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Good article by Ring Mag on the subject...
...the Spanish Flu outbreak was particularly lethal to otherwise healthy adults aged 20-40. That meant a number of boxers, many in the primes of their lives, were among the dead.
The highest profile boxer to lose his life was “Battling” Jim Johnson, the New Jersey-born heavyweight who traveled the U.S. and Europe fighting the other top black heavyweights of his time, including Joe Jeannette, Sam Langford and Harry Wills. Johnson did get a crack at the world heavyweight championship, in 1913, battling Jack Johnson to a draw in Paris in 1913.
A thirteenth meeting with Langford, which was to take place in Lowell, Mass., was postponed due to the moratorium on fights. Johnson contracted the flu while in the state, and died in Boston on Nov. 6, at age 31.
In a few short weeks, a number of popular fighters who filled venues across the country had succumbed. What’s most staggering are their ages.
Among them were Terry Martin (47-25-13, 29 KOs), a Norway native based in Philadelphia who had battled former world welterweight champion Joe Walcott and the legendary Harry Greb, who died on October 14 at age 33; heavyweight Jim Stewart (21-7-1, 19 KOs) of Brooklyn died on September 26 at age 31; Joe Tuber (10-2, 9 KOs), bantamweight from Philadelphia, died at age 21; Matty Baldwin (84-27-55, 28 KOs), a lightweight from Boston, died October 9 at age 33; Baltimore Dundee (10-1-3, 4 KOs), a bantamweight born Samuel Ranzino, died on December 31 at age 17.
A story in the November 13, 1918 issue of the Des Moines Tribute underlines the frequency of boxing deaths during the flu pandemic.
Other boxing figures who died in the pandemic were Lorenzo Snow, founder of the Trinity Boxing Club in lower Manhattan, and Paddy Carroll, a boxing promoter and manager out of Chicago, who died at age 59.
The biggest names impacted were those who survived.
Tommy Burns, the Canadian who held the heavyweight championship from 1906 before losing it to Jack Johnson in 1908, was hospitalized in Vancouver, Canada after contracting influenza while serving as a sergeant in the 1st Depot Battalion at Hastings Park in the Canadian Army. “It is reported that his condition is serious, the malady having attacked him in its most violent form,” read the October 21, 1918 edition of the Edmonton Journal, just a month after his fourth round KO win over Bob Bracken.
Burns, then 37, made a “remarkably quick recovery,” according to the October 25 edition of the Vancouver Daily World. Burns fought just once more, being stopped in 7 rounds by Joe Beckett in 1920, and lived to age 73.
Another former heavyweight champion who contracted the virus was James J. Jeffries, who had knocked out the likewise mythical Bob Fitzsimmons in 1899 to win the championship. Jeffries hadn’t fought since 1910, when he came out of retirement in a failed attempt to wrest the title back from Jack Johnson in their infamous match, and was residing in Los Angeles when he fell ill. Jeffries was described as “dangerously ill,” and physicians anticipated he would die, but he made a quick recovery, according to the Nov. 6 issue of the Boston Post.
In time, the flu subsided, and both boxing and life resumed. The lessons learned led to the development of vaccines, and improvements in treatment which have reduced death tolls in subsequent flu outbreaks. The same will happen for COVID-19, as medical professionals brush aside personal risk to provide heroics, and researchers scramble to develop treatments.
https://www.******.com/594584-covid-...c-halt-boxing/
...the Spanish Flu outbreak was particularly lethal to otherwise healthy adults aged 20-40. That meant a number of boxers, many in the primes of their lives, were among the dead.
The highest profile boxer to lose his life was “Battling” Jim Johnson, the New Jersey-born heavyweight who traveled the U.S. and Europe fighting the other top black heavyweights of his time, including Joe Jeannette, Sam Langford and Harry Wills. Johnson did get a crack at the world heavyweight championship, in 1913, battling Jack Johnson to a draw in Paris in 1913.
A thirteenth meeting with Langford, which was to take place in Lowell, Mass., was postponed due to the moratorium on fights. Johnson contracted the flu while in the state, and died in Boston on Nov. 6, at age 31.
In a few short weeks, a number of popular fighters who filled venues across the country had succumbed. What’s most staggering are their ages.
Among them were Terry Martin (47-25-13, 29 KOs), a Norway native based in Philadelphia who had battled former world welterweight champion Joe Walcott and the legendary Harry Greb, who died on October 14 at age 33; heavyweight Jim Stewart (21-7-1, 19 KOs) of Brooklyn died on September 26 at age 31; Joe Tuber (10-2, 9 KOs), bantamweight from Philadelphia, died at age 21; Matty Baldwin (84-27-55, 28 KOs), a lightweight from Boston, died October 9 at age 33; Baltimore Dundee (10-1-3, 4 KOs), a bantamweight born Samuel Ranzino, died on December 31 at age 17.
A story in the November 13, 1918 issue of the Des Moines Tribute underlines the frequency of boxing deaths during the flu pandemic.
Other boxing figures who died in the pandemic were Lorenzo Snow, founder of the Trinity Boxing Club in lower Manhattan, and Paddy Carroll, a boxing promoter and manager out of Chicago, who died at age 59.
The biggest names impacted were those who survived.
Tommy Burns, the Canadian who held the heavyweight championship from 1906 before losing it to Jack Johnson in 1908, was hospitalized in Vancouver, Canada after contracting influenza while serving as a sergeant in the 1st Depot Battalion at Hastings Park in the Canadian Army. “It is reported that his condition is serious, the malady having attacked him in its most violent form,” read the October 21, 1918 edition of the Edmonton Journal, just a month after his fourth round KO win over Bob Bracken.
Burns, then 37, made a “remarkably quick recovery,” according to the October 25 edition of the Vancouver Daily World. Burns fought just once more, being stopped in 7 rounds by Joe Beckett in 1920, and lived to age 73.
Another former heavyweight champion who contracted the virus was James J. Jeffries, who had knocked out the likewise mythical Bob Fitzsimmons in 1899 to win the championship. Jeffries hadn’t fought since 1910, when he came out of retirement in a failed attempt to wrest the title back from Jack Johnson in their infamous match, and was residing in Los Angeles when he fell ill. Jeffries was described as “dangerously ill,” and physicians anticipated he would die, but he made a quick recovery, according to the Nov. 6 issue of the Boston Post.
In time, the flu subsided, and both boxing and life resumed. The lessons learned led to the development of vaccines, and improvements in treatment which have reduced death tolls in subsequent flu outbreaks. The same will happen for COVID-19, as medical professionals brush aside personal risk to provide heroics, and researchers scramble to develop treatments.
https://www.******.com/594584-covid-...c-halt-boxing/
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