On the 23rd July 1889, Jack Wannop’s backer called at the offices of The Sporting Life to issue a challenge to Jem Smith, the English heavyweight boxing champion. When rumour had arrived in America earlier in the year that Wannop was keen to take on Smith, Wannop was mocked in the press. They declared him… Read More Jack Wannop wants a go with Jem Smith
By mid-May 1889, Jack Wannop had settled back into New Cross life and answered a challenge from the visiting Jack Carkeek, an experienced American wrestler of Cornish background. With George Steadman – the recognised ‘British heavyweight champion’ – failing to fix up with Carkeek, Wannop was prepared to meet him instead for the ‘wrestling championship… Read More “Wannop walked on his head in a most extraordinary manner”
A lot happened during Jack Wannop’s 14-month absence from England. It was the year of the Ripper, of course. The Football League was established. The match girls went on strike, atheists became legally allowed to sit as MPs, and thousands of sheep mysteriously rampaged across Oxfordshire. Closer to home, theatre, dance, art and pugilism continued… Read More “Without doubt Jack is the most popular man in New Cross”
Word arrived in England on March 29th 1889 that Wannop had been knocked out in the sixth round, the fight with Godfrey lasting a total of 22 minutes. Seemingly every regional paper in the country carried the news, delivered from Boston via cablegram. The Sportsman went into detail on March 30. By way of introduction,… Read More “Had he been in any shape, I think the result would have been entirely different, for no gamer man ever entered the ring…” [Wannop V Godfrey, Part II]
As 1889 began, The Sporting Life received word from Jack Wannop that he wasn’t quite done with America yet, despite his stay now reaching ten months. Jack had struck gold, he said, by “knocking the brass off” some champions in the Far West and now the money was finally rolling in. My last post suggests… Read More “No sir, I won’t fight any more in this city, and you can put that just as strong as you like…” [Wannop V Godfrey, Part I]
Following his defeat at the hands and shoulders of Evan Lewis and Duncan McMillan, Wannop caught a break of a sort in July 1888. With his reputation as a wrestler severely dented, Wannop gloved up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His opponent was Jim Fell, a fellow Englishman. Born just a few months after Wannop in… Read More WANNOP IS A WHIRLWIND: A drunk boxing ring fire and a mid-match escape
The month of May ended as badly as it had begun for a despondent Jack Wannop. In a step down from the 3,000 seats sold for his match with Lewis, his next appearance was at Milwaukee’s much smaller opera house. In front of a tiny crowd Wannop was once again beaten, at catch-as-catch-can for $200… Read More Back in New Cross – George Steadman v George Brown for England’s heavyweight wrestling championship
Having passed the afternoon downing drinks at Mike Clark’s Boston saloon, an intoxicated John L. Sullivan staggered into Patsey Sheppard’s place, the ‘Abbey’, in a wild state. After ordering another round, and slamming down his glass, he spotted a vaguely familiar face at the bar – a burly, shaven-headed Englishman, also looking somewhat the worse… Read More Jack Wannop V John L. Sullivan… sort of
“Wannop was nearly killed.” So concluded a cablegram from The Sporting Life’s New York special correspondent, published on 10 May 1888 to update British readers on Jack Wannop V Evan Lewis three days prior. The wrestling match at Chicago’s Battery D Armoury for the first wrestling ‘Championship of the World’ had been hotly anticipated. A… Read More For Blood and Money: Jack Wannop V Evan ‘The Strangler’ Lewis
I love local newspapers. From their late teens onward both my parents (@coxchat and @stage_review) spent their careers as reporters, editors and film/theatre critics on the Luton News, Dunstable Gazette and Leighton Buzzard Observer. Since 2011 a large part of my day job has involved trying to get the public interested in fun and educational… Read More Grappling With History in the Lewisham Ledger
