| Battling Siki: A Tale of Ring Fixes, Race, and Murder in the 1920s |  | Author: Peter Benson
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Category: Book
Buy New: $32.50
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Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 976,083
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.4
ISBN: 155728816X
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.83092
EAN: 9781557288165
ASIN: 155728816X
Publication Date: May 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks
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Product Description
First biography of the controversial and misunderstood African boxer Battling Siki (18871925) was once one of the four or five most recognizable black men in the world, and was written about in detail by such figures as Ring Lardner and his son John, Damon Runyon, and Westbrook Pegler. One can find his legacy in the name of a popular rock group, one of Che Guevaras lieutenants, a character on Xena, Warrior Princess, and the Battling Siki Hotel in the fighters homeland, Senegal. Peter Bensons biography of the first African to win a world championshipin boxing delves into the complex world of sports, race, colonialism, and the cult of personality in the early twentieth century. Born Amadu Fall, Siki was taken from Senegal to France by an actress and assumed the name Louis Mbarick Fall. After an inauspicious beginning as a boxer, he served in World War I with distinction then returned to boxing and compiled a most impressive record (forty-three wins in forty-six bouts). Then, on September 24, 1922, at Pariss Buffalo Velodrome, before forty thousand stunned spectators (including a young Ernest Hemingway, who wrote about the fight), Battling Siki, employing his trademark "windmill" punch, fought and defeated the reigning world and European light heavyweight champion, Georges Carpentier. The colorful Siki spent a fortune partying and carousing, was arrested for firing a pistol in the air, and was frequently seen on the streets of Paris, dressed in flashy clothes, walking his pet lion cubs on a leash. But he also provoked a scandal by exposing the corruption of the fight game in France, spoke out boldly against racisim, and was arrested for deliberately defying the code of racial segregation in the American South. Sikis flamboyant image was largely created by newsmen. In fact, the real Siki, while he did certainly like to party, was also an intelligent and socially conscious person, who detested the medias image of him as a simple-minded drunken savage. Offers rushed in for him to fight in the United States, maybe even against Jack Dempsey. But in a move many have called one of the strangest a fighter ever made, he fought Irishman Mike McTigue in Dublin on St. Patricks Dayand lost. After losing his European title he came to the United States and fought without much success. He continued to drink and get into street brawls. On the evening of December 15, 1925, at the age of twenty-eight, he was shot and killed in Hells Kitchen in what some claimed was a gangland execution. Peter Bensons biography beautifully captures Battling Sikis amazing boxing career and sheds new light on the scandal surrounding his marriages and public behavior, his alleged participation in ring fixes, and the mystery surrounding his death.
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Battling Siki, Light Heavyweight Champion of the World August 21, 2006
Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Professor Peter Benson is a former boxer himself who came up the hard way, his father a Marine boxing coach who had his own son in the ring from the time he was a teen. "I dreaded those time when my dad would come home and suddenly sprung on me that some friend of his had a PAL or YMCA tournament lined up in a nearby town, and wouldn't I like to fill in for some kind who was sick (yeah, sick my @ss, I thought--try afraid)?" Stationed in Dakar (Senegal) on a Fulbright teaching gig, Benson noticed a pasteboard poster of a fierce African fighter, and learned that in Senegal they still idolize their homeboy, "Battling Siki," who had left Senegal and gone to Europe and beat Georges Charpentier, who was sort of the Maurice Chevalier of boxing.
This set Benson into asking himself why in the name of forgotten history had he never heard of Battling Siki, for he was a boy he grew up cutting his teeth on Bill Stern and his books for boys on famous boxing stories. When he returned to Stern's dog eared book he found out that, yes, Siki was in it for sure, but portrayed as a combination of a ninny and a savage. The present biography is a noble attempt to restore the real Battling Siki and to combat the legends and the misinformation inculcated around his name.
Nothing is too petty for Benson to dispute, for example, he launches immediately into refuting the idea that Siki was too ignorant to have heard of St. Patrick's Day. Benson shows us that racist promoters and an upset French boxing fraternity (aghast that their white boy had been beaten by an African athlete) had threatened to strip Siki of his precious boxing license, and that Dublin, on St. Patrick's Day, was the only place left to him to fight. He had indeed been backed into a corner. As we know from studying the career of Jack Johnson (whose reign preceded Siki's by perhaps 12-15 years), the white infrastructure of pugilism did not like seeing a black man smile in the ring.
And Siki, like Johnson, compounded his sins by marrying a white woman and in general carrying on as though he was the champion of the world. Benson compares his unsettling appearance to the "menace" claimed by many when Sonny Liston knocked out Floyd Patterson. And a "gangsta" image comparable to Mike Tyson's was foisted on him by the popular press. Benson puts it all in context, showing, for example, that his ownership of two cute little lion cubs was not all that unusual at the time, for it had become an affectation of many boxers, not just black ones, to parade unusual pets. (Siki's cute little cubs ate a dog during boxing practice one day at the ring. Oops!)
Benson is a vivid writer and brings you right back into the roaring twenties with a powerful wit and a knack for research that hits home every time. You'll learn not only about Siki but a whole host of other great personalities of the day, from Jack Dempsey to Kid Norfolk. And beyond the ring, you'll encounter the predominant culture from new angles. You'll see why some people of color preferred if at all possible to "pass," and you'll see the American South through the eyes of a king in slow motion decline. Even the sympathetic seemed to see Siki in terms of "gratuitous animal analogies: Siki as ape, Siki as peacock--creatures embodying rage, lust, sexual display." Funny to never have heard of a man, and then to find out that he was the key that opens up vast occluded regions of the early 20th Century. Good work, Professor Benson. It was worth it, all that early boxing training by your dad.
The Fix Is As Plain As Black & White November 26, 2006
Mr. Richard D. Coreno (Berea, Ohio USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
An oftentimes flamboyant light-heavyweight boxer has waited years for a title shot. Of Senegalese heritage, he had his ring career interrupted by World War I, where he earned honors in a unit that was used mostly as fodder by the French generals. His opponent is also a decorated veteran and - if not for the war - may have been the "Great White Hope" in the apartheid-game to dethrone heavyweight great Jack Johnson.
But the match has a twist from a proposed fix. The challenger, Battling Siki, is supposed to take a dive, actually suffering a "knockout" by falling to the canvas and thrusting his arms out as if he was crucified. Siki tries hard to fake the match, but pride takes over and he floors Georges Carpentier to win the title - the first world title by an African fighter - in a decision wracked with controversy and gamblers screaming about being double-crossed.
Author Peter Benson takes the reader on a journey into alphabet-soup boxing organizations in Europe, American mob-backed fighters, trainers, promoters and sportswriters, a contender with ties to the KKK, overt racism, the art of the fix and the battle waged by a great athlete in a blood-sport that was not only in the ring.
Within months after winning the title, Battling Siki loses a title defense in a decison to a white fighter in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day during the Irish Civil War and then traveled to the United States in pursuit of another world title match. And what he got was an inept manager, no trainer, many brutal fights and his indelible pride not letting him take a seat on the canvas. And because of that, Battling Siki was gunned down on a street in Hell's Kitchen in New York City.
Benson brings to life a fighter who has had his life defined by the racist disinformation campaign that did not rest upon his death. It is not solely a boxing biography, though Benson's descriptions of several matches literally places the reader in the ring, feeling the shots and tasting the blood from the open cuts.
Battling Siki fought many forces that were evil and though many may say he ultimately lost in the end, Benson shows a man who stared down these cowards and could only be cut down with bullets through his back.
A Singular Boxing Book March 8, 2007
D. E. Scott
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
After over 25 years of reading boxing books, especially about the "old school" guys, it is refreshing, even startling, to read such a detailed and captivating book on a fighter we all know so little about. Siki has been branded through the ages by so many as a barely literate 'child of the jungle" who had poor judgement in picking opponents and came to a predictable end on a New York street. The entire short but epic life of Louis Fall is presented here in the well-detailed context of his times and turns out to be not what we had believed at all. But even if you are not a fight fan or had never heard of Battling Siki, the rich description of the times Siki lived in and the forces he endured until one day he didn't, is well worth the read. Bravo.
Don Scott
A Knockout May 11, 2008
Scott A. Kallick (Pittsburgh)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the story of the first African World Boxing Champion, Battling Siki.
In the 1920's, a World Title was an honor reserved for the very few. Most fighters would toil at their craft for seventy five to eighty fights before even getting an opportunity to fight for a title. There were only eight weight classifications, and only one title holder per weight class. A world title meant instant fame, adoration and an opportunity for long lasting wealth.
Battling Siki was a Sengelese National when he received a crack at the Frenchman Georges Carpentier's light-heavyweight title. Ostensibly, this fight was to be a fix in which the Frenchman was scripted to retain his title via knockout. However, Carpentier began firing some of his punches in earnest, angering Siki, who began punishing the Frenchman, until he knocked him out.
Thus began an oddysey for Siki, who lost his title in a dubious decision, and came to America to earn his living.
One of the beautiful things about boxing is how great fighters become trainers, and pass the lore on for generations and keep stories alive. Champions like Joe Gans and Archie Moore, and as of late, Buddy McGirt impart history to their protege's and keep the memory of boxings greats fresh.
Here, the author actually lived in West Africa, and began his research there. This is a well researched, documented and chronicled book, and a subject in which the author has developed a great passion.
I remember reading about Siki in a Ring magazine story as a teenager, and seeing a picture of a well built black man in a top hat with a cane strolling down a Manhattan boulevard. The story spoke of how the media conspired to turn his legacy into a joke.
The author flushes out a story of a man who was a fierce warrior in the ring, and a happy-go-lucky man outside of it. Revisionist history has brought Siki to light in a different way as Light-Heavyweight champion as a man to be respected and revered. Had his career been managed differently, he may have been regarded in the second tier of the elite in the division, behind such greats as Gene Tunney, Billy Conn, Archie Moore, Bob Foster,
Michael Spinks and Roy Jones (not necessarily in any order).
This is a story any true boxing history fan should read for a more thorough understanding of boxing's dark side. Through it all, Siki's courage, and buoyance shines through.
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