Tex Rickard biography
Tex Rickard, byname of George Lewis Rickard, (born Jan. 2, 1870/71, Kansas City, Mo., U.S.—died Jan. 6, 1929, Miami Beach, Fla.), American gambler and struggle promoter who made boxing trendy and extremely worthwhile. His promotions that includes Jack Dempsey, world heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926, attracted the primary 5 “million-dollar gates” ($1,000,000 or extra in ticket receipts).
After being a cattleman and a city marshal in Texas after which a gold miner and an expert gambler within the Yukon, Rickard in 1903 established a on line casino within the mining city of Goldfield, Nev. To publicize the neighborhood, he promoted a world light-weight title struggle wherein Joe Gans defeated Oscar (Battling) Nelson on a foul in 42 rounds on Sept. 3, 1906. He then promoted Jack Johnson’s profitable protection of the heavyweight championship towards former titleholder James J. Jeffries at Reno, Nev., on July 4, 1910.
In 1920 Rickard gained management of Madison Square Garden, New York City. On July 2, 1921, at Jersey City, N.J., he staged the primary boxing match to draw a million-dollar crowd: Dempsey’s four-round knockout of Georges Carpentier. In Chicago on Sept. 22, 1927, Dempsey’s unsuccessful try and regain the heavyweight title from Gene Tunney drew for Rickard the one $2,000,000 gate in boxing historical past earlier than the mid-Nineteen Seventies. Throughout his profession, Rickard’s promotions appealed to prejudice: black towards white (Gans versus Nelson, Johnson versus Jeffries), draft dodger towards World War I hero (Dempsey versus Carpentier), and American towards “foreigner” (Dempsey versus Luis Angel Firpo of Argentina). Much of his press agentry was geared toward girls, and he sought socially outstanding patrons by organizing quite a few bouts for charity. He was in all probability the primary boxing impresario to show skilled at dealing with giant crowds.
In addition to his profession as a promoter, Rickard based the New York Rangers hockey franchise in 1926, which he owned till his loss of life.