Happy New Year from the Weigh-In: Young Stribling’s 1924 New Year’s Day Bout with Dave Rosenberg

By Gene Pantalone

Author of From Boxing Ring to Battlefield: The Life of War Hero Lew Jenkins

Available for order on Amazon and from Rowman and Littlefield

“Too often the history of boxing boils down to tales about heavyweights, as if the exploits of Sullivan, Johnson, Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, Ali, and Tyson are all that matter. Well, Lew Jenkins—lightweight champion, war hero, and a danger to himself as much as any opponent—mattered. His is the story of survival in the ring, in two wars, and in life. Gene Pantalone’s biography of Jenkins richly recounts a fascinating life. ‘Only in America,’ as the great Don King always said.”

-Randy Roberts, professor of history, Purdue University, author, Joe Louis: Hard Times Man, and co-author, A Season in the Sun: The Rise of Mickey Mantle

Young Stribling and Jack Dempsey publicity photo.

In late 1923, William Lawrence “Young” Stribling, the pride of Georgia, had just turned nineteen one day before coming to the Long Hill Health Farm of former lightweight champion Freddie Welsh in Chatham Township, New Jersey. The brown-haired, blue-eyed, good-looking kid was a promising boxer. Stribling’s boxing was a family undertaking. His father managed him, and his mother was known to aid in his training. He arrived at Welsh’s to prepare for a New Year’s Day bout against Dave Rosenberg. He hoped to train with his idol, Jack Dempsey, who was a good friend of Freddie Welsh and had used his farm to train for bouts including the first million-dollar gate against Georges Carpentier. Stribling was a seasoned boxer despite his age. He began boxing professionally at the age of sixteen, compiling a record of 67 wins, 3 losses, and 13 draws before arriving at Welsh’s, a career for most boxers. Stribling would have a long, prolific career. He would compile a record of 223 wins, 13 losses, 14 draws, and another 39 newspaper fights. One year he fought 45 times. In total, he fought 291 bouts knocking out 129 opponents, a knockout record only surpassed by two people, Billy Bird and Archie Moore.

Welsh gave the Striblings a wheelbarrow for a publicity photograph. It appeared in newspapers showing Young Stribling pushing Ma and Pa Stribling, which the press dubbed them, and one other person. While there, he fulfilled his wish of training with the heavyweight champion. The youthful Stribling impressed Dempsey with his skills.

On January 1, 1924, despite being the underdog, Stribling defeated Rosenberg. He received a twelve-round decision at the First Regiment Armory in Newark, New Jersey. He won almost every round. Stribling fought six times that January. He won every bout except one he lost on a disqualification. In the loss, he was in the lead, but after repetitive cautions for hitting on the break, referee Phil Pritchard disqualified him. His father then hit the referee. Stribling fought thirty-six times in 1924, losing three bouts.

Young Stribling was the only man that Max Schmeling successfully defended his heavyweight title against. Schmeling trained in Conneaut Lake Park, Pennsylvania, for the July 3, 1931, Stribling heavyweight title bout. The fight was first scheduled in Chicago but changed to Cleveland. Stribling’s camp in Geauga Lake, Ohio, was ninety-three miles away from Schmeling’s camp.

Stribling, being a pilot, and accompanied by a New York newspaperman, borrowed a friend’s plane in Akron, Ohio. Stribling flew over his training camp and then proceeded to the Pennsylvania border and Schmeling’s camp. Schmeling was in the ring sparring in the second round with George Panka of Pittsburgh when Stribling flew his plane overhead. The plane was not more than two hundred feet above the spectators as they gasped. He returned twice to repeat the bold feat and then hurried back to the Cleveland airport to receive a reprimand from his father.

“It seems that Stribling broke away from the apron strings,” Nate Lewis said, a Stribling camp member. “He probably will do the same thing when he gets into the ring with Schmeling Friday.”

On July 3, 1931, the two met for the world heavyweight championship. Stribling was no longer the teenager that had come to Freddie Welsh’s Long Hill Health Farm to train. He was twenty-six years old and now had a record of 238 wins, 13 losses, and 17 draws. Schmeling was less than a year younger. They fought at Cleveland’s new Municipal Stadium on the shore of Lake Erie before an estimated 35,000 spectators. The disappointing crowd occupied a third of the big double-decked structure. The gate approximated at $323,000 was one of the lowest in heavyweight title history since the post-World War I boom days began. The depression that started in 1929 was affecting boxing.

Schmeling had Stribling bruised and bleeding in the last half of the fight. In the fifteenth and final round, Schmeling connected with his lethal right to Stribling’s chin. Stribling went down and looked unable to rise but beat the count at nine while clutching onto the ropes. He appeared out on his feet. Schmeling dashed toward him while the crowd yelled, “Stop it!” With fifteen seconds left in the round, Stribling’s father tossed in the towel. Referee George Blake stopped the fight, lifting Schmeling’s arm in victory. It was a technical knockout in the fifteenth round for Schmeling. A boxer for the first time stopped Young Stribling. Schmeling was euphoric but brought the stunned Stribling to his corner.

After the fight, Stribling said it was an injustice to stop the fight with fourteen seconds left. Stribling argued that Schmeling knocked him down only once, and he might have continued to the end. The Garden crowd, including his father, saw Stribling was in no state to continue, and another vicious hit could have caused a severe injury. Boxing finally recognized Schmeling as the legitimate titleholder. The Ring magazine declared their bout the 1931 Fight of the Year. The New York State Boxing Commission finally had Schmeling’s name engraved on the Tunney-Muldoon Trophy for heavyweight champions, which they had denied him after he won the title on a disqualification against Jack Sharkey.

Photo of the heavyweight title fight between Young Stribling and Max Schmeling.

Stribling’s last fight was a win over “Slapsie” Maxie Rosenbloom in 1933. In October of that year, Stribling was struck by a car while riding his motorcycle on his way to the hospital to visit his wife and newly born baby. Stribling’s foot was badly mangled, but he said, “I guess this means more roadwork.” Physicians were astonished at his ability to hang on to life with a temperature of 107.5 degrees and pulse of 175. He was given a last privilege to see his wife and baby at the same hospital before he died two days later. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1996.

Young Stribling and his wife, Clara, on board their cherished Indian motorcycles in Macon, GA, c. 1930.

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The Making of the First Great Boxing Promoter: Tex Rickard

George Lewis “Tex” Rickard was one of boxing’s greatest promoters. In the early years, he ushered in the golden age of prizefighting, the period from the 1920s through 1950s. He was a gambler who would wager on anything.

Tex Rickard

In 1921, the sporting world had its first million-dollar gate. It was a boxing match held in Jersey City, New Jersey. The public paid $1,789,238 to watch Jack Dempsey retain the world heavyweight title with a fourth-round knockout over world light heavyweight champion Frenchman Georges Carpentier. Jack Dempsey, heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926, his manager, Jack “Doc” Kearns, and promoter Tex Rickard, grossed $8,400,000 in five fights between 1921 and 1927. Rickard would also form the National Hockey League, which included his New York Ranges, named after the lawmen from his home state—the Texas Rangers.

Rickard was a slender, finely dressed man. His attire included a vested suit with a pocket watch chain above the belt, hat, and cane. He was thin lipped with a half-smoked, chewed cigar protruding from the corner of his mouth. He thrived on exhilaration, saying, “… I’ve never been far away from excitement …” His stoic expression was unmistakable on his lined, weathered face. It showed the wear as a cowboy from the Midwestern plains of his youth. He had an imperturbable disposition. He neither laughed, except for a fake forced laugh, nor wept. Rickard acquired these traits during his years as a boy and young adult.

He was born on January 2, 1870, in Kansas City, Missouri, to a poor family. He had the infamous outlaws Frank and Jesse James, along with their mother, as his next-door neighbors. He was four years old, but Rickard remembered the James brothers and Jesse’s thick, rough beard. They would flip coins to Rickard and other kids.

His family moved to Sherman, Texas, when Rickard was still a child. When he was eleven, his father died. He took a job as a cowboy on the plains of Texas with the East Ranch to support his mother and many brothers and sisters. By the age of fifteen, he had ridden through fifteen states on horseback working for the ranch. Not long after, word spread that Rickard was one of the best shots in Texas. An injury from a longhorn ended Rickard’s days as a cowboy. At the age of twenty-three, he became the marshal of Henrietta, Texas, and gained the nickname “Tex.” In 1894, he married and had a child. Both his wife and child died within a year. Many of his siblings died shortly after. With nothing to keep him in Texas, he went to Alaska. It possessed the potential of fortune that he desired—the gold rush in the Klondike.

In Alaska, Rickard and a partner, George Cormack, claimed an area, which they sold. Rickard received $60,000 in gold dust. “I thought I was fixed for life,” Rickard said many years later. Rickard opened a saloon with Tom Turner, and it became the biggest saloon and gambling house in Dawson City. After four months, his gambling took his fortune. In four hours, he lost $150,000, which included the saloon. In St. Michaels, he met Jim White and opened a new saloon in Nome. Here, Rickard promoted his first fight as entertainment for his patrons. After they attracted a packed house, Rickard saw the potential in the sport.

Rickard had recouped almost everything he lost in Dawson City. He left Alaska and went to San Francisco where he accepted a job of promoting the world lightweight title fight between Battling Nelson and the champion Joe Gans. Rickard chose the Casino Amphitheatre in Goldfield, Nevada, to stage the fight. Rickard acted as Gans’ manager. He had heated discussions with Nelson’s manager, Nolan, about the purse distribution. Rickard never held fight managers in high regard after this. When the townspeople heard what was happening, they gave their support to Gans. Nelson’s popularity waned. They guaranteed manager Nolan that if Nelson did not fight, Nolan would be going home horizontally. Nolan withdrew his demands and settled for $22,500. That allowed Rickard to pay Gans $11,000. He would have received nothing if not for Rickard. As much disdain as Rickard had for managers, he sympathized with the prizefighters. In later years, when Gans had no money, Rickard staked him, so he could fight. Rickard would repeat the practice with other prizefighters throughout his career.

On September 3, 1906, the fight took place. The large crowd, which included Teddy Roosevelt’s son Kermit, paid $69,715 to see the fight. They were decidedly behind the black Gans, not the white Nelson, an unusual occurrence for that time. Joe Gans, the Old Master, lived up to his ring name by out-boxing Nelson despite breaking his hand in the thirty-third round. Nelson reverted to many flagrant fouls that infuriated the crowd to near riot. After forty-two grueling rounds in the searing Nevada heat, Gans took a left hook to the groin that sent him to the canvas. He could not get up. They awarded Gans the fight by disqualification because of the foul.

With this prizefight, Rickard saw the fervor it caused among the people. Rickard did not expect to make money from the fight but had a $13,000 profit. He would be in the fight game for the rest of his life. Two philosophies that were used in the bout Rickard would apply to other fight promotions—you must provide money to make money, and it attracted attention if you promoted one fighter as the villain and the other a hero. When people would tell him he spent too much, he continued to prove them wrong with increased gates.

Joe Gans vs. Battling Nelson

Tex Rickard, now a promoter for prizefights, found that he had competition for big fights with other promoters who had realized the financial rewards from successful bouts. Rickard often conceived an angle to outmaneuver his competitors. This became clear when the Jack Johnson and Jim Jefferies fight was announced; everyone wanted to promote it. Rickard befriended Johnson, who told him the highest bid would be $100,000. The principles opened the bids in Hoboken, New Jersey, with Johnson present. A certified check accompanied each bid except one. Rickard’s bid contained $101,000 in cash. Rickard had outmaneuvered his competitors. The principles awarded him the fight. He would soon regret the victory.

From the onset, Rickard went through a barrage of protests for allowing a black man to fight a white man, despite Johnson having defended his title in America four times against whites. Given the success and complete opposite sentiment Rickard had experienced when he promoted the black Gans against the white Nelson in a lightweight championship, he did not foresee the fervor with which white America would object to the bout.

Economics overshadowed racism as cities competed to host the event. Rickard had a stadium erected in San Francisco. Governor Gillette canceled the match due to the ongoing pressure of hosting a mixed-race bout. Rickard lost the money he spent and had to refund the presales. He decided to hold the fight in Reno, Nevada, the same state he had so much success with the Gans-Nelson bout. He built another stadium, costing even more than the one in San Francisco. It became the first time someone erected an arena to hold a bout. When neither fighter could agree on a referee, someone from Johnson’s camp suggested that Rickard take the job. To Rickard’s surprise, Jeffries agreed, and Rickard with no choice became promoter and referee.

Before a crowd of 15,600 paying $275,000 on July 4, 1910, Jim Jeffries and Jack Johnson entered the ring under the blazing Nevada sun. It was Jeffries’s first fight in five idle years away from boxing. At thirty-five, Jeffries lost close to a hundred pounds to get to his fighting weight. Jeffries took the shaded corner. An official reminded him that they had agreed to flip a coin to determine the corner. When Jeffries’s manager, Sam Berger, went to Johnson’s corner to flip the coin, Johnson told him, “That’s all right Sam. You just stay right where you are. This here corner’s good enough for us."

Johnson destroyed the undefeated Jeffries. Rickard stopped the scheduled forty-five-round fight in the fifteenth round while simultaneously Berger entered the ring with a towel to end it. Jeffries received $50,000 plus over $66,000 for the movie rights. Johnson received $70,600 plus another $51,000 for the movie rights. They estimated the motion picture money at $270,000.

Among those in attendance was a young fifteen-year-old by the name of William Harrison Dempsey, better known as Jack Dempsey. The youngster came via a Pullman train car for the expressed purpose of watching the championship bout. Days before the bout, he would stalk Rickard in awe of the promoter. He attended the fighters’ training camps. Many years later, the two would be formally introduced, producing an epic business association. 

Jack Johnson vs. Jim Jeffries

In 1925, Tex Rickard built the new Madison Square Garden, which did not officially open until December 15, but held a boxing match before then. It was the third building to hold the Garden name. The current Madison Square Garden that opened in 1968 was the fourth. The Garden of 1925 was the creation of Tex Richard. He financed it with a group he called his “six hundred millionaires,” a number of wealthy friends. He built it at a cost of $4,750,000 in 249 days. The media called it the "House That Tex Built."

The new 1925 Garden held many historical events through its existence, but its main purpose was to host boxing events for which it could accommodate 18,500 fans, with seating on three levels. It measured two hundred feet by three hundred seventy-five feet. Though designed by noted architect Thomas W. Lamb, it had poor viewing for some seating. Deficient ventilation would give a hazy appearance inside, especially in the upper seats, due to permitted smoking.

Tex Rickard arrived in Miami Beach on December 28, 1929. He was there to arrange one of his heavyweight elimination bouts between Jack Sharkey and Young Stribling and discuss with Jack Dempsey his proposed comeback. Early on New Year’s Day, he complained of pains, and the doctors rushed him to Allison Hospital for an emergency operation. On New Year’s night of 1929, Tex Rickard was operated on and his appendix removed. The next day, he showed signs of a quick recovery. Despite the early optimism of the doctors, Rickard’s health deteriorated.

“Practically the same condition existed tonight as this afternoon. Mr. Rickard’s resistance was possibly slightly lower. His temperature remained at 103, and his pulse had increased from 132 at 4 p.m. to 140 at this time.” Signed Dr. E. H. Adkins.

The hospital allowed Dempsey, who had arrived in Palm Beach, to see Rickard for a moment. When he left the hospital, he said the promoter told him, “‘Jack, I’ve got this fight licked.’”

Before lapsing into a coma from which he never rallied, he turned to his wife and friends who gathered at his bedside with the assertion that he was “getting a tough break, but I’ll fight.” Then he grasped the hand of his wife and in a concerned, feeble voice inquired about his eight-year-old daughter, Maxine. When told that Maxine was all right and wanted her father to get well, Rickard said, “Help me over this, sweetheart, I’m fighting my …” He did not finish the sentence, and in two hours the man who was not just associated with boxing, he was boxing, was dead at fifty-nine.

The body of Tex Rickard came to New York in a great $15,000 bronze casket. Jack Dempsey and Walter Fields, brother of comedic actor W. C. Fields, were among the pallbearers. The casket lay in state at Madison Square Garden, "Rickard’s own Temple to Fistiana," where Max Schmeling had fought just days before. Huge crowds came to pay their last respects.

“My sympathy goes out to Mr. Rickard’s family,” Gene Tunney said from a vacation spot. “I feel his death keenly as one of his myriad of friends. The world of sport has undoubtedly lost a genius. There probably never will be another promoter so capable of stirring the public interest. It might truly be said that whatever his hands touched turned to gold.”

“My best pal is gone!” Jack Dempsey said. “Quietly and nobly he slipped away. His greatest fight was lost … Ten minutes before the end Tex opened his eyes. His hand lay in mine. … His eyes carried the message that meant only one thing. He knew then that the battle was over … For twelve years Tex was my loyal friend.”

With the death of Rickard died any thought that Jack Dempsey would make a comeback.

“The secret pact that we had made ended with his tragic passing,” Dempsey said. “My conditional promise to fight again so that he might perhaps realize his final ambition of ‘Just one more million-dollar gate’ is automatically shattered.”

Rickard’s planned match between Sharkey and Stribling occurred on February 27, 1929, at Flamingo Park, Miami Beach, Florida. Sharkey won the ten-round decision.

People line the streets of New York for Tex Rickard’s funeral

Rickard died one of the wealthiest men in sports at the time. His estate was estimated at $2,000,000. For a man who started with nothing from the Missouri plains, it was a sizable sum. The New York Trust Company, executor, refused to divulge the exact amount. The will provided for his widow, daughter, mother-in-law, sisters, nieces, nephews, and a cousin of his first wife. His estate included properties in Boston, Miami Beach, South America, securities in South American corporations, the Cattle Company of Paraguay, and brokerage accounts and bank accounts in New York and Florida.

Tex Rickard's Oil Company

Promoters thought to take Rickard’s place were Humbert Fugazy, Jim Mullen, Jimmy Johnston, and Paddy Harmen. None would obtain the stature of Rickard, but one man who had worked closely with Rickard in his biggest promotions would wield the power in boxing that Rickard had. He would not get involved in boxing promotion for another five years. When he did, it would be with absolute power. Mike Jacobs would be a man who would rival Rickard’s accomplishments.

Tex Rickard is Buried in New York

Gene Pantalone

Author of From Boxing Ring to Battlefield: The Life of War Hero Lew Jenkins

Available for pre-order on Amazon and from Rowman and Littlefield

“The life of Lew Jenkins is the stuff of boxing legend. From his Depression era upbringing and carnival barnstorming to winning a world title and squandering it all before becoming a war hero, Jenkins is an epic pulp novel come to life. In the capable hands of Gene Pantalone the story brims with all the hardscrabble detail you want in a great boxing book. This is a must-read for fans of the squared circle's history.”

-Chad Dundas, lead MMA sportswriter for the Bleacher Report and award-winning author of Champion of the World

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