In boxing, there is a saying that if the promoter wants to make a compact fortune from sport, he will start better with a enormous one. Major Arnold Wilson was one promoter who played everything at one massive event and lost everything in it.

Wilson was the first hero of World War. He won the Military Cross after he crawled into the nobody’s land, when under fire to save the lives of his two wounded soldiers. He was part of the original Liverpool consortium, which opened the celebrated Pudsey Street stadium in 1911, and from 1920 he worked closely with CB Cochrane promoter at some main programs in London. After studying trade, he branched himself as a great promoter. Among the many enormous programs he was promoted, was the farce match of Georges Carpentier and Joe Beckett at Olympia in 1923.

Wembley Stadium opened his doors for the first time in the same year. First of all, the Wembley football stadium was also used at the British Empire Empire exhibition from 1924 and during this festival Wilson rented a premises to organize an international heavyweight competition, which, as hopes, will fill a place on capacity and earn a fortune. The exhibition attracted huge crowds from all over the country, and Wilson tried to utilize this captivity.

At that time, the stadium sat over 100,000, and Wilson thought that the heavyweight competition between American American and Jacek Bloomfield would arouse sufficient interest to complete this plan.

Tommy Gibbons was brought to face Bloomfield and on paper it looked like a winner. Gibbons passed full 15 with Jacek Dempsey for the world’s heavyweight title of the previous year and Bloomfield, as a prevailing British heavyweight champion, and the man with a great blow was popular among his colleagues Londoners. But it wasn’t a guaranteed spinner of money or a thriller. In the end, Gibbons was 33 years aged, and his competition with Dempsey was terrible, while Bloomfield took boxes for the title of British heavyweight in 1923 against Frank Goddard to be disqualified in two rounds for hitting the opponent when he was on canvas. Bloomfield put Goddard twice and looked like a winner. The boxing audience was not impressed, both with a fight and stupid Bloomfield.

Nevertheless, Wilson used a chance and was ready to pay Gibbon 10,000 pounds, at that time a huge bag for his trouble. Bloomfield was to receive 6000 pounds, and the total circulation on the event was about 27,000 pounds. Wilson maintained low ticket prices, gambling that he would attract the enormous swaths of random observers, the people he needed if he hoped to fill 100,000 places.

The weather that day was great radiant, but only 27,000 appeared, and the entire episodes of the Wembley stadium were completely empty. Regardless of optimism, it could have been that Bloomfield could defeat Gibbons, also suddenly on earth. After even the first round, in which Bloomfield effectively defended and replaced the impacts, the second round was a disaster. He was dotted three times and after saving the bell quickly finished in the third.

The day after the Gibbons competition, which received only 3000 pounds of his purse, he said that he would not require any balance from him as long as the initial warriors, including Phil Scott, Tommy Milligan and Alf Mancini, did not receive payment. Five days later he went to the States, and his last act before entering the ship was to spend Wilson with a written call for 8000 pounds. This did not turn out to be effective, because four months later Wilson was announced bankrupt with assets of 300 pounds, and liabilities with a total value of 17,000 pounds.

The Wembley stadium was not reused for boxing only in 1935 and nothing more could be heard from the unfortunate major.

Last month it was marked 50 years since I bought my first copy Boxing newsAnd since then I bought it. On the front cover there was a photo of Ralph Charles, which meant his official retirement, and the other by Danny Mcalinden, the then British champion of heavyweight, celebrating a return from his arm injury, who suffered training in Kingston in Jamaica. He was adapted to the unwavering American, Morrie Jackson, and this competition was to be catastrophic for the Irishman, how many he would remember. Bn He also mourned the departure of Ace Hudkins, the top -class American script from the 1920s and the 1930s, who fought them all on many weights. At that time, the real point of the conversation was the upcoming “Superfight” between Chris Finnegan, a gold medalist of medium weight in 1968 and 21-year-old John Conteh, a rising star of British boxing.

Two men were tailored to the fight for the British and community community of the Community weight and the title of Conteh European at Empire Pool, Wembley, May 22, 1973. For boxing purists it was a contest for pleasure, one that had everything. North versus South, a promising youthful man versus a proven master and boxer versus puncher.

As a 15-year-old fan and recent in the game, I was almost side by side with expectations of this competition. Recently, I had memories of observing how George Foreman demolitions Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, who causes great nervousness to the victory of points over Muhammad Ali, but for the first time I became interested in a national duel and I think that the fight is still a test of time as one of the great stops between British boxers. In my opinion, it is right with Benn-Eubank and Froch-Groves.

I used to write regularly to an vintage man named Arthur Rudkin, now Long Dead, who regularly published his letters in BN, and Arthur promised me that he would send me a competition program when he traveled from Nottinghamshire to Wembley to testify to him. He warned the promise, and in the next week he reached the position. Interestingly, it cost only 15 pence – these were days! Combat programs are rarely produced during all these days and this is a shame because they create wonderful souvenirs.

Bn Initially, he announced the fight at the end of March, and because it concerned two great fighters at a very high level, he excited everyone in the game. In view of the fight Bn He stated that “Conteh’s power should sway her, but Finnegan would fight to the border.” This forecast was hit because it was a huge competition, which passed the full 15 rounds, and the action flowed down and flowed first, and then the second, swaying. Graham Houston, Bn At that time, the editor informed that “Conteh and Finnegan provided one of the largest battles about the weight of lithe in the years in Empire Pool. Conteh won more than doubt after 15 unforgettable rounds, but Finnegan stayed with him to the end and, as expected, forced Conteh to deepen the final reserves of robust and courage. Conteh showed classic changes and gathering of strokes that reminded some of the rings [Ray] Robinson and [Jose] Napole. “High praise.

Conteh of course won the WBC title when only two world belts were available, and defended it against some classes. But before he did this, he had to survive Chris Finnegan again because the rematch was natural. This time, when John won definitely, defeating Chris by arresting the sixth round at Royal Albert Hall, almost exactly a year later.

Finnegan retired the following year after winning the Lonsdale belt and what the warrior was. He really lacked a gigantic blow, because he had everything else, guts, skills, determination and endurance. John is with us very much because I can say that he is my commemorative program.

If you were a toff in Edwardiański London, you would see your boxing at the National Sports Club, Self -proclaimed boxing and the Elite House. If you weren’t, you would go by Whitechapel, in the heart of Stepney, to enter Wonderland.

Open in 1899 by the promoters of Harry Jacobs and Harry Wright, this place attracted the cream from cultivation through a 12-year history as a leading London room. Two men finally fell out, which caused the “mysterious” fire, which looked for this place in August 1911. Jacobs went to the promotion in Premierland, at a distance of a compact walk, and with the creation of Blackfriars Ring Boxing in a miniature hall in London was secured, but in her time Wonderland was a beating heart of sport.

Let’s look at a typical night in venerable place. It is Saturday night, December 13, 1902, and the box starts immediately at 20:00. The door was opened at 7.15, and customers, of which there were about 1,500, settled in their places ready for the “great double program”, which the promoters advertised in the edition of this morning Sports life.

Although budget-friendly places can only be obtained by 2½p, sitting in the ring will cost 25 pence, quite a part of a typical salary of a man working in the amount of about 2 pounds a week. Earth peanuts and jelly with jelly are available to those who want to eat, and boxing when it starts begins with the competition at 8. 8 pounds for which there are eight participants. Rather, like prize -style tournaments, which were sometimes seen today, it was a lasting element at that time.

Few concerts were complete without these tournaments and attracted as many as 32 participants and ran for several weeks in three or even four programs. Each fight would have over three two-minute rounds, and if it was tight at the end, the judge called the boxers to send an additional round to determine the winner-it often happened. The last winner of this tournament was Joe Goodwin from Spitalfields, and tonight he gets the ball, beating Jumbo King of Lambeth at points. Every man is an experienced boxer and both would eventually have about 100 professional competitions.

Next is the finale of the 10th competition, which has been going on for several weeks, in which Alf Jacobs with Mile End breaks Ted Baldocka from Poplar in the fifth round of the six -pad. Baldock was the father of one of the best people who ever left the East End, champion of the 1920s, Teddy Baldock. Ted’s career was compact, he packed her next year, but Banger was known.

There are four six runes and two eight runes on the invoice. In those days they liked that their attacks were compact and sweet, because it was thought that with less time the fighters would be much more assertive and the blows flow. In the very early Career Competition Johnny Summers, the future champion of the great reputation, will knock out Cockney Cohen in just two rounds in great nervousness. Cohen is the best line, and this fight really places newborn Johnny on the map.

Today there is eight rounds of “Cigars Trade Championship”. Yes, I agree, trading in cigars! In the current world, which is littered with senseless titles, it’s effortless to forget that this is not a contemporary phenomenon. Taxi trade had its masters, as did London markets of meat, fruits and fish, and Pitmen titles were highly valued at that time.

Jack Levy of Hackney and Jim Green from Bethnal Green entertain the crowd for five rounds, after which Levy Polehaxes is his sixth rival in the sixth to become the leading Tobacco lithe. What is this night.