An Irishman's Diary

FLICKING channels the other night, I came across a rerun of a boxing match from 1993. It featured a young Oscar de la Hoya, the versatile American who would go on to win world titles in six different weight divisions. But more intriguing was the identity of his less famous opponent, who was sporting an Irish Tricolour and a shamrock on his shorts. I’d never seen him before or since.

He turned out to be Mike Grable, aka “the Irish Express”, who fought out of Michigan for several years from the late 1980s and whose short but respectable career was by then nearing an end. Grable was a good pro, clearly, who took De La Hoya the 8-round distance before losing a unanimous decision.

Thereafter, as I have since learned, he lost two more of his remaining three fights. And after that, the Irish Express seems to have pulled into a siding, from which it has not re-emerged.

I can find out nothing more about the man who, for all I know, may have been born in Ballydehob before his family emigrated. But even if he was, his boxing identity may also have been a vestige of a faded tradition whereby, once, the “Fighting Irish” was more that just a cliché in the US.

There was a time, especially the early 20th century, when it was almost a commercial franchise too. So popular were Irish-American boxers then – at least partly reflecting the make-up of those who paid to see boxing – that in many cases, fighters who had no connection with Ireland found it necessary to pretend they did.

A prime example was Jack Sharkey, the “Boston Gob”, who for a brief spell in the early 1930s held the world heavyweight title. Sharkey did indeed grow up in Boston, surrounded by Irish emigrants. And under his stage name he fitted right in with an era dominated by Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey.

But he was himself of Lithuanian stock and had started life as the rather less catchy Joseph Zukauskas, before adopting his new first name from Dempsey and his second from “Sailor Tom” Sharkey, a Dundalk-born heavyweight of an earlier era.

Sometimes, there could be more than commerce behind the decision to adopt an Irish persona. A modern-day fight promoter J Russell Peltz jokes that however tough Jewish boxers of the early 20th century were, they were also “afraid of their mothers”.

Maternal anxiety about their health apart, Jews also had a cultural disregard for the sport.

So Jewish boxers had multiple motives for adopting Irish pseudonyms. Hence Al McCoy, a top middleweight from the first World War years, whose real surname was “Rudolph”. And Mushy Callahan, a welterweight champion in the 1920s, better known to his mother as Vincent Morris Scheer.

The story goes that a great Jewish boxer, Benny Leonard, once fought an opponent called “Irish” Eddie Finnegan in a Pennsylvanian coal-mining town, where the latter’s supporters urged their man on with shouts of “kill the kike” and other anti-semitic jibes.

An enraged Leonard took his anger out on Finnegan, who was increasingly outclassed until he grabbed his tormentor in a clinch and, pleading for mercy, explained in Yiddish that his real name was “Seymour Rosenbaum”. The bout is not listed in Leonard’s official record. But if the story isn’t true, it’s still a good one.

In a reverse of the plight of Irish Jimmy Conway – from the film Goodfellas– even Italian boxers could found that their ethnicity had career-limiting effects. Hence such cases as "Fireman" Jim Flynn who fought a long and colourful career under that name, although born Andrew Chairiglione. The fireman bit was true, apparently, at least in his earlier life. But his overall record, which included 47 wins and 53 defeats, suggests he had not spent enough time on ladder-climbing skills.

Then there was Noah Brusso, Canadian-born of Italian parentage, who became better known as Tommy Burns. Among other claims to fame, Burns defied his diminitive stature – 5ft 7in – to become a heavyweight. He was also the first world champion of the division to defy the racial ban and fight black boxers, in the process losing his title to Jack Johnson.

Black fighters would in time dominate the sport, especially at heavyweight. And although the concept of the Fighting Irish is far from dead even now – witness this country’s Olympic medal record – the days when a Hibernian name was automatic box-office in the US are long past. In fact, the story of a more recent Irish boxer may be instructive.

He was born Michael Armstrong, in Co Longford, in 1977. And you’d think that “Armstrong” would be an impeccable title for any boxer to have. Of all the available Irish surnames, perhaps only “Punch” would be more apt. Even so, when his family moved to Manchester and he grew up to be a promising featherweight, he found it necessary to rebrand himself.

It was partly because British boxing already had a Michael Armstrong – and in the same division. In any case, the Longford man adopted the surname of his hero, Puerto Rica’s Wilfredo Gomez. He thereby became Michael Gomez, and as such was known for wearing tricoloured shorts and having the shape of a shamrock shaved on his head. But boxing identity can be a confusing thing, as we’ve seen. And among his several nicknames, Gomez became known as the “Manchester Mexican”.