Boxing, more than most sports, seems to generate many debates about who was greater than whom. I would do Muhammad Ali Mike Tyson’s battle? Was Marvin Hagler better than Carlos Monzon? Who was the best of the four kings? I usually like to stay away from these discussions, because they seem to lead to quite a lot of vitriol. I understand that thanks to advanced training techniques and preparing the diet, current warriors have an advantage over their counterparts from 100 years ago. However, I also feel that yesterday’s heroes came from more arduous times and there were many more fighters around, which had to be overcome to get to the top.

Considering who was the best of the British, I would say that Ted Kid Lewis was our best warrior, Ken Buchanan, our best boxer, Lennox Lewis, a man who achieved the most, contrary to the best, in the current age, and if someone is looking for the most exhilarating warrior, don’t look further than Nigel Benn. Perhaps the best of this was Jimmy Wilde.

Wilde is constantly on these letters, although I suspect that there are many younger fans, without particular interest in the archaic history of the ring, who wonder why it should be so. It is often claimed that Wilde had 600 professional fights. This is extremely untrue. He was a stand fighter, so he would cross gloves with at least 600 men, but most of them would not be professional boxers. Its detailed professional record is quite unclear and there are many different versions. Some of them contain inaccuracies, while others exclude several significant duels, including a loss. He had over 100 competitions and won the enormous majority of them at a distance. The man could hit with any hand. Nothing was known as “a ghost with a hammer in his hand.”

He often weighed much less than his opponents, even though he competed through his entire career in the lightest division. When he defeated American, Johnny Rosner, in 1916 he weighed 7 pounds (100 pounds) in the World Wagi Flyight competition. In 1916, he knocked out the future British weight champion in 1916, when he lost between 18 and 20 pounds, while in 1919 Wilde in 1919 Wilde issued a close sentence while fighting 14 pounds. One of his most unusual feats was to provide Joe Conn about two stones (28 pounds) in weight and four inches in 1918 and comprehensively transfers before the Londonian detained in 12 rounds.

Conn was then the highest feather scale, and in the next fight he met Tancey Lee for the British title and lasted until the 17th round. Before the competition, Wilde won 12 at the trot, and among his victims there were three men who once had a British title – Sid Smith, Tommy Noble and Curley Walker. He also defeated Welsh fees by Danny Morgan and Idris Jones in the schedule, and both men were the highest caliber.

The idea of ​​matching Wilde from Conn comes from promoter Jacek Callaghan. The show took place at Stamford Bridge, the house of Chelsea FC. It was not a natural match and I suspect that it was carefully produced to allow Wilde to let Wilde to demonstrate a enormous London audience, how versatile he was able to defeat a much heavier man.

I have some excellent photos from the fight – one of which is recreated here. Just look at the size difference. Also consider Conn’s face after hitting Wilde’s left hook. Body language is also revealed. Wilde looks like an aggressor, and Conn appears restraint. The largest British warrior in history? It’s Wilde for me.

When do you think about the ancient gym, what do you imagine? Floors, walls and chunky windows with dirt, ruined equipment and a shaky, colored with a blood ring? Go back 60 years or more, and this is probably an forthright representation of a typical British boxing gym. But there was one significant exception.

Cambridge Gym at 9 Earlham Street, at Cambridge Circus, in London West End was a bastion of neatness and purity thanks to the eccentric owner Joe Bloom. “You would be overlooked and he would circulate on the floor disinfecting,” a talented feather and featherlight in the 1940s and 1950s once told me. “Woe to anyone who dropped even a diminutive piece of paper on the floor of the beloved Joe gym”, reminded Boxing News “Elderly Timers” Doyen Ron Olver.

Although known as Southern Africa, Bloom was born in London on April 16, 1896. His father was sent to South Africa with Imperial Lithe Horse during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), and when the war ended Joe and his brothers, they joined him. As a newborn man, Bloom was an avid amateur boxer and was interested in medical matters. He joined the ST Emergency Service Organization, he worked in a hospital during World War I, and then continued working with an ambulance, which explains his obsession with hygiene.

In 1932 he returned to Great Britain, planning to work in greyhound races, but instead he entered boxing. The Olympic bronze medalist in South Africa Eddie Peirce was Joe’s first warrior. Bloom brought him to Great Britain in 1933 and directed him to a successful professional career. Soon other South African boxers appeared – Johnny Holt, Johnny Rust, Robey Leibbrandt and many others. Joe found them accommodation, looked after their general matters, and in 1936 he opened his Earlham Street plant. The place quickly became one of the best known in the country. Mecca for South African boxers, was also popular among businessmen and showbiznes stars who want to stay in shape.

Twenty-two world champions performed there at different times-primo Carner, Al Brown, Freddie Miller, Benny Lynch, John Henry Lewis, Henry Armstrong, Freddie Mills, Randolph Turpin, Terry Downes, Sugar Ray Rayson I Sonny poston among them. It was also used for critical indicators.

Norman Giller, currently 81 -year -old, was a regular guest at the Bloom gym at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, when he wrote for BN under the pseudonym Ross Martin. It reminds: “The gym looked at Palace Theater and Down Shaftesbury Avenue and acted like a boudoir by a very picky, Martinet Joe.

“Joe was quite a figure, knocked and walking when I knew him, and he still had a robust accent Springbok. He was always flawless with freshly rooted wear in the gym, looking more like a doctor than a trainer. Many warriors felt the length of the language, if there was something less than organized. He liked to say:” You can eat dinner from my junior high school. ” When I participated in press conferences, he once insisted that reporters and photographers remove their shoes.

“A proud Jew, Joe, was furious [Jack] Solomons and [Harry] Levene, when after the war, they began to import German boxers. He belonged to anti -fastic movements and undertook [Oswald] Blackshirts Mosley in the celebrated battle at Cable Street from 1936. “

In addition to the spell, when Bloom served as PTI in RAF during World War II, he continued the gym for over 30 years. He was forced to close this place in 1967, when its owner raised the rent from 500 to 2000 pounds a year in accordance with the rising prices of real estate. But he returned to look after the gym control council in Havestock Hill on resident coach George Daly Free. Joe died in London in 1979, at the age of 82.

One of the all time of the Bantamweight immense divisions is Panama Al Brown, busy in 1922–1942 and winner of 129 of his 160 competitions. Consistently, it is a ranking of experts and historians in the top ten of all time Bantamweight, and in an article from 2016. On the Boxing News website, Mike Lockley placed it on the fourth issue.

He was a elaborate figure from the ring and led a colorful and intriguing life before he tragically died in 1951 at a youthful age 48. He was a gay black man, so he had to fight many prejudices, and I suspect that he can explain it, that he would decide to spend a immense part of his life in Paris, a city noteworthy as it is today, because it is today, because it is today, because it is today. Brown easily suited the French society, where, as well as an extremely well -known boxer, he was also an excellent dancer, part -time actor and extravagant social.

Born born in the colon in 1902, Brown gained his name in Fresh York, where in 1929 he collected the free world championship title, beating Vidal Gregorio in 15 rounds. This made him the first Latin American world champion and is still worshiped in South and Central America for this achievement.

He toured three times in Great Britain, with six competitions in 1931, three in 1932 and the next six in 1933. He lost only one of them when he was disqualified in the eighth 15-round duel against him, which Brown Title recently, again, finished, over 15 rounds, over 15 rounds, front, front. 30,000 to Antfield Football Ground, Liverpool.

One of the more intriguing aspects of Brown competitions in Great Britain was the fact that he was prepared for boxing in the most unlikely places. In addition to boxing, in some of the most vital rooms and stadiums in the country, including Olimpia, Kensington and Belle Vue, Manchester, he also boxed at Blundell Park, the House of Grimsby Town FC, in the pavilion in Mountain Ash, and in Ryton, and then a busy compact fight center at oldkirts of oldskirts. He would certainly be well paid for these fights and packed places each time.

When he came to Great Britain for the first time, he defeated the two highest level of Geordie Bantams in Billy Farrell and Douglas Parker. He easily beat Farrell in three rounds. I met Billy about 45 years ago and although I asked him about this competition, I don’t remember now what he said about him, except that Brown was excellent. I would like to take part in a tape recorder! Then in the novel Hall ST James’ Hall, Newcastle – the eminent place of boxing, which was immediately on the other side of the road from the end of Gallowgate of Newcastle United FC – where he knocked out Parker.

Brown box twice in the ring, Blackfriars. This place is the most iconic compact room in the history of the game, if I know, and the crowd really knew their boxing. They watched the Panama, extremely high for Bantam, defeating Johnny Peters from Battesea, and then Tommy Hyams from Kings Cross, at the beginning of 1933 his following fight was against the substitute, Arthur Boddington from Wellingborough, in Ryton, and Brown played him before he opened him and stopped him in the fourth.

The Grimsby competition was his next and when there was so many boxing in the ground and down that BN could not report everything, the venerable Bible managed to miss this. Imagine it is happening today! World and all time champion, boxing in Grimsby and this is not covered by the BN. Brown deserves its place as one of the largest in the history of Bantam.