Light Heavyweight Championship Claim
Root (with the support of some historians) claimed that he was the first light heavyweight champion of the world. His bout with George Gardiner on July 4, 1903, is claimed by some to be the first title bout in the new division. Root contended that his manager, Lou Housman, created the division and billed the Root vs. Gardner fight, which Gardner won by knockout in the twelfth round. The fight was caught on film. Jack Root, George Gardner, and Bob Fitzsimmons all held the light heavyweight world championship title in 1903.
During the 1980s, however, some boxing historians found records indicating that Joe Choynski won a twenty-round decision over Jimmy Ryan on August 18, 1899, in a fight billed as being for the light heavyweight championship. Chyonski never seems to have made any claim to be the first light heavyweight champion, however.
Read more about this topic: Jack Root
Famous quotes containing the words light and/or claim:
“[Religious establishment] is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity ... [because] with an ignoble and unchristian timidity it would [be] circumscribed, with a wall of defence, against the encroachments of error.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Those who dare to interpret God’s will must never claim Him as an asset for one nation or group rather than another. War springs from the love and loyalty which should be offered to God being applied to some God substitute, one of the most dangerous being nationalism.”
—Robert Runcie (b. 1921)