kid Lavigne by Rob Snell

[Mofo2]

Sat 10th May 1919

Fort Wayne News and Sentinel

The following is taken from an article written by Robert Edgren

The last time I saw kid Lavigne was two or three years ago, on the Occasion of a “Benefit†arranged in New York for the once famous Champion and most popular of ring heroes. Lavigne had fallen upon

Hard days a and of all the money won with his fists not a nickel remained. He came to my office to get a couple of hundred dollars that had been sent in as subscriptions, and asked me to express his gratitude to the few trends who had remembered him even .to that extent. But I could see that the practical failure of the benefit— which hardly paid expenses—was a sad blow to the Kid. He couldn't realize that a new generation had grown up, and that an old one had forgotten him.

I'm glad to say, however, that Kid Lavigne didn't stay in a state of gloom long. I had-a letter from him shortly afterward. He was hard at work in a famous automobile plant, drawing his "five dollars a day or more." He had broken the last link that connected him with the ring, and was quite cheerful over it.

Funny how soon the world forgets But there are certain old-timers who never get together and talk of old days in the ring without mentioning the great Kid Lavinge. I know of one New Yorker, A. Brand by name

whose greatest pride is in the fact that he saw Kid Lavinge's first professional fight—and picked him for a coming champion right on the spot.

I don’t know whether Lavigne should be most famous for the fight that made him world lightweight champion or for his battle with Joe Walcott the “Giant Killerâ€. Both are classics in the ring.

Lavigne began fighting as a youngster in Saginaw Michigan, the called him the “Saginaw Kid†in surrounding towns, when he began fighting around the lumber camps and making something of a local reputation. Up in Michigan last summer I met a gentlemen who claimed to have been his first manager.

“Fight†was the “Kids†middle name†he said. “He’d fight anyone I matched him with and he never even asked me who he was going to fight next. I had to keep him busy fighting all the time to keep him contented. Fighting was his amusement. He loved any kind of a roughhouse. Why the only way I could get along with him was by being ready to scrap at any moment. If we were walking down the street in the winter he'd jump on me the instant he saw I wasn't watching and roll me in a snowdrift. If I got him

down it tickled him just as long as there was scrap.

They Didn’t Have To Make Him Like It

Lavigne loved fighting for the sake of fighting. He was one of the very few fighters I can name who really liked the game, all the way through, and who didn't care how tough he found it. He had the round. smooth, smiling face of a cherub—a perfect oval of a face with light yellow hair and. light blue eyes.

He looked like a choir singer, or model for one of Raphael's youthful angels, or a Sunday school book hero of the style of literature slipped over on Sunday school children twenty years ago. But from the ears

down he was all fighter.- He had strong neck, very wide and powerful shoulders, thick arms and fists like a longshoreman's. He always smiled like an angel, and smiling like an angel he could fight as if he had

horns, hoofs and a tail.

Lavigne was of French descent, born and brought up in the Michigan lumber districts where fighting is as natural as wearing a blue shirt. His first ring affair (not counting a certain number ,of rough and tumble engagements more or less unofficial in character ) was a seventy-seven round battle with George Siddons, a top-notch lightweight in those days.

Seventy-seven rounds to a "draw," neither man being able to floor the other for a ten-second count, or at the finish to strike another blow. This was 1 march 1889. April 26 they fought a fifty five round draw. Lavigne learned how to fight in those two long battles for in 1891-82 he went to San Francisco and beat Joe Soto in thirty rounds and Charles Rochello in ten. His fight with Rochello was one of the first I ever saw in a ring, and I'll ever forget the impression of Kid Lavigne as he was in those days, cherubic oval face, cherubic smile and his wedge like body,smoothly muscled, gleaming; white under the glare of the single arc light.

I saw It from the gallery with another youngster I got into that gallery by shinning up—but that's another story. Enough that I saw Lavigne. Like my friend, Brand, boasted of it later, feeling quite sure that my youthful and inexperienced eye had detected signs, too, that Lavigne was a "coming champion!.

As for the "Saginaw Kid," he went right along toward the championship. He knocked out Eddie Myer in a classic twenty-two rounds fought a draw with the incomparable Griffo, beat Johnny Griffin and knocked out Andy Bowen ( famous for having fought the longest fight on record—110 rounds with Jack

Burke at New Orleans) in fourteen rounds. He beat Jack Everhardt and knocked out Jimmy Handlier and fought a twenty round draw with Grifto at Maspeth.

Here Was a Battle.

Then came the great fight with Walcott, a fight that always will be one of the most famous in the annals of the roped ring. Walcott was considered peer of a welterweights, although at that time able to fight several pounds under the 142-pound limit of his class. Lavigne was recognized as light weight champion of America, succeeding Jack McAuliffe, who had retired.

Tom O'Rourke, Walcott's manager, was ambitious to have his "Demon" annex the lightweight title. He made a match for Walcott with Lavigne, Walcott to weigh in at 133 pounds and to lose the decision if he failed to stop Lavigne in fifteen rounds.

Walcott was a terrific hitter, only feet 1 Inch tall (while Lavigne was 5 feet 3 ½ ). He had the arms and chest of a. heavyweight. Blows bounced from his rounded turret of a head as if he were armor-clad. O'Rourke was willing to match him against Tom Sharkey—that's what he thought of Walcott! In the first round the "Black Demon" tried to knock white skinned Lavigne out with a terrific flurry of blows. But Lavigne hurled himself in against them. Lavigne wasn't there to "stay fifteen rounds." He was there to whip the negro. Nothing could stop him. Rush after rush, wild mix up after mix up, crashing, thudding fists, reeling impact of steaming bodies, the fight went on round after round. Lavigne's white skin was soon criss crossed with streaming rivulets of red. His face was a blotch. One ear was torn. His eyes were closed. To some extent Walcott was damaged too, but on the coal-black background of his skin the punishment hardly showed.

No Sponge for Lavigne

The spectators began to call for the sponge. They wanted to see Lavigne give in. Many left the arena but Lavigne fought on with growing fury. And Wolcott, having delivered every fighting ounce that was in him. lost heart at last and covered Is bent head with crossed arms and backed away. Going to his corner with five rounds still to fight, he cried to O'Rourke: "I kain't whip that white boy,-I kain't whip him.†O'Rourke., furious over the prospect of losing fight and side bet, bent over Walcott and threatened him—told him what would happen if he quit. With fear behind and lavigne raging in front, a crimson fury who never stopped, fighting for a second and who would’nt be driven back or held in Walcott’s desperate grip. The “Black Demon†stalled through to the finish taking a bad beating before the fifteen rounds were over and losing a decision on the merits of the fight.

That battle made Lavigne famous the world over. He boxed no-decision bouts with Jack McAuliffe and Tommy Ryan in New York, and then sailed for England to fight Dick Burge for the world's lightweight title, Burge being champion of England.

Excusing the result of that fight the English chronicler of events for the National Sporting club wrote: "Lavigne stripped for the ring a perfect pocket Hercules. Though his height was only 5 feet 3 1/2, inches his neck was only half an inch smaller than Bob Fitzsimmons.

Burge, in truth, was a much larger man. The English writers made small mention of that fact. But the fight was to have been at 135 pounds on the ,afternoon of the fight. Lavigne weighed no more than 130.

Burge, shortly before the date, refused to make the weight, and insisted upon being allowed to weigh in at 145 pound:. And when weighing in time came he wouldn't weigh at all. He undoubtedly scaled 150 pounds or more according to Sam Fitzpatrick who managed the American.

Mr. Bettinson of the National Sporting Club offered to call the fight off if Lavigne wished because Burge wouldn’t make weight or at least to advertise that the American’s championship title was not at stake.But Lavigne laughing told him he didn’t care what Burge weighed, and the title could go with the fight if Burge weighed a ton.

Burge was a very clever boxer and a tremendous favorite in the betting. England considered him invincible especially when the two men came together.

Backed Himself To The limit Against Burge

Between them Fitzpatrick and Lavigne had $7000 and they decided to bet it all on Lavigne’s chances and the losers end of the purse with it.In the National Sporting Club it is customary to make bets around the ring by holding up fingers to indicate the amount and noting the wagers in a small book, settling the bets afterwards. Fitzpatrick had come from Australia, but had lived in America for some time, and in the excitement of the moment when in Lavigne’s corner just before the fight he forgot the Englishmen didn’t bet in dollars. He accepted a score or so of wagers made his notes and stopped taking bets offered when he figured that he had placed all the money he and Lavigne could raise if lavigne lost the fight.

Lavigne fought Burge just as he had fought Wolcott, tearing in and fighting at top speed without paying any attention at all to his opponents blows or being worried by his skill. He knocked Burge out in seventeen

rounds. As Fitzpatrick, was leaving the ring with Lavigne after the fight a gentleman at the ringside who had "bet him a hundred," reached up and passed him a banknote. Fitzpatrick glanced at it and saw that it was for £100 or $500. He was just about to turn the note back and explain that there was a mistake of some sort when it suddenly struck him that he had been BETTING IN POUNDS' instead of dollars all through the evening.

If Lavigne had lost he and his manager would have been liable for about $40,000 in wagers! Fitzpatrick, telling the story, declared that he went up to the dressing room with Lavigne without saying a. word and

sat down and wiped the cold sweat from his brow for fifteen minutes while he thought over all the horrible things that might have happened to him if Lavigne had lost. After which, of course, he went down and let everybody pay him of in pounds as if it were all a matter of course.

The English in the printed record of the NSC took to themselves a slight consolation for the defeat of their champion, Lavigne was born and bred in Michigan, but after he whipped Burge the French writers called him “The French Canadianâ€.