Once Is Not Enough

Remarkable rematches from the boxing annals.

Fastest rematch in history?

Freddie Mills

Today, even the most hotly anticipated rematches require a bit of patience from the fans, typically building anticipation to fever pitch. We waited six months for the Carl Froch–George Groves return and one to three years between each of the Manny Pacquiao–Juan Manuel Marquez fights. But in 1936, fans were less patient.

On 14 October 1936, a 17-year-old middleweight named Freddie Mills stepped into the ring at Bournemouth’s Westover Ice Rink for his seventh pro fight. Later, he would win the world light-heavyweight championship, become a household name and die tragically in mysterious circumstances, aged 46.

As the bell clanged, Mills swarmed over his opponent in customary style, pounding out a first-round knockout win over the UK-based American Jack Scott. But Scott had only just failed to beat the count and some in the crowd voiced their disapproval.

When Mills went to pick up his purse money, the promoter Jack Turner told him if he wanted to get paid he would have to fight Scott again – not in a month’s or even a week’s time, but that very night! Quite how Scott felt about meeting fearless Freddie again is unclear, but presumably he was obliged to if he wanted his cash.

Memories of a Fairground Legend

Sam McKeowen in his youth

The McKeowen boxing booth was a familiar sight on British fairgrounds for over 70 years.

Booth owners are among the unsung heroes of British boxing. World champions such as Jimmy Wilde, Benny Lynch, Freddie Mills, Randolph Turpin and Rinty Monaghan plied their trade on the fairground circuit. Yet little has been written of the people who ran the booths: the men — and women — who gave champions-in-the-making their chance to shine.

One name forever entwined with booth fighting is that of Exeter’s Sam McKeowen, who was born Samuel Eli McKeowen in 1889. In 1956, when Sam was in his 50th year with the booths, Boxing News tracked him down for a rare interview.

McKeowen told our reporter how he’d learnt to box as a boy fairground attendant, spending every spare minute outside the booth, catching the gloves the fighters threw to their challengers.  It was a tough education but Sam soon learnt enough for the proprietor to ask him to join his troupe of touring fighters.

The Lesser Known Patterson

The story of world heavyweight champion Floyd's kid brother, Ray Patterson.

Every fight fan of a certain age knows about the 1950s and ’60s world heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, whose bouts with Archie Moore, Ingemar Johansson, Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali are part of boxing folklore.

But I wonder how many remember Floyd’s younger brother, Ray, a fellow heavyweight who exiled himself from America to fight out of Sweden at a time when pro boxing was illegal there and punishable by prison.

One of 11 siblings, Ray was born in New York in 1942 and took up boxing hoping to emulate his famous brother. After winning two New York Golden Gloves titles, he turned pro in March 1963 with a two-round stoppage win at Madison Square Garden.

Fred's Gym

Remembering Fred Dyer's 1920s boxing gym at the Strand, in London.

There was half-an-hour to kill between train connections at Charing Cross station. It was a sunny September afternoon, so I took a stroll along the Strand. Gazing at the city horizon, my eyes stopped at a tall, imposing building. I’d seen it before but never in living colour. Previously, it had been one dimensional — grey or sepia in the photos I’d seen — but here it was in 3D.

I was staring at the rooftop of Britain’s Zimbabwean Embassy. Not an obvious boxing shrine but nonetheless a building with a rich fistic past. Back in the late 1920s, this grade-II-listed edifice, at 429 Strand, was the HQ of Fred Dyer (real name Frederick O’Dwyer), one of Britain’s top trainers.

The Genius of Jimmy Wilde

Jimmy Wilde

Stylistically unorthodox, the great Welshman was no textbook boxer. So what lay behind Jimmy’s genius?

‘I have nothing to declare but my genius.’ So supposedly said the famous Mr Wilde while passing through New York customs. That’s Oscar Wilde, the famous writer, not Jimmy Wilde, the famous fighter. They were two very different men but here’s one thing they shared. Neither was shy about his brilliance.

Jimmy Wilde passed through New York customs for a US fight tour 37 years after Oscar Wilde, but I doubt Jimmy made any such remark. However, in the late 1950s, several Boxing News readers were aggrieved by a similarly bold statement Jimmy had made in a TV interview. Apparently, he’d been asked to predict the outcome of a fantasy match-up against fellow flyweight legend Benny Lynch, with Wilde declaring that he would have beaten Benny inside a couple of rounds.

Perhaps Jimmy truly believed this, or maybe he said it for a bit of devilment. Either way, you could make a good case for him beating Lynch, although I don’t think such an early demolition would have been likely.