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Thomas Thomas
"Lost" Middleweight Champion - Thomas Thomas. I guess you could call him "Tom Thomas."
He began boxing in a sideshow, touring with Freddie Welsh and Jim Driscoll. After winning the local Rhondda valley heavyweight "championship", he won a National Sporting Club middleweight competition in London. Eventually, in May 1906, he fought the Irish champion Pat O'Keefe to become the first national British middleweight champion. In 1909, he fought Charlie Wilson to become the first holder of a Lonsdale Belt at his weight.
He began to suffer from rheumatism, and died from its effects in 1911 in London, where he was preparing for a fight with the Billy Papke.
It is believed that he won 41 of his 44 fights.
His ratings are based upon several old articles I found on Thomas in my boxing magazine collection.
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