The first sentence of the article really caught me: Gay Paree continues to be the main hangout of occult boxers. The concept of "occult boxers" makes me giggle when I compare it to my ideas about modern boxing.
Johnny Coulon weighed barely over 100 pounds and yet won all but 5 of his 200 (although some say 97....and still others say 300) matches. He was the bantamweight boxing champion of the world from 1910 until 1914. He wasn't actually summoning demons in the ring and willing them to do his bidding, but apparently he understood pressure points and how to use them to his advantage. After retiring from boxing, he even took his "trick" and toured with vaudeville as "The Man They Cannot Lift". It earned him enough money to buy a gym!
I was excited to find a ton of information about Johnny around the web. Here are some great sites & articles to start with:
- A Popular Science article from May of 1921
- Cyber Boxing Zone's entry on Johnny
- An old NY Times article (opens pdf)
- BoxRec.com's entry
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