Charlie White – the greatest boxer from Liverpool you’ve never heard of

Charlie White

“LIFE is the best left-hooker I ever saw, although some say it was Charlie White of Chicago.โ€

Thatโ€™s a quote from Ernest Hemingway, fight fan and Nobel Prize-winning writer, or at least heโ€™s supposed to have said it. When I first read that line some years ago, I assumed Charlie White to be an invention, a sort of everyman who symbolised prizefighters everywhere. But it turns out he wasnโ€™t. White had lived and breathed and spilled his blood in the punishing rings of pre-war America. He was indeed a fearsome left-hooker and despite the Chicago billing, he was British by birth.

Born into a Jewish Russian-immigrant family in Liverpool on March 25, 1891, Charlieโ€™s real name was Charles Anchowitz. He came to America with his parents at age seven and settled in the Jewish ghetto in Chicagoโ€™s West Side. At 13, Charlie contracted tuberculosis. He was sent to Bill Oโ€™Connellโ€™s Chicago gym and put through a course of exercises designed to improve his health. The treatment seemed to work. He was soon clear of tuberculosis and under Oโ€™Connellโ€™s tutelage discovered a talent for boxing.

Charlie had his first pro bout in his mid-teens, adopting the name White in tribute to Tommy White, a top Chicago featherweight of the 1890s. A string of knockout wins mostly generated by the left hook earned him the nickname โ€œLeft-Hook Charlieโ€ and soon he was mixing in world-class company.

In December 1909, he lost an eight-rounder to the reigning world featherweight champ, Abe Attell, who โ€œwas forced to extend himself to the limitโ€ according to the Sacramento Union. The paper observed that the refโ€™s decision for Attell โ€œwas unpopularโ€. They met again nine months later in a โ€˜no-decisionโ€™ fight. It was another close one but Attell did enough to get the newspaper decision.

At the time, certain US jurisdictions had outlawed points verdicts and a boxer could only officially win by knockout or stoppage. This was intended to combat betting, but in lieu of an official result the winner of a full-distance contest was decided by sportswriters in the next dayโ€™s papers. Some world champions even insisted on no-decision fights to help protect their titles โ€“ much to the chagrin of their challengers.

In May 1914, a 23-year-old White faced San Franciscoโ€™s Willie Ritchie for the world lightweight crown and dominated the fight. โ€œI was outgeneralled and outfought,โ€ admitted Ritchie. White won the newspaper decision, but the bout had gone the distance so Willie kept his title.

Charlieโ€™s next shot at lightweight honours was against Ritchieโ€™s successor, Pontypriddโ€™s Freddie Welsh. The pair fought four times between 1914 and 1916, with White winning one newspaper decision and losing the other three fights. Despite his apparent fistic superiority, Welsh developed a healthy respect for Charlieโ€™s left hook. โ€œKeep your right hand up at all times and keep going at him with your left. Never use your right,โ€ he warned fellow Brit Matt Wells in a letter before Mattโ€™s first fight with Charlie in 1915. โ€œI felt one of his lefts on the head in one of our Milwaukee battles and I thought the building fell in.โ€

Benny Leonard, one of the finest defensive boxers of all time, would have found that advice useful when he met the ring-worn but still dangerous 29-year-old White in July 1920. In the fifth of this 10-round lightweight title fight, White planted his fabled left hook on Leonardโ€™s jaw and knocked him through the ropes. But Leonard scrambled back into the ring โ€“ some say with the help of his brother โ€“ and turned the tables on White with a ninth-round KO. It was the only knockout loss of the Chicagoanโ€™s career.

Charlie โ€“ who also challenged Jack Britton for the world welterweight crown and won two, lost two and drew one against two-weight world titlist Johnny Dundee โ€“ was unlucky not to win a title himself. He deserves to be remembered as far more than the punchline of a Hemingway quip.

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