“Life is the best leftist I’ve ever seen, although some say it’s Charlie White from Chicago.”

This is a quote from Ernest HemingwayFight with the writer’s Nobel Prize and at least he should say that. When I read this line for the first time a few years ago, I assumed that Charlie White is an invention, a kind of everyone who symbolized awards around the world. But it turns out that he wasn’t. White lived, breathed and spilled his blood into the penal rings of pre -war America. He was indeed a terrifying leftist and despite the settlements in Chicago, he was British by birth.

Born in a Jewish Russian immigrant family in Liverpool on March 25, 1891, Charlie’s real name is Charles Anchowitz. He came to America with his parents at the age of seven and settled in the Jewish ghetto in the west side of Chicago. At the age of 13, Charlie arranged tuberculosis. He was sent to the gym in Chicago Bill O’Connell and conducted a course of exercises to improve his health. Treatment seemed to work. Soon he was free from tuberculosis, and under the care of O’Connell he discovered a talent for boxing.

Charlie had his first professional fight in the middle of teenagers, adopting the name White in tribute to Tommy White, the highest weight from Chicago Feather in the 1890s. The string of knockouts won mainly by the left hook brought him the nickname “Left Hook Charlie”, and soon mixed in a world -class company.

In December 1909 he lost the eight round with the prevailing world champion in the weight of feathers, Abe Atell, who “was forced to expand to the border” according to Union Sacramento. The article noted that the decision of the judge for Attell “was unpopular”. They met again nine months later in the fight for “without decision”. It was another loved one, but Atell did enough to make a decision in the newspaper.

At that time, some US jurisdictions banned point sentences, and the boxer could officially win only through knockout or stop. This was to combat the plants, but instead of the official result, the winner of the competition for full distance was settled by Sportswriters in the newspapers the next day. Some world champions even insisted on fighting for a lack of decision-making to assist protect their titles-a great disappointment of their contenders.

In May 1914, 23-year-old White faced Willie Ritchie from San Francisco behind the world crown and dominated the fight. “I was generated and exceeded,” Ritchie admitted. White won the decision in the newspaper, but the fight went a distance, so Willie kept his title.

The next shot of Charlie at a slight distinction was against the successor of Ritchie, Freddie Welsh from Pontipridd. The couple fought four times in 1914–1916, and White won one decision in the newspaper and lost the other three fights. Despite his apparent fist advantage, the Welshman developed vigorous respect for Charlie’s left hook. “Keep your right hand all the time and go to him with your left. Never employ the right,” Brit Matt Wells warned in a letter before Matt’s first fight with Charlie in 1915. “I felt one of his left on my head in one of our Milwaukee battles and I thought the building had come.”

Benny Leonard, one of the best defensive boxers of all time, would recognize this useful advice when he got to know the wearing ring, but still unsafe 29-year-old White in July 1920. In the fifth 10-round lightweight title fight, White planted his legendary left hook on Leonard’s jaw and overturned him through Lines. But Leonard got back on the ring-non-citizens say with the assist of his brother-and turned the tables white with the ninth round of KO. It was the only knockout loss of Chicagoan’s career.

Charlie-Kwyóó was also challenging Jacek Britton for a world-class crown and won two, lost two and drew one of the two-time title in the twenty Johnny Dundee-he had unlucky so as not to win the title himself. It deserves to be remembered much more than Punch Hemingway.

After World War II, the British audience wanted emotions and entertainment like never before. After six years of trauma and disabilities, they came to dance rooms, cinemas and sports stadiums with feverish pleasure and boxing – then Sport Mas – was one of the biggest draws.

Fighters who dragged crowds – then, as now – were those who promised color and emotions. And at the end of the 1940s. Great Britain a delicate division boasted a boxer whose performances provided both. Billy Thompson was a active, tenacious fighter who rarely took a backward step. Turning Pro in the year in which the war ended in 1945, for fans of fighting was an ideal antidote for darkness, which he embraced Great Britain for so long.

Born in Modern Silksworth, Sunderland, in 1925, Billy moved to Thurnscoe, near Rotherham, with his family at the age of five. As a boxer, the student won the title of Yorkshire school for two years, and when he left the school to work at Hickleton Maine Colliery, like his father, he said that he could train in the newly built Collier gym.

He lied about his age – claiming that he was 17 years aged, not 16 – to enter the northern senior poviat championships and defeated a number of older opponents to take the title. In 1943 he won the feather crown of the northern poviat, and in 1944 he founded a seal for his amateur fame, winning the delicate title of ABA. He planned to defend his crown in 1945, but he was kept away from the championship due to an ear injury.

The chest, shot Yorkshireman, could stay longer in amateurs, but his father was exhausted from the pits after the expansion of silveriasis, and Billy needed to support his family. It was said that his father returned to the extraction of coal after two or three years of regeneration, but Billy tried to make sure that his dad would never have to leave the mine again.

Thompson became a professional with a youthful, developing London manager Jarvis Astaire and put 34 fights in his first two years in paid ranks. Billy was 30-2-1, when he faced Stan Hawthorne of North Shields on Anfield in October 1947 in the case of a free British delicate title.

The fight was a slaughterhouse, Billy attacked a man with North Shields with uncontrollable cruelty from the opening bell. Somehow Hawthorne survived a lot of knocks to survive in the third round when judge Peter Muir came in. Thompson won the crown in less than seven minutes.

Billy maintained the title for less than four years, seeing the challenges of Harry Hughes from Wishaw and Tommy McGovern from Bermondsey. Thompson was perfectly boxed to capture the European crown from Italy Roberto Proieti in February 1948 and kept it against Pierre Montane (France), Josef Preys (Belgium) and Hughes, before he lost the title with low disqualification of disqualification for Kid Dussart from Belgium in July 1949.

During his height to the best, Billy looked great, but after winning the titles, his form became unpredictable and tried to make a delicate. In 1951, Thompson fought as a full Heelter, but he came down to delicate defense against McGovern. Pale, forced to the burden of the spirit of Billy Thompson, the world of boxing knew that he was dressed by the first real blow of the fight, and Ko’d in 45 seconds. After a few consecutive attacks in welterweight, Billy retired at the age of 27. He was the first post -war master who won the Lonsdale belt, and more importantly, was able to buy his family a farm in Thurnscoe with earnings from the ring.

Thompson died in January 2009, at the age of 83. At the funeral, his nurtured Lonsdale belt was decorated with a casket as a proper reminder of his achievements.

In recent years, the British rings have been full of foreign boxers and are a spine for many shows of diminutive halls taking place in the country. Most of these boxers come from Eastern Europe and there are almost all “journeymen” with long -term records. In the 1950s, many bills in Great Britain also included foreign fighters from all over Europe and the community of nations, but the import standard was much higher at the time than in today’s case. A typical bill on the Earls Court, in which Freddie Mills was a promoter, can easily include the Belgian, Frenchman, South Africa and Ghana. People like Roy Ankrah, Dave Sands, Duilio Loi and Yolande Pompey could be seen next to the top -shelf Londonians during this period. Wardrobes were like a mini version of the United Nations.

One of the men who came to Great Britain in 1955 was the heavyweight of Kitione Lave, known to fans of the fight from Great Britain as “Tongan Terror”, and Fresh Zealanders and Australians, where he had previously lit the trail in 1953 and 1954, as “Torpedo Tongan”.

Queen Tonga came to Great Britain for the coronation of the queen in 1953, and she caused a sensation during the royal procession because of her enthusiasm, warmth and highly colorful clothing. British public opinion warmed up to her and there was something like that for all things Tongan. When Kitione arrived in 1955, he did it with the support of his queen and was expected of great things from him. His world crashed very quickly when he was stuck by Johnny Williams, a former British and community of a massive community, in Sparkbrook in Birmingham. Lave was planted three times and stopped in the first round. The competition was described by the BN as “farce almost”. He certainly can’t come back.

Kitione slowly rebuilt his reputation thanks to the crushing one -time victory over Manny Burgo in a low West Hartlepool competition. He continued his rapid victories over Eddie Hearn (Batterstea) and Nosher Powell, although between these two victories there was a loss of a point for the next high quality heavyweight, Joe Bygrave.

Then Tongan was invited back to Sparkbrook to the 10-Runda against another British and community community, Jacek Gardner, and this time the roles were reversed. According to BN: “In the catastrophic first round, Gardner was dropped in two cases” five “and” nine “on the jaw rights. His left eye was noted and was hit from the pillar to the position. At no time during the competition he did not look like a winner. “Unfortunately, the judge did not agree, because at the end of the fight she raised Gardner’s hand, to the surprise of the crowd.

Two more quick wins against the European opposition led to Lave on another former heavyweight champion, Don Cockellwho had his second competition since he was erased by Rocky Marciano last year. Cockell was adapted to Gardner to a free British heavyweight title, and both men boxed at this account at Earls Court in sultry -up competitions. They were both supposed to lose badly. Lave just killed Cockella, dropping him six times in two rounds, in which the competition lasted. Gardner was similarly arranged by Bygraves, this competition also ended in the second round. Never before, two men have not adapted to the British heavyweight title, and they both immediately retired, paving the path of Joe Erskine to pick up a free crown.

As the Lave and Bygraves award, they were adapted to the empty title of the community of nations, but at full distance Lave was far behind. For a few more years he boxed both in Europe and in the United States, but he never fully pushed into the world. He will be remembered, like his queen, for the excitement he brought to Great Britain in these gray post -war years.