With Boxing Insider Promotions Returning Tropicana Atlantic City on Nov 16 for our 3rd time in 2024 what better time then to start publishing BoxingInsider’s Multi Part series on the history of Atlantic City Boxing.
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You may not know this, but Atlantic City boxing goes back a long way
Boxing in Atlantic City didn’t begin when the legalized casinos opened, although it may seem that way. The fact is, New Jersey’s beachside resort goes back to the 19th century with fisticuffs – to at least 1887.
And there were some interesting contestants.
Jim Corbett never came to fight on the Boardwalk, but his sparring partner did. Jim Daly, who floated between the light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions, won a fight there in 1890 and went on to be knocked out by the likes of Peter Maher, Kid McCoy and Bob Fitzsimmons.
Dominic McCaffrey was a well-known heavyweight before the turn of the century, and he came to Atlantic City to fight John McCormick in 1893. McCaffrey had scored a win over Charlie Mitchell, and he would go on to fight unsuccessfully against John L. Sullivan, Jack “Nonpareil” Dempsey and Corbett.
April 1895 saw the appearance of Mysterious Billy Smith, fighting Jimmy Mann in a four-round no-decision bout. Smith became a player on the world scene, winning the world welterweight championship three years later with a 25-round decision over Matty Matthews.
The early days were tough at times. Atlantic City suffered at least a couple of ring deaths; Alexander Tighman died after a KO loss to Robert Brenn in 1904, and Lewis Malone perished after the police came in and stopped a fight in the tenth round in January 1908.
Nonetheless, growth came for boxing in the area.
Maxie Williamson, a bantamweight affectionately known as the “Mighty Mite,” became one of the early local favorites in Atlantic City. He fought there a total of eleven times, several of those coming at the Waltz Dream Arena, which was emerging as a venue for local action..
Lew Tendler was another Atlantic City favorite, and he had much more world significance than Williamson. Tendler, who competed in the lightweight and welterweight divisions, never became a world champion, but his ring accomplishments were enough to get him enshrined into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He had a number of bouts in Atlantic City, fighting at the airport, the Bacharach baseball park and Waltz Dream Arena. In his retirement, he also opened up a branch of Tendler’s Tavern, a steak restaurant, in Atlantic City.
The well-traveled Jack Britton fought KO Willie Loughlin only two weeks after losing a newspaper decision to Benny Leonard in 1918. He’d win the welterweight championship just eight months later over Ted “Kid” Lewis.
Other Hall of Famers to appear in Atlantic City in 1918 alone were the likes of Battling Levinsky, who was a light heavyweight title claimant; Sam Langford, who boxed a rematch with Battling Jim Johnson; Harry Wills, who was a major nemesis of Langford’s, and Jack Blackburn, who was late in his career, but would begin another one as a trainer, mentoring Joe Louis among others.
In the years between Prohibition and the stock market crash (a period readers might be familiar with, as depicted in “Boardwalk Empire”), Atlantic City thrived as a center of boxing activity. From 1921 to 1929, the city averaged 56 fight cards per annum. And the Waltz was going strong, hosting weekly shows.
Things slowed down during the Great Depression, but not precipitously. One of the stars who shined in front of the Atlantic City audience was Benny Bass, a native of the Ukraine who emigrated to Philadelphia, won featherweight and junior lightweight titles, and fought 23 times in A.C.
Atlantic City boxing was somewhat dormant during World War II, then revived itself in the immediate post-war years, but things went dead starting in the fifties, which made it look like a ghost town as far as the sport is concerned.
And it lasted a while.
Sure, there were a few bright spots. In 1963, Joey Giardello scored an upset over Sugar Ray Robinson in Philadelphia and became the #1 contender for the middleweight title. That earned him a shot at champion Dick Tiger, which took place on December 7 of that year at Convention Hall off the boardwalk. Giardello registered a disputed 15-round decision to capture the WBC version of the crown.
Popular Philadelphia promoter Russell Peltz and Frank Gelb brought a fight between Bennie Briscoe and Willie Warren to Atlantic City in 1973, and Herman Taylor, a legend in Philly fight circles, put on the 1975 bout between Eugene “Cyclone” Hart and Sugar Ray Seales. But these big moments were few and far between.
The fact is, from 1951 through 1977, Atlantic City played host to only 25 fight cards. The area had decayed as a tourist destination, and there was very little reason to go there.
That would soon change – in a big way.