Without the right promoters, boxing might never have become the sport we know today.
Bringing a fight night to life takes a certain kind of mind. Lining up the card. Keeping the show tight. Making sure the whole thing doesn’t fall apart at the seams. Joe Waterman had that mind. And he took it wherever the fight game needed somebody who understood what they were doing.
Before any of that, Waterman was everywhere. Sailor. Fighter. Referee. Matchmaker. Promoter. Writer. He did all of it, and most of it before anybody thought to write it down.
His biggest mark came in the Philippines— the 1910s and ’20s, years when Filipino boxing was still finding itself. But his reach didn’t stop there. When the fight scene in Los Angeles needed a pulse, Waterman turned up.
What made him different wasn’t the volume of work. It was his eye. He saw fighters coming before the rest of the world caught on.
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1653011390
To get a real picture of the man, go back to Corregidor— that honey-combed rock in the mouth of Manila Bay. 1918. The war still on. Thousands of U.S. soldiers stationed at the Corregidor training base, orders pending, nerves taut. In a ring pitched outdoors under a black Philippine sky, two lightweights named Jack Dalton and Stiff Brierty were busy beating each other’s brains out.
Journalist Al Stump put the scene down right, writing for The Oregonian. The third man in that ring was Waterman— a stock, kinky-haired lad with a lantern paw, already building his name. Fourth round, the rains came. Not a drizzle— a drenching, obliterating tropical downpour. Seconds abandoned corners. Nobody needed a sponge anymore. Two men kept swinging in sheets of rain.
Six rounds and Waterman still couldn’t make a decision. He called for two more. The crowd howled. He shook his head, ordered another two. The ring was a canvas-bottomed lake by then. Dalton and Brierty ground through rounds nine and ten in a dead standoff. Drenched fans screamed for a ruling. Both fighters, arms heavy, legs gone, begged the referee to just pick somebody.
Water running down his pug nose, the official stuck out his jaw.
“No decision!” he thundered. “This fight will be continued tomorrow night!“
Stump called it the outstanding fistic event of a life given entirely to one profession. And he was correct— and it was more than a good story. It was a picture of exactly who Waterman was. He didn’t cave to the crowd. Didn’t manufacture a verdict the evidence wouldn’t hold. When the situation was genuinely impossible, he said so out loud— and didn’t move.
That was the man. That quality went with him everywhere he worked.
Stationed in Subic Bay in Zambales, Waterman worked alongside U.S. Marine Edward Gallaher in Olongapo.
The two of them helped piece together a new way to score fights— what became known as the Australian Scoring System.
Frank Churchill eventually adapted the scoring system to appease the Australian contingent that fought at his new Olympic Stadium. Eleven points per round. No even scores. A margin designed to make decisions stick. Knockdowns earned five points. Fouls could cost up to two. Ten rounds meant 110 points available, and a fighter needed to lead by three to take the win. It wasn’t flawless, but it held up. California rings used that system for over 30 years— 1925 through well into the 1950s.
As a matchmaker, his instincts helped define an era. He wasn’t just putting fights together— he was building careers. The Flores brothers— Macario, Francisco, Ireneo, Elino. Francisco Guilledo. Benjamin Gan. Eleuterio Zapanta. Ceferino Garcia. The Docusen brothers— Regino, Maxie, Bernard. Pancho Villa. Young Nationalista. Dencio Cabanela. Speedy Dado. Clever Sencio. Eustaquio Duarte. Francisco Labra. Silvino Jamito. Gaudencio Cabanela. Inocencio Moldez. Name after name, career after career— his fingerprints are all over the early history of Filipino boxing.
After the war he moved through the circuit. San Diego. Los Angeles. Tacoma. Portland. Seattle. Vancouver, B.C. When the Depression hit and boxing felt it, Waterman didn’t wait around.
He took the matchmaker job at the Olympic Auditorium in September 1935 and did something that looked strange on paper— he slashed ticket prices. A dollar seat went for twenty-five cents. Gates that once pulled nearly $19,000 in a night dropped to just over $5,000. But the house was full.
That same year, Henry Armstrong was getting nowhere. Waterman saw what was there and put him on as a headliner. By the end of 1936, more than 400,000 fans had walked through the Olympic’s doors. The room came back. So did Armstrong. Stump wrote later that Waterman had tabbed Armstrong an all-time great. He’d said it before almost anyone else thought to.
A Red Cross benefit Waterman ran in Manila in 1918 drew $40,000. The Armstrong–Baby Arizmendi title fight in Los Angeles grossed $20,000. The Armstrong–Belloise match did the same. Stump put it plainly: the man went from a kid earning $33 a month shoveling coal to one with $25,000 in the bank— best hotels, best trains, same rooms as Damon Runyon and Tex Rickard and Bing Crosby. Boxing had been good to Joe Waterman.
He’d be the first to tell you it has an unlovely side too. Many lose by it over the long pull. He didn’t— not through luck, but because he understood the game all the way down. He’d seen it raw, in the rain at Corregidor, calling for more rounds when any other man would have grabbed an easy out. He’d seen it at its best, watching Armstrong in a packed house. He knew what it was. Both ends of it.
He didn’t work for headlines. He worked to keep the sport breathing— to get fighters their shot, fill the seats, build something that lasted.
His name doesn’t come up the way the champions he helped shape do. Doesn’t mean his piece of the story is any smaller.
For those who know the Sweet Science—especially in the Philippines— Joe Waterman’s mark is still there.
Quiet, steady, and lasting.
Just like the man himself.
Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings
Photos of Joe Waterman are in the public domain and some attributed images were excerpted from the National Archives Records Administration, The Knockout, The Ring, BoxRec.com, The Tribune, The Manila Bulletin Daily and others
Al Stump, Staff Writer, The Oregonian for The Knockout, Vol. 17., No. 11, March 13, 1943)
A special photo was respectfully borrowed from the The George Mendies Scrapbook: National Library of Australia Ephemera Scrapbook 5 u|https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1653011390
Special thanks to the National Library of Australia for preserving these visual records. In honoring Mendies who was associated with Joe Waterman, we too honor the quiet strength of those whose stories almost slipped away.
The Knockout, Published Weekly, No. 31, Vol. 5, SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1932
The Knockout, No. 4, Vol. 5, Published Weekly, SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1932
Joe Waterman and Ralph “Bud”, Ridley: The Knockout, Published Weekly, Vol. 5, No. 15, SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1932
Article by Gene Vinassa (The Ring, June 1936)
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.
These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes.
Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.