AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 1
Join us this Sunday on Ring Talk, as our esteemed host Lou Eisen sits down with author Jason Winders to delve into the enthralling life and career of Canadian George Dixon, the first black man to hold an undisputed world boxing title.
Jason Winders, renowned for his thorough research and engaging writing, will be discussing his latest book that spotlights the trailblazing journey of George Dixon. Uncover the victories, challenges, and historical impact of this boxing legend, while gaining insights into Winders’ process of encapsulating such a monumental figure into words.
Be sure to tune in this Sunday for a captivating discussion about boxing history, racial barriers, and personal triumphs that still resonate today.
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Transcribed
[, Music, ] foreign [, Music, ] boxing writer historian and soon to be author this week and we have a very, very special guest on today’s show somebody I’ve been waiting a long time.
Somebody admire greatly to have on Mr Jason, winders and Jason wrote.
The Magnificent book on which you sent me an autograph copy, uh George Dixon George Dixon is the first: was the first black person ever ever to hold a world boxing title.
It’S the first one to to lose it the first one to regain it.
He was a multi-divisional champion, invented the speed bag and and Shadow Boxing and one of the all-time greats, and there isn’t even a stamp from Canada, Post honoring him, but he’s a it was one of the pillars of modern boxing and we’re pleased as punched.
No pun intended to have the author of This Magnificent Tome, Mr Jason winders on her show today, thanks for having me Lou.
This is a this is a real honor man.
Oh thank you.
The honor is all ours and especially mine.
They I have a question.
I want to ask you right off the top about George Dixon um.
I know you’ve seen this clip there’s a clip of of Barbados, Joe Walcott in the 30s talking from Madison Square Garden, where he was working as a janitor, and he talked about Gans and Joe coins.
Skiing different people are there any? I guess there wouldn’t be, but would there be anything of Dixon’s voice or maybe not because he died in 1908, so it wasn’t soon enough.
Yet yeah.
The the part of his part of his Erasure from from Modern memory is that there’s just very little in the digital space of him.
So you have no.
You have no voice recordings that I know of there’s one very short clip which is a staged.
Uh fight that was filmed in front of a kind of a fight that you can find on YouTube very, very stage thing so uh him in his later years, um and even even for historians, the some of the hardest part there’s very little.
That’S we know of that’s actually in his voice like written um.
So his you know, don’t know personal letters, there’s a few things that are in newspapers that are um, that I bring up in the book that are supposedly in his voice but sure sound.
A lot like his manager, Tom O’Rourke, you know so I probably ghost written so yeah he’s he’s a real Enigma and probably part of part of his ratio for 100 years has been just not having that wild paper trail, mine or digital Trail line.
Right I mean he he just it’s interesting, because O’Rourke was not a nice person and read in your book how you know he would slap Dixon at times, but he treated a lot of Fighters uh poorly and when you look at Dixon there’s a.
I wonder if you’ve seen that picture in the three colored Aces by Matt Fleischer um, it’s a photo stat in the book, but I’ve never been able to find the original of Dixon at the back of the book.
Uh with a dog, huge dog and a bunch of friends around them – and I thought what a great picture, but it’s a photo stat that came out with the original book non-studio photography of him.
You know a lot of the stuff that I track down for the you know you can.
You can find a few things that are in there and mostly it’s from those um uh.
The Black Dynamite Series has some sketches um and then, but but the Black Aces has that photo, but there wasn’t a lot of images of him.
I worked a little bit.
They had just recently digitized when I started on the book they’d recently digitized at the Harvard Library, a bunch of old cabinet cards that uh had pictured stars of that of that time.
So a lot of the a lot of the pictures in the book uh come from that, but yeah there’s I mean that’s one of the very few.
What you call it casual intimate moment, kind of of him right, not opposed or or not in his ring attire.
So uh there’s another one in real later life that I’ve also never been able to find the original.
On these I mean he wasn’t that old, but he looks like he’s 100 years old at the time, but he’s only in his 30s but um wearing kind of a straw hat that I have no idea where that mattered right.
I’Ve seen that yeah and it’s that famous one with him in and uh Barbados, Joe Walcott and Joe Gans, and they none of them look happy but of course, they’re not getting paid for promise they’re ripped off by racist managers, and you know it.
The picture can’t talk, but it does talk, it does tell you, like you know, they’re looking their face tells you.
This is what’s going on with us right now and that’s such an interesting time right and and it’s you know, Dixon can only exist in our history.
For about a 30-year period like it’s that period right after the end of the Civil War and right before the separate but equal that comes out of Plessy versus Ferguson, that really starts to set up set in the into motion.
Um the racial divide in the states.
Um, there’s that 30-year period there, where there is some quote, unquote opportunity for black advancement, there’s some opportunity for black success and to accumulate wealth um any time earlier.
The blacks are enslaved in the states and any time later, they’re being legislated out of power.
So there’s this really interesting window that Dixon could only exist within this 30-year window in its history.
I think, even afterwards, even after you get to you, know later time periods where, where even some of the black athletes are starting to gain some traction, you know Dixon was so tiny, like you’re talking the age of the heavyweights by that time.
So yeah like really this window, the the light the lighter smaller finders were still packing them in and and we’re gaining interest at hundreds and hundreds of newspaper articles are still being written about them.
So I I love that fact about Dixon and that he could just there’s a moment in time in America that he could exist and that’s and he existed.
Oh yeah, I mean people.
People have to understand that, with with George Dixon, the time frame, it’s right after the Civil War, he was born five years after the Civil War ended.
You know uh August 29th, 1870 and then you go to uh.
You know 20 years later or 1890.
.
It’S only 25 years after the end of the Civil War.
So you know America is still very much in that time frame.
There’S still stuff happening, but you’re right, he’s constricted by the by by the racism and endemic to uh uh endemic to his era, and I was going to tell you a quick story.
Uh.
I went online to the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.
It used to be in Toronto, it’s in Calgary now and they had a picture of George of Jack Johnson getting off the boat uh in Victoria and he couldn’t find a place to stay.
But there he is on the boat and he’s towering over everyone.
And it says Canadian Champion world champion George Dixon, and so I called him and they said well.
Our historians said I said your historians full of you know what I said.
Dixon was Tiny.
You know you’re looking at a guy who’s, not much bigger than Danny DeVito.
I mean yeah he’s five, two five three at the most you know, um uh Johnson was six one and a half and what’s the date of your picture, uh 1911.
right Dixon died.
Three years earlier, that’d be quite a queen to actually come back from the dead and then grow over her foot.
I’M gon na have to add a chapter or two yeah yeah, absolutely so it’s it saddens me that people, like I mentioned before of Canada Post, I sent the whole dasai on them.
I referenced your book.
I said: get this book buy this book.
This guy’s a hero and he’s starting to be claimed by American historians, and when I spoke to Adam Pollock, the publisher down there and and Brilliant writer, he said he said, listen Canadians as a rule, don’t like to hang on to other Heroes.
They don’t care about them, especially the sports Heroes.
So that’s your problem and they didn’t even read it.
I think they said who would be interested in him as opposed to they mentioned someone else, and I said the woman you gave a stamp to deserves a stamp.
I’M not stupid, I’m not going to denigrator, but she wasn’t born in Canada.
George Dixon was born here and he was raised here and he was the first.
He had so many firsts in his career.
It was a man of first and why he – and you know one of the interesting things is that those blurred lines between Canadians and Americans that dying, especially East Coasters, that Halifax Boston connection was probably more related to each other than Boston was to Chicago.
You know right this is this is a very tight there’s, a lot of back and forth, so him moving to Boston is not leaving Canada.
You know like it is, but it is absolutely and so he’s referred to throughout his career as as Canadian you know or or a lot of it was Bostonian, but but I mean he never lost his Canadian connection and reference.
No, he didn’t he wasn’t.
You know he wasn’t waving the flag, but not many were waving the Canadian flag at that time anyway.
But but you know it’s it’s, he did move to the States and it’s easy to claim him there, but no absolutely like he.
He maintained his canadianness in the eyes of a lot of people for [ Music, ] yeah.
It’S a well-worn corridor, like you said, because before him you had uh the original George Godfrey coming from Prince Edward Island and then George budge, Byers and buyers.
Train Langford Langford came along the same route, and so did the mysterious Billy Smith and all those great Fighters went down there.
You know from the maritimes to to Boston because that’s where the fighting was, it wasn’t fighting.
They had some fighting in Halifax and there was fighting in Toronto and Ottawa and Winnipeg, but it wasn’t nearly you could make a living in the States.
You couldn’t make a living at it in Canada same as show business today in 2023.
, you can make a living in the United States, but you certainly can’t in Canada so that that was the land of opportunity, not just for Dixon, but fighters from all over the World, Australia, as you know, England, they all wanted to get the United States.
That’S where the big money was yeah.
It wasn’t just a black opportunity thing.
It was an opportunity for all over, and that was a I mean.
You know there’s a time where we really you were.
You were really labeled by your your race or ethnicity, and that was kind of part of your marketing a lot of times right.
You know that was part of the part of the sales pitch when they uh and that that that went up to um, 30s and 40s Jimmy McLaren and Barton Ross.
You know they’re called they’re called McLaren the Jew killer and McLaren and Sue papers for that because yeah you said these are.
These are just the I don’t care what their religion is.
They’Re, my friends, my Hero’s Benny Leonard.
I I I’m not discriminating against anyone, but it sold tickets, it filled stadiums and – and you know, with George Dixon – I wanted to ask you, you know what it must have been like for him when he’s going to these places.
I I read a story, I don’t know if it’s apocryphal or not where they asked him, you always fight in ring Center, never see you fight on the ropes and he pulled his pant leg up, and I read this in an article that or one of Matt Fletcher’S books, which were notoriously uh factually and correct but and fantasy, but where Dixon and Walcott and Gans had you know, bumps bruises and big chunks of skin missing from their knees and legs, because their opponents Corner men or fans would hit them with pipes and all Sorts of things you know it was that bigoted.
Well, every now you know we look at it with Modern Eyes that these audiences are coming into.
You know, sitting in their seats and their security.
You know we’re picturing it in a modern context, but man, some of these rights were these things were free-for-alls man.
You know you’d, see you’d, see stories in the paper the day before of things you can’t bring.
You know like please right, please, no pipes or canes or stuff like that.
You know right.
It’S uh.
It was a far more Rowdy experience, so yeah like you’d, see reference to it, uh and fights and stuff, but I mean I never saw him directly speak about that having to fight the center ring because of that, but you certainly see these kind of uh mentions Of it and fight stories that I totally buy, it totally buy it.
Well, yeah I mean there’s a story of uh.
You know Jack Johnson had to fight with people in the audience had had uh shotguns, I mean just to think of the the cajones it took for Dixon to go fight in the south in the Tournament of Champions and anywhere and beat a white guy and easily Beat him knowing that everyone there didn’t like him and wanted to hurt him? It’S and still.
You know that that moment and I dedicate the largest challenge of the book to that to that single fight and that and that three-day Championship, which is a pretty significant time period, but uh in in all of boxing history, American history and world history.
Everything coming together at once right and you got like it’s taking place.
This is essentially you know.
The Civil War is fresh.
What we mentioned earlier, like it’s as fresh to them as 9 11, is to us right like like that people of a certain age that that was just yesterday, yeah right uh, so they him going.
I mean, if going south of the Mason Dixon, which is something he just did for that like he kept, he kept fights kept fights North, just probably for his own safety, but I mean the The Firestorm that created in the Press, local governments, it pretty much ended Mixed race fighting, you know for a generation down there and this and it’s because he just pummeled the hell out of us.
I mean he he carried him.
I mean he could have easily taken him out in a round.
You know his skill set was so superior, but one of the things I love you mentioned in the book is how he stood up and said: there’s got to be black people able to watch the fight yeah and there were it’s a it’s an interesting story on That whole venue and how they put this thing together – and you know the city didn’t – have fighting for a while, and it was worried about the element and rightfully so they kind of gathered around that, and they do this Carnival thing they’re bringing I mean there are Stories in papers in California about this thing and there are advertisements of from from train tickets to like packages almost to go to this.
This was a big big deal and part of this part of his conditions that he set down was reserving a certain collection of tickets for black members of the community.
There, which you know the community, is heavy influenced in that that black French Creole was still very, very influenced down there and uh strong black population down there that that kind of got to participate in this kind of important event yeah just so people watching.
No, that’s! Where Louis Armstrong came from, oh so yeah that’s a very fertile area, and I mean what Jason visit I mean that wasn’t wasn’t that, unlike him to do that, to make a racial stand like that.
Yeah like this is not his thing.
This is a tough.
You know this is a tough thing to bring up right like we, we love to portray.
You know, we really would love him to be a black hero and he really wasn’t like.
I don’t think he had the opportunity to two events.
He was really hemmed in by his white manager.
He was married to his manager’s sister uh.
You know so here he is very yeah white woman.
Who was you know if his manager wasn’t controlling his wealth? His wife certainly was so like he was completely trapped.
What happened you know, we’ve been trying.
I’Ve been trying to trace her for years, even Tom’s, not the easiest.
You know right.
Yeah, like the overworks, are not an easy easy.
I mean it’s such a.
I mean common name of course, but like it’s, it’s a it’s.
A line that was tough to find like I wanted to confirm there were no children like I.
I I’ve never seen reference to one ever, but it’s it’s.
I I mean that is like.
She is a great untold story in that, but I would love to have some pieces.
There were some interviews with her like I found there a couple of them, but nothing much more than that yeah.
You know we.
We both know Tony G.
The bare knuckle historian in Britain and he he sent me some I’ll – send you probably have it um stuff from overseas from Australia about George Dixon and Britain, and it mentions her, but just just in passing Dixon come over but didn’t bring his wife Kitty with him And because and that’s it you’re thinking, okay, it’s frustrating because you tried it’s almost like at a place from Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid.
It’S almost like she’s been a race from history.
When years ago I was lucky to speak to Admiral Dundee introduced me to Ray arcel the great trainer and there’s a bunch of people talking, embraced it somewhere, and it’s the only time they said they always saw Reagan angry and someone said.
Is it true that Fannie Lennon, who he trained and Joe Gans and George Dixon all these guys had thick fights and avoid that ourselves and he said they weren’t fixed in the common sense? You understand the word: they were fixed in the sense that no one people were literally terrified to get in the ring against George Dixon and unless he agreed not to absolutely annihilate them in a round or two, they wouldn’t do it.
They would say the money.
Just isn’t worth the beating, so he would have to agree, I guess to carry them for eight rounds.
Let them hit him and then after eight or nine rounds they would say: okay go ahead, you can fight.
Now I mean that’s incredible yeah to have handcuffs, and you just see the number of fights that are like we don’t know like you’re he’s attributed up to 900 I’ve seen 1200 like like just but this was these.
You know he become part of these shows that would come in and all you know it takes on people from the audience.
You know it was just some of the stuff is just chaos that was just he was just exposed to outside of his normal normal agreed upon fights, it was wild.
Well, this is the one thing I want to ask you.
I think I can understand the eight 900 fights and even up to 1200 and I have – and you have more than I have obviously um but you’ve seen these photos of him saying George Dixon fights five men tonight um and there’s several of those.
So if you, if you and math, is not my strong point, yes absolutely, and you know I’m like that, SNL sketch of Cherry Chase playing Gerald Ford.
I thought there would be no math.
But when you look at him, five fights a night fighting people from the audience and and and also you know, fighting under different names because he didn’t want to give her work the money.
So he might fight two or three times in a night in the same area but different clubs.
You could understand how he fought that many times it’s just almost impossible to trace.
It won’t go unfortunately, yeah.
It’S it’s impossible like we’re dependent on you know, and it’s not you know it’s something interesting.
I think you probably had some great insight into as well.
It’S it’s.
You know.
I think it’s important that we get some of these stories down from this era, because we’re increasingly dependent on our source, material being digitized, and that is so expensive to do, and it’s the first thing cut by you know.
First of all, these newspaper organizations are swallowing up each other and the archives are not being well preserved.
Libraries are strapped for budget, so digitizing these all going back and digitizing.
These old papers is not a priority um, and so I you know it’s getting harder and harder to access some of this information that that helps tell these stories of of these Fighters and uh.
So it’s it’s.
You know even for this book, I think about half.
Probably about more than that, probably about two-thirds was digital archives, uh and the other third was was some physical physical archive work and and help from people that you know.
I was lucky that the um please get that National Police good still has their collection of stuff.
Even though it’s not online, some folks down in New Orleans were really helpful, um and archives down there being able to pull some stuff off and just throw on a copier for me um, but yeah these.
You talk about these stories.
These people disappearing.
It’S it’s! The actual Source material is getting harder and harder I mean: do you find that as you’re doing your research like what are you finding yeah? Absolutely with some of them? I want to do one on George uh buyers and yeah.
It’S just very it’s difficult.
When I spoke to yeah, you speak to various people and it’s just yeah, it’s very hard to find it or if you do find family members, it’s I want some money for it.
Yeah right, but – and you say I’m writing this history of your relative.
I’M not going to make much of any money on it.
I just want to maturely remembered forever.
I don’t have thousands to ask: ask you if he had four siblings or three siblings.
I mean really so but yeah you’re right and it’s heartbreaking to me, Jason, because it’s destroying part of the fabric of a country when you, when you don’t do that and what you said about the papers with so bang on, because we see every day in in Canada, but in the states and around the world, this paper lays off 200 people.
This paper lays out 50 people they’re laying off their archive section, they’re, laying off their support section, and you just think what are you doing? You’Re you’re laying off history that we need that that people have to know about yeah.
That’S why people grow up and don’t know about George Dixon to me: it’s criminal that that he’s not a household name in Canada.
It’S absolutely criminal.
I totally agree, and I think that’s why this Parks, Canada, uh recognition here in the last few weeks is – is huge because you, you know it’s it’s the first, it’s hard to believe, but it’s the first national recognition of of George uh in Canada.
It’S it’s a plaque, it’s, but it’s it’s a physical plaque and Halifax so yeah and I mean still a plaque, but it’s it’s being part of this being named that he’s now going to have some digital footprint and the government digital digital footprint, among Parks, Canada and I’Ve already noticed that I have you know news alerts for George Dixon this evening, FAFSA and you like you notice now, if you search George, that pops up now so it’s the the prominence is, is bubbled up a little now it’d.
Be nice, though, because you cared enough to do the book and you brought him.
This is what almost brings me to tears.
It will, if I don’t control myself, you brought them back to life.
You put Flesh on the bone.
You reach back through the sands of time.
You grabbed his hand and you pull them into 2023.
So when people read this this I mean this.
It’S not only a brilliant book, it’s part of world history and you know if you have, if you have any sense of morality as a person, if you, if, if you’re a person that has empathy and it’s so much more than just a sports book or a Boxing book this is an important human being who affected millions of people throughout the world and Jason.
You brought them back to life.
You put Us beside him every day you know.
So the saddest thing to me that did bring me to tears is when the book ended, because my attitude, I wasn’t ready to leave George Dixon, yet I still wanted to be there with him.
You know, and this has to be done into a movie.
This has to be done into a documentary and into a full-length movie.
It has to be because he deserves it.
I I first of all thank you, uh.
Those are very kind words and it’s it’s.
It was the mission I went into is to to resurrect and bring him back a little bit.
My thing is, I tell people, listen man.
I just told a story of George Dixon.
This is far from the story.
There are eight ten twenty other books.
You could pull out of this and just run with you know you could do a whole a whole series on when he goes to Great Britain to fight because there’s opportunity for, and he and the other black boxers go there, because there’s opportunity and less racism in Great Britain, at the time, they’re doing circuits and making some real money over there.
They flee the United States after after Plessy versus Ferguson.
You you can, I mean the carnival Champions to me could be, could be an eight-part Netflix series.
You know like there.
There are so much going on in that three-day period.
It’S wild.
It’S I.
I always tell people the story, but when I did Cinderella Man, I said to Ron Howard.
You have to understand that this is just one of so many evocative stories about the sport of boxing.
I said: there’s George Dixon, there’s Sam Langford there’s so many great stories about the human condition that will upgrade people today will just lift people up and make their hearts soar and – and I mean who more than George Dixon – I mean the man invented the speed bag.
You know he invented Shadow Boxing won the world title lost it regained it and and oh a wall, a tsunami of racism.
He had to walk through each time and he just his skill level, was just unbelievable and yeah.
Well, you know what and died when Cinderella.
Man did well that maybe boxing I love the older boxing movie, but they’re they’re cinematic in that they take this great sport for for the screen contained.
You know violent in a lot of action.
You know, but but Cinderella Man does it put it in it, took this Sport and it took it out of the ring too and put it in a great, larger context of the world like what was going on outside the rain.
How was it manifesting itself inside the ring, and I I think, there’s that’s where the opportunity on Dixon is, I think, is that you can tell you could just tell an inside the ring story.
Heaven it’s fantastic, but if you can set up a larger societal context which is easily done um, I I think he has a lot more, a lot more to say, but there’s I agree.
I I got a lot of flack from people in boxing because they said max: fair was a nice guy and I said I know Max bear was a nice guy, but I was an actor who was told by my agent and that’s exactly what I did.
I wasn’t there as an archivist or historian.
I knew Max Baer didn’t kill or any shaft, because he, you know shaft fought like four or five more times, so you can’t have traumatic brain injury and keep fighting um with with Dixon, with his money did.
Did his money dis, I mean? Was it a combination of Thomas or taking too much is combined with him like wanting to be a sport? You know, as Randy Roberts would say, wanting to buy boots for everyone and different.
Ladies and stuff, like that, he just spent a month too quickly, there’s enough evidence of that.
A lot of them would get a lot of these spiders, not just black, but just these you know these guys were mostly poor, a lot of immigrants.
You know so they were taken advantage of and when they got money they didn’t know better and they spent money and so there, but a lot of that.
You know there’s also some stories about yours that you’re, like ah, that sounds like you’re you’re, just using that to make a racial point, but this one is this one about him being a spin Thrift and gambler like yeah like there’s enough evidence in the black papers Of them, there’s, you know, George is so well known.
He was like he was the subject of sermons.
You know on Sunday morning in in the black churches, you know that uh not only on the look at what they’re look at what our our race has accomplished, but also in the here’s, the moral pitfalls of this lifestyle kind of stuff.
So you know yeah.
So a lot of it was just burnt those guys, uneducated.
They were drawn into that lifestyle anyway and and it just it just kind of flew by fast but yeah.
You know, but I I’d still continue most days money went to Tom.
It’S I I don’t know same thing happened of Joe Ganz and Al Herford and when, when Gans left her for Hereford, um uh blacklisted him and in I don’t know if it’s in my in my book or on my sub stack, where I said Hereford belongs on The dung heap of corrupt managers at the very top, because what these guys did to their Fighters, I mean you want to you – want to kill there.
There was a fighter here in Toronto in the late 40s and 50s named little Arthur King African Canadian fighter.
He was a lightweight and he was ranked one never lower than two by Ring magazine.
The champion was Ike Williams, and so he fought as much as he could here and in Britain became the Commonwealth champion and his manager was a guy named Dave Yak, whose younger brother baby Act was a fighter, and baby Act was famous for going to the Olympics.
The alternate Olympics in Spain, uh with Sammy lovespring and then had to turn back when Frankl took power.
So Dave Yak takes his fighter, little Arthur King down to New York and he gets into the hotel and there’s a knock on the door and it’s Blinky.
Palermo puts a gun to his head and says, get out and daviac I mean he’s, he was former fighter, but he was tough.
Guy himself doesn’t flame.
She goes to get his suitcase and Claremore says no suitcase just get out, and so they took over Arthur King.
They put him on the Shelf, they wouldn’t let him fight um, Ike Williams and then seven.
He made no money and then seven, eight years later, the the promoter – Frank tunning in Toronto, paid carbo 500 000 to freedom from his contract to bring him back home.
And so when I met Arthur King in the 80s, I asked him.
You know with Palermo and he just went no, no, no, no, no well card.
No! No! He said I don’t talk about it.
I I can’t.
I cannot talk about those people because I will go down there, get a gun and kill them.
They stole.
You know.
15, 20 years of my life that I can’t get back, if you anyone mentions it, I will go commit murder.
I can’t do it and – and you know, he’s La it’s the 80s.
He can say it.
You know I mean without repercussion, but back in Dixon’s time.
He can’t come out and say: well, you know the guy that right, you can’t say or Works a crook and he’s doing this to me and that to me, because he’ll be banned by oh yeah and then you know he broke up with O’Rourke, briefly uh when He was starting to loses, loses value and he bumbled around like he needed O’Rourke.
Just as much as I worked, he needed Dixon they needed award and I think he knew that you know Dixon still lived very comfortably.
You know there are some mentions of him being among the richest black men and North America at one time, like it’s just hard to hard to picture.
What that what that is, but I mean and who fed that information – and you know like I’m, not sure what access to all that money and you know, but you know he he lived pretty well until Tom was done with it and then you know he’s he’s In poor folks homes and he’s in asylums and he’s you know, bumming around and fighting for 50 bucks got us like it’s wild yeah.
It’S once he’s once he’s Cut Loose.
He has no no ability to self-support or continue on his own and you can hobby kept downsizing.
This houses going at a nice house in a smaller house and then a smaller house and his wife.
I wonder what the breaking I guess there were a lot of breaking points with kitty.
Go work, yeah what a story like if there’s one piece I would love, there’s nothing in the ring that I really wouldn’t want to follow anymore.
But if I, if I could open up a magic box and pull out a stack of information, it’d be on her right right, that’s that’s the one piece that there’s nothing there that I would love to love to reveal.
Really.
I know that there was a member of of both members of international unboxing research organization, older guy and when he died, his daughter said that he’s got.
He had time more information.
Anyone on Earth for 100 grand it can be a horse, but I I don’t have a hundred grand and – and I got kids like you do and I can tell my kids.
I just spent this money on a box of you know newspaper Clips, but I would love like you said to see what happened to Kitty O’Rourke, I’m trying to think about 100 Grand would buy me, I’m not sure.
What’S out there because you know there’s not a lot if you look around the various Halls of Fame, even collectors, I’ve talked to a lot of collectors like these real hardcore, guys that got drop out of Grant on some gloves or something like that.
There’S not a lot of Dixon memorabilia out there uh.
No I’ve got a ticket from the carnival Champions that I found from a collector, uh wow.
There’S a couple little things like that.
Never found any equipment, never found anything with this signature.
There’S a there’s, a couple things that went up for auction were proven to be fake.
There’S not a lot of things on him.
You know there’s some even the if you go back it’s later in his career, but when the tobacco cards like the sport cards and stuff, you can find some about 1898 to about 1906.
uh.
There’S a handful of cards of him um, but I’ve never seen anybody say: oh yeah, I’ve got a championship belt.
You know right.
I open the book like it.
It’S described in the 20s as someone having it in a window.
You know so um but I’ve.
Never.
I mean maybe there’s some mystery collector out there that just keeps everything private I’ve never stumbled on any any like pieces of him, which is really interesting too.
I’Ve always thought Jason.
There should be a company that recovers things like that.
I I once helped like an Indiana Jones of sports stuff.
Yeah, maybe Patel had it title belt and I was mentioning it to a friend in Australia.
I said his family in San Francisco still wants it.
They want a bat.
This is five years ago.
10 years ago – and they said, there’s a guy here in Australia – he said I’ll check it out it.
He has it but he’s.
I said I don’t know if he’d sell it, but if he did it’d be for a lot of money, but the family was talking with the guy who had it and the guy who had it had it legally.
I mean he purchased it off someone so um, but it’d be wonderful to find all those artifacts from Dixon trunks clubs if they exist and even that Fountain so baby.
Maybe you know better than I do.
Oh yeah, I found it like even you.
I was talking to New York about it, like I thought, like they were going in the uh.
They did a yeoman’s work for me and they’re, like I’m, not 100.
Sure, that’s where it was.
I’M like well, here’s it is in the paper.
They said this is they’re like there’s, some art draw, there’s some drawings, some architectural drawings of it.
There’S some artistic drawings of it.
There’S pictures uh.
There was one picture that shows both sides, even folks in New York.
I don’t know, there’s a tunnel there now.
You know, but maybe I mean maybe you know this, but I’ve always wondered unboxing.
You know you go to the Boxing Hall of Fame.
It’S a nice venue, but it’s not Cooperstown.
You know they.
Don’T they don’t have a collection of you know.
I go to Cooperstown they’re, pulling out stuff that honest Wagner was uh war on his head, one game and 18 1898.
.
Why? Why would you like? Have you encountered that? Did it all go to collectors? What happened to boxing history or did it just get thrown out? Um, that’s a good question.
I I know the Hall of Fame, which I’m on the selection committee there for the old timers yeah specifically, but they most of their stuff, isn’t shown.
They don’t have room to show most of it.
So when a guy like Hank Kaplan, it was the head historian, the boxing historian um when he died.
His his um archives are valued at seven million and he gave it to Brooklyn College.
Yes, he said I don’t want it.
He said I love the Hall of Fame, but I don’t want it to sit in the basement, and so he had posters going back to the 1700s.
Really oh and okay, okay and gloves worn in the early 1800s and Trunks and and just odd articles uh.
You know early speed bags, early heavy bags, worn by this person, and you know we had the it was supposedly the first ever mouth guard, which was worn by Ted kid Lewis.
So he said, and it ends up, I guess in the hands of private collectors.
I know when Angela Dundee died.
I went to the funeral and I went back to have lunch later at a guy’s house with a bunch of people.
He was a hitting coach for the Yankees and I’m telling you Jason, I I was I could not.
I still can’t believe the the sports memorability had not just posters signed posters of Dempsey and Willard and Ally and Frazier, but he he had Ty Cobb signed baseballs, Ty, Cobb, um, uh, bats, Babe, Ruth bats uh.
You know Shoeless Joe Jackson, glove a bat and a hat he he had the most but he’d been in the sport for 60 years, but he had it’s.
A lot of private collectors have this stuff, so some of them, like uh Craig Hamilton, called me once because I was looking for something for George Dixon and he had George Dixon’s um daytimer.
But I didn’t you know I didn’t have thirty two thousand dollars.
I have no doubt in court that much I just didn’t, have the money at the time to spend on it.
So I asked a friend of mine, a promoter.
How do you get those things and he said you go to estate sales? A lot of people don’t know what they have, or they just want to get rid of it.
Yeah and they’ll sell Anonymous boxes or they’ll sell something.
This is some sports cards from the 20s will sell it for a grant.
Whoever wants it and then you look inside and you can’t believe you know what you have so um um yeah, it’s just it’s incredible.
So yeah, like you said Cooperstown, is heaven on Earth.
Boxing Hall of Fame has some too uh, but they just need more space to put more stuff out there and and, like you said, Dixon’s somebody that we want.
You know it’s like you’re sitting at a table and there’s only enough pieces of pie, but it’s the best pie ever for like two or three people you’re looking at Dickson, and you think it’s got to be more.
You know, there’s got to be something out there somewhere, someone has his belt and his gloves and other other memorabilia, but they’re just not telling people about it or that, maybe they just don’t know, maybe it’s in a basement like when you found his book most people.
Don’T know we had a book out yeah that could be, and did he write that book himself? Do you think, or was that ghost written I didn’t see any evidence that he didn’t like.
It certainly seemed like like his uh, it’s not unless yeah it’s, not a detailed, it’s not a novel.
You know it’s not.
You know it’s not three.
Four hundred Pages, it’s a it’s a pamphlet.
You see a lot of those from that era um, because there was a real interest in there was a real side.
Gig of these guys, when they came to town, they would teach private lessons to some of the some of the wealthier folks in town to come down and get a get a lesson in self-defense or and boxing or whatever.
They were happen to be interested in so, and this was this was the merch of the time.
You know you pick up the book yeah, you pick up the gift shop and you get the you get the book on the way out the door um.
There aren’t many of them out there.
I’Ve never seen another copy outside of the one at The Archives that uh.
I think that was Tulane.
I hope I’m getting the right um, but uh uh, no Tulane had the uh I’ll find out.
Where that I can’t remember where that archive was but there’s only one, I’ve seen Tulane had the one the program for the carnival of Champions.
That’S who uh had that, but yeah I mean there are some things you read some uh there were these um sashes.
They would sell at the fights and these kind of ribbons that they would sell with the fights the cut their Fighters colors and the fighters colors for different things.
So there’s a lot of merch at the time I mean people were making money off this, just as they do today um.
So I got to think there’s a shoe box in somebody’s closet.
Somewhere.
That’S got a few of these things sitting around so yeah.
Absolutely.
I know specifically with Dixon, I mean he’s the one everyone you know the fighter without a flaws they said and the police is in and you would think there’d be uh.
Well, let me ask you this: have you met or are there any of his relatives? I mean I met one of his relatives.
What am I saying? I’M his great great grand nephew was a school teacher with my um sister, so uh.
I would speak to him occasionally, but he I think he spoke to him too yeah right and there’s so much yeah and the problem is we’re so far removed from George now.
No one he’s he’s as much of a myth to them, as as he is to somebody outside the family, but the Dixon family right, the original families of that area.
You know, there’s a lot of Dixon still to that day.
Uh to this day that are that are out there, so I mean there’s, there’s there’s a line.
His brothers were very popular and famous athletes in their own right.
You know hockey, players and and yeah I mean so not an unknown, not an unknown name and not an unknown family there.
So um you’re kind of getting down the line to a point where this is another part of preserving the Legacy.
Man, like you, know, you’re you’re, doing stories on guys in the 40s and we’re losing those people that remember those people.
You know like we’re: we’re not only losing these The Originals we’re losing the people that have memories of The Originals.
I think that’s.
Why we’re why? It’S so important that we’re going out and capturing as much as we can right now, yeah some some of the fighters.
One fighter, I don’t know how to pronounce his last name correctly.
It was from Britain full Jaime’s or full James, and he came from Britain and with his brother, settled in Winnipeg and fought in the states he was murdered in his last fight.
He went to shake hands and the guy hit him in the head, while holding his hand and then kept punching him, and it was a setup and everyone disappeared and no one claimed credit and and uh the coroner lied.
Whatever it turned out, everyone had been paid off, but it took me it took me a long long time to find where he was buried and finally, he was shipped back to Winnipeg and buried there.
But still most people wouldn’t know him, and you know, apparently I read that he fought for the world middleweight title against the original Jack Dempsey in Toronto, although I could find no record of that fight here.
Only the same day in in Kill Gill or in in New York Upper New York state, but no one knows about him, and you know he was a britisher but got Canadian citizenship and disappeared, and the guy that killed him said was killed by his friends.
A couple weeks later and then I find a record for unboxing five or ten years after that, so who knows yeah, there’s no way of saying for sure 100 and that’s frustrating.
If it’s someone like you or me, because you want a definitive answer, you know we want to know with Dixon, and you know one thing I found interesting about him was: he was really loved by John L Sullivan, who drew the color line.
Some of them was a bigot, but maybe it was because Dixon was considered, high, yellow or or or for whatever reason or not a threat, but but Sullivan helped him out.
Didn’T Dixon named him as a friend, oh yeah, and you know Sullivan, had this great jolts from John L column right, I ran Coast to Coast for a year.
It’S Madness! It’S just great like it’s! It’S just it’s just it’s not only on fights, he’s settling scores with other Fighters, but he’s riffing on politics, and it just it’s just it’s classic.
It’S classic John L like just boastfulness and just raw crazy.
It’S just the best thing to read still to this day, but more than once, he goes and talks about how great Dixon was as a fighter how great of a man he was how screwed over he was by Tom O’Rourke and the Raw Deal he got from People – and you know, like really went to the mat and this guy’s a he – wouldn’t fight somebody for the championship, because it was black.
He wouldn’t go fight in places that led Flagstaff, and here he is defending Dixon.
I think a lot of that was there is a lot of Boston camaraderie that comes out of that there was a the folks from that area.
Did have a little bit of a I mean, maybe you see it in Boston.
Still this day, a little bit of us against the world got a mentality um.
So there was some commonality commonality there, and you know I it’s it’s really interesting to see someone like that.
So publicly too like it was, and he was asked it was so public on his own just going out and defending Dixon like they’re, probably more boisterously than than wonderwork or any of the people in supposedly Dixon’s gold recorded yeah.
That’S some unbelievable.
He also defended George LeBlanc, the fighting Marine, who was Canadian and kept him on his Old-Timers tours, even though leblanche was way past his Prime and usually quite drunk and still paid him.
So, John Elway, I guess you it’s a hard guy to label, he’s contradiction in terms because he was supposed to fight the Canadian George Godfrey once a Madison Square Garden.
Once on a barge, apparently and and apparently in the barge, he called the police himself.
So the fight never came off and when Godfrey challenged him the Madison Square Garden, he just he waved it off and I still think Sullivan would have beaten them.
They were both the same size.
But Solomon was so much stronger.
You know, but he was basically he wasn’t as skilled as Corbett or the other ones.
He was just you know it’s like yeah yeah.
It’S like Richard Pryor said about form and George Foreman before he’d fight says tell me, which runs the referee, because I’m going to kill the other guy, so he just would storm in and throw punches.
No, I’m not going to say no skill, but no head movement.
No trying to faint a guy into position just whomp in and bang, and you know, maybe it’s no coincidence that his his dominance starts to decline and end when some structure and some Rules start coming in you know you know.
That’S uh is one of the first titles.
That’S fought, you know under a stricter guidelines, yeah yeah, so is I mean he was a brawler.
Was the guy you wanted behind you or more likely in front of you at a bar fight yeah? He welcomed Marcus to Queensbury, but for one reason, because of the Globs, he was tired of breaking his hands and his knuckles, but you’re right.
He had no.
There was no problem with him grabbing you by the hair, kicking you out and throwing you down.
No because that’s the way you thought back then and then on the campus – and you know they have a rare photo of him and Jake kill rain, but they in the last couple years.
They found another 20 25 photos from that fight and they’re just fascinating to watch where, Where kill Reigns on on the grass with his hands up and Sullivan’s got three guys holding him back, it’s like let the guy at least get up.
You know it just yeah.
Just a complete brawler, but like you’re saying you know the times changed he he ducked Peter Jackson.
It was probably the best heavyweight in the world at the time it was 6-1.
I think would have destroyed him and in fact most people don’t know when he went to Australia.
He wouldn’t fight anyone there, but Joe Quincy was there at the same time and Peter Jackson offered to fight him for nothing and Sullivan said no yeah.
There’S I mean you want to talk another fascinating character, I mean yeah, I mean I could go for days on just Sullivan like this is my problem.
I tend to go down these side paths and I need to get back down.
Those are the interesting things in sports and in life and Sullivan.
I think his.
You know.
Racism comes out of fear which comes out of ignorance.
I think he was just afraid of Peter Jackson and black Fighters.
Oh absolutely yeah.
Oh absolutely! That was the.
I mean that was the lot of the drive behind everything then like it was.
It was a oh, my God.
We’Ve had these people enslaved for 20 for 200 years and now not only are they free but they’re getting gains and and starting to become almost equal.
We have to do something to stop this and when you’re talking about it on one side, you’re talking about Jim Crow laws that start popping up or in sports, you start talking about just a lot of refusal to fight just a lot of refusal to let them Play a lot of radio, so a lot of guys suffered, I mean Jack Blackburn who trained Joe Lewis, couldn’t get a title.
Fight and Jack Johnson drew the color line.
You know after he won the title.
He wouldn’t fight Langford again, although he destroyed Langford when they first fought, but Langford was just a kid, but he wouldn’t fight Joe Jeanette or Harry Wells or other guys, Sam mcfate – and he I mean McVeigh, I think, was a good fighter, but he was.
He was more of a brawler, but Johnson himself drew the cutter line because he knew how good the fighters were.
Yeah.
That attitude is, you know it continue.
It defines the first half of the 20th century, yeah and uh.
I know a lot of what Matt Fleischer wrote about.
George Jackson was just made up, I mean because the stuff he said about, I got a lot of trouble.
Some people were saying that Lou.
I got some very angry notes because, like I’m speaking, the clay model about this Fleischer was saying how um Dixon for Dixon to be that smart.
You know he had a white Father which is not true um.
They definitely.
His ancestors were brought up here from the Mississippi area during the War of 1812 on a British ship which you mentioned, but his parents were both identified in the senses as as black, and there was no evidence of white blood, but Fleischer perpetuated.
This myth that his mother had had an affair with uh with a sailor from the British army, which simply didn’t happen, which there’s zero evidence just made, everything up and and and and and and because there was nothing else out on him on Dixon.
If it’s people sort of accepted it, but it was simply not true.
You’Ll see people today asking about that and you think no, it’s not true.
It’S a complete lie, written by a bigot but but see that was, but that was – and that was the problem with no one there’s I mean when nothing’s written about you for 100 years um, you just kind of go back to that original source and say: oh That must have been it.
You know, so that those books are what the early 20s, the yeah Series – 31 29 yeah.
So you know that was you’d see articles in the 50s and 60s.
That would mention Dixon in their list of greatest Fighters and it would just be parroting stuff that was out almost straight out of that book.
You know that was their main source.
I have a book called 10 and out there’s two books called 10 and out.
One of them was written by my late great friend Ron Ross, who wrote a book under Mel Griffith.
This one was written in the 20s by Alexander Johnson and he’s writing about Fighters.
He’D seen such as Dixon and it’s interesting, I got it for three dollars, at the second hand, store and on a lot and and like 30 years ago, and he’s writing about how brilliant Dixon was, and he he.
You know what you read today and you think.
Well, you know the middleweight division are lightweight or this division goes back to 1890, but he gives you a he’s going right back to the early 1800s with British and American fighters saying this Fighter beat this guy and then this guy came along and then this guy Beat him and then he fought Dixon but Dixon, as you said in your book, had to fight you know you keep kept having to fight.
This is what I want to ask you he to win the battle ain’t featherweight title uh.
He had to beat two three people is that because there was no centralized Authority in boxing, or is that just because he was black and they made him kept, saying not good enough got to be this guy, I think a little from colonelo from column B.
You know, there’s no, I mean as much as you can say.
There is anymore overarching organization that was dictating it.
There was also no real through line, so it was, you know.
Well, okay, you beat the British, you got to beat the British champ now you know that I think a lot of it was just not wanting to hand the title to Dixon right away.
I think right, I think a rub.
People the wrong way and didn’t want him to have a chance to so they kept setting these different.
Oh my wait! Well now you got ta, go fight, the Australian champion before we’re gon na consider you.
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