George Godfrey - Fixes, Disqualifications and Conspiracy Theories

Having read recently about one time heavyweight contender George Godfrey I did ponder for some time whether he deserved to feature in the colour line greats series. Decided on the end that there was so much controversy, mystery and just plain oddness around his career that perhaps to describe him as great or solely a victim of the colour line might be to mis-bill him slightly, however what I am in no doubt about is there are enough interesting stories and curious tales surrounding George to justify a thread, so perhaps this would be better billed as an appendage to that series.

Starting his career in the early 1920’s George was taken under the wing of the peerless Sam Langford who saw enough in the raw and lumbering Godfrey to suggest he had a future in the sport, although it should be noted George’s form at the time did little to support Sam’s belief with George losing plenty, including a couple to his mentor Sam. As George’s form began to improve he was able to secure work as a sparring partner for heavyweight champion and legend Jack Dempsey and it is here that one of the more curious tales of George’s career appears, as many of you may be aware rumours are plentiful that George knocked Jack out in training. There is nothing especially unusual about this; rumours of sparring partners knocking their employers out are part and parcel of boxing history. However what is perhaps a little more curious is the story that appeared in the press at the time written by Godfrey’s manager of record James Doughty that George’s actual contract was held by Dempsey’s manager Doc Kearns. Doughty argued that Kearns bought George’s contract for two reasons, one was the obvious one that it would stop him ever having to match Jack with Godfrey the second was that he could use George as a buffer between Dempsey and his long time number one contender Harry Wills. The argument went that every time Harry made one of his regular and reasonable demands for a title shot at Jack George would issue a challenge to Harry to distract the public from Doc’s reluctance to match Jack with Harry and also to give him opportunity to say “lick Godfrey and we'll give you a rumble” with Kearns knowing damned well most heavies out there, possibly including Wills would be incapable of beating George. Appreciate this is a fair old conspiracy theory but it should be noted Kearns did not flat out deny the claim, he said he did indeed have Godfrey on a ten year contract but it was only a sparring contract a claim he went on to make look more than a little shaky when he did not call Godfrey up as a sparring partner for any of his defences beyond the Firpo fight.

Whatever the truth of the conspiracy theories George did the only thing he could really do and get on with winning fights in the ring and in 1925 he really hit his stride winning all 11 of his bouts, including some decent wins over one time contender Fred Fulton and George’s former conqueror Jack Renault. It was this form finally led to George securing a fight with a white heavyweight out of the top tier when he met Jack Sharkey. However this fight leaves as many questions as it answered about George’s abilities with George turning in a performance of such turgid passivity that many were given cause to question whether the fight was on the level with the performance being so out of step with George’s performances immediately prior to the fight and indeed in his fights straight after the Sharkey fight. Obviously any accusations of fixes are not particularly nice things to say with an absence of evidence and do run the risk of doing the winning fighter a gross disservice but there is a degree of circumstantial evidence to support the theory of a fix, firstly fellow black heavyweight contender Larry Gaines told that when he was offered a fight in Boston against a white heavy (Jimmy Maloney), the location of the Sharkey Godfrey bout he was told the only way he got the fight was if he went into the tank. One does have to ask why, in an era when most black fighters could not secure a meaningful fight for love nor money Godfrey could secure the Sharkey fight when in an absolutely storming run of form and why his performance in that fight was so out of step with that form. An off night is possible of course but the question remains worth asking.

Whilst it may be possible to explain away the Sharkey fight with suggestions of foul play what cannot be so readily explained is the frequency with which George lost fights on disqualifications, normally as the result of low blows and it does appear that this was a serious weakness in either his make up or his fighting style because it was a constant throughout his career and often a real stumbling block on him building momentum. On the back of the Sharkey fight Geroge was back doing what was the lot of black fighters in those days, picking up what moeny he could beating other black fighters and occasionally tempting white contenders into sharing a ring with him. For Jack the most high profile of these were Paulino Uzcudun, Johnny Risko and Primo Carnera and these serve as an interesting guide as to both the frustrating nature of Godfrey and the lot of black fighters in this era, in the Uzcudun fight George met a highly touted contender and won seven out of ten rounds in a clear verdict that still did little to move George towards a title shot. Against risko Goerge did much the same winning approximately 8 of 10 rounds only to see himself robbed on the cards, despite nearly none of the journalists present agreeing with the verdict barely a whimper of protest was raised, Godfrey was black, getting robbed was par for the course. Finally against Carnera George boxed well for three rounds giving the crude Carnera something of a lesson only to be disqualified in five on the back of yet another low blow.

It really is difficult to know how to consider Godfrey, he clearly had a huge dig, 83% of his 100 wins coming by the early route, a better KO percentage than Jack Dempsey could manage and his form around 1925 and 1926 suggests one hell of a fighter but there are also the frustrating questions about the Sharkey fight and the low blows that defy explaining beyond leaps of faith and fairly tenuous conspiracy theories, however whenever I think of Godfrey I am always drawn to a quote from Primo Carnera who said of Godfrey "Louis had to hit me many times to do what Godfrey did with one punch. There was no comparison with their power" On the back of this and the many question marks that linger over both the era and some of George's fights I am inclined to believe he may well have been the real deal.

Brilliant read again mate. Cheers.

Boxing hasnt really gone forward has it. Society has and thats reflected in the sport but the shady dealings, robberies, poor reffing and bare faced dihonesty still exist albeit with criminals inside the sport rather than organised criminals out of the sport. I imagine if those colour line greats were here today, the pressure would be unbearable for the fighters and the promoters to make at least some of the fights happen especially as moore found out to his cost - these people werent shy in taking their chances where they could.

I wonder if Johnson would be remembered had he given his black rivals their due fight.

Thanks Rowley, really enjoyed reading that. Hopefully Tina will come up with another good'un to follow on in time for my morning coffee tomorrow

Rowley and Tina are like a pair of professional beauties, always trying to one up each other except that they look like gorgons.

By the way, whats the book/s called?

TopHat24/7 wrote:Thanks Rowley, really enjoyed reading that. Hopefully Tina will come up with another good'un to follow on in time for my morning coffee tomorrow

Sorry old buddy, I am exhausted after the Cribb v Molineaux effort. You will have to make do with an 'Amir Khan drives a red car' thread. I am working on the third issue of Real Boxing Heroes but it certainly won't be out tomorrow!

Great thread as ever, jeff. He is a interesting figure, is George. Clearly talented and if Sam Langford sees something in you, then you must have something to offer. Handled Uzcudun equally as well as Carnera did, and was a better boxer than Primo but who ends up as a heavyweight champion? Everyone knows the answer to that.

It would be a real shame if the Sharkey fight was not legit in light of the difficulties that black fighters had in securing big matchups. Tom Molineaux would be turning in his grave at Godfrey's performance.

Superb read.

ShahenshahG wrote:Rowley and Tina are like a pair of professional beauties, always trying to one up each other except that they look like gorgons.

How very dare you.

ShahenshahG wrote:Rowley and Tina are like a pair of professional beauties, always trying to one up each other except that they look like gorgons.

By the way, whats the book/s called?

Shah pretty much everything on the black fighters from me recently has been either drawn from or stolen (depends on your perspective) from the Sundowners which is more than justifying the hefty price tag.

rowley wrote:
Shah pretty much everything on the black fighters from me recently has been either drawn from or stolen (depends on your perspective) from the Sundowners which is more than justifying the hefty price tag.

That's an unfortunate admission, Jeffrey. My recent stuff is all my own original research......

I probably do myself a disservice Tina, this one was actually the Sundowners, another book called uncrowned champions and the cyber boxing zone, that is two books and a website, there are essays I did at Uni that did not get that level of research.

rowley wrote:I probably do myself a disservice Tina, this one was actually the Sundowners, another book called uncrowned champions and the cyber boxing zone, that is two books and a website, there are essays I did at Uni that did not get that level of research.

It is all about facilitating the relevant information for the forum users. Nothing wrong with that! It is just annoying when you do some research and then some smart Alec like Union finds something more interesting that you have missed.

Perhaps I should have written some essays at Uni and I might have made it to the end. I knew there was something I was supposed to do.

Keep on stealing though, mate. Some excellent output from you at the moment.

Great thread and an interesting character that just seemed to lack in fortune.

The Sharkey contest is an interesting one, but on his best form Sharkey could make plenty of strong heavies look completely ordinary so maybe with one man having a good day, and another having a due off night it was a completely honest loss. Or if you want conspiracy: The mob made sure Sharkey got the win against Godfrey, but one good turn deserves another, and they called in their favour when Carnera's time came...

Difficult to know with Godfrey. I suspect its one of those cases whereby theres no real way of seperating fact from speculation.

I would guess that alot of his DQs were fixed bouts or examples of biased refereeing against black fighters. He seemed to get pretty out of shape into his 30s so it gives the impression of a fighter resigned to his lot and simply happy to make what money he could from the sport rather than harbouring genuine ambitions of being a world champion in the way Wills might have.

Im not really sure Id beleive he was intended to be used as a buffer for Dempsey and Wills because from the get go Dempsey had publicly drawn the colour line, and given Wills fought most of the top balck fighters anyway I think its unlikely he would have any problem fighting Godfrey who he would probably have beaten.

It did seem a bit of a stretch Manos but still found it interesting and one does have to question why Doughty would go to the press with it was there not a scrap of truth to it because even in less litigious times than these seems a fairly outlandish claim to make without grounding, unless it was a scam to get Godfrey publicity. It is known Godfrey issued a good number of challenges to Wills but Wills was number one contender to the title and given he was black and as such was probably seen as a genuine possibility would have been stranger was Godfrey not issuing challenges.

Apologies for my late arrival on this, Rowley, but another fine article, mate.

Can't really add too much more, as the article and debate which has ensued has covered most angles, but a great read all the same.

rowley wrote:It did seem a bit of a stretch Manos but still found it interesting and one does have to question why Doughty would go to the press with it was there not a scrap of truth to it because even in less litigious times than these seems a fairly outlandish claim to make without grounding, unless it was a scam to get Godfrey publicity. It is known Godfrey issued a good number of challenges to Wills but Wills was number one contender to the title and given he was black and as such was probably seen as a genuine possibility would have been stranger was Godfrey not issuing challenges.

One can only specualte really. The timing between Godfrey and Wills does seem to be a bit thin though. By the time Godfrey really established himself, Wills was in his mid thirties and hadnt long left in the game.