Since boxing matches have been postponed for the foreseeable future to staunch the spread of coronavirus-2019, The Jewish Boxing Blog is continuing a series called "A Look Back" that initially ran from 2010-2013. "A Look Back" was an effort to link the past with the present, by producing a short biography of notable former Jewish boxers.
Ernie Fliegel was an immigrant who used boxing as a means to something greater.
Fliegel was born on May 11, 1904 in the eastern Romanian town of Barlad. His childhood home had a dirt floor, and there were no electric lights in town. Since the house didn't have running water, women went down to the river to wash their clothes. There were roughly 6,000 Jews living in the town which made up a quarter of the population. In Romania at the time, Jews couldn't attend public schools, had no political rights, and weren't considered citizens. An economic downturn hit Barlad just before Ernie was born. In 1907, antisemites destroy 80 Jewish shops in town. The Fliegels fled in 1910. They weren't alone; the Jewish population in Barlad had fallen to 5,000 when Ernie's family immigrated to the United States.
Fliegel was six years old when his family left for the U.S. After two weeks in steerage without any sunlight, the family arrived at Ellis Island. Speaking Romanian and Yiddish but no English, it took Ernie's mother six months to earn enough for the train ticket to Minnesota. The family settled in the Romanian Jewish neighborhood on 17th Avenue in Minneapolis. That's where Fliegel learned to fight. Bullies picked on his pudgy younger brother Joe, so Ernie learned to protect him. He became a newsie and had to fight to keep his corner.
Fliegel's father wasn't around that much, so little Ernie considered himself the head of the household that included his mother, sister, grandma, and Joe. His mother was illiterate because girls from Barlad didn't go to school. Ernie had to make money to support the family. After selling newspapers, he got a job working in a women's clothing shop, and that's when he started boxing. "We didn’t box because we liked to box," Ernie remembered years later, "We didn’t start to be professional fighters because we liked to fight. It was necessity."
Fliegel dropped out of high school when he was a sophomore, a decision he later regretted, "If I had an education, I wouldn’t have boxed." He turned pro in 1922 at the age of 18. At first he was moonlighting as a boxer. He made between $15-25 for a fight, which was about as much as he made in a week selling clothes. One day his boss gave Fliegel an ultimatum; he told Ernie that he couldn't come to work all bruised up, he'd either have to give up boxing or leave the clothing store job. Ernie responded, “I’m sorry! I’ll try not to get hit!” But he soon chose boxing.
BoxRec lists Fliegel as participating in only 32 fights beginning in 1923. Fifty years after his last fight, Ernie remembered it differently. He claimed to have boxed three or four times a week. He recalls starting his career in New York and fighting in Minnesota at the Gaiety Theater, the Elks Club, and the Athletic Club, none of which are listed in his BoxRec ledger. His fights on BoxRec mostly took place at the Kenwood Armory.
In his first fight listed on BoxRec, the 5'9" bantamweight scored two knockdowns in earning a points victory over Soldier La Boone at Fort Snelling in Saint Paul, Minnesota. During Fliegel's career, some jurisdictions didn't allow a decision to be rendered if both fighters remained standing after the scheduled rounds were completed. As a workaround, newspapers declared the winner. In 1924, Ernie split a couple of newspaper decisions with Jimmy Josephs, although the loss was disputed.
BoxRec doesn't have any fight listed from the second Josephs fight in March of 1924 until January of the following year for Fliegel. Ernie won three fights within five weeks in the winter of 1925 , before losing a disputed newspaper decision to Nick Olivia in a return bout. Ernie first fought in Denver that summer before continuing west to California. It was a successful road trip as Fliegel went 3-0-1 before returning to Minnesota for a fight in October.
By 1926, Fliegel moved up to the featherweight division. He drew with Pete Sarmiento of the Philippines in 1926 and with California Joe Lynch, who had also fought Ernie's old friend Dandy Dillon, who was also a Jew from Minneapolis. On August 23, Ernie finally lost a fight indisputably when Joey Sangor won a newspaper decision. Three months later, Ernie was stopped for the first and only time in his career, a fourth round technical knockout to Joey Clein. Two months after, Fliegel got his revenge with a newspaper decision over his conqueror. In February. he beat Billy DeFoe and then Sarmiento again. At this point his record according to BoxRec was 22-4-5.
Tuesday June 7, 1927 at the Municipal Auditorium in Minneapolis was billed as the "Greatest Boxing Event Ever Held in the Northwest" in that day's Star Tribune. The card featured "internationally known fighters." Tickets could be bought for $1.10, $2.20, or $3.30. Fliegel was to fight DeFoe once again in a ten-round featherweight affair. Ernie was disqualified in the first round because of what he euphemistically called "an accident. It impaired my eyesight." Fliegel apparently lost an eye.
In public pictures in his post-fight career, Ernie could unfailingly be seen donning sunglasses. Unable to box, he worked as a bootlegger for a bit. The 18th Amendment, passed in 1919, ushered in prohibition. Alcohol sales went underground. Fliegel's old trainer and buddy Benny Haskell was a big bootlegger whose enterprise was raided by officials. Haskell and some other bootleggers went legit after the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th in 1933. That year Fliegel and his partner Max Winter, who would later own the Minnesota Vikings, opened the 620 Club.
The 620 Club was a suave joint located at 620 Hennepin Avenue. While Fliegel never became a champion in the ring, his 620 Club did hold the title for most turkey sold in the United States. It eventually closed in 1965. Fliegel also toiled as a boxing manager and promoter. He became longtime friends with former heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, who introduced Ernie to the woman who would become his wife. Another of Ernie's pals was Augie Ratner, a former featherweight boxer and one-time foe who owned a joint on Hennepin that welcomed Jewish gangsters as guests. Ernie was a silent partner with Winter in owning the NBA's Minneapolis Lakers. The sale of the Lakers that would initiate their move to Los Angeles happened at the 620 Club.
Ernie died of a heart attack on July 11, 1982. he was 78 years old.
Bibliography
Herşcovici, Lucian-Zeev. Barlad. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.
Lewin, Rhonda G. Interview with Ernie Fliegel. May 7, 1976.
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Sunday, May 3, 2020
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
A Look Back: The Joseph Brothers
Since boxing matches have been postponed for the foreseeable future due to precautionary measures to staunch the spread of coronavirus-2019, The Jewish Boxing Blog is reviving a series called "A Look Back" that ran from 2010-2013. "A Look Back" was an effort to link the past with the present, by producing a short biography of notable former Jewish boxers.
Yankel and Moishe Josofsky didn't rise the level of world champions, but their stories provide a window into what life was like for Jewish immigrants to America during the early decades of the 1900s.
The brothers were born two and a half years apart in Grigoriopol, Russia. Now part of Moldova, Grigoriopol sits on the Dnister River and is just inside the Transnistria Autonomous region. The town, which is 30 miles east of Chisinau and 100 miles northwest of Odessa, was home to about 8,000 people when the brothers were born. A little over 10% of them were Jewish. Anti-Semitism was a reality of life. Anti-Jewish pogroms hit the area especially hard during the 1880s and during the first decade of the new century.
Yankel and Moishe's parents, Nathan and Eva, had seven children. Nathan and his eldest son Samuel left for the United States in 1910 to establish a new life and make some money in order to bring over the rest of the family. The remaining members came over the following year. Yankel and Moishe's names were changed to Jack and Danny Joseph in an effort to Americanize. Their primary language was Yiddish with some Russian thrown in. The family settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Though still a boy, Jack got a job as a newsie. Danny followed his older brother into the profession. The brothers learned quickly that selling newspapers was a rough game. The two small boys needed to scrap in order to maintain a profitable corner. Danny soon followed Jack into a boxing gym and the two fell in love with the sport.
At 5'7", Jack's weight tended to stay around 140 pounds. The junior welterweight division didn't come into existence until after Jack's death, so he fought as a small welterweight. His first professional fight occurred on January 3, 1919 when he was 18 years old. He fought under the name Jack Josephs.
Danny was an inch shorter but started out as a flyweight. He was known for his fast starts. A pressure fighter, he was also a volume puncher who tended to fade a bit towards the end of fights. His debut came a year after his brother's when Danny was only 16 years old. Danny had earned the nickname Dandy in the gym, not because he was dressed particularly well, but because he was viewed as a good prospect. His moniker became Dandy Dillon because his manager thought he looked like light heavyweight champion Jack Dillon.
Boxing was outlawed in Minnesota until 1915. Even after it became legal the only way to win a fight was by knockout. If a fight ran its course and both men were still standing, the fight was officially deemed a no decision. However, to get around this law, newspapers printed their opinion of who won and that was generally accepted although different newspapers didn't always agree.
During this time, fighters fought every couple of weeks or so. A two-month break was a long layoff. While records from this era are incomplete, it is believed Jack Josephs's career started slowly. In his first five fights, he was 0-2-3, according to BoxRec. Four of those were newspaper decisions and he was stopped in the fourth round against Johnny Noye, a veteran boxer and Austrian immigrant. Jack would avenge that stoppage loss two years later. Josephs earned his first victory, a third round KO before Dandy's career commenced.
Dandy Dillon's career got off to a much more auspicious start than did his brother's. He won his first ten fights. Most of his eight newspaper decision victories took place in Minnesota. His other two victories were by referee's decision: one in New Jersey on the undercard of a Battling Levinsky card and the other in Canada. After a draw, he won four more fights before drawing two in a row.
Dandy was 15-0-3 when he knocked out Percy Buzza on December 3, 1920 to capture the Canadian flyweight title. It is a peculiar bit of logic, one unique to boxing, that a Russian Jewish immigrant based in Minnesota would win the Canadian flyweight crown. After another win, Dillon was outboxed by the proficient veteran Frankie Mason for his first pro loss. Three months later, in May of 1921, Dandy Danny avenged the loss by newspaper decision in Iowa.
Meanwhile, from June 1920 until August 1922, Jack Josephs fought sixteen straight bouts without a defeat. Most of those fights took place in Minnesota. Josephs traveled to Seattle for a fight on August 23, 1922. In a bizarre bout against former Pacific Coast welterweight champion Travie Davis, Josephs was nearly knocked out at the end of the third round but was seemingly saved by the bell. The referee, however, didn't hear the bell and declared Davis the winner. Davis went back to the locker room and got dressed. The commission overruled the referee and called for Davis to come back, but his fans urged him not to. Davis was finally convinced to come back to the ring and eventually stopped Josephs (again) in the sixth round ending Jack's undefeated streak. From that point forward, Jack lost many more fights than he won.
On October 27, 1922, Dandy put his 23-1-5 record on the line against Joe Burgess in Denver, Colorado. Dillon pounded Burgess over ten rounds, but the judges gave the decision to man from Chicago. The crowd was so outraged they punched the judges in the face. Though the people around Dandy told him to shake off the loss and dismiss it as a corrupt decision, his confidence took a hit and his career wouldn't recover.
The brothers moved to Los Angeles, California to continue their boxing careers. While they enjoyed the weather, the West Coast produced better opponents than had the Midwest. Dandy was competitive against some quality fighters such as Frankie Garcia, Tod Morgan, and Vic Foley. Jack did a lot of losing to mostly solid foes. His best victory during that period was a four-round points win over Oakland Jimmy Duffy, who beat Jack in their next two battles.
Dandy was scheduled to fight on the undercard of Jack Dempsey vs. Tommy Gibbons in Shelby, Montana on July 4, 1923. Unfortunately for Dillon, the town of Shelby, Montana, and investors the gate was a total disaster. Dandy's fight was cancelled to cut losses and get the catastrophic event over as quickly as possible. Dillon was also scheduled to be on the first card at the newly built Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, but he came down with an illness and had to back out of the historic opening.
Jack retired from boxing in 1924 at the ripe old age of 24 with a record of 20-20-9 with three KOs. Dandy held out until 1927. He was 23 years old when he retired with a record of 34-19-13 with 9 KOs.
December 14, 1938 was Jack's 38th birthday. He had been suffering from debilitating headaches for some time when his brother called him to wish him a happy birthday. While on the phone, Danny heard his brother fire a gun at his own head and take his life. The event turned Danny against guns for the remainder of his life. Today, roughly two thirds of the approximately 30,000 annual gun deaths in America are suicides.
Danny married four times. At various times he ran a beer garden in Los Angeles, a restaurant in San Francisco, was a greeter at a casino, and drove a taxi. One of his sons, Daniel, wrote a book about his life. Dandy Danny died of a heart attack on February 28, 1968.
Bibliography
Joseph, Daniel P. Dandy: A Jewish Boxer's Journey from Russian Immigrant to Boxing Champion. 2011.
Yankel and Moishe Josofsky didn't rise the level of world champions, but their stories provide a window into what life was like for Jewish immigrants to America during the early decades of the 1900s.
The brothers were born two and a half years apart in Grigoriopol, Russia. Now part of Moldova, Grigoriopol sits on the Dnister River and is just inside the Transnistria Autonomous region. The town, which is 30 miles east of Chisinau and 100 miles northwest of Odessa, was home to about 8,000 people when the brothers were born. A little over 10% of them were Jewish. Anti-Semitism was a reality of life. Anti-Jewish pogroms hit the area especially hard during the 1880s and during the first decade of the new century.
Yankel and Moishe's parents, Nathan and Eva, had seven children. Nathan and his eldest son Samuel left for the United States in 1910 to establish a new life and make some money in order to bring over the rest of the family. The remaining members came over the following year. Yankel and Moishe's names were changed to Jack and Danny Joseph in an effort to Americanize. Their primary language was Yiddish with some Russian thrown in. The family settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Though still a boy, Jack got a job as a newsie. Danny followed his older brother into the profession. The brothers learned quickly that selling newspapers was a rough game. The two small boys needed to scrap in order to maintain a profitable corner. Danny soon followed Jack into a boxing gym and the two fell in love with the sport.
At 5'7", Jack's weight tended to stay around 140 pounds. The junior welterweight division didn't come into existence until after Jack's death, so he fought as a small welterweight. His first professional fight occurred on January 3, 1919 when he was 18 years old. He fought under the name Jack Josephs.
Danny was an inch shorter but started out as a flyweight. He was known for his fast starts. A pressure fighter, he was also a volume puncher who tended to fade a bit towards the end of fights. His debut came a year after his brother's when Danny was only 16 years old. Danny had earned the nickname Dandy in the gym, not because he was dressed particularly well, but because he was viewed as a good prospect. His moniker became Dandy Dillon because his manager thought he looked like light heavyweight champion Jack Dillon.
Boxing was outlawed in Minnesota until 1915. Even after it became legal the only way to win a fight was by knockout. If a fight ran its course and both men were still standing, the fight was officially deemed a no decision. However, to get around this law, newspapers printed their opinion of who won and that was generally accepted although different newspapers didn't always agree.
During this time, fighters fought every couple of weeks or so. A two-month break was a long layoff. While records from this era are incomplete, it is believed Jack Josephs's career started slowly. In his first five fights, he was 0-2-3, according to BoxRec. Four of those were newspaper decisions and he was stopped in the fourth round against Johnny Noye, a veteran boxer and Austrian immigrant. Jack would avenge that stoppage loss two years later. Josephs earned his first victory, a third round KO before Dandy's career commenced.
Dandy Dillon's career got off to a much more auspicious start than did his brother's. He won his first ten fights. Most of his eight newspaper decision victories took place in Minnesota. His other two victories were by referee's decision: one in New Jersey on the undercard of a Battling Levinsky card and the other in Canada. After a draw, he won four more fights before drawing two in a row.
Dandy was 15-0-3 when he knocked out Percy Buzza on December 3, 1920 to capture the Canadian flyweight title. It is a peculiar bit of logic, one unique to boxing, that a Russian Jewish immigrant based in Minnesota would win the Canadian flyweight crown. After another win, Dillon was outboxed by the proficient veteran Frankie Mason for his first pro loss. Three months later, in May of 1921, Dandy Danny avenged the loss by newspaper decision in Iowa.
Meanwhile, from June 1920 until August 1922, Jack Josephs fought sixteen straight bouts without a defeat. Most of those fights took place in Minnesota. Josephs traveled to Seattle for a fight on August 23, 1922. In a bizarre bout against former Pacific Coast welterweight champion Travie Davis, Josephs was nearly knocked out at the end of the third round but was seemingly saved by the bell. The referee, however, didn't hear the bell and declared Davis the winner. Davis went back to the locker room and got dressed. The commission overruled the referee and called for Davis to come back, but his fans urged him not to. Davis was finally convinced to come back to the ring and eventually stopped Josephs (again) in the sixth round ending Jack's undefeated streak. From that point forward, Jack lost many more fights than he won.
On October 27, 1922, Dandy put his 23-1-5 record on the line against Joe Burgess in Denver, Colorado. Dillon pounded Burgess over ten rounds, but the judges gave the decision to man from Chicago. The crowd was so outraged they punched the judges in the face. Though the people around Dandy told him to shake off the loss and dismiss it as a corrupt decision, his confidence took a hit and his career wouldn't recover.
The brothers moved to Los Angeles, California to continue their boxing careers. While they enjoyed the weather, the West Coast produced better opponents than had the Midwest. Dandy was competitive against some quality fighters such as Frankie Garcia, Tod Morgan, and Vic Foley. Jack did a lot of losing to mostly solid foes. His best victory during that period was a four-round points win over Oakland Jimmy Duffy, who beat Jack in their next two battles.
Dandy was scheduled to fight on the undercard of Jack Dempsey vs. Tommy Gibbons in Shelby, Montana on July 4, 1923. Unfortunately for Dillon, the town of Shelby, Montana, and investors the gate was a total disaster. Dandy's fight was cancelled to cut losses and get the catastrophic event over as quickly as possible. Dillon was also scheduled to be on the first card at the newly built Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, but he came down with an illness and had to back out of the historic opening.
Jack retired from boxing in 1924 at the ripe old age of 24 with a record of 20-20-9 with three KOs. Dandy held out until 1927. He was 23 years old when he retired with a record of 34-19-13 with 9 KOs.
December 14, 1938 was Jack's 38th birthday. He had been suffering from debilitating headaches for some time when his brother called him to wish him a happy birthday. While on the phone, Danny heard his brother fire a gun at his own head and take his life. The event turned Danny against guns for the remainder of his life. Today, roughly two thirds of the approximately 30,000 annual gun deaths in America are suicides.
Danny married four times. At various times he ran a beer garden in Los Angeles, a restaurant in San Francisco, was a greeter at a casino, and drove a taxi. One of his sons, Daniel, wrote a book about his life. Dandy Danny died of a heart attack on February 28, 1968.
Bibliography
Joseph, Daniel P. Dandy: A Jewish Boxer's Journey from Russian Immigrant to Boxing Champion. 2011.
Friday, March 20, 2020
Kaminsky Fight Postponed
Middleweight prospect David Kaminsky was scheduled to fight on April 11 at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on the undercard of Jerwin Ancajas-Jonathan Rodriguez. That card has been postponed indefinitely because of the global pandemic Coronavirus-2019.
Currently, there have been over 17,000 cases of the virus in the United States with that number rising rapidly today. There have been over 200 deaths due to the disease in the country. In Nevada, there have been 96 identified cases and one death thus far.
The number of reported cases are supposed to rise exponentially as testing becomes more readily available. The U.S. is behind other countries in terms of testing for the virus. Because the virus spreads so easily, there likely won't be any boxing matches in the foreseeable future.
Currently, there have been over 17,000 cases of the virus in the United States with that number rising rapidly today. There have been over 200 deaths due to the disease in the country. In Nevada, there have been 96 identified cases and one death thus far.
The number of reported cases are supposed to rise exponentially as testing becomes more readily available. The U.S. is behind other countries in terms of testing for the virus. Because the virus spreads so easily, there likely won't be any boxing matches in the foreseeable future.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Chilemba's Fight with Chudinov Postponed Indefinitely
Isaac Chilemba was scheduled to fight Fedor Chudinov this Saturday in Russia, but that fight has been postponed indefinitely. Chilemba had issues finding a flight to get over Russia because of coronavirus-2019. The fight was canceled however, because Russia banned foreign nationals from entering the country and canceled all major events including sporting ones.
Chilemba last fought in December, a unanimous decision over Alecander Kubich in Greece. The Golden Boy is 26-7-2 with 10 KOs.
Chilemba last fought in December, a unanimous decision over Alecander Kubich in Greece. The Golden Boy is 26-7-2 with 10 KOs.
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