Colour photo from 1913 original. http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/boxing-match-between-roy-campbell-and-dick-hyland;rad
Awesome picture I love really old color photos because they are so rare From the looks of it, these two fellows beat the dogshit out of each other
There was a time period from about 1905-1915, the smaller gloves these lighter weight guys beat each other up with, it was like hitting each other in the face with brillo pads. Not enough padding to just knock a guy out cold without breaking your own hand, but just enough to hit the guy hard enough with your horsehair scrub brush to bust open a bunch of cuts on his face and bruise up his body...........and they would often do it for 20 rounds or more. I imagine a lot of the fights of Abe Attell, Battling Nelson, Ad Wolgast, Owen Moran and others would look like this in a color setting. It's no wonder so many of these guys ended up in mental hospitals.................or dead.........or both. Attell vs. Harlem Tommy Murphy: Battling Nelson vs. Ad Wolgast:
Must've Been SOME Fight...REED Can't Recall Any Other Instance of BOTH Fighters Looking THAT Fucked Up... REED:shadow:
Is that Really a WHITE Guy Named "Harlem" Tommy Murphy???:l2:....That's even FUNNIER than the BLACK Former Jr. Welter Champ, "Irish" LeRoy Haley... REED:kidcool:
who knew battling nelson and ad wolfgast would do battle in a place that eventually had the highest amount of murders per capita in america.
Don't forget, man, back in those days Harlem was mostly Jews and Irish (Murphy is an extremely common Irish name) with a few black folks here and there... Wasn't until the 1920s you started seeing a lot more southern black migration to Harlem Hell, Benny Leonard was "The Ghetto Wizard" and Barney Ross was "The Pride Of The Ghetto"... Can you imagine two Jewish fighters now with those nicknames? (or two Jewish fighters at all from New York, for that matter???)
hell, REED, my great grandparents on my mom's side lived on East 97th in the 20s and 30s... East Harlem
