all the fouls and uh he was able to stop him gans in the 17th round.
It’S sad one of my favorite pictures in boxing uh and and it’s uh in a book by arn kane lang and it’s about boxing it’s about the nelson woolcats fight boxing in california and san francisco.
In that era, it shows the most remarkable boxing photo outside of ali over listening that i’ve ever seen, which is a photo and sitting side by side by side, are joe gans.
Looking unhappy serious barbados, joe walcott and george dixon, the first three black men, the three of the greatest fighters to ever walk the face of this earth to be world champions.
Dixon wants to first dixon, of course looks like looks terrible he’s broke, he’s got a white, odd white hat on his clothes are tattered uh.
None of them look happy because they’ve all been ripped off dickson was ripped off and mistreated by his uh criminal minded manager.
Tom o’rourke, his sister dixon married and uh, they helped out tried to help out barbados joe walked up, but ripped him off.
All three of those guys ended up in the gym and uh pretty well homeless.
So after he wins the six fights after winning his qualification against uh nelson, as i said he he loses to nelson, and then he fights him just two months later and he was knocked out in the 21st round of a fight that was scheduled for 45 rounds And after that fight after that fight, he fought once more.
That was it.
Gann said he wasn’t.
He was you know: tuberculosis had consumed him.
He lost the news, he earned a newspaper decision over a guy named jabez white, and this was on in new york march 12.
1909, and you know he died in 1910.
Unfortunately, uh he had gone for to, i think, arizona or somewhere in california to help with his tuberculosis, but he wanted to get home and see his family before he died and he never made it.
He uh was being transferred to baltimore and died on the way there died on on.
In 1910, two years after the great george dixon died and uh.
It was sad um.
He he was a great man.
He was a gentleman.
There was a statue of him at new york’s madison square garden for a long time, and people would rub the knee of the statue when they walked in fighters would for good luck.
We don’t know where that statue is now uh.
Nelson went on to fight for long much longer, uh after winning the title against against him.
He went and um fought and was champ for two more years until he came up against a whirlwind named the michigan wildcat, as i covered last week at wolgass, who beat him to a pulp and then not too long after that.
He took on the power punching brit owen moran, who knocked him out cold and nelson kept fighting and fighting and fighting uh winning as much as losing as much as winning his last fight was for the world title against the sublime and supreme freddie welsh, who won Uh every round in the 10-round fight, the only way nelson they said could win was if he could stop him within 10 rounds.
But welsh was such a great boxer.
Nelson was said to have landed only six punches of consequence in ten rounds.
Nelson after his career uh ended up destitute because he was a vile person.
He tried different um uh businesses.
You know how they had you when i was a kid: they had the bozo, the clown uh punch, not a punching bag, but that thing that stood on the ground, you push it and it would come back.
They had both of the clown different ones.
We had one, and it was supposed to be a black person that you could hit and promoting racial violence towards black people, and he had thousands of them made and sold none, and then he had some since it was the second world war made of kaiser wilhelm Sold none and he went to various businesses, but he was broke.
They all went under uh.
He was a thoroughly dislikable person uh.
He was married and the woman divorced him after he, you know, attacked her and beaten her up.
He was indigent uh.
This was a person who i mean he was nuts.
You know when dempsey fought willard, because it was such a hot day in toledo.
They had tubs of lemonade that they were going to make a fortune off of and when they were going to get it ready to bottle the morning of the fight.
There was a nude battling nelson bathing.
In the lemonade i mean no manners just a vile thug.
You know it’s interesting how, throughout boxing history, uh racist white fighters and managers and media i’ve always called afro-american fighters savages and thugs.
But when you look at it, it’s always the white fighters and managers of media that turned out to be more savage, more thuggish and more vicious and vile towards their fellow human beings than any african-american fighter that anyone could ever name in the history of the sport.
Of boxing, so he lived, i believe until i have it in my records here uh.
He lived until i believe 1954 [ Music ] and he he um yeah.
He he died in the gym.
Very few people showed up at nelson’s uh funeral.
No one liked him.
He was a thoroughly disliked character and you can see why he actually uh a couple years after beating gans went to gans hotel in baltimore to see if you could borrow money from them and just to go.
You know mitigate the golf someone doing that to you and dan’s met him and gave him money.
He was polite and i don’t know if that was gan’s being a gentleman which he was organs are saying.
This is the way the times are.
This is a white guy.
I have a hotel uh.
I cannot turn him away.
If i turn him away i’ll, i could be attacked and uh, so i don’t want to do that and he helped him out.
As i said, nelson died february 7th 1954 in chicago.
He had full-on dementia sad thing is that uh, nelson or gans was, i think, 37 when he died in 1910 and just a young man, and things like that break my heart, especially when george dixon died in 1908, because he was also 37 38.
They died at ages.
If you think about it.
I was born in 1960, so if they could have lived another 20 30 years, we could have had them on tape.
Speaking we could have seen their their reaction.
We could have heard their voice.
We could have really got to know them as people which just matters so much in how you look at a particular fighter.
Um, i’m sorry to be rambling on here about that.
But this was an epic fight, uh 42-round fight.
There were fights that lasted longer than that, but this fight, you know it was after this fight where text records said because of all the violence in the fight there were fights in the audience.
Uh blacks were attacked and killed, uh all throughout america.
After this fight that rickard said i’ll, never promote another mixed fight again, but of course, four years later he did jack johnson jim jeffries, which was an epic mismatch in which johnson destroyed him in 15 rounds easily johnson could have taken him out in the first round, But he didn’t um joe gans has to be when you rate the greatest fighters of all time pound for pound people will now say: sugary, robinson willie, pat muhammad ali floyd, mayweather gans, has to be up there.
Uh, as i said earlier at the beginning of the broadcast most historians today, they don’t include guys from from that era.
They don’t know anything about them.
They don’t know how skilled they were.
Where do you think all these moves and the shoulder roll and all the you know low manchenko stuff? Where do you think that came from? I didn’t just appear out of the ether that came from fighters that came before them that perfected these techniques and joe ganz was truly a fighter without a flaw.
He was a master.
You know you put him in today’s world and it’s unlikely he ever loses back.
Then he had to put up with racism getting ripped off for his purses uh.
He had to put up with possibly being attacked by fans fighters that he fought would often spit in his face during the referee’s instructions or when they went to sign contracts and and gans would never change his expression he’d never give in.
He would never attack back that, wasn’t his nature and it wouldn’t have been safe for him to do it.
Anyways september 3rd 1906, if you get a chance, as i always say, watch it on youtube.
Try to find a good version of it.
You can find colorized version of it where you can see two or three minutes of it.
Uh.
You can see gann’s artistry watch, gans fight kid herman.
I mean the way he’s on the ropes, even when he loses on purpose to terry mcgovern.
The way he’s slipping shots and sliding and catching him with his elbows in his reach.
He knew how to use that jab.
He knew how to bring that hand back.
You know he’d throw the right hand and when he threw the right hand, his left would be up.
So if he missed – and you came over left hook, he’d move it over and block it right hook and move it over and block it.
He was perfectly trained.
He knew what he was doing at all times.
There was no wasted motion in the ring.
He had the best ring geography and and field the vision in the ring of any fighter that ever lived.
He knew exactly where he was in in proportion to and racial to.
Excuse me to his opponent and to where the ropes were so.
He always knew where he was.
He always do the distance.
He was a master of distance and range which made him so difficult to hit.
You have to remember, he didn’t die of dementia.
He had his faculties about him because he never got hit that often what he died of was from tuberculosis, unfortunately, which was a scourge that took over a million lives so at that in that time period this was a great fight, nelson, whom, as you can tell, I don’t particularly like still is in the hall of fame.
He was the world lightweight champion.
He took phenomenal beatings which in the end, shortened his life and he lived long.
A large part of the last years of his life broke homeless and it was supreme dementia because of the style he fought.
Gans went out as looked on in history as one of the top one or two greatest fighters that ever lived and real boxing historians.
The great ones like my dear friend, dom jeske who’s just recovering from open heart surgery.
I love you don.
I hope you get better soon and and thomas houser and douglas fisher and all all these other uh people that i like william detloff uh, nigel collins.
They know the real history of boxing, so you can talk to them.
You can go online.
Ask them about this fight, you can go online and get me and ask me about this fight.
This is one of the all-time great spectacular fights in boxing history.
You have to go on youtube, regardless of the quality of the film and watch joe gans, and get as much about joe gans as you possibly can.
My friend dear friend, who just passed away.
William uh gildea wrote this book the longest fight about the gans nelson fight.
That’S joe gans wearing his his favorite color suit.
Green he’s got a gold belt uh chain there attached to a watch.
He had a diamond stick pin he was a real dude.
He dressed well didn’t have much money because he got ripped off.
He was terrible, gambler he’d waste, his money gambling, but he always had great clothes.
He was what we call a real sport, a true world champion, an all-time great and a person who deserves to be uh, remembered uh, there’s been many great books on him uh, my dear friend and another brilliant boxing historian, colleen aycock wrote a great book on gans And also on the great black fighters and check out her books because they’re well worth reading my name’s lou eisen.
I really hope you enjoyed this show, but more than that, i hope you get excited about boxing and a lot of these fights um from back.
Then um and yes, just before i sign off hyphy you’re right all those fights where he had to make such low weights did take a toll on his body and it probably did make him a susceptible uh to to tuberculosis, because it’ll weaken his immune system.
We don’t know that for sure you know, but you’re you’re you’re, very right, um, i’m glad you enjoyed the lemonade story.
I want to thank you if you, for, if i’m pronouncing it, hopefully i’m pronouncing your name correctly from um enjoying this.
This is where boxing began.
You can’t be great and love the sport today, if you don’t know the history of it and that’s why i’m always mentioning these other uh, these great boxing, none other, but these great boxing historians that are well worth reading ring magazine, ringside seat magazine, which is great.
Please get involved in the sport watch these podcasts, you know on on um talking fights you’re, not only going to learn about boxing, like you did with joe ganza battling nelson you’re, going to learn about the social and cultural history and political history of canada, the united States and every country around the world, and that to me, is what matters most.
I hope you enjoyed the show today.
My name is lou eisen.
Thank you for watching ring talk and we’re going to see you back here next sunday.
At the same time, take care have a great week.
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