WITH Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury, Dillian Whyte, Daniel Dubois and Joe Joyce all currently ranked within the top 12 in the world, the UK dominates the heavyweight division in a way it has never done before. The US fields only one candidate in this group, Deontay Wilder. This is a far cry from the 20th Century, when there were so many great US heavyweights and so few from these shores.
Most of the great American heavyweight champions defended their world title against a Brit at one time or another, with Tommy Farr’s game stand against Joe Louis, blown-up light-heavyweight Don Cockell’s annihilation by Rocky Marciano and Henry Cooper putting the great Ali on his backside (see fight image below) still evoking comment among fight fans to this day. One of the few true greats who never fought a Brit was Jack Dempsey. Dempsey reigned supreme from 1919 until 1926 and, though he did not defend his title as often as he should have done, there was no-one active on this side of the pond who could have lived with him in the ring.
At the start of 1919, our champion was Joe Beckett, who was defeated by the great Frenchman, Georges Carpentier in less than a minute in December 1919. Carpentier repeated that feat in 1923, this time famously beating Beckett in only 15 seconds. Frank Goddard then won the British title in 1923, beating Jack Bloomfield in an appalling contest at the Royal Albert Hall.
Goddard’s one bout against a leading American had seen him KO’d in two rounds by Frank Mor.
