In every episode of imagination, Packey Mahoney from Cork was a terrifying hefty weight. In an era in which most of the heavyweight looked, as if someone who could be avoided at all costs. Jim Jeffries is another good example. The Irish always had a reputation of the fight, and this was mainly because so many of them had to leave their country during the great hunger in the 1840s and ended in Great Britain, doing all the demanding work. Without them, for example, most of the railways could not be built.

According to Matt Donnellon in his book Irish heavyweight book 1The Packey family emigrated to Wales, where Packey was born in Cardiff in 1883. Soon they returned to Cork, and there a newborn boy learned to fight. Matt describes Mahoney as “one of the most crucial fighters who have ever left Ireland, and a retrospective look at his career shows that he was the highest class of heavyweight.” He served in the British army during the Burska war and I am sure that he would be presented to noble art.

In 1910, at the age of 26, he had his first professional competition, beating Sid Barber in the planned 15-government advertisement as Munster championships in hefty weight, with victory in the eighth round. The following year, Packey raised the championship in the heavyweight of his family Cork, beating Bombardier Coates in a 20-round competition at the Cork Opera House, a place where Packey became a great favorite. According to Bn“The crooked, which greeted the victory of a local man, were deafening.” Packey Polokski of his man.

Then he went to the invincible run of 12 competitions. In 1912 he attracted the Irish heavyweight title against a private Delaney from Leinster Regiment, again at the Opera, and then won two competitions in England, including one against the American, newborn Johnson, and the other by knockout in Paris. In October 1912 he was re -broadcast with Johnson, this time at the House Opera in Cork. Johnson was nearby, he fought with this great American, Joe Jeannette, in Glasgow only five months earlier. In the uninteresting fight, Mahoney won again.

His reward was the 15th-Runder against the future British heavyweight champion, Joe Beckett, at the National Sporting Club, and Packey won this chance with both hands. According to Bn“Mahoney was always at the top, until, seeing that he had his man on his mercy, Packey entered and, without even worrying to break the right to the jaw, and Beckett dropped like logs that could be counted.”

After two defense of the Irish heavyweight title in 1913, winning excellent victories over private Dan Voyles and Seaman Brown, he was adapted to the leading British man of weight, Bombardier Billy Wells, in the British title. It inevitably took place, as it had to, at the National Sporting Club. Wells lost the last two matches, both through a knockout for the world opposition at Gunboat Smith and Georges Carpentier, and could not afford to lose it. In our preview, Bn He described the style of Mahoney as “a warrior, immaculate and elementary, whose one idea is to move to his opponent, sticking close to him and piercing him.”

Unfortunately, the peculiar lack of boxing skills of Packey led to his fall against Wells. Several times in the first two rounds he caught the master, but into the third “he was stuck in every variety of strokes. Hooks, stabs, right crosses, peaks found his face, nose and mouth,” and Mahoney was finally displaced with a net of hooks. This was his first and only failure.

Packey has never been blooming again. He retired to Cork, where he became a worshiped and beloved figure. He died at the age of 85 in 1968.

In 1935, the colored bar was heavily rooted in British boxing and was rigorously enforced, both by the board and by some fighters.

British heavyweight champion (1931/32) Reggie Meen, for example, when he is under the contract to gain Canadian Larry profits at the Liverpool stadium in 1929, withdrew from the attacks, stating that “I draw a color line”. In any case, I doubt he had his chances against Larry. This unfortunate situation, then common in sport and generally in British society, meant that Larry, despite the great career in which he defeated two world heavyweight masters, never had the opportunity that they gave men like Jack Petersen, Jack Doyle, and even Reggie Meen.

As a result, someone came up with the idea of ​​the world championships in heavyweight, which was open especially for the black fighters themselves, and in 1935 Larry was tailored to the American, both Walker to fight for this title. No man was mentioned in the top ten in the world according to RingDespite decent entries. Instead, worse white fighters, such as Hank Hankinson, Buck Everett and Ford Smith found themselves in the rankings.

The match took place at Welford Road, the official House of the Leicester Tigers Rugby football club. Larry was a great favorite in Leicester, where he relied throughout the thirties of the 20th century, and earlier he was successful in the competition at the stadium in 1931 against Phil Scott. This competition is currently available on YouTube, with sound, and it is quite an unusual boxing heritage. Both Walker was not the best black warrior from the States in 1935 that Mantle of course went to the great Joe Louis, who quickly climbed to the top. Nevertheless, he was a decent warrior with victories over Tony Galento, George Godfrey and Otto von Porrat. He came to Great Britain at the beginning of this year and already won the Australian veteran George Cook, who went through and went through the fight, to both frustration.

Only 12,000 appeared to watch the fight for the title, about half of the number in which she saw the Blains-Scott competition four years earlier, and this was not doubt about the rain that was constantly falling all day.

He was in good shape with Blains, winning three quick wins since his defeat, a year earlier, against Jacek Petersene in the challenge of British Empire Title Challenge. His problem was one of the size because he was much smaller than Walker and from the very beginning he was looking for America, after the Cook approach. This meant that the competition lacked emotion and quickly settled in a pedantic and uninteresting spectacle.

In the second round, the crowd began to purr with dissatisfaction, and until the eighth they openly asked that the two warriors kissed and not try to hurt themselves. Some weights shouted “what you think you are here” and he rejected both of them into action. He found himself in profits with a series of hooks, but despite the injury of his man, he soon caught up. When the Gains arm was raised at the end of 15, the crowd booed. Whether these Boos reflected their dissatisfaction with the sentence or in the competition itself cannot be known today, but they were not content.

On the basis of adolescent Tommy, Farr made a close decision about policeman Nottingham, George Brennan, in ten round. Four years later, Tommy stopped aging profits before 40,000 in Ninian Park, Cardiff.

Both Walker stayed in Great Britain for a moment when he defeated Don McCorkindale, Norman Baines and Maurice Strickland in competitions that went at a distance. His last fight with the future British heavyweight champion Jack London took place in the Tigers in Leicester, but this time only 3000 appeared to see him again. Then he returned to America and ambiguities.

After retiring, there is a long tradition of boxers after retiring. Being a third man in the ring is not a position that would match everyone, but former fighters, being there alone, especially at the championship level, they have more than most to offer when it comes to experience and competences in what is often a challenging role.

Jack Hart, Johnny Summers and Jim Kenrick are good examples of this in the 1920s, and Jimmy Wilde was a talented and very popular judge ten years later. Tradition lasted after the war, when Tommy Little, Benny Caplan, Ike Powell and Eugene Henderson wore a flag. In 2019, I developed an article for Wally Thom, a very good judge in the seventies and a British welterweight master in the 1950s, and now I would like to pay tribute to others from the same era that followed this path, Mark Hart Croydon.

Mark was part of a group of boxers from Croydon, which had a real influence on the national stage in the early 1950s, the others were Pat Stribling, Ron Pajney and Albert Finch. All four boxed in medium weight or airy and undoubtedly would often pair each other. Stribling was managed by Tom Fisher, Croydon Man, whose stable was full of local boys. Both Pajney and Finch went with Jacek Burns, and Mark was managed by John Harding, a former manager of the National Sports Club.

A very good amateur, Mark won the heavyweight title of ABA from 1944, and in the following year he became a professional. After starting as massive weight, his trainer, Jack Hyams, decided to make a better medium weight and slowly reduce his size. This made him become a powerful and powerful pretender with a modern weight. In 1947 he was a champion of the south-eastern area and was good enough to share the ring with both Dick and Randolphem Turpin (with which he shared a six-time draw), Albert Finch and Don Cockell.

In 1949, after switching weights, he was the first challenge to the British title of Library, he earlier gained the same position in medium weight, and after winning 36 of 47 competitions he was adapted to Reg Spring with Southall in the south-eastern part of the heavyweight title.

This fight took place in the Royal Albert Hall, and Mark hit a clear victory of 12-round points. After a stuffy start until 1950, when he won only two of his first four competitions, he overtook Dennis Powell in the British title Eliminator, which ensured him the right to meet Don Cockell, this time for the British title. In a great fight at Harringay Arena, Mark was knocked out in the 14th round. Because at that time the printer hit, Bn Unfortunately, he did not have a report from this competition. Mark had five more competitions with three wins before he disconnected gloves in 1953.

For most of the 1950s and 1960s Bn He did not routinely give the name of the judge for the competitions he submitted. This is a standard practice today and has been in over 50 years. That is why it is quite challenging to provide a lot of detailed information about Marek’s early career as a judge, but he certainly acted as a third man in the mid -1960s and was regular in the entire southern area in the seventies.

He never achieved the status of “stars”, but he was good enough to referee 12-runder between Charlie Nash and Jimmy Revie at the World Sporting Club in 1976. I also remember Mark responsible for Randy Neumann and Billy Aird in 1975, nine rounds between Paddy Maguire and John Kellie the following year, and Jimmy Batten in 1977 in 1977. 1979, and then became a popular member of the very lively ex-boxers association, where he is still remembered. He died in 2004.