Modern boxing cannot legitimately claim to be better than the boxing of the past. In fact, in terms of the technical capabilities and skill level we see today, it’s probably worse. But one thing has definitely improved: record-keeping. In the past, a fight could take place and if for some reason it was not reported in the local newspaper, any evidence of the fight would quickly disappear. The opposite was also true. Boxers and their imaginative managers could pad the record with bouts that never happened in an effort to make the fighter in question seem more formidable and therefore more marketable.
But no one disputes the fact that light heavyweight champion Battling Levinsky was one of boxing’s true “iron men,” a highly active fighter who enjoyed a two-decade career during a time when “highly active” meant fight a dozen times or more. in a year. In 1914 alone, Levinsky fought 36 times, and all of those fights have been verified. Compare that to today, where four or five fights is a busy year for most boxers.
Levinsky’s official record is quite discouraging. He claims that he scored 196 victories, including journalistic decisions, in 287 bouts. That means an average year for the wrestler whose real name was Barney Lebrowitz involved nearly 30 fights. But to the day of his death, Levinsky maintained that he actually participated in more than five hundred contests, and there is really no way to determine with certainty whether his claim is false. But in the decades since, boxing historians have combed through municipal records and old newspapers to try to determine the truth, and as a result, the colorful story of what Levinsky accomplished on January 1, 1915 is now widely considered just that, a history.
Levinsky had the style of being as active as he was. A quick, skilled defensive genius, he possessed incredible stamina and could therefore box and move round after round, enduring little punishment as his opponent chased him ineffectively around the ring. His manager, “Dumb” Dan Morgan (the ironic nickname referring to the fact that Morgan never stopped talking), bragged to everyone about Levinsky’s skill and defensive prowess, as well as the fact that he was all he had. could do to keep him out. From the ring. “He would fight every night if he let him,” Morgan stated.
As if to prove the point, on New Year’s Day 1915, Morgan, according to legend, arranged for Levinsky to make not one, not two, but three separate appearances in the ring. Perhaps “dumb” Dan wanted more attention paid to his wrestler after the incredible record he had posted in the year that had just ended. Whatever the case, as a publicity stunt it worked, and sports fans at the time accepted the story at face value.
According to legend, late on the morning of January 1, 1915, Levinsky boxed ten quick rounds with one Bartley Madden at the Broadway Athletic Club in Brooklyn. After lunch, Morgan and Levinsky went to Manhattan, where Levinsky fought another ten rounds, this time with Private Kearns. After the second fight, the intrepid pair headed to Grand Central Station and boarded the train to Connecticut, where that night Levinsky faced Gunboat Smith in a scheduled twelve-rounder that was declared a draw.
Like all great boxing promoters and managers, Morgan was nothing more than a teller of tall tales, a polite way of saying that the man was an incessant liar. Recent searches have turned up nothing about the alleged fights with Madden and Kearns. In fact, Madden was inactive for all of 1915, while Alfred (private) Kearns fought Levinsky that year, but in July, not January.
But at the time people thought the story was true, which only contributed to Levinsky’s reputation as one of the most active boxers in the history of the sport. And then a young journalist had the temerity to ask the young and ambitious boxer: “Mr. Levinsky, why do you insist on such a demanding schedule? Question to which the combatant, with an air of incredulity, as if a more stupid question could hardly be conceived, he answered bluntly: “I like money!”
The following year, Levinsky, whose resume includes battles with greats such as Tommy Gibbons, Gene Tunney, Jack Dempsey and Harry Greb, would win the world light heavyweight title from Jack Dillon. He would hold it until 1920, when he was defeated by Georges Carpentier. —Robert Portis
