Cap's New and Improved Alternate Universe

[Cap]

Clipping from The Sacramento Union - June 1895....From the third round on Bob Fitzsimmons was in command and Tom Sharkey was on the receiving end....After being knocked down in the fourth round the ex-sailor changed his rushing tactics and tried to use his straight left to get inside but Fitz was ready with ripping hooks to the short-ribs and a lethal uppercut that busted up Sharkey's face. In the fifth round Fitz landed two hooks to the belly and an overhand right that nearly spun Sharkey around at which point Referee Corbett stepped in and awarded the fight to Fitzsimmons while the Irishman's seconds helped him to his corner....Sharkey weighed 181 and Fitzsimmons 174...Denver Ed Martin extended his hand from ringside and congratulated the Australian on his victory.....Earlier a telegram from world champion Peter Jackson was read to the crowd wishing both fighters well and ending "May the Better Man Win!"....

[Cap]

Hot off the presses....The 1895 edition of the Mitt Slingers Magazine Boxing Record Book & Encyclopedia....showing pages with complete ring records for World Champion Peter Jackson and his next challenger Jim Jeffries.....Still only a nickel....One hundred and sixty pages of the most up-to-date information on your favourite leather pushers....

[Cap]

From The Montreal Daily Star - August 1895....The Dominion Boxing Foundation has enrolled more than one hundred prospects in Halifax, Montreal and Toronto and expect to add as many in their academies in Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, and Vancouver though only the best will make it into the professional ranks*....The Foundation provides for training and management, acting as go-between with promoters and as press agents with major newspapers and wire services....After his win over Marvin Hart in Toronto John Scholes is looking to either defend his Canadian title or challenge George Chuvalo for his North American championship sometime this year....Friends and family are trying to convince George Godfrey it is time to retire on the heels of his embarrassing loss to young Sam Langford a novice middleweight....Sandy Ferguson is riding high again with his unexpected dismantling of Chicago's Klondike Haynes at Wonderland arena in Glace Bay....

(*Those poor sods who don't make the cut are usually snatched up by less scrupulous managers like Oliver 'Oily' Polanski and Tim 'Payback' O'Doyle who always promised to but never did.)

[Cap]

Clipping from August issue of Mitt Slingers Magazine....The Coney Island A.C. in Brooklyn had the best offer to stage the fight offering a purse of $25,000 with 60% going to the winner....Expect roughly 11,000 spectators paying from $5 to $25 each for an estimated gate of $89,000.....Of this amount 54% will be split between the fighters with Peter Jackson getting 70% and Jim Jeffries 30%....George Siler sports writer for the Chicago Tribune has been selected and agreed to by both parties to act as referee....Fifteen rounds with six ounce gloves with a decision being rendered if necessary....It is expected that Bob Fitzsimmons will challenge the winner....Tickets have been on sale for two weeks....Special trains have been arranged to bring in fans from Chicago, Montreal, Pittsburgh and elsewhere....Jackson is still the betting favourite....

[Cap]

Excerpt from the big Jackson-Jeffries issue on newsstands today....The fight is just days away and both men have wound up their intensive training and are doing light exercise to stay sharp....reports from the two camps state both are in absolute top form so there will be no excuses possible from the loser.....Jeffries has been particularly hard on his sparring partners Joe Kennedy and brother Jack Jeffries and tells visiting sportswriters he plans on taking the fight directly to the champion the way Sharkey did but with better results....Jackson looks good and jokes with visitors while he enjoys a game of cards with his trainers and spar-mates....

[Cap]

Maritime Wire Service.....In the only preliminary to the world championship fight at Coney Island New York Larry Temple of Brooklyn outpointed Boston's Jake Kilrain over six rounds.....Temple weighed one hundred seventy four and Kilrain two hundred eleven.....

[Cap]

Headlines from just a few of the newspapers reporting the big fight....A terrific battle that swung back and forth for fifteen rounds as Jeffries charged in and Jackson ducked, dodged and countered....Siler rarely had to step in to break a clinch in the early going and only had to seize control in the final two rounds as both men sought to maul each other in close....It was the Jeffries left hook and Jackson's short hard right that dominated the action though it was Jackson's jab that closed Jeff's left eye shut and the Boilermaker's right that made Jackson's left side raw and may have cracked a rib.....In the end Siler gave Jim Jeffries rounds 1-3-5-7-10-12-13-14 and Peter Jackson rounds 2-4-6-8-9-11-15. Eight to seven for the winner and new world heavyweight champion....James J Jeffries!

[Rob Morris]

Originally Posted by Cap

Clipped from The Halifax Chronicle - March 1895....In front of 11,000 spectators Joe Goddard and Corrie Sanders met to battle for Goddard's Empire championship and the winner's end of a purse of 150 sovs....In the first exchange at ring centre Sanders landed a terrific left square on the side of Goddard's head that sent him sprawling....The Barrier Champion stumbled up at nine and walked into a barrage of rights and lefts from the big South Afrikanner and dropped heavily to the canvas a second time....Referee Joe Cullen began tolling off the seconds again but seeing the glazed look in the prostrate Australian's eyes pointed to Sanders and awarded him the win....

Bill Doherty looks a little like Gerrie Coetzee.

[Cap]

Originally Posted by Rob Morris

Bill Doherty looks a little like Gerrie Coetzee.

Even in my AU Doherty's a lot smaller than Coetzee. Moustache may be a clone.

Cap

[Cap]

Excerpt from The Detroit Tribune - August 1895....World champion Jim Jeffries' manager W.A. Brady suggests to the New York press that his man will decline a rematch with Peter Jackson until the Australian fights fellow countryman Bob Fitzsimmons in an elimination....The very next day Jeffries announces he will accept an offer from a Los Angeles club to defend his title against Fitzsimmons provided 'Freckled Bob' doesn't engage in any other matches in the meantime....Denver Ed Martin easily defends his Pacific Northwest championship in front of a hometown crowd then challenges Jack Johnson to meet him for the vacant American title belt....Hours later the chairman of the American Boxing Association declares the title vacated by James Jeffries will be fought for by Marvin Hart of Kentucky and Gus Ruhlin of Ohio....Jack Johnson, on a barn-storming tour of the East Coast, responds to Martin's defi with an offer to fight in front of any club in California willing to put up a sufficient purse....

[Cap]

Clipping from The Australian Star - September 1895....Harry Laing defeated Joe Goddard in brutal 12 round donnybrook that left both men badly injured but with Laing still in possession of the Australasian heavyweight championship belt....Referee Arthur Scott's final tally was 7 rounds for Laing 4 rounds Goddard with one even....Scott looked as though he'd been in a mill himself as he was covered in blood....Laing suffered a deep gash over one eye, broken nose and thumb and bruised ribs....Goddard was cut over both eyes, had a fractured jaw, cut inside his mouth, and a fractured left arm....Neither man would be fit to even get back to the gym for several weeks...Billy McColl looked in splendid form as he gave a thorough thrashing to "Aussie Bill" Smith at Nathan's in Melbourne before a packed house....Jimmy Henry came close to a knockout in his win over Wallsend Smith in Auckland only the final bell saving Smith from visiting the canvas a fourth time...

[Cap]

Cutting from The Barnsley Earwigger - September 1895...News of the European prize ring....EBU champion Roberto Damiani waits for a good offer to defend his title and collects a few lira by boxing four round exhibitions against inferior opponents....French marquee attraction Francois Marchand adds to his box office appeal with a knockout of Irish slugger Peter Maher well inside the distance...At the Salle Wagram Raymond Berenger draws the ladies to his fights and will get the turnstiles turning with a stunning second round knockout of England's Jem Smith....Ludwig Schuhmann the unbeaten Berlin heavyweight disappoints his fans with a lacklustre effort in his win over Monsieur Hendrik Placke "The Giant Dutch Pastry"....In Oslo local hero Bjarni Thorsen gave a beating to veteran Alf Greenfield of England putting him down once in the fifth and twice in the sixth rounds...In front of a boisterous Parisian crowd journeyman Jean Auberge stopped Ben Taylor of England when the referee decided a cut over his left eye was too severe to allow Taylor to continue....Taylor had been heavily favoured to win....Tom Sharkey advised the EBU to remove his name from its list of contenders as he had applied for US citizenship....

[Cap]

Clipped from The Toronto Telegram - October 1895....Chuvalo knocked out Schreck in 4 rounds at the Mt Royal Arena...Former world champion Peter Jackson attempts to prove his worth as a contender by fighting two men on the same night at the Los Angeles Athletic Club and makes quick work of Joe Kennedy and John L Sullivan....At Cleveland's Alhambra Theatre Tom Sharkey stops Orlin Norris in five rounds....At the Beatty Street Drill Hall in Vancouver Ross Delaney takes on Nick Burley and puts him away in five....In front of a good size crowd at the Mutual Street Arena in Toronto Johnny Jackson withstands a late rally by slugger Jack Stewart to earn the decision after ten rounds....

[Cap]

Column snipped from The San Francisco Call - October 1895....W.A. Brady, manager of world champion James J Jeffries, reports a postponement of his fighter's title defence with Robert Fitzsimmons of Australia, claiming an injury in training will not allow Jeffries to work out for some weeks ....Rumours are rife that Jeffries has been seen with a cigar in one hand and a bottle in the other and had ballooned up to 250 pounds since the Jackson fight....A wire report from the SS Waldenberg states that Corrie Sanders was successful in defending his South Afrikan heavyweight title against his number one challenger Bakari Olokun....Canada's George Chuvalo has issued a challenge to champion Jeffries to defend his title in Toronto next year and is backed by a syndicate of investors willing to put up a hefty purse.....Peter Jackson was at ringside for the Johnson-Martin fight and immediately offered to put up $5,000 for a fight with the winner....Gus Ruhlin looked in top class form as he pummelled Marvin Hart from the opening bell until the referee halted the fight in round five on the advice of a doctor at ringside due to the deep cuts on Hart's face; a decision approved of by the police constable in attendance....The win handed Ruhlin the American Boxing Association's championship belt....

[Cap]

From The Glasgow Herald - November 1895...In a battle at London's National Sporting Club, Bethnal Green's Jack Scales [14-3-2] survives a wild brawl with Wickham's Joe Beckett winning by knockout at 2:36 of round eight....The bout was billed as an elimination for the British heavyweight championship but when Scales won the NSC decided he must fight Battling Ed Corcoran in a final for the vacant title as soon as Corcoran returned from his tour of North America....Hugh Lowther Lord Lonsdale donated a championship belt which was handed to Scales in the ring...

[Cap]

Rankings from the December 1895 issue of Mitt Slingers Magazine...Peter Jackson tells the magazine that unless he gets a match with Jack Johnson early in the new year he plans on returning to Australia to challenge Corrie Sanders for his Empire championship....Johnson is nursing a broken knuckle on his right hand but expects to be in condition to meet Jackson or perhaps Tom Sharkey provided the price is right in a month or so....Bob Fitzsimmons is attacking champion Jeffries in the press accusing him of ducking a fight he signed for and calling him a 'yellow cur'....There is only silence from the Jeffries camp....Canadian champion John Scholes is said to be on the verge of signing articles to fight Sailor Tom Sharkey in February....George Chuvalo is weighing his options to defend his NABF title belt against Gus Ruhlin or Sandy Ferguson at Toronto's Commonwealth Arena and appears to lean toward Ferguson because of the big New Brunswicker's prior wins over the Akron Giant.....Denver Ed Martin tells whoever will listen that he deserves a rematch with Johnson as he wasn't right that day at Hazard's Pavilion....

[Cap]

Clipping from The Toronto Telegram - January 1896....Roberto Damiani defended his EBU championship belt against France's champion Francois Marchand in front of almost 20,000 spectators at the Piazza di Siena in Rome....At the National Sporting Club in London Jack Scales withstood a steady beating for three and a half rounds when Battling Ed Corcoran smashed his hand on Scales' head so badly he was unable to continue forcing Referee McCarren to award the fight and the British championship to Corcoran's blood smeared opponent...Behind on the referee's card Jack Munroe landed a Hail Mary right hand on the temple of Klondike Haynes laying him out cold....CC Smith dropped Jerry Quarry five times in four rounds before the referee halted the slaughter in the scheduled 10 round bout....Quarry later announced his retirement...

[Cap]

Excerpt ripped from The Chicago Daily News - January 30 1896 ....Champion Jim Jeffries has discredited reports in the international press that he is unwilling to go through with a contract to fight Australia's Bob Fitzsimmons unless he is guaranteed an 80% share of the purse....For his part Fitz has declared he will accept nothing less than a 40% share and the fight's promoter James Coffroth has agreed....Meanwhile in sunny Australia Harry Laing the New Zealand heavyweight and Australasian champion has been declared physically fit to begin heavy training for his battle with South Afrika's Corrie Sanders for the latter's Empire championship and the winner's share of 300 gold sovs....

[Cap]

Tragic news from New Zealand....report in Wanganui Chronicle.....

[Cap]

Clipped from The Detroit Tribune - March 1896.....Jim Jeffries nears completion of preparations for his first title defence having co-signed the articles of agreement with Bob Fitzsimmons....Tom Sharkey's plans to contend for the world championship are upset by a stunning loss to Philadelphia Jack O'Brien on points in front of a packed house at Brown's Arena in Flatbush....Even Sharkey supporters admit he threw the fight away....Gus Ruhlin writes fini to John L Sullivan's ring career with a humiliating knockout 44 seconds into the first round....At Tattersall's in Chicago Denver Ed Martin easily defeats CC Smith out-punching him three to one over ten rounds....Toronto's Johnny Jackson puts a shine on his record with a last round stoppage of Jack 'Big Six' McCabe while on the same card Yancy Henry gets starched by Ross Delaney at 2:53 of round one...