Right Hand Heart Blow: The famous right hand heart blow is undoubtedly the most effective as well as the most dangerous of all body blows. I am writing this book during my leisure moments and evenings while training for my contest with Solly Smith of Los Angeles, California, which is to take place before the Coney Island Athletic Club on September 24, 1893, for a purse of ten thousand dollars. About eight weeks ago I saw Smith defeat Johnnie Griffen at Roby, Indiana, in very short order, and I realized the fact that I have the best man of my career to meet. He is a hard, quick puncher and takes excellent care of his jaw. By excellent care, I mean a good close guard. I have decided that the only way he can be whipped is by punching his body. If I can succeed in landing some clean body hits, I will soon cause him to lower his guard and then try for his jaw. The way I usually land a heart blow is by drawing my opponent on to lead with his left. As soon as he does, I cross guard my left arm in under his left, thus raising it up out of the way of a right hander under the heart.
– George Dixon, “A Lesson in Boxing” (1893)
The growth of sports reporting in North American newspapers developed in tandem with the growth of modern boxing. In 1889, reports of boxing matches were regularly reported beneath the fold on page one of most papers. Yet as gambling became more prevalent in boxing and horse racing, and as baseball grew in popularity, a proto-sports page began to emerge. Chief among the newspapers that reported on sports, and chief among the newspapers that reported on boxing in particular, was the immensely popular and widely influential Police Gazette .
Founded in 1845 by journalist Enoch E. Camp and lawyer George Wilkes, the Police Gazette was originally created, in part, to publicize the building of the intercontinental railroad. Its name was chosen because the newspaper’s other content focused on events and issues that were considered police matters – salacious crime, murders, outlaws, prostitution, and gambling – and by association the world of the “sport.” The Police Gazette was tabloid in size and used numerous pictures – first ornate and detailed engravings and then photographs – as key components of its stories.
Images of scantily dressed dancers and strippers often pushed the limits of obscenity laws, but they also ensured a large and devoted readership. In the late nineteenth century, the Police Gazette became interested in boxing. Because no sanctioned organization existed to anoint champions, the paper became the unofficial organ to confer championship titles (until the newly formed National Boxing Association began to do so in 1920). This had much to do with its most famous editor.
Irish immigrant Richard Kyle Fox was the Police Gazette ’s always passionate and often fiery editor during the heyday of the paper from 1878 until 1922. Before Fox’s tenure, other newspapers routinely sent reporters to clandestine boxing matches – illegal in nearly all states – to report on the action. In an effort to have it both ways, these newspapers would report each fight in detail but then moralize against the sport. Fox had little time for such hypocrisy. From his first days at the paper, he used his boxing reports to encourage the sport’s legalization and professionalization. He even promoted and sanctioned the fights. An astute newspaperman and businessman, Fox was not above creating public disputes in the pages of the Police Gazette to cultivate interest in a match. For instance, he long maintained a running dispute with John L. Sullivan, questioning Sullivan’s skill in the ring, which did much to publicize both the sport and Sullivan’s profile. As well, Fox promoted specific boxers. In 1890, Fox found in George Dixon a gentlemanly hero. Thereafter, he did much to promote Dixon’s career and popularity.
* * *
In the barn of a New Jersey boxing hall, on November 26, 1896, George Dixon faced Frank Erne for the second time. Erne was a Swiss fighter who lived in Buffalo, New York. Five years younger than Dixon, Erne stood five feet six and weighed 121 pounds. He was quick and muscular with dark hair and piercing eyes, and he possessed an unusually long reach. Because Erne was above weight for an official featherweight bout, the outcome of the match would not affect Dixon’s title.
The two men entered the ring at 10:00 p.m. when they were introduced by the referee to the more than four thousand fans. After the preliminaries, the bell rang at 10:05, and the fighters charged into the centre of the ring.
Probing each other for the opening seconds, Dixon struck first with a hard left hook to Erne’s body. Erne countered with a right to Dixon’s neck and then leaned back, jabbing with his left. Dixon threw a left to Erne’s ear and another quick left to Erne’s nose. But few punches had significant effect.
In the second round, the fighters stood close, exchanging punches and counterpunches. Dixon struck a right to Erne’s ribs. Erne clinched and caught his breath. When they broke free, Erne delivered a blow to Dixon’s mouth. And so it continued. At the end of the round, the referee scored the fight even, and the crowd’s cheers grew as it became clear that Erne was a puzzle for which Dixon had no solution.
In the third, Erne took the lead with a right to Dixon’s body, followed by a left to the head. Dixon rushed, forcing Erne to the ropes, and quickly turned the momentum. With Erne against the ropes, Dixon delivered an artful combination. Yet Erne was quick. He stepped out from the ropes and into the centre of the ring. Dixon turned and rushed again. Erne threw an overhand left that caught Dixon on the eye. Dixon again moved forward. Erne continued his retreating and counterattack. When the bell came, both fighters were raw with the best blows each could deliver.
In the fourth, Dixon was caught off guard by a left and was forced into the ropes. He changed tactics and bounded off the ropes with a surprise right that hit Erne on the jaw. Yet Erne stood fast and retaliated with a right hand of his own that cut Dixon above the left eye. Dixon countered. Erne pushed Dixon toward the corner. Dixon again bounded off the ropes, and the two boxers delivered blow and counterblow until they clinched and waited for the bell.
In the fifth and sixth rounds, Dixon struggled to connect with Erne’s head, so he turned to the body, throwing right and left blows to the ribs. Erne waited and countered with strikes to Dixon’s head. Dixon now eschewed the rush and counterpunch and focused a steady attack against Erne’s body. Erne pushed Dixon toward the ropes and worked Dixon’s increasingly swollen eyes.
Again and again the two stayed in close, exchanging hard blows. Blood flowed from Erne’s nose. Then Dixon threw a right punch over Erne’s heart. Erne returned with a combination left and right. By round eight, the intensity of the fight was wearing. Both fighters spent more time clinching, catching their breath, than they did punching. From then until round thirteen, the rhythm was set, with Dixon working on Erne’s body, and Erne working at Dixon’s eye. Both were exhausted.
In the fourteenth, Dixon began to falter. His stamina waned. The two fighters stood almost chin to chin, exchanging rights and lefts, clinching, breaking, and exchanging blows again. Erne found an opening and delivered a stinging right hand to Dixon’s jaw. Dixon reeled. Erne rushed. Dixon fell back into the ropes with Erne delivering a flurry of blows. When the bell came, Dixon “looked worried as he sat down.”
In the opening of the fifteenth round, Erne bolted from the stool. Dixon met him with a left hook. Erne easily countered, snapping Dixon’s “head back with a heavy jab on the eye.” Dixon could not get his balance and flailed. Erne connected again on Dixon’s eye. Dixon was desperate and clinched. The crowed booed. In the sixteenth round, Erne continued to strike at Dixon, but he became careless, underestimating the champion.
Dixon blocked Erne’s left and threw his own left to Erne’s nose and a right to his ribs, where “the flesh had grown crimson from the blows that had landed there.” Erne clinched and held on until the round’s end. The seventeenth through nineteenth rounds continued in the same manner. The fight was conducted in close and the heavy exchanges were leaving their marks.
As the final round began, the two weary fighters shook hands and began again to exchange hard body blows. Erne hit Dixon with a left to the mouth. Dixon clinched and delivered a strike to Erne’s stomach. The crowd, thinking the punch low, yelled, “Foul!” The referee ignored them. The two fighters again stood toe to toe, landing left and right combinations until the final bell sounded.
By all accounts, the fight had been a draw, so Dixon was stunned when the referee announced that Erne had won. The crowd of four thousand erupted in cheers. Erne leapt from his stool to hug his seconds. He then shot across the ring to Dixon, who shook his hand. Dixon “looked dejected” and stepped between the ropes to make his way to the dressing room.
The next day’s papers seemed as one suggesting that the referee had it wrong and that the match was rightly a draw. Because of Erne’s weight, Dixon maintained his championship – but only on a technicality. As the referee also noted, Dixon would “have to be beaten in a finish fight to lose his laurels.” The loss only made clear to all that Dixon was now vulnerable. Eleven months later, he would see just how vulnerable.
“When George Dixon loses his featherweight title as he some day must,” wrote New York’s The Sun, “he couldn’t shed the crown more gracefully than in such a contest as that of last night [against Erne] – beyond the odds, the greatest featherweight battle the eyes have ever seen. He cut out the pace for himself as cycle racing people say, and did things so well as to be uncanny.”
* * *
In late December 1896, Frank Erne, recognizing the worth of a rematch, immediately negotiated for another with Dixon. “Dixon don’t appear to be satisfied with the whipping that I gave him,” Erne said, goading Dixon, “so to set all doubts at rest, my manager has decided that the proper course to pursue is to give him a chance to retrieve his lost laurels and at the same time enable me to prove conclusively that I am the featherweight champion. If Dixon is my superior, here is a chance to prove it before the club offering the best inducements.”
But before a rematch could be set with Frank Erne, Dixon returned to the ring with others, beating Torpedo Billy Murphy and drawing with Jack Downey in January and February of 1897.
Dixon met Frank Erne again in March of 1897 in front of six thousand spectators. Erne had swelled to 130 pounds, but Dixon was anxious to prove his mettle. They met at the Broadway Athletic Club. “Dixon was himself again,” noted a New York Times reporter, “leading the fight through the twenty-first round.” Erne seemed unable to land any effective blows. The fight was notable for Dixon’s change in fighting style, showing a more careful and cautious approach.
He took the decision in twenty-five rounds.
* * *
In April 1897, he beat Johnny Griffin in twenty rounds and drew fights with Kentucky Rosebud in Philadelphia and Dal Hawkins in California in June and July, before meeting Solly Smith in Woodward’s Pavilion in San Francisco on October 4, 1897.
The two had met before, of course, in September of 1893, at the Coney Island Athletic Club, where Tom O’Rourke guaranteed Smith $8,000 if he won and $1,000 if he lost. Dixon had won decisively then, in a seventh round knockout. As such, as Dixon and O’Rourke made their way to San Francisco for the next Smith fight, the betting for the rematch was nearly two to one for Dixon.
At the fight, the local press in California noted that all social classes were represented in the large crowd. George Dixon entered the ring at 9:15 p.m. with Tom O’Rourke, Young Mitchell, and “Scaldy Bill” Quinn, who was “attired in a turtle-neck sweater and a wheelman’s cap.” Solly Smith followed Dixon, accompanied by Spider Kelly, Tom Lansing, and Tom McGrath. Though Dixon heard much support from the “Afro-Americans” in attendance, it was Smith who received the loudest cheers.
The San Francisco Call noted that Dixon, “the little colored featherweight wonder,” has “seen his best days.” Although “he still retains his old-time cleverness,” he is now “lacking in precision and driving power.” It is difficult to know if the paper was expressing a genuine, clear-eyed assessment of Dixon, or whether it was engaging in the sort of subtle racism that was endemic in such reporting.
When referee George Green finished, and the bell finally sounded opening round one, both fighters stepped quickly to the centre of the ring. Smith threw a left that caught Dixon on the nose, followed by another to his jaw. Surprised by Smith’s speed, Dixon clinched. When they broke, Dixon swung twice at Smith but only glanced his arms. Smith countered with a shot to Dixon’s head. Again Dixon clinched.
In round two, Dixon rushed forward but was still unable to land any blows. Smith just sidestepped and landed a left to Dixon’s nose. Dixon countered, catching Smith in the ribs. Smith blocked Dixon’s follow-up to his head and returned with a sound shot to Dixon’s jaw. At the bell, the referee scored the fight even.
In round three, both fighters connected effectively with their blows. Dixon caught Smith with a right uppercut to the jaw. Smith missed with a left. Dixon struck with another left to Smith’s jaw. Smith was stunned. Dixon stepped in closer and delivered a combination to Smith’s body. Smith took the blows and recovered his balance. The two settled into cautious exchanges for the middle minute. Both fighters then rushed forward. Smith missed with his right, while Dixon connected with a left in Smith’s ribs. Smith threw a right uppercut that connected with Dixon’s head. Then the two offered little more than probing punches. The round ended even.
A contemporary drawing of the fight shows Dixon leaning back and blocking a hard right from Smith. The referee is not shown, but the fighters’ seconds are there, kneeling in the corners with anxious looks on their faces. Around the ring, hundreds of spectators cheer and jeer and gamble.
For the next twelve rounds, the two fighters continued to strike and counterstrike. In the final five rounds, Smith began to accrue points by evading Dixon’s combinations and connecting with sound blows. In the final round, the fighters approached each other, smiled, and shook hands, acknowledging the hard-fought battle. The round continued as the others had, with well-placed blows and effective defenses. When the bell finally rang, both exhausted combatants returned to their corners. The referee hesitated only briefly before he pointed to Smith and announced that he was the winner. The crowd cheered, while among the “Afro-Americans” assembled “a wail arose.”
Dixon had lost his featherweight title.
* * *
After the fight, reporters from The San Francisco Call spoke with both fighters. “Yes,” Smith said, “I did the trick as I expected. In my first fight with Dixon, I was too confident and grew careless, so I made up my mind to take no chances this time. At no time in the fight was I at all tired, and as you can see I haven’t got a mark on me; the amount of it is he couldn’t land at all. I hurt my right hand in the eighth or ninth round, and therefore didn’t use it as often as I otherwise should.”
Dixon was disappointed. “Well,” he said, “I can’t be winning all the time; though to give the fight to Smith I don’t think was a fair decision. I am just as fresh now as I was at any time during the fight. No, those body punches didn’t hurt me, as I blocked most of them. Anyway, I guess I won’t have to beg for a living. There’s plenty of fight in me yet.”
The news of Dixon’s defeat was greeted throughout California with great enthusiasm. In Sacramento, each round was reported by a representative of The San Francisco Call via Western Union Telegraphs, “at the clubrooms of the Golden Eagle Hotel.” The barroom, billiard room, and hotel lobby, reported the paper, were packed to overflowing. Between rounds, the patrons loudly discussed the “merits of the two contestants.” When the caller’s voice announced a new round had begun, the “silence [was] so intense that the proverbial pin would have been heard had it dropped.”
In Stockton, California, hundreds of interested people gathered on Main Street to hear the bulletins read by the Western Union agent, “and to study them afterward as they [were] tacked up on the bulletin board.” It was said that “half the colored population [was] out, anxious to hear” about the fight. In Los Angeles, the interest in the fight was compared to that of the last “national election.” A crowd of more than a thousand stood on Spring Street to see the bulletins “thrown by stereopticon upon a large screen, and cheered as the news was pleasing to friends of either combatant.”
Similar scenes were played out in Chico, Oakland, Woodland, and at Marysville, California, where there was a “surging mass eager to read the bulletins posted on the spacious show window” of Buttleman’s cigar store.
There were many who believed the referee’s decision was wrong. “There can be no doubt,” said one disgruntled California sport, “that it was a put-up job, but I think there were only three or four on the inside. My opinion is that O’Rourke instructed Dixon to go in and fight and refrain from knocking the Los Angeles boy out. He knew that if Smith stayed the twenty rounds, he would get the decision because [referee] George Green has had it in for the colored bruiser ever since he went up against Joe Walcott and got the worst of it. After giving Dixon his instructions, I think O’Rourke, Dixon, and a couple of others backed Solly heavily and that they are a few hundreds better off today. One thing that strengthens this belief in me is the way O’Rourke is talking about being robbed. I believe he is talking for effect. I have known O’Rourke for years, and he is one of the gamest losers I ever saw, even when he knows he is being jobbed. If the men fight again, I will stake every cent I can raise on Dixon winning. I want to see them fight to a finish.”
The reporter who quoted this sport had his own doubts. However, he did grant that Dixon might win the next meeting of the two. “George Dixon,” he wrote in the Oakland Tribune, “has been one of the greatest fighters that ever lived. I believe his record will never be equaled, but he has retrograded and has met a man who outclasses him in every way, even as Smith will meet his superior if he stays long enough in the business. George Dixon is not the man he was a few years ago, nor can he ever hope to be again.”
Two months later, in December, Tom O’Rourke announced that Dixon would stop fighting and rest until he met Solly Smith again in February.
* * *
Meantime, in Macon, Georgia, Oscar Williams was riding a train to Atlanta. The young Black man had been charged with an assault on the daughter of a Henry County farmer, and the local police were worried about his safety in the Macon jail. The train had left Macon at 4:20, and all was well until it was forty miles from Atlanta. At the town of Griffin, a mob of armed men boarded the train. When they found the shocked Williams, they dragged him from the train and through the main street, where locals were heard to cheer. About two hundred yards outside the town limits, the mob gathered round a large tree. A rope was tied to a lower branch and Williams was hanged. Afterward, his body was riddled with more than five hundred bullets.
No one was charged with the killing.