Cap's New and Improved Alternate Universe

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From the afternoon edition of The Toronto Telegram January 17, 1902...Fighting in front of a packed house at Chicago's Coliseum, Tommy Burns (179 3-4) overcomes a first round knockdown to slowly turn the tide against "The Michigan Assassin" Stanley Ketchel (171 1-4) ...There are heavy exchanges in rounds two, three and four with both men sustaining damage...A chopping right hand drops Ketchel for six seconds in round 5...A left hook opens a cut over Ketchel's right eye in the eighth, a right uppercut puts him down in the same round for nine seconds and he staggers to his corner at the bell, claret streaming down his face...Both men answer the gong for the ninth round, Ketchel spits out a tooth and stumbles forward...Fourty-one seconds later he is stretched out on his back from an explosive right cross and takes the full count...Prior to the kayo, Referee George Siler had Ketchel ahead four rounds to three with one even...Canadian heavyweight champion Bob Day ekes out a narrow decision over New England's Joe Dundee at Toronto's Massey Hall...Across town at the Coliseum, promising youngster Laurie Mackenzie hits another stumbling block losing a sloppy decision to "The Fighting Cowboy" Ross Delaney, while, in the co-feature, Alberta's George McRay is held to a draw by local boy Frank Laura, much to the delight of the latter's assembled family and friends...At Montreal's new Forum, home-town lad Art Beaudoin,(198)is easily out-pointed by East Coaster Bill MacKinnon (182 1-2) over ten rounds, and drops three hundred bucks in a side wager...It's a split house at the Winnipeg Auditorium when Charlie Robinson squares off with Cree pugilist Danny Whitebear in a rematch of their fight the previous March, a points win for Robinson...It's sweet revenge for Whitebear when he puts Robinson down four times and forces Referee Smart to award him a technical knockout in the eighth round...At Boston Athletic Hall two more 'American Hopes' are eliminated when Andy Morris is flattened by journeyman Fred Cooley and New Jersey's Jim Savage is manhandled by Dan 'Porky' Flynn losing the referee's decision on points after being put down five times...

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From The Pittsburgh Messenger February 22, 1902...Fireman Jim Flynn 27-9-3[20] takes on unbeaten Soldier Kearns 11-0-3 [5] at Brown's Arena in New York expecting a walkover win but takes a points loss instead...Denver Jack Geyer put Thad Spencer of Oregon to sleep last night in the ninth session of a scheduled ten-round battle at the Seattle Ice Rink...Thirty American Hope aspirants were whittled down to eight at Bill Kurtz's tournament at New York the other day with the most promising eliminated on the first evening...Dan Daly, the Newcastle Goliath, was named the tournament's winner when he defeated Al Benedict of Brooklyn...Tony Ross "The Italian Bearcat" accepted an invitation from Toronto promoter Tom Flanagan to box Canadian champion Bob Day ten rounds for a fat purse...Ross now regrets taking him up on his offer after losing on a technical knockout in a fight he says he was on the verge of winning...Day, a mountain of a fellow, proved very awkward but Ross was in command when a chance blow opened an ugly cut on his brow in the eighth round, then reopened in the ninth. At this point the referee, a local man, stopped the bout and awarded the verdict to the Canadian despite protests from Ross and his corner...Al Kaufman was given the decision over Jeff Clarke at Oakland, California yesterday allowing him to retain his Pacific Northwest title belt...A quick poll of the boxing writers at ringside scoring on their own had Clarke an easy winner seven rounds to four with one even, the exact opposite of referee Billy Roche's scorecard...In the only preliminary Charlie Miller "The Frisco Motorman" garnered the win over Jack Rowan of Philadelphia after six slow rounds and improved his record to 10-3-2[5]...Miller, when asked about his poor condition and sloppy effort, claimed he'd taken the match on short notice when Rowan's original opponent had to back out...

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Published in British Boxing News March 1902...Iron Hague, John L Gardner, Jack Palmer and Ludwig Schuhmann have been dropped from the top ten...Much to their surprise, after cooling their heels in London since their arrival from America, Joe Jeannette and his manager Dan McKettrick are invited to Paris and offered a match with reigning European champion Georges Carpentier...The bout is put on at La Palais Grande the last week of February and the Frenchman pulls an upset, winning on points after ten rounds...The Americans demand a rematch but Carpentier's manager Francois DesChamps is uninterested and suggests they defeat a few of the less distinguished European boxers to build any possible future gate...Some days later, Jeannette's stablemate Frank Moran finds himself in the ring of the famed National Sporting Club face to face with Petty Officer Matty Curran...Moran proves too much for the Dublin fighter, putting him down four times before knocking him out cold with his "Mary Ann" at 2:11 of the final tenth round...In the 10-rd co-feature Al Kubiak the "Michigan Giant" (14st 5lb) loses a nail-biter to Scotland's Sandy MacNab (13st 13lb) thanks to a brief knockdown in the last minute of the last round...At Craig Hall, Dundee, Battling Jim Johnson (14.10) grinds out a victory in ten innings over James 'Gunner' Moir (13.12), taking 8 rounds with two even...France's Marc Gaucher (14st) returns to the ring and outpoints Bjarni Thorsen (14st 12lb) in the latter's hometown at Stortinget Halle, Oslo...Thorsen, sporting a small beard and roll of fat, appeared not to have spent much time in the gym...Only his previous performance against PO Curran likely prevented Gaucher from vaulting to the top spot...At Glasgow, Derek 'Battling' Beattie knocks out Jem Roche the Wexford boxer and Gaelic Football star at :55 of round two...

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From The Melbourne Age March 1902...In an interview with the Australian stringer for Mitt Slingers Magazine Bill Lang expressed his desire to venture out to North America to try his mettle against the top pugilists there..."When I talked with Tommy Burns he pointed out a prize fighter's career can be a short one and you have to make your pile while you can. My supporters here in Melbourne want to see me challenge the best in the world and my manager believes I have what it takes to beat the top lads in North America and Europe so he's arranged for a tour of Canada and the United States this year."...As he has beaten the top men at home, the Australia and New Zealand Boxing Federation has declared their title to be frozen until Lang returns to defend it...To fill the void, Empire champion Tommy Burns, at the invitation of the New South Wales Sporting Syndicate, is sailing to the Commonwealth with the intentions of defending his title belt against the best opponents promoter Hugh McIntosh can discover...At Nathan's Athletic Hall in Melbourne, South Afrika's Mike Williams (13.12) survived two early knockdowns to win a technical knockout over Owen Sullivan (13.7) in the eighth round...At Barney's in Perth, another South Afrikan visitor, Pierre Coetzer (14.9) needed seven rounds to dispose of Fred Preston (13.13) the Melbourne mitt artist...Jim Quigley (14.2) upset Jerry Jerome (13.4) at Adelaide Arena, knocking him out in 5 rounds (10)...In the headliner at Sydney's Golden Gate Club, New Zealand's Jim Griffin (13.9) outpointed Kelly Mansfield (13.10) ending the latter's win streak at three...In the co-feature bout Les O'Donnell looked much improved in taking an eight round decision over Digger Ed Williams...When asked, O'Donnell cited his poor training and conditioning regimen for his previous string of losses and credited his recent work at the Griffo Boxing Academy for his excellent showing against Williams...At the Timaru Boxing Club, Danny Ruenalf the Maori lad outboxed his countryman Colin Cameron and forced a stoppage with two minutes gone in the tenth and final round...

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From the April 1902 issue of Mitt Slingers Magazine...The matchmaker for London's prestigious National Sporting Club cables Sam McVea's manager to come to England and fight Joe Jeannette in a 10 round bout for a purse of £3,000 with 65% to the winner...McVea, still smarting over his failed attempt to wrest the world title, jumps at the chance at what he sees as easy money...Jeannette in Paris, hears of the proposed match and immediately wires his acceptance, knowing a win over McVea might well set himself up for a shot at the world title...After the sudden ending of his last title defence, few clubs or promoters are willing to sink money into another mismatch featuring 'Bonecrusher' Sam Langford, so Sam tells his manager to pick the two best available contenders and promise one of them a title shot if they fight each other in an eliminator...Langford tells a few of his newspaper pals, "After the way the McVea fight ended no one around will draw flies unless we build it up. I'm thinking of an open-air fight this summer in Halifax so I can visit the folks and draw my fans from Down East and New England. The winner of an elimination match should make things interesting if you boys in the press cooperate. A big fight always sells papers." ..Canadian champ Bob Day has no interest in fighting Langford unless he can be guaranteed the lion's share of any purse...A lucrative fight with New York's Jim Stewart has more appeal to the big Scots-Canadian...Bill Lang, upon hearing of his move up the IBU rankings, takes the first ship out of Melbourne to San Francisco with California promoter Jim Coffroth's contract for a three fight deal in his pocket...One of the fights soon turns out to be a world title elimination with either Al Kaufman or Gunboat Smith at Hazard's Pavilion in one month's time...Smith's manager turns down the fight, saying his boy is still too green to face Lang, but give him a year...Langford's manager Joe Woodman wires Lang that he will be paid $200 training expenses if he signs to fight Kaufman and makes the same terms with the Californian...In Chicago Jack Johnson announces he will vacate his American championship if the ABA forces him to defend it against Jeff Clarke, saying he can make more money fighting Larry Temple and Jim Barry when they return to the States from South America...In the meantime "American Hope" tournaments stumble on in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St Louis, Detroit, and a dozen tank towns across the country...Some of the better-looking prospects emerging are Carl Morris of Oklahoma, Al Palzer of Iowa, Sailor White of New Jersey, and New York's Bill "KO" Brennan...In Europe, French idol Georges Carpentier, nicknamed 'The Orchid Man' by the American press, plans to collect a few francs by boxing Frank Moran or Battling Jim Johnson in April or May before looking to defend his EBU belt...

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Excerpt from The Boston Crier Saturday April 5, 1902...New England heavyweight champ Dave Sawyer stopped tough veteran Joe Costello of New Jersey in nine rounds after Costello had risen from a fifth knockdown and stumbled into Sawyer's corner...At Bangor's new arena Joe Dundee of Massachusetts got a technical knockout over Jim Driscoll with seconds remaining in the tenth round...Dundee and Sawyer will meet at Rockland, Maine in two weeks...Many California fight fans were just taking their seats at Woodward's Pavilion when Dan 'Porky' Flynn landed face-first on the canvas courtesy of a thunderous right on the chin from young 'Gunboat' Smith, local phenom...Flynn, the much more experienced fighter, was expected to extend Smith into the later rounds and possibly take the decision, but one minute sixteen seconds was all it took the gunner to end it...When he came to, the Boston man asked his manager to get him a rematch...At Brooklyn's Pelican Arena Jim Stewart managed to take a second decision over Canadian champ Bob Day after ten gruelling rounds in which both men visited the canvas...Stewart is a strong boy but too slow to ever compete against the likes of Joe Jeannette or Sam McVea, let alone Sam Langford...Al Kaufman and Australia's Bill Lang have begun training in earnest for their upcoming set-to at Hazard's Pavilion, the winner to get a crack at the world title presently held by Langford...Kaufman has been made a slight favourite at Corbett's thanks in part to the known quality of his recent performances weighed against Lang's lack of reputation outside his home country...Promoter Coffroth has raised a purse of $5,000 to be split 60-40 with the winner getting the lion's share...On the east coast, Bill Mackinnon knocked out James 'Sailor' Burke in ten rounds at Halifax to win a mandated elimination for a Canadian title bout to be staged in Montreal this month...At Philadelphia Battling Levinsky seemed on the verge of a sure victory over New Jersey's Jim Savage when he was disqualified by Referee White for a low blow halfway through the tenth and final round...On the undercard 6'6" behemoth Dan Daly pounded out a kayo win over journeyman Chick Carsey, the latter collapsing as much from exhaustion as from the weight of Daly's wild punches...

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From Tom Fowler's "Sports Banter" column in The Winnipeg Free Press April 1902...MJ Doheny, chair of the Dominion Boxing Foundation, tells Reuters and the Canadian Press that the Foundation has contracted more than a dozen distinguished retired boxers to join the instructional staff of its six pugilistic academies from Halifax to Vancouver. Most prominent among them are George Byers, Dominick McCaffery, Bob Armstrong, Tommy Ryan, Frank Childs, Denver Ed Martin, and Joe Choynski...There were four cards staged in Canadian cities last week, the largest being Tom Flanagan's at the Toronto Coliseum Monday night headlined by Hogtown's own Johnny Jackson and Jeff Clarke the 'Joplin Ghost'...The main event proved a disappointment when Clarke took advantage of Jackson's usual slow start and tore into him at the bell, putting him down with a flurry, before finishing him off with more than a minute left in round one...The eight round co-feature saw Winnipeg's Danny Whitebear square off with Ross Delaney in a rematch of their fight of two years ago...Rumours swirling around Whitebear's camp had Delaney doing most of his training at his brother's tavern, but they proved to be false when "The Fighting Cowboy" slipped through the ropes in the pink of condition...It was a good close fight and the crowd was split at the end on who had won, but Referee Joe Francis raised Delaney's hand and congratulated young Whitebear on a splendid effort...The general opinion was Delaney had taken four of the rounds and two were too close to call...Of the three preliminaries the best scrap was between former golden boy Laurie Mackenzie and the ex-stevedore Frank Laura...For six rounds they battled nose to nose, slinging punches with all their weight behind them, exciting the mob to a blood-thirsty frenzy for almost 23 solid minutes...When the bell sounded for the end of the sixth round Mackenzie's corner was stunned to learn the bout had been reduced from the eight rounds they had trained for but mollified by the ref's verdict for their boy...At Glace Bay's Wonderland Arena Alec Maclean organized a benefit card for the families of striking coal miners and drew a good crowd from Truro and New Glasgow...Local hero Roddie MacDonald slugged his way to a decision over Moncton's Kid Williams and New Glasgow's Dan MacDonald (no relation to Roddie) copped the nod after eight rounds with another New Brunswick native Ray Mullins...Halifax prospect Ned O'Mara stopped veteran Jack Stewart in four with Stewart looking like he'd had a snootful before the fight...At Fort Street's Orpheum last Saturday evening, fan favourite Charlie Robinson "The Black Cyclone" stopped 'Fighting Dick' Gilbert in seven rounds on a technical knockout when Gilbert's corner threw in the towel...Gilbert later complained of a broken hand...After the match Robinson's manager said he's negotiating with promoter Tom Flanagan to fight one of the leading Toronto boys on his next card this summer...

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British Boxing Weekly carries the latest Empire rankings from the BEBC covering May activity...Tommy Burns meets Des Quinlan at Sydney Stadium in front of a crowd of roughly 15,000 with the winner's share of a £600 purse up for grabs...The former Australasian champ has a height and weight advantage over Burns but had been fairly inactive since losing to Bill Lang earlier this year...Two weeks in camp was not enough preparation to wrest the Empire title from the little Canadian as it turns out...Tommy's speed of hand and foot coupled with his skill at inside fighting confounds Quinlan leaving him open in the third round for a terrific right-hander to the temple that drops him like a stone...The end comes so fast many at ringside didn't see it and shout at Quinlan to get up as Referee Grimwood delivers the full count...The unhappy mob may have been forewarned by the semi windup when Jack Whittaker KO'd Woollahra's Peter Kling two minutes into round 1...Promoter McIntosh immediately signs up Whittaker to challenge Burns next...Sixth ranked Empire contender Johnny Jackson consults his family and his manager following his dismal showing against Jeff Clarke and elects to hang up his gloves...At Cape Town Ron Anderson makes what he thinks is an easy defence of his South Afrikan title belt against pork & beaner Jan Oosterlak (6-9-1)...After cruising through nine rounds, a punch or chance elbow opens a cut under Ron's right eye that soon has blood streaming down his face...Enraged by the gore, Anderson loses his composure and attacks Oosterlak with a back-hander causing the latter to retaliate and the referee to break them up...The brawling continues in the tenth round amid repeated cautions from Referee Bailey...In the eleventh there is fierce in-fighting and Anderson goes down clutching his groin...The referee disallows his claim of a foul and when Anderson refuses to continue, awards the victory and the championship to Oosterlak...At Sydney's Golden Gate Club Jack Howard, 14-4-0 (11) scores a technical knockout over George Stirling, 16-5-2 (10) in a bruising give and take scrap that sees both men visit the canvas before the eighth round when Referee Cullen steps in to save Stirling further punishment...In England the tabloid press wring their collective hands over the exclusion of Gunner Moir and Iron Hague from the posted British Empire rankings and question why two Scotsmen were included...From America comes word that the Al Kaufman-Bill Lang world title elimination ended in a draw, despite Lang landing two to one, thus throwing into turmoil plans for a summer title defence by Sam Langford...Ringside reports indicated neither man posed a threat to the champion...

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From The Barnsley Earwigger June 4, 1902...The National Sporting Club stages a ten round glove contest between Americans Sam McVea of California and Joe Jeannette of New Jersey...McVea takes the first four rounds with punishing blows to the body before Jeannette gets going, easily winning rounds five and six...Jeannette's right eye is closing as round seven ends...They trade rounds eight and nine and a blistering round ten is even with no knockdowns...The majority at ringside score the fight a draw, but referee Eugene Corri taps the shoulder of McVea, signalling a victory...The result throws a spanner into the plans of Sam Langford for a title fight in the summer...No promoter wants to see Sam fight McVea again and Jeannette's showing eliminates him as an attraction, while the Kaufman-Lang draw does the same for them...So Langford fulfills a contract to box three four-round exhibitions with some local talent while his US agent searches for a profitable opponent...At Paris fans and backers of European champion Georges Carpentier are shocked when Frank Moran dumps the French idol not once but twice, seemingly on the way to a knockout, only to see Carpentier bounce back and put Moran down and out with a right to the temple out of nowhere...In Milan England's Jack Scales, on the verge of retirement, is served up as victim to Italian sensation Giuseppe Sciacca, but upsets everyone by ignoring the odds and knocking out Sciacca inside two rounds...Sciacca's manager and promoter are seen openly weeping in his corner, thoughts of challenging for the EBU title out the window...Scotland's Derek 'Battling Beattie' wins a clear decision over former EBU champ PO Curran improving his record to 10-5-5 and securing a fight with leading contender Marc Gaucher in August...Gaucher enriches his marquee value with a points win over touring American Battling Jim Johnson on the undercard of the Carpentier-Moran fight...Jem Maloney, manager of Ealing's Bombardier Billy Wells, takes his protégé to the far-off Dominion of Newfoundland to test his mettle against Canada's Bill Mackinnon and others of his calibre...They meet at St John's Athletic Hall in front of a small crowd and provide mild entertainment over ten rounds; Mackinnon, towered over by the youngster, boxes on the defence and Wells takes few chances with his more experienced opponent...Halfway through the final round Wells throws caution to the wind and attacks with a torrent of blows, one of which catches Mackinnon off balance and puts him on his back for a brief count...The contest ends in a series of clinches and the local referee gives the win to the Englishman...

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Clipped from The New York Evening World, June 1902...Brooklyn's Jim Stewart (202) is out-boxing The Battling Bricklayer Tony Ross (196) until several blows open cuts over both eyes making Stewart's face a gory mask by the end of round seven...Referee Charlie White, splattered with blood, gives him another round but Stewart is unable to see Ross' punches coming, so White steps in and stops the fight, awarding the win to the Pennsylvania fighter...At Brown's Arena across town, Jeff Clarke The Joplin Ghost, giving way almost 20 pounds, easily evades and outpoints an arm-weary Jim Barry over 10 rounds, and earns a crack at the soon to be vacant American Boxing Association championship belt...In a battle of local rivals, Dan 'Porky' Flynn (191) squeaks out a referee's verdict over Maine's Dave Sawyer (189) after ten busy rounds, moving him one step closer to a rematch with Gunboat Smith...At McNaughton's Pavilion the Gunner puts away The Oakland Phantom Al Brown in four one-sided innings and is promised a fight for the American title...Denver Jack Geyer (193 1-2) and Soldier Kearns (198) put on a regular pier sixer at the Pelican Arena in front of a packed house, trading knockdowns in the second, fifth, sixth and seventh rounds until the eighth when a nearly exhausted Geyer lands a last haymaker that puts the favoured Kearns down and out in his own corner...Orange, New Jersey boxing fans are crushed when their golden boy Jim Savage is knocked out cold by imported victim James 'Sailor' Burke of Halifax, NS after an encouraging first three rounds...Meanwhile, up in Toronto, Canada Canadian heavyweight champion Bob Day narrowly retains his title against Winnipeg's Danny Whitebear until a review of the referee's scorecard the next day indicates an error that should have given the decision to the Cree fighter...The Canadian boxing commission declares a rematch is warranted and the title is frozen...Promoter/huckster Tom O'Rourke stages a card in Buffalo featuring ten 'American Hopes' and Al Palzer, Bill Brennan, Dan Daly, Tom Kennedy and Kid Kenneth emerge with silver trophies and a bit of coin when the dust settles...A French promoter is hoping to get NABF Champ Sam McVea and Joe Jeannette to headline a card in Paris next month...The pair are hugely popular in Europe and should easily sell out the Salle Wagram...

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Penny posters start appearing in villages and towns all over Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and in New England border towns...Halifax promoter Willie MacLellan had tried every lure to bring in a top contender to face Sam Langford and finally settled on The Joplin Ghost Jeff Clarke as the others were "too busy", under the weather or nursing an injury to take up the challenge..."Mac" chooses Wanderers Pitch just outside town, home of the Halifax Industrial League baseball club, and starts construction of an outdoor arena and regulation 20-ft boxing ring...He also approaches local managers to arrange a couple of supporting bouts just in case he'll need to fill in time if the main event ends prematurely...Sam and Jeff set up training camps on opposite sides of town and hire local sparring partners with just weeks away...Boxing fans in Boston are soon lining up for tickets...The newspapers spread the word and pretty soon requests for ducats are coming in from as far away as Toronto and Montreal and from all over New England, Pennsylvania and New York...Word is the referee will either be George Siler of Chicago or ex-lawman Bat Masterson, now a columnist with a Montreal paper...According to one rumour, a mysterious shipping magnate and fight fan has ponied up a purse of $50,000...

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From The Detroit Tribune July 2, 1902...Contrary to some reports, most unbiased observers, including stringers from The Toronto Telegram, New York Times, Lewiston Evening Journal, and Newark Evening Record, felt Sam Langford was sporting a comfortable lead when he crossed Jeff Clarke's left with a thunderous right hand putting him down and out at 2:30 of round eleven...The fight started out slowly with Clarke boxing behind his educated left jab, clinching whenever Langford worked his way inside...By the fourth round it became apparent the challenger had felt the power of Langford's body blows and was fighting to survive to the end...In round eight a left hook drops Clarke but he is up at '3' and on his bicycle to evade Langford's finisher...Clarke gets a second wind in round 10 and makes a desperate attempt to turn the tide in his favour landing several flurries that backs up the champion...Prolonged clinches mar the eleventh round before Langford hurts Clarke with a left to the midsection forcing him to back peddle in the face of Langford's assault...After taking a left to the shoulder Clarke pops three weak jabs to Langford's face and is throwing another when Langford crashes a huge right to the jaw and the fight is over...There are two supporting bouts after the main event as much of the crowd drifts away...England's Bombardier Billy Wells stops an over-the-hill Jack Stewart at twenty nine seconds of round two...Stalwart fans who remain are treated to a real back-alley scrap between two sluggers in Roddie MacDonald and James 'Sailor' Burke...Burke is dropped twice in round one and again in round 4 while MacDonald hits the canvas twice in round 5 and barely escapes a knockout...Sadly, the 'slug-spree' ends in a draw but ensures a probable rematch over a longer distance...

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The IBU World Rankings from the July 1902 issue of Mitt Slingers Magazine...Sam McVea is set to fight a rematch with Joe Jeannette over 12 rounds in Paris with the chance to tackle French idol Georges Carpentier should he win...Carpentier arranges to defend his EBU title against that organisation's top contender with plans to cross the Atlantic to work his way into a challenge of world champion Sam Langford...At Chicago Jack Johnson (219) retains his American title belt with a 5th round knockout of Pacific Northwest champ Al Kaufman (208 1-2)...In no condition to travel the distance, Johnson engages in a stalling strategy to lure Kaufman inside where he delivers his deadly uppercuts when he isn't tying the Californian up...Kaufman is unable to land cleanly and has his right arm in a clinch when Johnson drives home a terrific right hook to his exposed chin and lays him out for the full ten...At Toronto's Coliseum Danny Whitebear (190 3-4) gets his return contest with Bob Day (238) for the now vacant Canadian championship...It is an ugly brawl as Day resorts to hugging and wrestling to slow down the much faster Cree fighter and is huffing and puffing by the middle of the fifth round...In the sixth Whitebear assumes command with quick flurries to the body and head and soon has Day bleeding freely from the mouth and from cuts on his cheek and bridge of his nose...The seventh round finds Day stumbling into looping hooks and wicked right hands, clearly unable to defend himself, at which point Referee Joe Francis stops it and raises Whitebear's arm...Cornered later by a local reporter, Whitebear confides his plan to accept an invitation from Australian fight impresario Hugh McIntosh to visit that continent with a contract to engage in three or more lucrative glove contests...In Los Angeles, Australasian champion Bill Lang finds himself inactive as a rematch with Kaufman is cancelled and Promoter Jim Coffroth's efforts to find a suitable name opponent continue to run into obstacles as many of the top men are fighting in the east...Lang's manager calls on Gunboat Smith's manager Jimmy Buckley at his hotel in San Francisco after Smith's win over Oakland Al Brown, but Buckley isn't interested, citing their intention to venture to New York to fight Tony Ross and Porky Dan Flynn in August...

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Excerpt from a page in The Glasgow Herald July 22, 1902...Georges Carpentier wins in convincing fashion in defending the EBU championship against young Marc Gaucher and later announces his plan to take ship to North America and challenge for the World title...On learning of Carpentier's intentions champion Sam Langford welcomes the news and instructs his manager to arrange a fight in either Montreal or Toronto whichever city will promise the biggest crowd and largest purse...At the Cirque de Paris Scotland's Derek Beattie disposes of Norway's Bjarni Thorsen in less than two rounds and assumes the position of Europe's number two contender with a guarantee of a fight with number one contender Gaucher in the fall...In London Wm Iron Hague gains a measure of revenge by stopping Eire's Jem Roche setting up a contest with that country's Petty Officer Matty Curran now ranked Number 4 by the European Boxing Union...From the northwest of England comes a young giant of marvelous fistic potential by the name of Tom Cowler...The lad stands well over six feet tall weighs 14 stone with a reach of 78 inches and carries a record of 12 straight wins, the latest a points decision over the tough Canadian brawler Chummy Banks...Cowler's manager Fred Bradley tells anyone who will listen that he has the next European champion in hand and expects his boy to one day challenge for the world title...After his unexpected victory over the big Belgian Henri Caradec, Gunner Moir decides to try his luck in South Afrika and Australia and arranges passage on the steamer Suevic bound for Cape Town in September...At the Salle Wagram in Paris Joe Jeannette has a turn of fortune with a clear-cut decision over rival Sam McVea, taking eight of ten rounds on the referee's card...McVea started fast but ran out of petrol in the fifth round and took serious punishment from the "Jersey Adonis", narrowly avoiding a knockout in the final stanza...Ringsiders remark that McVea may have seen his best days noting his lack of condition and inability to hurt Jeannette...Glasgow fight followers are gobsmacked to see Laurie Cameron lose every round to England's Jack Palmer, a man he had knocked out in one round just two years before...One consolation is seeing former amateur champion Colin Morrison dispatch Frenchman Marcel Robert in :58 seconds of the first with a single right hand to the jaw...Touring Americans Battling Jim Johnson, Al Kubiak, and Frank Moran complete a US trifecta with wins over Sandy MacNab, George Fryer and former EBU title-holder Raymond Berenger...

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From the sporting page of The Melbourne Argus July 29, 1902...At 6'1" and 14st 4lbs with a 76" reach, young Jack Whittaker had all the physical advantages over Tommy Burns and starts off fast surprising Burns and pressuring him to back up...The champion sizes up Whittaker in round two, snapping back counters and evading wild leads...by round five Whittaker is on the defensive landing one blow for every five or six he takes and halfway through the round Burns drops him with a savage uppercut...Whittaker rises at six and walks right into a storm of punches from Burns...The Australian has no chance now...Referee Cullen pulls Burns off him and stops the fight awarding Burns a technical knockout...At Brisbane Stadium Bill Turner (15st 2), nicknamed "The Taz Tiger", meets highly favoured former Australasian champion and still number one contender Des Quinlan (14st 10) and, after a brief feeling out, walks through the veteran fighter ...five times from round two on Turner crashes Quinlan to the canvas with great looping punches before a sixth explosive sledgehammer of a blow sends him tumbling through the ropes where he is counted out on the ring apron at 2:16 of round ten...At Metropolitan A.C. in Sydney, Redfern's Les O'Donnell continues his comeback with a sparkout of No.5 ranked Owen Sullivan...Jack Howard and Peter Kling battle to a ten round draw at the Gaiety Athletic Hall though most leave believing Howard, who had put Kling down three times, deserved the win...Ring-wise Billy McColl, set up as a sacrificial lamb for powerful South Afrikanner slugger Pierre Coetzer, weathers a terrific onslaught in the first three innings of their main event at Woollahra then proceeds to out-box the arm-weary Coetzer taking Referee Dawson's decision 6 rounds to 3 with one even...At Nathan's Athletic Hall, Melbourne, George Stirling (14.1) whips Kelly Mansfield (13.7), putting him down in every round, easily taking the referee's verdict...

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From the pages of The Buffalo Evening Courier September 1902...Plenty of ring action across North America in the waning days of August into September though most are not of the marquee import staged in major arenas...Little clubs in lesser venues, some on the outskirts of large cities...Probably the most significant contest saw the return of Gunboat Smith to New York to face off with the tough Italian Tony Ross of New Castle, PA with a shot at the soon-to-be vacant American heavyweight title on the line...Ross proved to be a stubborn obstacle in the Gunner's path, standing up to a blistering assault from the opening bell...By the sixth round both men seemed to tire, Smith from the punches he'd landed and Ross from those he'd absorbed in trying to close the distance...The last two rounds were agonizingly slow with numerous clinches and mauling in corners, but in the end it was Smith's arm that was raised by referee Tim Hurst...One match in a picayune theatre in Missouri spotlighted a potential star in the making as a tall former cowpuncher named Luther McCarty faced the former headliner of Chicago rings, John Willie, and made mincemeat of him with a beautiful left jab and a deadly left hook that had the big city pugilist helpless in less than two rounds...McCarty's name is added to the growing list of "American Hopes" alongside Carl Morris, Al Palzer, Bill Brennan and Frank Moran...In Boston Dan "Porky Flynn" (189 1-2) took on Jack Lester (193), still fresh from his triumphs Down Under and easily out-boxed the sturdy Westerner before stopping him with a minute or so left in the tenth round...In another small town arena in the wilds of Nova Scotia, leading contender for that country's championship, George McRay (186 3-4) outpointed the Pride of the US Navy, Phil Schlossberg (194 1-4) over ten rounds...At San Francisco, Charlie Miller the burly "Frisco Motorman" took delight in whipping the brother of former world champion Jim Jeffries in a special six round glove contest, putting him down twice, much to the disgust of the fat ex-champ working his brother's corner...At Chicago fighting before a near empty hall, Jim Barry (192) managed to eke out a decision over a shop-worn CC Smith (204) by taking the last three rounds on the referee's card...Barry seems stalled in his pursuit of greater glory and fat purses...

[Cap]

USA heavyweight rankings as of first week of September, 1902 posted in the monthly USA BOXING magazine...Rumours circulating in Chicago that Jack Johnson will announce his retirement this month...Some promoters making plans to organize some kind of tournament to produce a champion recognized as such by the ABA and IBU....Joe Jeannette and Sam McVea may be enticed back to the States to participate...Frank Moran, the Pittsburgh pugilist, is said to have already booked passage to New York aboard the French steamship Marie-Rose....

[Cap]

From The Barnsley Earwigger September 1902...A column in a prestigious New York paper carried the following comments, "...It's a curious thing that the big men in Europe, particularly the English, don't class with the small men. They have no cleverness and they can't fight. The height of their ambition is to become proprietors of ale houses and to drink more ale than the best customers. Gunner Moir, Iron Hague, Bombardier Wells, all the lot of them could probably be cleaned up easily by any one of a dozen good American middleweights. The current group of touring second-rate heavyweights from this country are mowing down the best Europeans with little effort..."..."While admitting some truth to those unkind remarks, they must have been penned before Bombardier Billy Wells easily outpointed the Western American champion Al Kaufman at Madison Square Garden in New York City and Frenchman Georges Carpentier stopped Jeff Clarke, aspirant to the championship of America in Philadelphia yesterday. Clarke had gone almost 11 rounds with the present world champion."...In an elimination contest at Le Palais Grande in Paris to find a challenger for Carpentier's EBU title, Scotland's Derek "Battling Beattie" knocked out young Marc Gaucher in eight rounds of a bristling battle in which both men visited the canvas...At Limerick, the vacant Irish heavyweight title was decided when Packey Mahoney (14st 5) KO'd Dublin's Padraic Boyle (13st 12) in just two rounds of a scheduled ten round fight...At the Salle Wagam, Paris Sam McVea (14.8) demolished former European champion Raymond Berenger (13.11) in six rounds...A white-tie crowd at the NSC in London witnessed the one-sided dusting of Wm Iron Hague by Joe Jeannette of the USA, Hague taking the full count in round seven...Many members took some solace in the victory of young Tom Cowler, the Cumberland Giant, over Gunner Moir when Referee Corrie halted proceedings in the eighth stanza with Moir tangled helplessly on the ropes taking unanswered blows to the head...Moir would likely have been wiser to ignore the NSC's invitation to box Cowler in favour of his intended trip to South Afrika...

[American_Ernesider]

Always amazed at the amount of work and dedication you put into this. I am trying to be consistent with my RFG universe, which I think I have something I like (has been claimed by me before) and trying to take it a bit slower.

[Cap]

Mitt Slingers Magazine hit newsstands Oct 1st, 1902...Promoter Hugh McIntosh extends an offer to Sam Langford and Tommy Burns to meet at Sydney's Rushcutters Bay Stadium with Langford defending the world championship for a purse of £2500 plus 60% of the gate...Though the offer is tempting, Langford considers an offer to fight European champion Georges Carpentier a better one...The fight would be staged close to home in Montreal or Toronto so no tiresome sea journey, and two New York promoters are bidding against each other to put on the fight...In Chicago Jack Johnson confers with officials of the American Boxing Association and declares he will vacate their title if they refuse to allow him to pick his next challenger...Promoter Jim Coffroth starts negotiations to bring Gunboat Smith together with either Jeff Clarke or Porky Flynn to fill the expected vacancy should the ABA call Johnson's bluff...Flynn turned down an offer to fight Australia's Bill Lang at Boston saying it left him too little time to get into condition, so Brooklyn's Pelican Arena contacted Lang and offered Jim Stewart as a substitute...The ten round main event drew a capacity crowd and Stewart started out like gangbusters driving home his potent left jab and crossing his right to Lang's head...The New Yorker seemed a sure winner until a short left hook to the ribs dropped him gasping to the floor in the 4th round, his seconds screaming "Foul!"...Unable to regain his feet in time, Referee Hurst counted Stewart out...Argentine heavyweight Eduardo "Punos de Hierro" Herrera climbed another rung on the ladder with a second round kayo of American trial horse Jim Jeffords at Mexico City...Former Canadian champion Bob Day narrowly avoids elimination from the IBU top twenty with a knockout of six foot six Miles McLeod, the "Missouri Mammoth" at Antigonish, Nova Scotia...After consulting New York promoters, Dan McKettrick, manager of Joe Jeannette and Frank Moran, realizes profitable European offers have temporarily dried up and decides it's time to bring his fighters back home to the States...In Paris Sam McVea, heeding warnings from the NABF, makes plans to return to the sunny locales of California to defend his title, rejecting offers to tour Australia and New Zealand...