Boxing has been a part of the American sports scene since the 18th century via England. It began infiltrating major coastal cities before eventually making its way into America’s lexicon. It now showcases some of the most talented martial arts athletes in the world. We’ll embark on a 50-part story exploring the best boxers representing the United States. Some states will have more athletes to choose from than others, but it will be a complete journey. Let’s start the journey by looking at an interesting fighter or bout from each country. Next, we take a look at our 22nd entry, Minnesota State.
Check out the 22 states we covered by clicking below:
Alabama – The Life of Joe Louis
Alaska Hector Camacho vs John Montes Card
Arizona Hall of Famer Michael Carbajal
Arkansas – The tragic story of Sonny Liston
California – Andre Ward’s underrated career
All Megastar Colorado Boxing Jack Dempsey
Connecticut Boxing wins Willie Pep
Delaware, the night Dave Tippery almost shocked the world
Arguments rained down between Florida Pryor and Arguello
Georgia – The tragic story of Cleveland “Big Cat” Williams
Hawaii – “Hawaiian Punch” Brian Viloria
Idaho – The sad tale of Ed Sanders
Illinois- “Mr. Drunken” Emanuel Augustus
Indiana – The Life and Anecdotes of Kid McCoy
Iowa Michael Nunn: In the Ring and in the Prison
KS-Jess Willard: The “Pottawatomie Giant” lives on in boxing history
Kentucky Davey Moore: It has it all in the ring
Louisiana Harry Wells: Boxing’s Greatest Injustice
Maine Liston/Ali II: Putting a Country on the Map
Maryland – Joe Gans: The First African American Hero of the 20th Century
Massachusetts CTE and the Life of Paul Bender
Michigan Kronk Gym
Minnesota
Minnesota, the 32nd state to join the union, ranks 21st in population of US states. With temperatures easily reaching freezing point during the winter, the metropolitan area made up of Minneapolis and St. Paul makes up 55% of the state’s population and ranks as the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the country. Despite the cold weather, Minnesota sports teams in four major sports (baseball, basketball, soccer, and hockey) as well as the WNBA and Major League Soccer. With the weather being a driving reason for bringing athletes indoors, the state has a long history of producing world champions and championship contenders. One of those is the “other guy” who helped Jack Dempsey Destroying an entire city in Montana. That man Tommy Gibbons.
early life
Gibbons was born on March 22, 1891, in the state’s largest city, Saint Paul. At this point, the city had only a handful of institutions and Minnesota was only about 40 years old. At the time of his birth, Gibbons had a brother who was four at the time, Mike Gibbons. Mike has been listed by many boxing historians as one of the best middleweights of all time. It is listed at number nine in the present day The Ring magazine’s all-time middleweight list. Tommy himself has been located in a few of the List of the greatest weightlifters of all time. At the age of 20, Gibbons began competing professionally, winning his debut by knockout. Before his big push into the heavyweight division, Gibbons was married to Helen Constance. Heading into the November 1915 matchup with a fellow future Hall of Famer Harry GripGibbons had a compliant record of 18-0-2. To put it in perspective, Greb compiled a professional record of 261-18-19 along with winning the World Series.
Spells with legend
The first of his legendary four encounters with Grape took place on November 16, 1915 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Even the hometown newspaper of Grape Pittsburgh Post Greb stated that the fourth round while Gibbons got the other nine. St. Paul Pioneer Jamil described the end of the fight by saying: “Jarib showed himself a strong two-handed fighter, dangerous at all times, but Tommy Alami cut the rings around him and won by a comfortable margin. He would hit Jireeb with straight arms and he also did a good job with his right hand whenever he saw an opening. In the infighting, Tommy showed remarkable superiority over the Pittsburgh warrior. He often made Tommy Grip miss so often that he looked like he was shadow boxing in the middle of the ring. In conclusion, Ghareeb was bleeding profusely from a broken lip and a cut below his left eye. Tommy had only evidence of a cut in his nose.” .
The second meeting took place on the grounds of Grip Stadium in Forbes Square in Pittsburgh. Regardless of the homefield advantage, Gibbons still dominated as a future world champion and Hall of Famer. until Pittsburgh Post Greb stated that he had the “beat of his life” with Gibbons getting seven of the ten rounds. Just over two months later, the two are back together again at Forbes Field. The weather played a huge factor in the match with heavy rain coming after the sixth round, when the match was extremely close. The rain seemed to give Greb new life, which led to him beating Gibbons in front of 12,000 fans.
The fourth bout would tie the dispute with Greb getting the unanimous decision in their only bout scored by the judges and not considered a “press decision”. In front of over 13,000 at Madison Square Garden, Greb dominated the majority of the 15 rounds with his intensity and aggression. This bout took place on March 13, 1922, allowing Gibbons to build a 26 fight winning streak between the two losses.
“the other guy”
While champion Jack Dempsey was a dominant sporting icon in the country, it was determined that a site had to be built for the next title match to be held on the Fourth of July, 1923. The site, of all places, came down to Shelby, Montana. Shelby had discovered oil the previous year and city officials hoped a huge boxing attraction like Dempsey’s would jumpstart the city’s economy with tourist dollars. It wasn’t Shelby’s vision, in fact, that the city almost fell off the map of existence.
The beginning of the end came at the negotiating table as Dempsey would receive a price tag of $300,000 (about $5.2 million today). With $100,000 paid upfront, $200,000 was still waiting for Dempsey. In order to make these big dreams come true, a stadium with a capacity of 40,000 fans was built at a construction cost of $82,000. Fight night made these seats undesirable, especially ringside, where temperatures can reach 100 degrees. With many residents unable to pay the ticket fee (roughly $900 in today’s money) only $7,202 did not pay to attend while another 13,000 reportedly entered the “Wrecking Stadium” and were able to watch the fight for free.
Due to low ticket prices and the tourist dollar, the city was only able to pay Dempsey $273,000 of the promised $300,000. This led to the match being effectively canceled on July 3rd, but the city promised that the tickets would go toward Dempsey’s total debt to allow the contest to continue. In what could have been a shining moment for Gibbons in his Hall of Fame career, he disgraced not only boxing, but an entire town that went bankrupt. Four banks were forced to close, and besides, the city’s dream was to become a huge, thriving metropolis in the West.
Post-Dempsey fight and Hall of Fame induction
Coming into a Dempsey fight late in his career, Gibbons still amassed an impressive 11-1 record. That only loss came in his final match, facing Gene Tunney. Gibbons was scoring wins all the way to the Hall of Fame Kid Norfolk And George Carpentier. After his successful boxing career, Gibbons became Sheriff of Ramsey County, Minnesota for 24 years, serving six to four year terms as sheriff. After retiring at the age of 68, Gibbons eventually passed away in November 1960.
Gibbons’ name will live forever on the walls of the Boxing Hall of Fame with inductions into the Boxing Hall of Fame (1963), the International Boxing Hall of Fame (1993) and the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame (2010).
I am a longtime MMA fan and have been a fan since UFC 1. I was born in Illinois but grew up in South Louisiana, the home of many mixed martial artists. She began martial arts at the age of four and continued into her adult years serving nearly 10 years in law enforcement. I feel like it’s my job to pass on the stories of MMA fighters whose stories we enjoy watching and to share with the world.
Follow me on Twitter @LAknockoutMMA