The press was buzzing. There had not been a universal lightweight champion recognized by both commissions in over a year. Now, Beau Jack, the NYSAC champion, and Bob Montgomery were meeting in the Garden ring to earn the right to meet Sammy Angott, the NBA champion, for the undisputed title. In previous matches against Angott, Montgomery had suffered three defeats. Jack had fought to a draw.
Sammy Angott acquired both the NBA and NYSAC title on December 19, 1941, defeating the NYSAC champion, Lew Jenkins, by unanimous decision. He held the unified title until he retired and relinquished his titles on November 13, 1942. Just thirty-two days later, however, Sammy announced his return to boxing. During Angott’s retirement, the NYSAC acknowledged Beau Jack as its lightweight champion when he defeated Tippy Larkin. The NBA title remained vacant. Subsequently, the NBA declared that the winner of Sammy Angott’s bout with Luther “Slugger” White on October 27, 1943, would be proclaimed the champion of its vacant lightweight title. Angott scored a unanimous decision over White, once again becoming the NBA lightweight champ.
On March 3, 1944, for the third time in less than ten months, Beau squared off with “Bobcat” Bob Montgomery. Beau won the title on December 18, 1942, when he defeated Tippy Larkin. Montgomery took it away from him six months later when he conquered Jack on May 21, 1943, only to lose it back to Beau six months later. Quite a rivalry had erupted between the two.
Since losing the title to Beau four months earlier, Montgomery had earned victories over Joey Peralta and Ike Williams. Unexpectedly, in his last fight, two weeks earlier, he was knocked out within sixty-three seconds of the first round by welterweight Al “Bummy” Davis, a four to one underdog. It was the first time in Montgomery’s career that he had been stopped. Monty assured the critics that he had learned his lesson from his last bout with Davis and was prepared to regain the lightweight title from Beau Jack.
One day last November I was lightweight champion of the world. The next day I wasn’t. A few weeks ago I knocked out Ike Williams in Philadelphia and was red hot. In my very next fight, against Davis, I was caught cold. That’s the way it goes.
I don’t expect to make any mistakes against Beau Jack and I know my best will be good enough to win back the title. The Davis fight really taught me a lesson and I won’t be caught like that again. In fact I learned a lot when I lost the title to Beau Jack last fall and I will know what to look for this time.1
Montgomery was anxious to meet Beau for the third time, determined to once again take Jack’s title.
Since regaining the title from Montgomery, Beau won a close battle with Lulu Costantino, fought NBA champion Sammy Angott to a draw, and easily defeated Maxie Berger. Primarily due to Davis’ sensational knockout of Montgomery two weeks earlier, Beau came into the fight as an eight to five favorite.
Unexpectedly, a bombshell dropped at the pre-fight weigh-in when Montgomery didn’t make weight, coming in four ounces over the 135-pound limit. Adamantly, Chick Wergeles protested Monty’s weight, demanding the $1,500 forfeit. William Brush, of the Department of Weights & Measures, tried to justify the discrepancy, asserting that the crowd gathered around the scales at the weigh-in could create enough pressure to explain the deviation. Chick didn’t buy it. He declared that Jack would fight, but the title would not be on the line. Fortitude set in for Monty. He began running around and jumping rope. Three more times he stepped on the scales with no luck. Finally, on the fourth attempt, he took a deep breath before he stepped on the scales and somehow managed to clear the contracted weight.
Mike Jacobs was happy on fight night. Fans flocked to see Beau and Bob in their third title bout, producing the largest gate—$111,954—at Madison Square Garden since Beau fought Henry Armstrong eleven months earlier. With temperatures hovering around 40 degrees, over 19,066 fans packed the Garden to witness the third war between Jack and Montgomery.
The third contest was a vicious 15-round clash. As the opening bell sounded, Beau instantly swarmed Montgomery with left hooks and bolo uppercuts to his head, as well as looping rights to his body. A hard right to the jaw backed Monty into the ropes. After enduring Beau’s onslaught, Montgomery and Jack ripped each other’s heads with uppercuts. Fighting toe to toe as the bell rang, the two had to be separated by Referee Young Otto. Beau was eager to score a knockout in the first round, like the one recorded by Al “Bummy” Davis two weeks earlier. Unfortunately, his strategy did not work. Monty began to control the fight with long right crosses to Beau’s temple and hard blows to his midsection, winning the second and third rounds. Beau fought back with left jabs and right crosses, but Monty backed the champion into the ropes three times in the third. With Jack on the ropes, Bob smacked him with two solid rights to the jaw, stunning the champion.
As the two traded punches in the fourth, Bob sizzled a hard right to Beau’s chin, forcing him into the ropes once again. Against the ropes, Beau managed to counter Monty with body shots to even the scoring in the round. Monty won the fifth stanza by a slim margin, dazing Beau with a hard right as the round began. In the sixth round, Monty pushed Beau into the ropes once again and whaled away at his head and body for almost two minutes. Monty caught the champion with a stiff left hook and right to the chin, then pelted Jack’s stomach. Bob must have thrown 100 punches in the sixth, but the punch volume left Monty sluggish at the bell. Beau fainted a grin at Bob and scampered over to his corner. Bob recovered quickly and in the seventh, again landed rights to Beau’s midsection, while Beau battered Montgomery with his infighting. As the round came to a close, Bob caught Jack with a right to the jaw and then another right after the bell, staggering the champ. Viciously, Monty came out in the eighth round with a full head of steam looking for a knockout, but Beau cleverly bounced around the ring, avoiding most of Montgomery’s punches. Nevertheless, Monty landed enough to win the round.
As the fight continued, Montgomery’s furious pace began to take its toll on him. Taking advantage of the noticeably slower Montgomery, Beau won the next two rounds. They wrestled along the ropes in the ninth, and their heads momentarily went through the ropes. In the tenth, Beau landed a barrage of vicious left hooks to the challenger’s jaw without answer, producing blood from Bob’s mouth. Then Beau smashed a looping right to Montgomery’s midsection, leaving Monty holding on for dear life. Beau kept up his attack in the next three rounds over a waning Montgomery. In the twelfth, Beau drove Montgomery back with a left hook to the jaw. Despite Beau’s persistent aggressiveness, the eleventh and twelfth rounds were scored even. Remarkably, Montgomery somehow regained enough energy and recovered sufficiently to win the thirteenth round, but Beau belted him with several hard blows below the heart and stole the fourteenth round. Montgomery earned the final stanza with a tumultuous finishing effort, hurting Beau with two stiff rights to the body.
At the end of fifteenth rounds, the decision went to the scorecards. Anticipation filled the arena as many of the rounds were so close it was virtually impossible to score a winner. When the scorecards were announced, Referee Young Otto awarded the contest to Montgomery, scoring eight rounds for Bob, six for Jack, and one even. Judge Marty Monroe awarded the victory to Beau, giving Jack eight rounds to Montgomery’s seven. Sealing a victory for Montgomery, Judge Bill Healy saw the match like Otto, scoring the bout in Montgomery’s favor. By a close split decision victory, Beau lost the lightweight title to Bob Montgomery a second time.
In his dressing room after the fight, Montgomery explained his successful pre-fight strategy. “I went into the fight ‘“hot,” not “cold’” to avoid the possibility of another knockout,” explained Montgomery.2 Shadowboxing 10 rounds in his dressing room prior to the fight ensured that he came into the ring “hot.” For his efforts, Jack received $30,000 in his loss. Montgomery, on the other hand, received $25,000, the NYSAC title and the right to face Sammy Angott, the NBA lightweight champion, for the undisputed title.
The next day, Montgomery left with his wife and son for Hot Springs, Arkansas to get some much-needed rest. Although he had earned the right to meet Angott for the undisputed lightweight championship, the bout did not happen. Sammy Angott lost the NBA crown to Juan Zurita of Mexico City a week after Montgomery beat Jack. Zurita defeated Angott in a fifteen-round duel in Hollywood, California on March 8. Even though the title was no longer on the line, Angott still aspired to fight Montgomery, but Bob’s manager Frankie Thomas announced that Bob was exhausted from his last three bouts and couldn’t be ready for a date with Angott. After examining Montgomery, the NYSAC accepted Bob’s refusal.
The week following his loss to Montgomery, Jack traveled 240 miles northwest to Utica, New York, to show his appreciation and spend time with several groups of U.S. troops. In the afternoon he visited wounded soldiers at Rhoads General Hospital. Later that evening, he put on an exhibition with his sparring partner, Baby Beau Jack, for the soldiers at Rome Army Air Field.
Hoping for a big payday, on March 10, George Parnasus, the manager of the new NBA lightweight champion, Juan Zurita, announced that Zurita would meet Beau Jack in an overweight non-title bout at Madison Square Garden on March 31. It was bound to be a highly exciting matchup with a lot of powerful slugging. Before tackling Zurita, however, Beau first had to face Al “Bummy” Davis.
On St. Patrick’s Day, Beau faced Al “Bummy” Davis (1920–1945), the “Brooklyn Bomber,” in a welterweight match at the Garden. Davis, whose birth name was Albert Abraham Davidoff, grew up in the Jewish ghettos of Brownsville. He was a rough southpaw boxer. When he fought welterweight champion Fritzie Zivic on July 2, 1941, he was disqualified in the second round after repeatedly landing low blows. As a result, the NYSAC fined him $2,000 of his share of the purse and revoked his boxing license. It was not reinstated until September 1943, following Al’s discharge from the Army.
Grantland Rice, in his weekly column, discussed Davis’ power and upcoming contest with Beau. “Davis can punch and hurt,” Rice wrote. “He is one of the few left around who can punch a lick.”3 Many predicted that Davis would knock Beau out. Just several weeks earlier, Davis knocked Montgomery out in the first round and a month earlier had knocked out Buster Beaupre in 98 seconds in the first round. Davis sported an impressive record of 55–7–4, with 36 victories by way of knockout. Davis also possessed a mean left hook.
Making his fourth appearance of 1944, Jack was already the Garden’s number one gate attraction of the year. “No one has made the Garden turnstiles click like that,” said Wilkes-Barre sportswriter Fritz Howell, “since heavyweight champ Joe Louis donned his khaki uniform.”4 Eager to witness the battle, more people packed Madison Square Garden for Beau’s fight with Al Davis than did for his title match with Bob Montgomery. An enormous crowd of 19,963 spectators funneled through the turnstiles to see the Brooklyn Bomber and Beau Jack in a slugfest to benefit the Red Cross. So many fistic fans turned out, mounted police had to turn more than 10,000 fans away.
At fight time the weight differential between Davis and Jack was only 4½ pounds. Davis weighed 142½ pounds to 138 pounds for Beau and was one-half inch shorter. As expected, the first four rounds produced a spectacular “barroom” style brawl. Instead of his usual crouch and weaving style, Beau thrilled the crowd when he elected to slug it out with Davis. At the opening bell, Beau came out and landed a left jab to Davis’ face followed by a left hook to his head. Davis returned the favor, landing a spectacular punch to Beau’s head, stunning the “Georgia Windmill.” With Beau in trouble, Davis tried to finish him off, bombarding Beau with wild power punches. Beau doggedly weathered the storm and just after the bell sounded landed a hard left to Davis’ head.
Agitated by the late blow, Davis came out firing in the second round, scoring with left hooks to the body. Beau recalled, “I saw it coming, but I couldn’t get out of the way. I was going down. I was leaning, leaning, ready to fall, but I came back and hit him with one, two, three, four, five, six, seven left hooks in a row. I saw him go back to his corner. I remember the look in his eyes. He couldn’t believe it. I knew I had him then.”5 Beau retaliated and closed the second strong.
Beau took control of the contest in the third round. He quickly landed a series of left hooks to Al’s head. Then Beau fell a vicious right to Davis’ temple that sent him whirling across the ring. Jack charged toward the injured Davis, pounding him with left jabs. Only the ropes prevented Davis from going down. Sensing a knockout, the fans went crazy, making so much noise that no one could hear the closing bell. Beau kept up his attack with Davis on the ropes for at least three seconds after the bell rang. Davis had run out of juice but survived the round. Al almost went down again in the sixth round. After being rocked by a powerful left hook, Davis’ gloves touched the canvas.
Beau was fighting perhaps his best fight to date and continued to accurately land his punches plummeting Davis. As the final bell sounded, Davis finally went down. Jack thumped Davis with a vicious left hook, dumping him backward on the canvas. With blood streaking his face red, Davis was bleeding from a gashed left brow and cuts inside the nose and mouth. So one-sided was the affair, that one judge, Joe Agnello, gave Beau all ten rounds. The other judge, Frank Forbes, gave Beau nine rounds and scored the remaining one even, and Referee Bill Cavanaugh awarded Beau nine rounds to one for Davis. A booming ovation rang down from the Garden rafters as Jack was awarded a unanimous decision.
The sellout crowd provided an outstanding purse of $132,823 of which Mike Jacobs and each fighter agreed that 10 percent of the gate would go to benefit the Red Cross. Four days after the fight, Beau proudly returned home to Augusta to present the local Red Cross a check for $3,378, 10 percent of his purse. He also gave $1,000 to the New York chapter of the Red Cross. Beau was a box office sensation. In his twelve main events at Madison Square Garden, Beau produced an amazing gate of $947,477 or an average of $78,956 per bout.
Speaking to a young amateur years later, Beau expressed what it was like to be hit by Al Davis’s power. “Son, you ever touched ’lectricity?” Beau asked. “That’s what it felt like the night Al ‘Bummy’ Davis caught me with a left hook in the Garden. Felt like somebody just plugged me in. Saw 40 million stars. Then I shook it off. I was in shape, see. That was the key. Won the fight and had the whole Garden audience a standin’ and a cheerin’.”6
Traumatically, Al Davis’ career ended the following year. Davis was shot to death outside a Brooklyn tavern, a victim of an armed robbery. While having a beer with a couple of friends, four armed hoodlums known as “The Flatbush Cowboys” walked in to pull off a heist. Davis reacted quickly, knocking one of them down. When Davis attempted to stop the other three men, one of them pulled out a gun and fatally shot Davis in the chest. With a professional record of 65–10–4, with 46 of his victories coming by way of knockout, Davis was dead at the young age of 25.
The surprising rise of Beau Jack and the impact of his manager, Bowman Milligan, was the subject of Grantland Rice’s “Sportlight” column following the Davis fight. “The former Georgia bootblack,” penned Rice, “had easily surpassed the $900,000 mark as a drawing card thanks in large part to Bowman Milligan.”7 Rice described Beau’s rags to riches story, comparing him to the great 19th century author Horatio Alger, Jr., who was famous for his tales of boys who rose from rags and poverty to wealth and fame. “When a ten-cents-a-shine colored kid from Georgia directed by a locker-room guardian, neither knowing anything of the fight game,” Rice explained, “can move into the million dollar drawing class on short notice, we wonder how Horatio Alger ever got away with his puny ‘Rags to Riches’ yarns.”8 He credited Milligan with Beau’s success.
In this final summing up I must give Bowman Milligan, a quiet, honest, smart, able colored man most of the credit. Beau Jack, with all his gameness and his physical qualities was largely physical. Bowman Milligan, through his complete honesty and his intelligence, plus his ability to handle his main job and his diplomatic capacity, was the directing force.
But back of it all there was honesty of effort, which is something the crowd sensed—plus enough ability to give honesty a chance to work.9
Beau Jack was a true rag to riches story. The honesty and integrity of Beau and his team were instrumental in building his enormous fan appeal.
On Friday night, March 31, the night before his 23rd birthday, Jack returned to the ring at Madison Square Garden for his third Garden contest in less than a month. History was made. It was the first time that a boxer ever appeared in three Garden main events within one month. The bout also marked Jack’s 13th main event at the Garden.
In his landmark appearance, Beau confronted the switch-hitting curly, dark-haired, Juan Zurita (1917–2000), the new NBA lightweight champion, in a ten-round non-title bout. Juan won the Mexico featherweight and lightweight titles earlier in his career and touted a record of 125–21–1. Three weeks previously, Zurita captured the NBA lightweight title when he defeated Sammy Angott.
In one of the evening’s preliminary bouts, Beau’s stablemate from Augusta, Georgia, Frank Hardeman, aka “Baby Beau Jack,” earned a decision over Bobby Henry of New York. Beau had brought Hardeman, a 17-year-old lightweight, with him when he returned from Augusta several months earlier. Hardeman, originally dubbed “Jack Rabbit,” later changed his moniker to “Baby Beau Jack.” During his career, he netted a record of 33–19–3.
A large crowd of 17,593, providing a gate of $87,802, greeted the warriors as they entered the ring. The bout was a thrilling skirmish with punches flying. Zurita’s unorthodox southpaw style and his capacity to switch from a right to a left-hand stance seemed to trouble Beau. In fact, Juan won the first two rounds socking right jabs to Jack’s bewildered face. The contest was tight, with Beau getting the better of Juan on the inside and Juan edging Beau when they punched from a distance. Beau hurt Zurita in the fourth round with right counters. When the stout Mexican threw a hard left at Beau’s head, Beau bobbed to the side, causing Zurita to miss. Beau immediately seized the opening, countering back with two hard rights to Zurita’s jaw.
Beau Jack smashes a right on Zurita’s jaw, March 31, 1944 (courtesy Bruce Kielty).
Zurita got back on track in the fifth. He battered Beau into the ropes, forcing Beau’s head through the top rope. Instead of pounding his trapped victim, Juan courteously stepped back, permitting Beau to reset himself. To complete his gesture of ring etiquette, Zurita raised his gloves together in the expectation that Beau would do the same and that they would tap gloves. Instead of tapping gloves, Beau smashed a right hook into Juan’s belly. Driving Zurita across the ring, Beau thrashed him with body punches. Juan quickly faded until he got back on track in the eighth round.
Juan was relentless in the final two rounds. His best round was in the ninth when he trapped Beau against the ropes again and landed a solid left to his midsection. Then Juan unleashed a barrage of punches at Beau’s head with no return. Beau was hurt, but the tired Juan’s punches didn’t pack much power. Zurita outboxed Jack, handily winning the tenth round, but it was too late.
Jack won a unanimous decision. Referee Frank Fullam and both judges, Marty Monroe, and Jim Hagen, scored the bout in Beau’s favor. The United Press scorecard similarly tallied Beau the winner, scoring seven rounds for Beau and three for Zurita. Hailing from Jalisco, Mexico, the birthplace of tequila and mariachi music, Zurita blamed his rowdy celebration following his victory over Sammy Angott. He admitted that he just hadn’t had enough time to prepare for the fight after ten days celebrating his title victory over Angott in Mexico City.
With the evening’s receipts, Beau’s gates grossed over $300,000 in March alone. All in all, Beau had generated revenues totaling $1,035,279 in his 13 main event appearances at Madison Square Garden. The “Dixie Dynamo’s” gates exceeded every other boxer except heavyweight champion Joe Louis. The next day, Beau stopped by Mike Jacobs’ Twentieth Century SC office to pick up his $25,000 “birthday” present. Then, he departed for his home in Augusta to unwind.
Plans were made to rematch Jack with Zurita in Mexico City, but the match was called off in the middle of April. There were also discussions about a fourth match between Beau and Montgomery, but before negotiations concluded, the draft called both men into service.
Juan Zurita held the NBA lightweight title until April of the next year when Ike Williams knocked him out in the second round before 35,000 spectators in Mexico City. Zurita finished his professional career with a record of 131–23–1.
1. “Clash Friday Night in Championship Bout at the Garden,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 4, 1944, 12.
2. Jack Cuddy, “19,066 Fans See Montgomery Win,” Democrat and Chronicle, March 4, 1944, 13.
3. Grantland Rice, “The Sportlight: Al Bummy Davis Has 10 Pounds and Left Hook on Beau Jack,” Harrisburg Telegraph, March 15, 1944, 23.
4. Fritz Howell, “Beau Jack Easily Outpoints ‘Bummy’ Davis,” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, March 18, 1944, 11
5. Robert Seltzer, “Fear in the Ring: A Second Opponent for Fighters,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 27, 1988, 23.
6. Tom Archdeacon, “The Pugs’ Day of Thanks,” Miami News, November 23, 1984, 18, 25.
7. Grantland Rice, “The Sportlight,” Cumberland News, March 20, 1944, 7.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.