Barangay Dance Company came to the ball, and with the rhythm of their feet, and they gave us something more to think about.

Their performance was one of the memorable moments of the September 3 welcome reception for Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle at the Filipino American Center of the San Francisco Public Library.

Nearly 200 people braved the rain, traffic and the usual excitement in and around the streets of San Francisco that evening. Inside, boxing people mingled with historians, artists, martial artists, dancers, families and friends. Conversations seemed to begin as quickly as introductions could be made. For an exhibition about fighters, it was quite an opening salvo.

And Barangay fit naturally into it.

Before their presentation, the company had considered whether Silat or another martial arts-based dance might better suit a conversation about boxing. But they understood that our discussion was not simply about punches. Their artistic team were exploring Filipino dance styles that highlight graceful footwork, and they chose Chalichog, a traditional dance associated with the Kalinga people of the Cordillera region of Northern Luzon.

Then the gongs sounded.

Men and women moved together as the beat gathered around them. The dancers stepped and shifted with the rhythm, their cries and calls joining the sound of the gongs. Soon, rhythm and sound filled the venue. You did not have to know the dance to feel it. For those few minutes, the Filipino American Center was not simply a room inside the San Francisco Public Library. Something distinctly Filipino had taken possession of the space.

And naturally, our eyes went to their feet.

Watching them move, one could recognize something familiar to anyone who has spent years watching great fighters. The feet establish position before the hands can accomplish anything. Weight shifts. Direction changes. Balance is maintained. There are pauses, bursts of movement and subtle adjustments.

Above all, there is rhythm.

A dancer is not a boxer, of course, and dance is not fighting. But movement has a vocabulary of its own. That evening, Barangay demonstrated something that would have been difficult to explain with words alone.

It raised a larger question…How much of a people’s history can be carried in the way they move?

The thought reaches far back. In the ancient Greek world, from the age associated with Homer, history, values and collective memory traveled through poetry, song and oral recitation before much of that knowledge eventually found permanence in the written word. Stories survived because people remembered them, performed them and passed them forward.

Filipinos also passed knowledge from one generation to another, but some of that memory lived in rhythm, music, dance and movement. Across an archipelago of many peoples and languages, perhaps a step could be more than a step. Movement could teach balance, timing, coordination and awareness. Dance could entertain, celebrate and educate while carrying something older forward.

Was movement sometimes also about survival? Could martial knowledge have occasionally been preserved—or even disguised—within dance, ceremony or play?

What we do know is simpler…knowledge does not always have to be written down to survive. Sometimes it is remembered by the body.

And that brings us back to boxing.

For more than a century, Filipino fighters have distinguished themselves by qualities beyond punching power: speed, timing, balance, angles, coordination and rhythm. Long before Manny Pacquiao, Filipino boxers crossed the Pacific and demonstrated those qualities in American rings. Pancho Villa became the first Filipino and Asian world boxing champion in 1923. Small Montana, Little Dado, Ceferino Garcia, Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Luisito Espinosa, Pacquiao and many others followed.

There is no single explanation for that remarkable success. But the relationship between Filipino martial arts, traditional dance, rhythm and boxing footwork deserves exploration.

Look at Filipino martial arts. In Arnis, Eskrima, Kali and other traditions, our eyes naturally follow the hands and weapons, but the feet make much of the movement possible. Angles are created. Distance is controlled. Position creates opportunity. Rhythm is established, interrupted and recovered.

A good boxer understands those things, too.

That does not prove a straight historical line from Filipino folk dance to martial arts and then to boxing. Perhaps the connection is more subtle—and more interesting. These traditions may be different expressions of something deeply familiar: people communicating knowledge through movement.

Barangay themselves put it beautifully afterward, writing about the “shared history of survival and resilience within the craft and the people who carry it forward.”

Founded in 1987, Barangay Dance Company has spent nearly four decades carrying Philippine culture forward through folk dance and music. Its history includes appearances at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, Pistahan at Yerba Buena Gardens, the Fil-Am Friendship Festival, and schools, parishes, cultural centers and community celebrations throughout California and Nevada.

But a résumé of performances tells only part of their story.

Barangay keeps tradition alive by putting it back into human bodies—gongs sounding, feet moving, voices calling, one generation teaching and another watching, learning and eventually joining.

That is where their work unexpectedly meets ours.

The Philippine Boxing Hall of Fame preserves photographs, books, gloves, newspaper clippings, programs and artifacts. Barangay preserves movement, rhythm, music and dance. One preserves objects; another preserves motion.

Both preserve memory.

Perhaps our paths were destined to cross at the feet.

That rainy September evening brought nearly 200 people together. Barangay gave us another reason to keep the conversation going.

Sometimes history survives in books. Sometimes in photographs, gloves and artifacts.

And sometimes, long after the gongs have gone silent, history is still moving through the feet. 🇵🇭🥊

According to their Facebook page, Barangay Dance Company, since  its inception in 1987, Barangay has actively represented the Filipino American community at numerous events including multicultural festivals such as the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and Asian-American Tradewinds Series; community events like the Pistahan at the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, Kababayan Festival at Marine World in Vallejo, Fil-Am Friendship Festival in Daly City, KTSF’s Asian Heritage Celebration at Great America in Santa Clara, and Samahan Festival in Tanforan, San Bruno: and in schools, parishes, centers, and private functions throughout California and Nevada.

A Note From Barangay Dance Company

Barangay Dance Company is a San Francisco-based Filipinx folk dance organization, established in August 1987 by the company’s late Founder and Artistic Director, Bonifacio Valera, Jr. Barangay Dance Company’s mission is to preserve the rich Filipino cultural heritage through the arts of Philippine folk dance and music.  Through presenting, outreach, and research, Barangay endeavors to promote awareness, understanding and appreciation of Filipino culture and arts.

Barangay Dance Company offers FREE open rehearsals, and beginner-friendly Summer Workshops for those who are looking for an introduction to Philippine folk dance. For bookings, performances, or to join Barangay Dance Company, please reach out at barangaysf1987@gmail.com.

You can also find us on Instagram: @barangaySF 

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/barangaysf/home

Thank you so much for featuring Barangay! 

Please feel free to visit us anytime.

Sincerely,

Joy 

Joy Ng  |  Executive Director

Barangay Dance CompanyPronouns: She/Her/HersFollow us on Instagram @BarangaySF. Support our cultural work: every.org/barangay-sf
To support Barangay’s work, please make a contribution on every.org/barangay-sf

Exhibition Information

https://sfpl.org/exhibits/2026/08/21/little-brown-dolls-no-more-rise-filipino-boxers-squared-circle

• Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle remains on exhibition at the Filipino American Center, Third Floor, San Francisco Public Library Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, through January 14, 2027.
• Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle remains on exhibition at the Filipino American Center, Third Floor, San Francisco Public Library Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, through January 14, 2027.

GENERAL LAWTON’S LAST FIGHT

The Battle of San Mateo

Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization. Pages 174-176. New York, February 24, 1900. (Public Domain)

by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE

This Website’s Author’s Notes: 

The Battle of San Mateo will forever be entwined with discovery of Sol Levinson boxing gloves left by a renegade African-American Soldier from the 24th Infantry who was teaching the local Filipinos of the Manly Art of boxing

Source of info: Damon Runyon: https://philippineboxinghalloffame.org/gloves-of-san-mateo-by-damon-runyon/

We republished the entire article from Harper’s Weekly to establish timelines on the history of how boxing travelled from America to the Philippines.

     Sad as it may seem, General Lawton went to his death a disappointed man. He was ambitious, as are all military men, to be recognized and rewarded by his country for meritorious service. He wanted, above all things, to be made a brigadier in the regular service while he was actively campaigning in the field, and not made one by the favorite shelving process of putting an officer up at grade and then retiring him. General Otis knew that the President was ready to nominate him for his merited honor, but he kept silent, and let the greatest general who has been evolved in this campaign pass out of his presence, at his palatial home, into the sullen rain of night, to death, without uttering that word which would have meant so much to him.

     Loyal to the centre of his great heart to every man who had gained his esteem, and to every man to whom he was subordinated in official life, he little understood the machinations and petty intrigues of other men in their struggle to win recognition by subtle dexterity of speech; by holding this commander back and showing that one forward for political purposes, or the concealment of truth for fear it might injure an administration. In his honest mind, conditions confronting the army and the country were subjects to be frankly discussed, that the people might know the true inwardness of the new national problem we are attempting to unravel, so that from their comprehensive understanding there might emanate a definite, vigorous national policy. To him military men professionally were merely parts of a great machine for the preservation of the dignity and integrity of his country. He critically analyzed the ability of men to rise to the needs of an immediate situation, and demanded they should see far into the future, else he cast them out as flawed machinery, unsuited for the work in hand. His moral uprightness resented the governmental tendency to appoint unsuitable men to military positions and to give promotions to those with the most political friends. Either a man was capable or he was a failure. That he was a cultured society man, that his father was or had been a man of marked prominence, that he was a man who controlled so many votes in the Committee on Military Affairs, or that he had in past times been a brilliant fighter, formed no part in his mental equation. To be accepted he must be the man who could do the right thing promptly, at the right time, and with energy, be his father a blacksmith or a statesman.

     Such was the mental attitude of the man who sat in the beautiful rooms of his tropical home, within sight and hearing of the swiftly moving waters of the Pasig River, on the night of December 18, 1899. Around him in the great room studded with massive gold-framed mirrors, with walls hung in handsome draperies, and from whose polished floors the softened light of crystal chandeliers was reflected back over tinted foliage plants and handsome carved furniture, were his devoted wife, Mrs. Colonel Liscum, Major Rogers of his staff, who accompanied him on his expedition, and myself.

     He was dressed for the field, and his massive figure, in rough campaign clothes, seemed to stand out the bolder amid these luxurious surroundings. He was not very talkative, but sat absorbed and silently thinking, unheeding the play of small talk around him. The rain beat down monotonously, with now and then a gust of wind which drove it rattling against the closed blinds. He roused himself to listen to the elements, and then became again lost in thought.

     “General,” I asked, “is the insurrection over?” He turned, instantly interested, and replied: “Why, you know more about the situation than I do! You must remember that I have been away two months, out of touch with the events, on as hand a campaign as an army ever made. The insurgent army is dispersed and broken up in the territory that I have passed through and we will keep it running if our troops are not withdrawn. What do you think about it?”

     I answered: “At the Palace, they are confident that the end is very near. One newspaper man at least has committed himself unequivocally by the statement that all organized resistance is over. I have not been willing to go so far and I should like very much to hear your judgment.” “You know,” I continued, “it would be quite a diplomatic stroke if I might quote you as saying the insurrection is over.”

Source: Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, Pages 174-176 New York, February 24, 1900 by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE (Public Domain)

     I may state, parenthetically, that my relations with the general through the Cuban and Philippine campaigns had become of such nature that he was always willing to talk more or less confidentially. He sat and studied for a moment, and then replied: “I would like to say that and when I can do so honestly I will. I want to think over the situation for a few days. The fact is I do not know yet whether this insurrection is over or just begun.” He leaned toward me and earnestly added: “This organized resistance business has been a bubble. There has never been a moment when we could not have chased the insurgents all over the island if we went after them. When General Young reached Taguig and telegraphed me, ‘The bubble is pricked.’ I knew that the backbone of the insurrection was broken. The same thing could have been done last spring when I went to San Isidro.” He broke out suddenly with: “Why call the insurrection over if it requires an army of sixty-five thousand to preserve the peace? They have not surrendered.”

     The conversation drifted into other channels, and the majore told some of Mr. Dooley’s stories in inimitable brogue, delighting the general immensely. The general twitted and teased his wife and Mrs. Liscum, and I came in for a share of the railery for having “cold feet ” and deserting his last expedition.    

     I asked him if he had heard anything about his appointment as brigadier in the regular army. “Not a word,” he replied. “I do not believe they intend to make me one now. My friends have asked the President to make me a brigadier and retire me, but I do not want them to do that. If the President believes I deserve it, he will give it to me; otherwise he will let some other fellow have it. You see, I am ‘a soldier’ and not a politician, and it may be that I do not know how to please them. The President has always, however, expressed great confidence in me. They have got me cowed, Dinwiddie. I am afraid to talk, for fear of saying the wrong thing, and I don’t talk, some newspaper man prints an interview with me anyway.”

     It may be said that General Lawton always consistently refused to be interviewed for publication, and his statement, which was carefully qualified, that a hundred thousand men would ultimately be needed in the Philippines afterwards caused him much worry, because he was set upon by General Otis, and somewhat by the department, for making incautious utterances.

     It neared the hour of twelve, and Captain Stewart had come; booted and spurred, he clanked up the marble staircase, dripping with rain, to report that the cavalry escort was in the street. The general appealed to him, as he had done to all of us during the evening, asking if he did not believe it would stop raining. General Otis in the early evening had suggested that the movement be called off on account of the weather, but with General Lawton a plan conceived was a plan to be executed without being delayed by a few hours of bad weather, and he requested that he be permitted to carry the operation through to a finish, to which General Otis acquiesced.

     A few moments before the general turned on the crisis in the Transvaal. His eyes brightened, and looking towards his wife, he exclaimed: “I’ll go down there when I get through with this. They know how to fight, and that’s what I like.” His wife answered, “No, you will not, dear. You’re going home with me to Southern California to raise oranges. That is good enough for us.” He stood watching her for an instant and spoke as if repeating after her, “Yes, that’s good enough for us.”

     I had asked the general if he thought it would be well for me to go with him, and he answered, “No, I think not. There probably will be no fighting; at most just a skirmish. I am going up with the troops garrison San Mateo, and will come right back. General Otis has not accepted my plans for a campaign on the south yet.” It was that little skirmish that lost our country a hero.

     The general passed out of his house into a blackness of night, which was broken only here and there by ghastly white patches from the fluttering arc light. The streets ran deep in water, and the heavy towering clouds poured down their moisture in a steady drizzle. His tall form on horseback led the cavalcade; on his head was his famous white helmet, and his frame was encompassed by a long yellow slicker. Behind him were his aides, Sewell and Breckenridge and Major Rogers. Behind them came Stewart with Troop I of the Fourth Cavalry, which had acted as the general’s personal body guard on many a hand weary march.

     The fight force of the expedition was to leave the pumping station of Manila’s water works, four miles out of the city at midnight, and proceed up the right bank of the stream, past the town of Mariquina (which we have taken a few odd times and relinquished), until opposite San Mateo, where the insurgents have lived in undisputed possession since our defeat ten months ago. The troops were two squadrons–one mounted and one dismounted– of the Eleventh Cavalry, under Colonel Locket; two battalions of the twenty-ninth Infantry, under Colonel Sargeant; and one battalion of the Twenty seventh, unjer Major Bryam.

     General Lawton went out of the city by way of La Loma Church where so many Filipinos lay dead after the desperate conflict of last February. A pail of darkness had fallen over the party as they left the scattering lights of the city behind. No sound was heard except the sodden thud of the horses’ feet in the narrow muddy road and the champ of bits as the animals fretfully tossed their heads. Now and again some trooper muttered a curse as the mud splashed to this cheek, and he wiped it away with a swish of his water-tricked hand. Farther and farther they pulled the brims of their battered campaign hats over their eyes to protect their faces and necks from the driving rain. The moon came up behind the heavy clouds, and men who could not before been seen became black silhouettes against a heavy gray sky. The great white dome of the church hung seemingly suspended above the black earth like a huge ball.

     At half past two,  King, his most trusted personal aide, and Fuller, ordinance officer, who had been sent ahead to instruct the troops, joined the general’s party. It may not be amiss to say that Captain King has been with the general since the beginning of the Cuban campaign. His relations have been of the most confidential nature. He has received the approval of the general over and over again for the conspicuous gallantry in the field, where he has been with him in every engagement, and lastly it was his arms that Lawton died.

     Hour after hour they rode, each one seeming longer than the preceding, as the men shifted their frail ponchos in vain endeavors to shed the water, and and only became wetter and more chilled. Just before the light of morning grayed the melancholy sky, their ears caught the oozy splashing of marching men ahead of them. It was the rear column of the troops from the water-works plunging doggedly toward San Mateo.

     At half past six the light of day began to come, and the weary force found themselves at the crest of the great bluff escarpment, six hundred yards from the silent town, and separated therefrom by a river. Not a moment did General Lawton lose in putting the troops into motion to surround and attack the village. Colonel Locket, with the Eleventh Cavalry, was ordered to move to the left above the town, ford the river, and attack on the north. His mounted troops were to move several miles before fording, so as to cut off the retreat of the enemy in that direction; while the dismounted men were to cross at the first available opportunity, and take the insurgent trenches, which lined the riverbank, in reverse. The Twenty-ninth infantry, under Colonel Sargent, were to move down to the right, attract the enemy’s attention, and engage them; but the right wing of his deployed line was to ford the river and execute a flank movement to the south of the village. Major Byram, with the Twenty-seventh, was to fill the centre of the line, and re-enforce if necessary.

     The execution of this movement was no easy task. The troops were in a narrow trail sixty feet above the small alluvial flood-plain, and down to this lower level led merely a slippery, mud bound foot-path. To their left in this bottomland stretched a great cane-field. In their front and to the right were rice fields flooded knee-deep in water. The view of the town was quite open in the centre, but on each side great bamboo fringes raised their fantastic feathery shaft, and afterwards proved of great protection to our men, as they lay within two hundred yards of the enemy, under a galling fire.

     The cavalry, in single file, slipped and floundred down the path,and plunged northward through the rice fields. The foot troops had barely began to move into this path, one man slipping, and bowling down half a dozen ahead of him, when ragged rattling reports of small-arms began, and the insurgents could be seen piling into trenches pell-mell, all dressed in white clothes.

      As the Twenty-ninth moved across the open rice-field, the fire steadily grew louder, seemingly all Mausers, and the bullets swept high, to bury themselves in the slide of the bluff, or to go even higher, surging into the country beyond.

     Below San Mateo the river divided to flow around a tiny densely ventured island, and from the rear of this protection the troops moved as hastily as men can move with their legs pulling from sticky mud and water like suction pumps.

     General Lawton and his aides came straight across the rice field toward the now clearly visible trenches. He gave orders now to one and then another of his aides, which they sped off to execute apparently not noticing the bullets that hissed closely by the little party. He watched the trenches through his field glasses, and remarked on the construction of one trench, where it ran abutting against a stone building, surrounded by a heavy wall,

     Some one remarked, as the fire grew hotter, “General, I believe they’re shooting at you.” He laughed slightly, more a grim smile than anything else, and replied “Don’t launch, and keep moving.” Suddenly young Breckenridge jumped into the air, whirled around a time or two, and exclaimed, “General, they’ve got me’ and then fell down. The general was instantly at his side, and with the aid of King, Fuller ,and Rogers carried him to the left into a little gulch, where they were partially screened from the fire. “Find a surgeon!” the general commanded, and Fuller ran toward the Eleventh Cavalry to find one but failed. King saw a surgeon to the right and  came back, bringing Dr. Beardsley of the Eleventh Cavalry with him. As the doctor examined the wounded man, General Lawton stepped out into the rice field to watch the progress of his troops, and was joined by Lieutenant Fuller a moment afterwards, who remarked, as he came up, “General, Breckenridge is not mortally hurt.” The general looked at him calmly, as a bullet passed by their faces, and replied: “Oh, I knew that. When a man is mortally hit it knocks him down, and his face becomes ashy pale and drawn around the nose, and then black ring come under his eyes.”

     The bullets got closer and closer, and the general finally said, as they spitefully dug into the ground or sent jets of water into the air: “I am afraid this is not a good place for a general. I always like to be on the firing-line when I can be the least bit of good, but to-day I am going to let somebody else do it.”

     He turned away into the bushes, and followed the path toward the top fo the bluff, leaving his aides to execute his final orders. How far he went to the rear no one knows. 

     King and Fuller were hurrying back from opposite directions to bring him information concerning the location of the forces when, to their surprise they saw him calmly walking over the open rice-field alone, lifting his glasses from time to time as some object of interest caught his unassisted eye.

     He towered above the landscape, giant that he was, with his yellow slicker trailing to his feet like a gown. The sater streamed from his white helmet in the steady downpour of the rain.

     Suddenly, when they were within twenty feet of him, he brushed his hand before his left breast, as if stung by an insect, turned his head slightly, and spat a clot of blood; the single exclamation, “God!’ came from his lips.

     King, the man who idolized this brave soldier, sprang forward with a cry touched with agony, exclaiming, “General, are you hurt?” he answered, in a natural voice, “I’m hit.” King questioned back,”Where?” and the general replied, “Through the lungs.” These were the last words this wonderful man uttered–a man who was the dominating spirit, though not the highest in rank, of the army of the Philippines. He swayed backward and forward, clinching his nails into the palms of his hands in one mighty effort to stand on his feet, and then fell into King’s and Fuller’s arms– into the arms of men who in their loyalty and devotion would have sacrificed their own lives gladly to save the other.

     Dr. Beardsley had seen the tragedy from where he was binding Breckenridge’s ugly wounds in arm and rib, and rushed to the general’s side. Slowly, he turned his head with tightly clenched teeth, fighting for life; his mouth burst open, and from it gushed the fountain of life’s blood in one great stream. Backward he sank tighter in the arms of his aides. Lawton, the commander of men, was dead, through his heart throbbed on for some three minutes, emptying with every pulsation the arteries his gigantic frame of the blood which gave him health and force and mentality. The hour was a few minutes of nine o’clock, the nineteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-nine.

     A mighty cheer rose from the throats of the American troops as Colonel Sargent’s men broke from cover on the little island they had gained, and charged through the waters of the swollen stream straight on the town. If they had but known the commanding general lay dead behind them, that cry would have changed to a fierce shout for vengeance.

     The fight was over. It cost us one major-general’s life and thirteen wounded men and officers. While it was only a skirmish, it took two and a half hours to execute the flanking movement and capture the town. The insurgents lost half a dozen killed, and the cavalry captured a few prisoners.

     General Lawton’s body was carried across the swollen stream into San Mateo with great difficulty, and two couriers started to Manila with the news. All the afternoon they foundered through the mud and water and struggled against the wind and pelting rain. Night came on prematurely, and in the darkness they felt their way Manila-ward, foot by foot, making detours around each native village, where lights of candles crept through the crevices in the tightly barred houses. At eight o’clock on the 19th General Otis knew that Lawton was dead. Messengers were sent scurrying over the city to notify the remaining members of Lawton’s staff of his death; and Colonel Edwards, the trusted adjutant-general, with a sore and aching heart, bore the dreadful tidings to the little woman who waited for her soldier husband’s return, and dreamed betweentimes of the happy days to come, when together they would raise oranges in the balmy air of southern California.

     Colonel Hayes, with four troops of the Fourth Cavalry, was ordered to move by daylight on the 20th from Psay barracks, below Manila, to Marquina, and protect the general’s body on its way to the city.

     The incessant rain had swollen the streams to such an extent that fears were felt by those at San Mateo that they would not be able to send the boy in, but instant preparations were begun. No transportation had gone with the command, and not a mouthful of food had the troops had for twenty-four hours, except that which they foraged from the empty houses of the town. A covered two-wheeled quilez was found, and its oil-cloth top and stanchions were broken off for General Lawton’s hearse. His body, lying on a stretcher, swathed in looted sheeting and army blankets, was strapped into position over the wheels, and following behind this crude vehicle came a string of wounded in other two-wheeled conveyances drawn by captured prisoners, all guarded by Stewart’s band of sorrowing men.

      A short distance below San Mateo a rushing stream blocked progress, and as no easy ford was discovered, the body was unlashed and taken over in a narrow teetering canoe. The carts were floated over, one by one, and the funeral march again began. No resistance was met with at Mariquina, though it was necessary to advance on the town cautiously, thus losing much time. It was night when the pumping-station was reached, and as the river was a foaming, raging torrent, it was necessary to await daylight before attempting the perilous crossing.

     It was here on the morning of the 20th that Colonel Hayes met the returning party, but hours were spent in getting the funeral cortege over the river, and not until half past three did the closely curtained ambulance draw through the gates of the Manila home and give back to the wife all that remained of Major-General Henry W. Lawton.

     Outside the gate stood the general’s twelve-year-old son–a delicate little chap who has accompanied his father on expedition after expedition, but was left behind this time on account of the weather. The boy worshiped the father, as the father did the son. After a hard day’s work, when the general had not had a moment’s rest and in his least communicative mood, his boy would turn the tide of feeling, and from within the doors of his headquarters room the staff would hear the general laughing as the youngster told, with enthusiasm of youth, some happening of the day. Poor little chap! He stood, pale as death, staring up the long white road, waiting for that procession. He made but one remark–”I can’t bear to see him come home”; and every soldier around him choked something down in his throat and furtively put his hand to his eyes. One sight of the solemn with a single ambulance between, and the boy, so much a man, was a child wrecked with grief.

Source: Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, Pages 174-176 New York, February 24, 1900 by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE (Public Domain)

     They have deposited his earthly remains in the secluded little chapel of Paco cemetery, and over the roof the great boughs of mimosa-trees slowly rustle in the air, and below at the door a sentry’s even footsteps pace to and fro. We are, with military honors, guarding the body whose soul had fled.

     The nation will take him back to his own fair country; they will bury him with high pomp and ceremony on the rolling hill-sides of Arlington, overlooking the nation’s capital, and great guns will bellow with hollow sounds the last salute to the hero; but, after all, how paltry a nation’s grief compared to that of a woman who looks forward only to reunion in heaven, though she breathes: “It cannot be true. It seems as if Henry must come home to me once more.”

There is a small and tragic club in boxing history — so exclusive that only four men have ever belonged to it…Stanley Ketchel; Francisco Tingson Guilledo; Masao Ohba; and Salvador Sánchez. 

These four men never lived to see their titles stripped, their belts passed on, or their reigns officially ended. 

In the strange arithmetic of boxing history, they remain champions forever. Four men. Four nations. Four stories that  ended way too soon — each one a reminder that the most brutal thing about the fight game is sometimes not what happens inside the ring.

October 16, 1909. Colma, California — just south of San Francisco, where the city had pushed prizefighting out of its limits and into the makeshift  arenas nearby. Thousands came. 

They always came when Ketchel fought.

That afternoon, he was stepping up…way up. Jack Johnson was the heavyweight champion of the world; Ketchel was the middleweight king. 

Nearly forty pounds separated them. Nobody gave the smaller man a chance. Ketchel didn’t care. He came forward the way he always had — head down, coiled, whipping hands , pressure from the first bell. He was looking for one shot. Just one. And then…he found it. A right hand sent Jack Johnson to the canvas; the crowd fell silent. For a moment, nobody moved.

Johnson, of course, got up. One should not wake the Galveston Giant. And then it was over. One right hand from the champion of the world…and Ketchel was done. The floor came up to meet Stanley Ketchel  and he didn’t rise.

The fight became legend before the arena had even emptied. But Ketchel’s story…the rest of it…was heading somewhere nobody saw coming.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

A year later, on October 15, 1910, Stanley Ketchel was dead. He was twenty-four years old.

He had gone to stay at a ranch near Conway, Missouri — a quiet arrangement that ended at the breakfast table. A ranch hand named Walter Dipley shot him in the back with a rifle. What happened next said everything about the kind of man Ketchel was: mortally wounded, he still rose from the floor, lunged at his attacker, and nearly choked the life out of him before his body finally gave out.

He died still holding the middleweight championship of the world. No one had beaten it out of him. No one ever could.

Pancho Villa’s rise through boxing’s  flyweight ranks was something to behold. Small in stature but relentless, he fought with speed, stamina, and a fearless aggression that wore opponents down and wore crowds out — in the best possible way. His whirlwind style overwhelmed fighters accustomed to slower pacing, and within months he was defeating top contenders across the United States.

On June 18, 1923, Villa captured the world flyweight championship from Jimmy Wilde at the Polo Grounds in New York — becoming the first Filipino, and the first Asian, to win a world title in boxing.

But it’s another fight that tells you everything about the Filipino man.

When Villa climbed into the ring on July 4, 1925, to face rising Canadian star Jimmy McLarnin, he was already sick — sepsis from badly infected teeth. Doctors told him to postpone. Reasonable people agreed. Villa refused.

If you’ve ever known someone like Pancho Villa — someone who felt the love of a crowd not as applause but as obligation — you already understand why. These were his people. They had come to see him fight. That was reason enough.

So he fought.

Most ringside observers gave the unofficial nod to the champion. But the lone judge — who also served as referee, a man named Bobby Johnson — awarded the decision to McLarnin…younger, faster, and fresher than the man across the ring from him.

History would be kind to McLarnin. He went on to become a Hall of Famer, a welterweight great they called the Baby Faced Assassin — one of the genuinely special ones. But that day, Villa had done something McLarnin never had to do. He showed up broken and gave everything he had left anyway.

The bout was non-title, and the flyweight championship remained Villa’s. It would remain his forever.

Ten days later, Pancho Villa was on an operating table at Saint Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco. The sepsis that should have kept him from the ring had finally won — doing what no opponent ever could.

He was twenty-three years old. 

Like Stanley Ketchel before him, Villa never lost his title in the ring. What no opponent could take, a rotten tooth and a fighter’s stubborn devotion to his people ultimately did.

Across Generations

Many decades later, the fraternity gained two more members.

Masao Ohba was small, quiet, and ring savvy. In the ring he was something special — calm, sharp, devastating. Japan had their star . He won the WBA flyweight title in 1970 and kept right on winning; each fight adding another layer to a career that felt like it was only just getting started.

He too was just twenty-three. The best years were supposed to be ahead of him. In January 1973, he got into his Corvette before the sun came up and drove into Tokyo. Nobody knows exactly what happened next…only that somewhere along an elevated expressway, the car crashed into a concrete pillar, bursting into flames.

Ohba was gone from this world too soon. No final bout, no last stand — just a young man who never came home from a drive. The championship stayed with him. It had nowhere else to go.
Nine years later, another brilliant fighter joined the brotherhood of sorrow. 

Nine years later, another brilliant fighter joined the brotherhood of sorrow. 

Mexico’s featherweight king Salvador Sánchez had already beaten champions like Wilfredo Gómez and Azumah Nelson, and seemed destined to dominate his division for years to come.

On August 12, 1982, he too died in an automobile accident. He was involved in a crash near Querétaro, Mexico, while driving his Porsche 928 during training camp preparations.

He was twenty-three years old…still WBC Featherweight champion, and the greatest fighter, according to legendary boxer Roy Jones, Jr.

Champions of Eternity

In boxing, every champion eventually hears the bell that ends his reign.

Except these four: 

Ketchel. 

Villa. 

Ohba. 

Sánchez…

…four champions separated by decades and continents. One murdered on a ranch…one lost on an operating table in San Francisco…two taken in sudden, senseless motor vehicle accidents. 

Their titles were never surrendered inside the ropes. They remain founding members of the most heart wrenching  — and most exclusive — fraternity the sport has ever known.

Sources, acknowledgements and recommended readings

• All photos and references in this article are properly attributed and comply with the U.S. Fair Use Doctrine
• Photo collage of  Pancho Villa and Stanley Ketchel are in the public domain and photos of Masao Ohba and Salvador Sanchez are from publicly shared collections (Gratitude to the owners of the images)…Stanley Ketchel, Pancho Villa, Salvador Sanchez, Masao Ohba and the Strange Brotherhood of Champions Who Never Lost Their Crowns
• Charles Percy Dana of San Francisco (Dana Photos Studios) own the Jack Johnson versus Stanley Ketchel fight photo (now in the public domain)
• The News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) • Fri, Apr 7, 1922 • Page 22
• The Ring Article: Boxing’s Mosquito Fleet, by William “Bill” Miller (The Ring, JUNE, Vol. XI, No. 5)
• Special thanks to Christina Moretta (Photo Curator, Acting Manager) and Lisa Palella (Library Technical Assistant II) at the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library for the kind help and technical assistance 

An exceptional journalist skillfully allows stories to unfold with ease and rich detail. While many aim to reach this level of proficiency, Recah Trinidad has elevated the art and craft to a pinnacle of precision.

Ricardo Trinidad was born on June 9, 1943, in Mandaluyong, Philippines, and has had a long and storied career in journalism. His travels and adventures, particularly in sports, provided rich material for his writings in prominent broadsheets such as the Daily Express, Tempo, Champ, Sports Flash, We Forum, Malaya, and the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Through his hard-hitting column, “Bare Eye,” readers vicariously  experienced the triumphs and tribulations of athletes in the four sports Filipinos excel in—boxing, basketball, billiards, bowling  and everything in between.

Through his compelling reportage, we were plunged into the heart of the action. He documented the rise and fall of global sports icons such as Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Muhammad Ali, along with our own revered legends like Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Rolando Navarrete, Erbito Salavarria, Dodie Boy Peñalosa, Morris East, Robert Jaworski, Efren “Bata” Reyes, Paeng Nepomuceno, Bong Coo and the list can go on.

Trinidad was ringside when Luisito Espinosa knocked out the Thai hero Khaokor Galaxy in Bangkok on October 18, 1989, and when Lindol lost the crown by knockout against Israel Contreras on October 19, 1991, at the Araneta Coliseum.

In 2006, he penned an incisive book about the greatest boxer of his era, Emmanuel Pacquiao, Sr., titled “Pacific Storm: Dispatches on Pacquiao of the Philippines”.

If there were gold medals for writers, Recah would undoubtedly deserve many. He covered numerous Olympic Games dating back to the 1972 Munich Games to his last one at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, captivating fans and readers with insider scoops and thrilling play-by-play. 

A family that reports together stays together, so they say:  In the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima, Japan, his wife Fe and son Manolo joined him as part of the broadcast team. 

A product of the University of Santo Tomas, he received a special citation from the Philippine Sports Association in 2016 for his unparalleled contribution to Philippine sports as a sports writer and columnist. Known for his economy of words, Trinidad was also  revered by fans who appreciated unfiltered social commentary. He was honored with the Don Carlos Palanca Award in 1978 for his poetry, and has set the bar high for aspiring reporters.

At the Thrilla in Manila in 1975, held at the old Manila Hilton, he witnessed a press box banter between The Greatest and the emcee named Hermie Rivera.

To quote, “There was never a dull moment with him, but the famous broadcaster and boxing expert Hermie Rivera was once stunned into silence when Muhammad Ali turned to him onstage and quipped, ‘Hey, you’re not as dumb as you look.’”

That is just one story from his vault that warms the heart. After learning of my father’s passing, Trinidad wrote in his column, “Boxing was so close to his heart that when he chaperoned the clean-cut Socrates Batoto to a world title challenge in Caracas, Venezuela, correspondents ganged up on the frayed-browed Rivera at the airport for an interview. They mistook the peppery manager for the Filipino title challenger himself. Hermie did not find that very funny. He gave a memorable interview just the same.”

His son, the renowned reporter Manolo “Chino” Trinidad, considers him not only as his greatest mentor but also as someone who has set an example of what a writer should be—meticulous, fair, and incisive.

“Dad has always had my back covered. ‘Tis time I got his.”

The late Smokin’ Joe Cantada once likened the Bare Eye columnist to Clint Eastwood— a master storyteller.

The equally late Hermie Rivera took it a notch higher and wanted his friend Mr. Trinidad to have this powerful 1-2 punch: “Recah is the Filipino Ernest Hemingway.”

The Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame honors Mr. Recah Trinidad for his tremendous contributions to Philippine boxing history.

Aquil, as his friends and family fondly called him, grew up in General Santos City (formerly Dadiangas) in the southern island of Mindanao. Blessed with an innate desire to fight injustice, he pursued a curriculum focusing on what constitutes good government. He received his political science degree from Mindanao State University in March 1990. His inquisitive nature, knack for writing and talent for reportage has taken him to unprecedented heights in the world of journalism by advocating for press freedom and justice for the oppressed. He cut his professional teeth in journalism as a radio reporter and news writer for DXCP Radio Station (1986-1994) while attending college. Along the way, he was a correspondent and reporter for Sapol News Bulletin, General Santos City (2010-21), The Mindanao Bulletin (2007-21), Philippine Daily Inquirer (1996-2021), Agence France-Presse (2013-2015), The Brunei Times (2011-12), The Edge, Davao (2009-10), SunStar Super Balita, Davao (2005-06), SunStar, GenSan (1998-2004), GenSanToday as city editor and columnist (1995-96).  

He was a consummate professional and a meticulous reporter diving deep just to get to the bottom of the story be it murder, mayhem, political assassinations or illegal logging; the juicier the subject matter was the better, according to him. He penned incisive articles like his coverage on Senator Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao and the proposed development of a Philippine Boxing and Combat Sports Commission (PBSC) designed to help every aspiring Filipino athlete in boxing and martial arts or MMA.

The Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame honors Mr. Aquiles Zonio for his tremendous contributions to Philippine boxing history.

It started with a canceled tattoo appointment. April 2020. Like many during the early days of the pandemic, my son and I found ourselves stranded somewhere we never expected—Mactan Island. Specifically, Lapu-Lapu City in Cebu.

The world had hit pause. Flights were grounded. Plans faded. Life became checkpoints, curfews, and quiet routines. Our boxing-themed Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao tour? It didn’t even get past the Visayas.

So there we were. Grant and I. Floating through the stillness. Taking each day as it came… caught in the space between rest and unease.

One slow afternoon (there were plenty), we streamed an episode of Xiao Time. Professor Michael Charles Chua spoke about Filipino tattoo traditions—how they weren’t just for style, but for storytelling. Marks of valor. Identity made visible.

“Dad, do you think I should get a tattoo?” Grant asked.

“Sure,” I agreed though with the tone of a non-believer of wearable art , “but for me, no thanks.” 

We had another artist lined up, but he couldn’t get through. Lockdown rules were strict. Barangay Tanods kept close watch—and rightly so. ECQ, GCQ, or the surreptitiously hidden BBQ, varying degrees of quarantine that seemed like cruel jokes. Then a friend told us about a local artist named Brian Bonbon, Owner of Inksider Tattoo, just nearby.

Our hotel, JPark, strictly didn’t allow visitors. As luck would have it, the family of Mr. and Mrs. Christian and Jean Chavez Balbuena, who lived close by, welcomed us into their home. That’s where we met Brian.

He came quietly. No big entrance. No sales pitch. Just a soft hello and the steady energy of someone ready to create.

From the start, it was clear—this guy could work. His hands were steady. His focus never wavered. No flash. No chatter. Just calm, sure movements.

Every tattoo he gave Grant became more than just ink. They were timestamps. A way to hold on to that strange stretch of time.

Before we left Cebu, I took Brian to lunch. I asked something I’d been meaning to.

“Have you ever tried painting?” I inquired.

He paused. “Sir, I haven’t. I just draw or tattoo.”

“Well,” I said, “I think you can. I suggest treating the canvas like skin. Try painting a boxer the same way you ink people.”

He nodded. That was it. But I noticed the sparkle in his eyes. This was a welcomed challenge.

Nearly a year passed. Then one afternoon—no warning, no buildup—a message appeared. And there it was. His first painting. Raw. Unpolished. Alive. And he didn’t stop. He painted a few more boxing greats.

By March 23, 2024, we stood at the Gala of Champions, inside the Manila Grand Opera Hotel. His art hung beside vintage fight photos and works by seasoned veterans.

“How’d you figure this out?” I asked.

“You gave me the idea,” he said. “I just watched some videos on YouTube and and tried my best.”

That’s Brian. Humble. Quiet. Steady. Focused. He won’t say much—but his work does.

Today, he’s married. A father. Still tattooing. Still painting. Still helping people tell their stories.

One piece honors Whang-od, the legendary mambabatok. Another—‘Warriors of Mactan’—blends the face of Lapulapu with Manny Pacquiao. It’s a bold mix. But if you’re from Mactan, the Land of Pinoy Warriors, it makes sense.

Looking back, I’m grateful we got stuck in Cebu. We didn’t mean to stay long. And we didn’t plan to meet Brian. Life is indeed full of surprises. 

To Brian Bonbon, thank you for trusting your hands and your heart. Through your art, you carry the stories of the Philippines’ greatest boxers forward.

Daghang salamat, Mr. Inksider.

Author’s Notes: 

If you’re ever in Lapu-Lapu City, look for Inksider Tattoo Shop. You might just walk in for a tattoo and leave with something even more meaningful.

• Brian P. Bonbon, Owner and Artist
• Address: (Inksider Cebu tattoo) Looc Maribago Lapu-lapu City,Cebu
• Contact number:(+63)9254548428

It was the dawn of a typical summer day in the city named after the greatest hero “Made in the Philippines” – Lapulapu. 

The tropical breeze seemed to be in concert with the waves waxing, waning, rippling and inviting anyone awake to go for a swim. One can almost feel the calm before the battle fought on these shores over four hundred ninety-nine years ago. One wonders, if the fight was held today, will the combatants be required to don face masks, face shields, PPE’s and hand sanitizers to achieve their goals? Will it be live on Pay-per-View, public television PTV or social media? In the age of Covid-19, there are more questions than answers, more bad jokes than good jests.

The entire archipelago, particularly Cebu province, has been alternately on ECQ, GCQ & MECQ—community quarantines of varying degrees of lockdown. Only essential travels are permitted with required quarantine passes and everyone is subject to search and seizure at checkpoints; this to contain the spread of Covid-19 and its culprit—the virus SARS-CoV-2.

The annual celebration and re-enactment of Kadaugan sa Mactan, Victory in Mactan, usually broadcasted via television, radio and social media has been cancelled and the usual celebrations were scaled down to a somber wreath laying ceremony.

Today, it has been almost a month since the staff at JPark Island Resort welcomed my party of two. Despite everyone’s hospitality, our daily sense of life and leisure were interspersed with regret and doubt. What drove me into taking a 21-day vacation in an island one can easily read about in a travel magazine and a country my family visited twice in thirty-seven years? It seems foolish of me to complain what with my villa suite and private pool while millions here and abroad are scraping by—no work, no pay was the recurring and depressing theme in the news.

It is with hope that, as a collective whole in the face of this Covid-19 pandemic, (just like the Ryan Cayabyab song) we heal as one. A solemn prayer is offered for the combatants of the “Fight of the Last Five Centuries” – led by Lapulapu and the Oponganon warriors defeating the mighty Spanish Armada de Moluca led by Portuguese Captain General Ferdinand Magellan. 

Retracing the steps in my three-hour tour (plus four months) in Cebu and the Isle of Mactan reminds me of the graciousness of the locals. Cebu deserves a spot on everyone’s bucket list.

The dream started out as a Luz-Vi-Minda adventure, i.e. seven days each in the main islands of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao with a boxing twist. It was supposed to be a time to connect with fellow Pinoy scribes and aficionados of boxing in their element. There was Philboxing.com and PinoyGreats.com editor-in-chief Mr. Dong Secuya who received my son Grant and I at the Mactan International Airport on March 13, 2020.

“Welcome to Cebu. I thought you were going to cancel your visit,” he said as we were checking in at the Radisson Blue in the Mabolo district and intoned,” The President has ordered a lockdown of the entire country. Your flight was one of the last ones inbound.”

Plan A morphed into B, C and D, rather quickly. Gone in my itinerary was, in order, Davao, Samal Island, Sarangani, Baguio, Manila and the Gabriel “Flash” Elorde awards night we were to attend. Cebu at the 10th floor hotel room at the Radisson Blu was home base for the next 30 days. The Port of Cebu was quite possibly the first meeting point between Rajah Humabon and Ferdinand Magellan. 

                                                                  There must have been Divine intervention at play, for we met friends who shared our doubt and uncertainty caused by the burgeoning pandemic. Like them, we were going to be survivors, no matter what.

On April 1st, after a month in the historic downtown Cebu City, I accepted the suggestion and kind invitation of the Obon family (PCol. Limuel and Diane) by way of the Meneses tribe (Marco of Dagupan, Pamela of Davao, Marty and Dana) to change venues.

“You and your son Grant will like Mactan. We do not know how long the lockdown would last. We’ve made arrangements for you to be in a wonderful place,” they said with care and concern.

When someone who knows the terrain offers an option that might save your vacation, if not your life, one should take it. So, to Mactan we went.

“If you’ve never been you must go and meet Lapulapu in Mactan at least once in your lifetime,” my late father once said noting that it was all work and no play for this respiratory therapist. “Find the time. And while you’re there, appreciate and enjoy the hospitality of the Visayan people.    In their blood flows the DNA of the greatest fighter the world has ever known, the master of hurling the fire-hardened spear the Visayans call BANGKAW—the most likely weapon that vanquished the Spanish invaders.”

That plus a copy of Antonio Pigafetta’s book, and perhaps my need for some soul-searching led me to this magical place once known as Mattan, Mactan, Opon and now Lapu-Lapu City.

Most (if not all) businesses, libraries, museums and tourism offices were closed but I need not search far and wide to learn of the famous battle and the protagonists of the Battle of Mactan. I have read Mr. Pigafetta’s diary time and again and all I needed was my imagination to ignite my own   

Antonio Pigafetta’s Report of the first voyage around the world… Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo (1524-1525) is the main first account source of the first world circumnavigation. His work has  shown the world of the generosity of the Visayans by welcoming and helping feed an emaciated motley crew of the Armada de Moluca as they arrived at the shores of Homonhon, Limasawa and Cebu. Through Pigafetta’s writings, the Visayan language was introduced to the world.

We can read about a place like Mactan, take photos of statues of past heroes, but nothing compares to meeting their descendants in the place their courage was made known. The time my son and I had in Cebu, particularly Cebu City, has enriched my viewpoint that Lapulapu’s blood is indeed in our genetic profile. It is up to us to harness the innate courage and fearlessness we are wired for.

Brian Bonbon, tattoo artist and budding painter of Lapu-Lapu City, fervently believes we are all descendants of Lapulapu. His maiden voyage in painting is a rendition of 104-year-old Filipina Whang-od Oggay of the Kalinga tattooing style in the tradition of the Pintados. His unfinished painting called Warriors of Mactan depicts our hero Lapulapu resembling another modern-day hero and humanitarian named Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao.

For many, like Rudy Teodosio, Lapulapu is the first Filipino. 

For fellow NBA scribe Tom Macasaet Lapulapu embodies the traits we are known for—courage, strength and resilience.

The Oponganon victory against the mighty Armada de Armada de Moluca on April 27, 1521 led by Captain General Ferdinand Magellan on these very shores has inspired subsequent Filipino heroes who sacrificed their lives for love of God, country and fellow man against forces they’ve never seen, heard of nor felt beforehand.

We, as Filipinos, should not forget the contributions of  Dr. Jose Rizal who drew inspiration from Lapulapu as he wrote his novels Noli mi Tangere and El Filibusterismo—literature that galvanized the psyche of a nation and catalyzed the Philippine Revolution against the Spaniards.

The list of Filipino heroes is not long enough. We will always have the memories of Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Emilio Aguinaldo, Sultan Dipatuan Kudarat, Juan Luna, Antonio Luna, Melchora Aquino and Gabriela Silang.

It is only fair to give credit to our modern-day heroes we collectively call Frontliners—nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists, dentists, radiology technicians, CNA’s, LPN’s, LVN’s, laboratory technicians and scientists, phlebotomists, Covid-19 tracers, janitors, garbage collectors, sanitation workers, hotel and restaurant personnel, service industry workers and the armed forces here in the Philippines and abroad risking their likes daily to care for and protect the sick.

Datu Lapulapu’s countenance as depicted on his statue at Liberty Shrine is now etched in my mind’s eye  forever. I will tell my children and grandchildren of the fearless Filipino warrior who was the first to fight for our land and forever be on the lookout with his sword to defend and shield to protect our people.

Historians will forever debate his place in the pantheon of Dakilang Filipino but his resolve will always remain unquestioned.

Lapulapu’s indomitable spirit lives on in the gracious hearts and resilient minds of the Oponganons, Visayans, Cebuanos and all Filipino friends my son Grant and I had the honor of meeting during our short stay in Lapu-Lapu City.

Daghang Salamat!

— One Aspiring Writer

                                                                       

                                                                    Disclaimer:

This Memorial Article has been previously published on PhilBoxing.com:

http://m.philboxing.com/news/story-156016.html

All photos on this article are from the author. No copyright is intended.

In the early 1900s, and into the years between the world wars, thousands of young Filipino men enlisted in the United States Navy. Many sought work. Others seeked a way out. Most were assigned to steward and mess duties— cooking, cleaning, serving. 

It was quiet, repetitive work, often thankless, but they did it with discipline, honor and pride. In between duties, these sailors trained on deck and in makeshift rings below. 

They boxed under the stars and against the odds— no crowds, no contracts, and always with heart. 

By all accounts, they were the heart and soul of the American Armada.

Young Dencio served on the presidential yacht of President Warren G. Harding, who once called him “a great little fighter.” 

Dencio weighed barely 100 pounds and often fought much larger men. He beat Pedro Troncoso in Panama City to take the South American flyweight crown. Troncoso was the flyweight version of heavyweight Luis Ángel Firpo, who once fought Jack Dempsey. Dencio outpointed him cleanly. 

In a Navy boxing pool of over 86,000 men, Young Dencio won it all— taking the all-Navy flyweight title at Madison Square Garden. 

To do it, he had to beat the best from both coasts…Irish Ciriaco of the Atlantic Fleet, Tony Pozzi of the Pacific, and finally, fellow Filipino Jose Javier, the reigning American Navy champ.

Other Filipino fighters succeeded across the fleets. Flyweights like Jose Javier had won the flyweight crown in 1921, and Manuel Soriano had made the finals just a year earlier. Kid Alzona, of the USS Arctic, Kid Evaco and Tiny Bantita(?)— Filipino-Americans one and all fought for pride, honor and identity in a world that barely noticed them.

Eugenio A. Apol, alias Sailor Alkie (Alky) Akol and his fellow sailors fought underground, unrecorded, mostly unrewarded. But they earned something of significance— honor and respect. The ring gave them something much more than the ship did…a name…a voice…and a space where rank didn’t matter— only courage.

They were Disciples of the Sweet Science, cooks, deck hands, mechanics, coal heavers and boilermakers. They knew fire, grease, and long hours. 

After mess duty, they’d shadowbox alone and, at times, they’d step into a bout with nothing but a pair of gloves and a sense of purpose. 

Yes, they could use a frying pan, a hammer, or a shovel, but they also knew how to fight…and how they fought!

The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, once the San Francisco Civic, stands tall at 99 Grove Street—a quiet giant nestled in the city’s civic core. Time has worn its walls, but the building still breathes. For those who know and remember, it remains one of the last sacred spaces in American boxing. 

Etched in one of its front walls is this: 

ERECTED AND PRESENTED TO-THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO -BY THE PANAMA- PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION~ ANNO DOMINI MCMXIV

For us non-Latin speakers, it said “In the Year of Our Lord 1914.”

Perhaps, it is the oldest surviving venue in the country (and the world, last checked) that still opens its doors to boxing, indoor sport, and spectacle.

It’s a place where champions once bled and legends were born. Filipino fighters, especially, lit up the ring here—not just with fists, but with fire.

The last of the greatest Filipino boxers before WW 2 fought at The Civic.

On June 17, 1940, Eleuterio Togonon Zapanta- aka Little Dado- and Eulogio Villaruel Tingson- aka Little Pancho- two Filipino tough guys from Negros Occidental in the Philippines, stood across from each other for the fifth time in this very auditorium. 

Dado walked in as world flyweight champion (California State Version). Pancho had beaten him before—three times, to be exact. But this wasn’t just a rematch. It was the match. Filipino and American flags waved from every corner of the building. The crowd buzzed with something more than sport. This was identity. This was pride.

Dado stayed calm, rolled through Pancho’s fast start, and did just enough to keep his belt. The referee called it a draw. The papers split on who won. The crowd argued, but no one left disappointed. Dado kept his title. Pancho kept his honor. Both kept the crowd.

Decades later, on November 10, 2001, the Civic came alive again. Manny Pacquiao stepped into the same ring where Dado and Pancho once danced. He faced Agapito Sanchez. It was a gritty, frustrating fight that ended in a technical draw. But for those watching, something was unmistakable—another Filipino had arrived, and the lineage was intact.

I was present that night, not yet a writer, but already a believer. With me were two of my oldest friends— Rudy Teodosio and Tom Macasaet— fellow respiratory therapists and fans of the fight game. We knew what we were seeing, even if we couldn’t yet put words to it. A torch was being passed. 

Later, I told my father, Hermie Rivera, and his friend Jack Fiske what it had meant. 

My father then said something I’ve always kept: “There will come a time when you find yourself where Philippine boxing began… and you will see the deep reason the stories of the great Filipino fighters need to be remembered and retold.”

Back in March 2024, I stood at the old site of the Olympic Stadium in Santa Cruz, Manila. Avenida Rizal, once the city’s pulse, now moved to a different rhythm. The stadium was gone, paved over, absorbed into the chaos of progress. But if you listened closely, the echoes were still there— rising from the sidewalk like a ghostly bell before the first round.

I thought of the Sabado (Saturday) nights it must’ve hosted. Kid Dencio, Pancho Villa, Speedy Dado. The fans. The roar.The gamblers’ prayers.

Not long after, I stood again at 99 Grove Street. This time, with Mr. Dong Secuya. As we walked the streets of San Francisco nearing the fabled arena, Mr. Secuya paused, then said something profound: “Market Street must have been like (San Francisco’s) Avenida Rizal.”

He was right. 

Both streets were once arteries of their cities. Both carried fight posters, vendors, noise, and anticipation. 

Avenida Rizal had the Olympic Stadium. Market Street had the Civic Auditorium.    You could almost feel the spirits greeting each other across the Pacific.

Mr. Secuya, the founder of the greatest boxing website called PhilBoxing.com, was remembering, honoring, and drawing a line between places that mattered to people like us— those who understood boxing not just as sport, but as a shared memory. A form of prayer. A kind of truth.

That afternoon felt full circle. 

I understood then that I wasn’t just chasing stories. I was standing on sacred ground, in both cities. Places where our fighters had fought not only for titles, but for dignity and the right to be seen.

The Civic Auditorium wasn’t just home to Filipino champions. It was a proving ground for boxing’s elite.  

As early as September 13, 1918, future kingpin of boxing Jack Dempsey bowed at The Civic to William “Phat Boy” Meehan in the first of two his early losses before he became heavyweight champion.

November 16, 1918. Civic Auditorium, San Francisco. Four rounds. Willie Meehan and Fred Fulton, heavyweights, settling it the only way heavyweights know how.

Fulton took it by decision. He owned the last three rounds, that long left working Meehan’s face like a carpenter works wood — methodical, punishing, relentless. By the final bell, Meehan was nearly gone. Another ten seconds and it would have been a different story. It was Meehan’s first loss since he beat Jack Dempsey.

Charley Burley beat Oakland Billy Smith here in the mid-1940s. Eddie Booker fought Holman Williams in this very ring in 1944. 

The San Francisco Civic Auditorium at 99 Grove Street in the Civic Center— now called Bill Graham—  still stands, still hosts, and still shines.

And perhaps— or just maybe— it inspired Frank Churchill when he built the Olympic Stadium in Manila back in 1919. Churchill, after all, visited San Francisco often. He knew Solomon Levinson, the legendary boxing glove maker whose name reverberated in both cities.

I like to think the Civic helped shape that dream in Manila. That it offered a blueprint for what boxing could be— grand, public, electric. We do know Levinsons’ boxing gloves most likely did. Now, both boxing arenas live on in memory. One still stands. One does not. But the stories— they remain.

As I continue along this path— part witness, part student of the ring— I carry with me those quiet moments: a handshake with Manny, a chuckle with Tom Macasaet, Rudy Teodosio and Luisito “Louie” Espinosa…a pause beside Mr. Dong Secuya, and my father’s voice resonating still. The roar that once rose from the Civic. The silence where the Olympic Stadium once stood. These are more than memories. These are the stories I’ve been shaped by— and feel called to honor.

Sources, acknowledgements and recommended readings:

• The Civic’s Sacred Ring: Filipino Fighters and the Heart of San Francisco: https://philboxing.com/news/story-173623.html
• Little Dado versus Little Pancho Caption: The above excellent action shot of the Little Dado-Little Pancho fight for the world’s flyweight title in San Francisco, shows Pancho landing a right cross on the champ’s chin. (Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (Honolulu, Hawaii) • Mon, Jul 1, 1940 • Page 10
• Photos courtesy of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame 
• All photos and references in this article are properly attributed and comply with the U.S. Fair Use Doctrine.
  

June 12, 2026, SF

There’s an old American expression: “Get out of Dodge.” 

Yesterday afternoon, I did the opposite…not that I wanted to get into any kind of trouble.

I’d spent the earlier part of the day at the Filipino American Center inside San Francisco’s Main Library, ducking the summer heat and chasing a few boxing ghosts. Old fighters’ stories still pull me in that way. 

By the time I stepped back outside, I realized another story was waiting just down the block.

Between Hyde and Larkin on Turk Street, there’s a narrow passage called Dodge Alley. 

Easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. 

But on the second Thursday of every month, it becomes something else. Music spills out. Neighbors pull up chairs. Visitors and residents start talking like old friends. 

For a few hours, it’s a small working model of what community can be when people collaborate to build it.

Alex Spoto told me about the event last week, and I took up his invitation. He’s the Program Director at the Tenderloin Museum, a transplant from Tampa who landed in San Francisco and now works alongside Executive Director Katie Conry. 

Together they tell the story of one of the city’s most misread neighborhoods— through engaging exhibits, walking tours, and events like this one, showing a Tenderloin shaped by more than its struggles. 

History, culture, resilience, people. Dodge Alley is that mission, live and in color.

That afternoon the music came from Changüí, a Cuban group that turned the alley into an open-air party within minutes. 

People smiled, swayed to the Latin beat, and visitors stayed a while. 

For a few hours, the hustle and bustle of the city seemed far away.

Then the singers of Changüí Sonico  launched into “Guantanamera.”

Cuba’s gifts to the world extend well beyond music. The island nation is known for its culture, tobacco, and a boxing tradition that has produced generations of champions. 

One of them, Guillermo Rigondeaux, would eventually cross paths with Filipino star John Riel Casimero years later. This afternoon, however, it was not boxing that carried Cuba into the Tenderloin. It was a song.

It hit me immediately— my late father used to sing that song around the house when I was a kid. For years, I’d had it mistaken as Brazilian. 

Brazilians mainly speak Portuguese; “Guantanamera” is Cuban through and through.

I stand corrected.

That afternoon, strangers from different backgrounds gathered, listening to the heartwarming tune from the Caribbean, sharing the same patch of pavement. 

Music did what it does best— unite.

Next month’s act is The Sampaguitas—a name that stopped me in my tracks. 

The sampaguita is the national flower of the Philippines, known for being beautiful, humble, and tough. I’m curious to hear what a trio with that name sounds like.

A few steps from the alley sits the Cadillac Hotel, home to the Tenderloin Museum and once the site of Newman’s Gym. I couldn’t let that pass without a thought. 

The museum is expanding into that old gym space now, holding onto a piece of the neighborhood’s history. For decades, Newman’s Gym took in fighters, trainers, and dreamers of every stripe.

Standing there, just steps from where the ring used to be, I thought about the Filipino fighters who passed through San Francisco in the early twentieth century— Pancho Villa, Elino Flores, Pete Sarmiento, and plenty of others whose names didn’t make it into the record books. 

I could picture them feeling at home around here. Not because the alley looked the same back then, but because the vibe hasn’t changed.

The Tenderloin has always been a landing spot. A place where new arrivals found work, friendship, and a foothold. A place where cultures intermingled and, somehow, made the city better for it. 

Tony Bennett sang that he left his heart in San Francisco. Most people picture cable cars or the Golden Gate Bridge when they hear that line. 

But the city’s heart shows up in smaller places too—an old boxing gym about to start a new chapter, a museum holding onto memory, a Cuban song drifting through a Tenderloin alley.

And on the second Thursday of every month, you’ll find it between Hyde and Larkin on Turk Street.

Its name is Dodge Place Gardens—Dodge Alley.

Some boxing men become either famous or legendary. A select few become institutions.

Billy Newman belonged to that last and rarest category.

Long before boxing found its modern homes in casinos, convention centers, and television studios, it lived in neighborhood gyms. 

The gym was where fighters learned to punch, but more importantly, where they learned discipline, respect, and perseverance. It was where champions were built long before anyone knew their names.

For generations of San Francisco fighters, that place was Newman’s Gym.

Located on Leavenworth Street, Newman’s Gym became one of the city’s most enduring boxing landmarks. Champions trained there. Contenders passed through its doors. So did dreamers, troubled youngsters, old fighters with fading memories, and ordinary people who simply loved the fight game.

At the center of it all stood Billy Newman.

When Newman passed away in March 1984 at the age of eighty-one, boxing lost one of its most beloved caretakers. Yet his legacy was never measured in championship belts, promotional contracts, or financial success. His true accomplishment was creating a place where people felt they belonged.

The heartwarming obituary written by Stephanie Salter of the San Francisco Examiner captured that truth beautifully. Through the recollections of those who knew him best, a portrait emerges of a man who devoted his life to helping others while asking very little in return.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 21, 1903, Newman came from humble beginnings. He lost both of his parents while still a young man, but he carried their memory with him throughout his life. Friends recalled that he kept photographs of his parents nearby and regularly lit votive candles beside a portrait of his mother.

Before becoming one of boxing’s most respected figures, Newman earned his living as a bricklayer and construction foreman. He boxed professionally during the 1920s and 1930s while working hard to support himself. One of the most striking photographs preserved at the gym showed him standing high above New York during the construction of the Empire State Building, a reminder of the courage and determination that defined his generation.

Eventually, a journey west brought him to California.

According to longtime associate Jon Lucero, Newman liked to say he fell in love with a palm tree and bought the house standing in front of it. Whether entirely true or slightly embellished, the story perfectly reflected the warmth and humor remembered by those who knew him.

His partnership with Joe Herman became one of the most important relationships in San Francisco boxing. Together they managed fighters, promoted events, and eventually took over Paddy Ryan’s Gym at 312 Leavenworth Street in 1942. Over time, the facility would become known simply and affectionately as Newman’s Gym.

What Newman is remembered for is not any single fighter. It is the decades he spent keeping the doors open. 

Champions and beginners walked through the same entrance and received identical treatment, which is to say nobody received special treatment. You worked, or you found somewhere else not to work. 

If a fighter needed gear, Newman found a way. If someone was short on money, he covered it. He never made a thing of it.

The name stuck because Billy Newman was everywhere.

He was not merely the owner.

He was the spirit of the place.

Stories about his generosity became part of local boxing folklore. If a fighter could not afford equipment, Newman found a way to help. If a boxer needed a loan, he often provided one. If a promising prospect lacked the means to continue training, Newman quietly covered expenses and never sought recognition.

And there was a nineteen-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, who walked through the door sometime around 1960. Known at the time as Cassius Clay, he had just won the national amateur light heavyweight title in San Francisco and punched his ticket to the Rome Olympics. 

He was supposed to go home. He could not — he hated flying, missed his ride, and ended up staying a stretch. 

He trained at Newman’s during those weeks, and when it was finally time to leave, Billy Newman reached into his pocket and handed the young man three hundred dollars to get back to Louisville by ground. 

The man who became Muhammad Ali never forgot it.

Several of his associates recalled that if Newman believed a fighter no longer had a future in boxing, he would tell him so. He would rather disappoint a young man than allow him to waste years chasing a dream that was no longer realistic. Sometimes he even tore up contracts rather than profit from someone else’s false hope.

That kind of integrity is rare in any era.

His concern extended beyond the fighters themselves. He worried about their families. He found ways to help them remain close while training and traveling. If a fighter had a poor payday, Newman occasionally sacrificed part of his own share to make sure the boxer received what he needed.

He understood that boxing was about people first.

Twenty years before his passing, Newman established a free boxing program for children fifteen years old and younger. The arrangement was simple. The youngsters showed up, and Billy supplied the gloves, instruction, and encouragement.

“It keeps them off the street,” he explained.

Those few words reveal everything one needs to know about the man.

Money never seemed to matter very much to him. By the early 1980s, the gym was reportedly losing money year after year. Friends had to persuade him to raise membership dues from eight dollars to ten dollars. Even then, Newman resisted.

He wanted the doors to remain open.

He wanted former fighters to have somewhere to gather.

He wanted young kids to have somewhere to learn.

He wanted boxing to survive.

Outside the gym, Newman quietly supported charitable causes throughout San Francisco. He donated to churches, neighborhood organizations, and community fundraisers. He contributed to St. Boniface Church, St. Anthony’s Dining Room, and St. Mary’s Cathedral. Yet he never sought headlines for his generosity.

As one friend observed, Billy Newman never wanted publicity.

He simply wanted to help.

Life tested him repeatedly. During World War II, Newman was diagnosed with cancer of the colon and small intestine. Doctors reportedly told him he would not survive. Yet he refused to surrender. Year after year, he outlived their predictions, demonstrating the same fighting spirit he admired in the boxers who trained under his watch.

In many ways, Billy Newman embodied the best qualities of boxing itself: resilience, courage, honesty, and compassion.

Today, decades after his passing, his name remains inseparable from the gym he loved.

That may be the greatest tribute of all.

Buildings change. Neighborhoods change. Champions come and go. Yet among boxing people, the old gym on Leavenworth is still remembered by the same name.

Newman’s Gym.

Not because Billy Newman sought immortality.

Not because he demanded recognition.

But because he spent a lifetime opening the doors for others.

The champions came to train.

The old-timers came to remember.

The kids came to learn.

And all of them came home…champions all.

Acknowledgment and Fair Use Attribution

• 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.
• The Philippine Boxing Historical Society & Hall of Fame gratefully acknowledges journalist Stephanie Salter and the San Francisco Examiner for her moving March 4, 1984 obituary feature on Billy Newman.
• The historical details and recollections referenced in this tribute were inspired by and drawn from her reporting, which preserved the memories of Newman’s friends, associates, and the San Francisco boxing community.
• Special thanks to Christina Moretta and the San Francisco History Center for their generosity in providing Billy Newman’s photograph
• The accompanying newspaper article is reproduced for purposes of historical preservation, scholarship, commentary, and education under principles of fair use. Ms. Salter’s work remains an invaluable record of one of the most respected figures in San Francisco boxing history.

There are certain figures in boxing history who become almost impossible to separate from the sport itself. Their names never appeared in the largest headlines — they weren’t always the center of anything — yet their presence felt constant. Woven through decades of fighters, gyms, promotions, and handshake deals. Joe Herman was one of those men.

When Herman passed in February 1984, at eighty-five years old, San Francisco boxing lost more than a respected trainer, manager, and promoter. It lost one of its last living connections to an earlier era… a time when the sport was still scratching out its identity on the West Coast, when boxing men learned every corner of the trade because there was often nobody else to do the work.

He was born Anton Scherer, January 28, 1899. His introduction to boxing came as a young newsboy competing in street-corner tournaments throughout Southern California — a world far removed from television cameras and championship spotlights. Young fighters learned wherever they could find willing opponents. For many, the experience was as much about character as it was about winning. Herman embraced that world early; carried its lessons the rest of his life.

By the time his professional career wound down, he’d logged more than one hundred bouts throughout California and Australia. In Fresno — where he both fought and promoted — fans knew him as the Valley Champ. But what distinguished Herman wasn’t merely his willingness to fight. It was his inability to leave the sport behind once his own days in the ring were finished.

For most people, boxing represented a chapter.

For Joe Herman, it became a lifetime.

Over the next seven decades he served the fight game in virtually every capacity imaginable. Trainer, manager, matchmaker, promoter, publicist, adviser, trusted friend. He worked with hundreds of fighters — raw beginners to established champions — and built a reputation remarkably consistent wherever his name came up. People trusted Joe Herman. That much seemed to follow him everywhere.

That trust became one of his greatest assets. In a business often marked by strong personalities and occasional flash points, Herman earned a reputation as a steady, even-tempered presence. Friends and colleagues remembered a man who rarely spoke ill of others, carried no grudges, and approached the fight game with a professionalism rooted in simple decency. Whether a fighter won or lost, whether a promotion came together or fell apart… Herman always seemed able to keep his footing.

His longest and most significant partnership was with Billy Newman. Together, the two men became synonymous with one of San Francisco’s most beloved boxing institutions — Newman-Herman Gym on Leavenworth Street. The gym was never simply a place to train. It was a gathering place; champions, contenders, trainers, writers, referees, and old-timers crossing paths beneath the same roof, year after year.

The partnership worked, not only because of their knowledge, but because they shared similar values. Together they co-managed their one mutual world champion, Tony Olivera, who captured the NBA Flyweight Championship; worked alongside former titleholders Tony Marino and Carl “Bobo” Olson. Yet neither man measured success solely by championships. They understood that a gym’s true value could often be found somewhere quieter — the young fighter learning discipline… the retired boxer finding companionship… the struggling prospect getting one more shot.

That philosophy made Newman-Herman something special. Fighters came for instruction, but many stayed because they felt they belonged.

As the years passed, Herman’s reputation extended well beyond San Francisco. His experience and knowledge earned him assignments as assistant trainer with the United States Olympic boxing team — Rome, 1960; Tokyo, 1964. Later, he served as adviser to South Korea’s amateur boxing program, further expanding a career that had already touched nearly every corner of the sport.

The honors eventually followed. Founding member of the California Boxers Hall of Fame. Founding member of the California Society for Boxing. Fitting recognition for a man who had given so much. Though one suspects personal recognition was never his primary motivation. He seemed happiest doing the work itself — helping fighters, solving problems, organizing events, remaining part of the boxing community he loved.

Today, much of the boxing world Joe Herman knew exists only in photographs, newspaper clippings, and memories. The old gyms are largely gone. Most of the fighters, trainers, and promoters who shared his journey are gone too. Yet Herman’s legacy remains… because it was built on something more enduring than championships or titles.

It was built on service.

For more than seventy years, Joe Herman gave his time, his knowledge, his energy to a sport that had first captured his imagination as a young newsboy on a Southern California street corner. He stayed through the triumphs and the disappointments, through the changing eras and changing faces — because boxing had simply become part of who he was.

In the end, perhaps the simplest explanation is also the most accurate.

Joe Herman spent a lifetime in boxing for the same reason he entered it as a boy.

For love of the fight game.

Acknowledgements 

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.

Some men in boxing are remembered for what they did under the stadium lights.

Others aren’t—at least not in the same way. They’re the ones just outside it, in the corner, doing the kind of work that doesn’t show up in headlines.

William James “Paddy” Ryan was an exception to the rule.

He was born May 1, 1885, and by the time boxing became part of his life, he had already done more than most. At sixteen, he joined the United States Navy and stayed there for thirty years.

Somewhere in that time—at Manila Bay, during the Spanish-American War—he earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery.

It’s the kind of thing a man could build a reputation around. Ryan didn’t. He accepted it, then quietly moved on without ever mentioning he was a war hero.

When he arrived in San Francisco, he settled into the kind of work that suited him—steady, necessary, close to the ground.

Boxing fit him that way.

He didn’t arrive with a title. Over time, Paddy continued what he built upon during his time in the Navy —trainer, manager, second, matchmaker. 

When James J. “Moose” Taussig left for Hawaii, Ryan took over the gym. There wasn’t much ceremony to it. The place just kept going, and he was the one keeping it lit.

In a gym like that, you learn quickly who matters. It’s not always the loudest man in the room. It’s the one fighters turn toward, on instinct. Ryan had that kind of presence.

A newspaper later called him an “old-time manager and trainer.” It may not  sound grand—but in boxing, it usually means everything. You understand him better by looking at the fighters around him.

Paddy Ryan worked closely with the Filipino boxers who came through San Francisco—young men who had crossed the Pacific chasing something better, often finding very little given to them. In the gym, things were simpler. You trained. You fought. You learned fast.

Small Montana, a world flyweight champion, sat in Ryan’s corner.

There’s a photograph—Small Montana the young student on the stool, Ryan the coach leaning in. Just a moment between rounds. But it feels settled, like something both men understood without needing to say much.

Pablo Dano came through the same way, billed in his time as “Paddy Ryan’s crack Filipino.” 

In the old drawings, Ryan stands just behind him, a firm hand on the shoulder of his student—steadying more than instructing. Dano had that bobbing and weaving style, low and hard to catch. It took patience to guide a fighter like that.

These weren’t one-off pairings. This was the grind with fighters who needed someone steady behind them.

He also handled men like “Sailor” Grande and George Theodoratos—fighters from a rougher era of the sport. Ryan didn’t look for easy situations. He worked with whoever came through and gave them what he could.

That kind of work rarely makes a man well known. But it makes him part of the structure of the sport.

Over time, Ryan became one of those steady figures in the San Francisco fight game. Not prominent in the way some were—but always there. And in a place like that, presence counts.

In 1942, he passed the gym on to Joe Herman and William “Bill” Newman. By then, they knew what they were getting—not just a space, but a way the place operated. Habits. Expectations. A certain rhythm.

The name would change later. That’s how these things go.

Ryan died on January 9, 1942, at sixty-one.

The papers kept it brief. The great SF Chronicle sportswriter Harry B. Smith may have said it best.

Paddy Ryan, Old-Timer in the Boxing Game, Passes On… A face in the fight world.
A manager. A trainer. A Medal of Honor awardee.
Survived by Catherine, his wife.

He didn’t leave behind stories that grow taller with time. What he left was quieter and more meaningful than that. You see it in the fighters who came through his realm—in the habits, the instincts, the small things passed along without anyone stopping to explain where they came from.

The gym changed hands, but the work stayed the same.

And somewhere in that steady rhythm—in the space between rounds, in the voice a fighter listens for when things get hard—there is still something of Paddy Ryan.

Right where he always was.

In the corner.

Acknowledgements:

• 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.
• Top photo of William James “Paddy” Ryan excerpted, as Fair Use, from the Obituary of William James Ryan by Harry B. Smith (Source: San Francisco Chronicle. January 10, 1942. p15)

James Julius Taussig was born May 16, 1890, in San Francisco. He passed away July 10, 1966…after seventy-six colorful years in and outside the squared circle.

His obituary said: beloved husband, brother, uncle, native son, member of the South of Market Boys.

That’s the short version with a punch.

The real one was longer…more exciting.

Everybody called him Moose. 

Nobody seems to have called him anything else.

He didn’t grandstand nor seek the spotlight, and perhaps he never had to.

What he had was quieter and, in the long run, more useful—people just trusted him. 

In boxing, a world where everybody’s angling for something, that kind of man stands out. 

Slowly, without making a production of it, Moose ended up at the center of San Francisco’s fight scene.

He and William “Paddy” Ryan established the Taussig & Ryan’s Gymnasium on Leavenworth Street, inside the Cadillac Hotel in the Tenderloin. 

It was a place to train for fighters

from all over—local kids, drifters, men chasing a payday or just someone trying their luck in fisticuffs. 

Moose didn’t turn anyone who wanted to try the Manly Art.

Come in ready to work and you were welcome.

He had a keen eye for talent, ability and desire… no question. 

Irish himself, he felt a natural pull toward men who shared that background. 

He helped “Pop” Foster when his Belfast protegé was coming up…a teenage kid named Jimmy McLarnin get his feet wet in the fight game. McLarnin went on to become a Hall of Famer. Moose spotted it early, pushed him in the right direction, and gave him the nickname that stuck: “Baby Face.”

It can be told again: Jimmy McLarnin was just sixteen years old when he arrived in San Francisco in 1924 with his manager, Pop Foster, searching for fights and an opportunity to make a name for himself. One of the first men to size him up was boxing trainer and promoter James Julius “Moose” Taussig of Taussig & Ryan’s Gym. Looking at the slight 108-pound teenager with his youthful features, Taussig reportedly remarked, “No wonder you can’t get him a fight. He’s got a baby face.” The nickname stuck. Within a few short years, “Baby Face” Jimmy McLarnin had become one of boxing’s biggest stars, forever linking Moose Taussig to one of the sport’s most famous nicknames.

He didn’t save his attention for one group.

Filipino fighters were coming into San Francisco in growing numbers. 

Japanese professionals and amateurs alike. Italians too. They arrived young, often broke, without connections. Moose made sure his gym was open to all. 

The first and second generation of Filipino fighters entered his training camp and later made their names in America like Eddie Duarte, Macario Villon, Speedy Dado, Pablo Dano, Small Montana, and his wards Baby Tiger Flowers and Battling Bulahan.

Willie Meehan was part of that circle too. The San Francisco heavyweight fought Jack Dempsey five times and beat him twice. That’s the kind of record that gets forgotten. It shouldn’t. Moose’s connection to Dempsey went past business. Real loyalty. The kind that doesn’t need to announce itself.

Promoting was another thing he did well. Cards at the Civic Center first. Then Honolulu, where the local scene had deep roots. Then Japan, working with Yujiro Watanabe— the father of Western Boxing in Japan—to bring fights to audiences that hadn’t seen much international boxing. 

The bar gig came later. Mid-1930s, Third Street in San Francisco. He was already called Frisco Kid, so he named it after himself, or after his nickname anyway. 

The Moose Taussig Bar wasn’t fancy. ‘‘Twas simply a room where regulars commiserated… and where the conversation ran long. 

On one wall, a mural of a moose—large, unhurried, looking out over the room. 

The place and its patrons knew whose it was.

The inimitable reporter and friend of Moose, i.e. Eddie Muller of the SF Examiner, once revealed Taussig had a prankster’s streak. A taste for the harmless bit…The one the Filipino fighters told for years involved garlic. Moose had a theory that doubled up as a prescription—delivered with great confidence—that eating plenty of garlic before going to the movies would sharpen your eyesight. The jest was sold and bought so well that a theater manager eventually came looking for him. The smell was emptying the house. (Source of anecdote: Feb. 25, 1979, Section C, Page 3,  S.F. Sunday Examiner & Chronicle: Eddie Muller’s remembrance of Golden Gloves past)

He probably didn’t stop laughing about it for a week.

Under the joke was something light-hearted and encouraging… A way of putting young fighters at ease. Of letting them know somebody in this city gave a damn in a game that uses people up and moves on, that mattered.

His Hawaiian connections held through the years. San Francisco stayed his foundation—the Tenderloin blocks, the South of Market crowd, streets he knew from the heart. 

But the reach was wider. Manila. Tokyo. Honolulu. Fighters from across the Pacific moved through his world as naturally as anyone from the Mission or the Richmond. In his era, that was not how things usually worked.

He died in 1966. At a solemn ceremony, his family gathered. That was that.

Thereafter, he gave the gym on Leavenworth to fighters nobody believed in, and opened one corner of the Tenderloin to Filipino kids—new to the country, new to the city—who had nowhere else to go.

McLarnin with his Hall of Fame plaque and the nickname Moose gave him. The Dempsey friendship. The Honolulu cards. The Tokyo connections made years before anyone thought to make them. 

The bar on Third Street, the mural on the wall, the garlic story still getting laughs long after he was gone.

Moose built something. He didn’t need anyone to notice — just kept the door open, dealt straight, and let people find their way through.

Some men leave a name and a reputation.

Moose left us a vibrant boxing community.

Sources, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings 

• Top Photo of Moose Taussig: Source: THE HAWAII HOCHI, HONOLULU, T. H., page three, July 23, 1932
• Source: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1939. HAWAII HOCHI. HONOLULU. I. H, PAGE THREE
• Photo of Moose Taussig and his Protégés Source: The Nippu Jiji, February 10, 1933
• Source of anecdote: Feb. 25, 1979, Section C, Page 3, S.F. Sunday Examiner & Chronicle: Eddie Muller’s remembrance of Golden Gloves past
• Photo of the interior of Moose Taussig’s Bar. Photo by Woods: S.F. Restaurants. Moose Taussig Bar. Third Street. San Francisco. July I935 (SF Examiner: https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/127195/export/iiif_manifest). Fair Use Doctrine (With Gratitude)
• 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.

They came in waves from 1910 to 1942 — during the golden years of the sport, up until the start of World War Two.

Factotums, farmers, soldiers, wanderers from the Philippine archipelago, looking for their place in the sun. 

San Francisco was where many of them found their pugilistic purpose — heart and soul. 

They arrived with little more than the will to fight and the instinct to survive, and what they built inside the gyms of this city, inside Newman’s most of all, was something the sport had never quite seen before.

Eddie Duarte got there first, in the 1910s. He stepped off the USAT Burnside, found his way to the Dreamland Rink, and became the first professional Filipino boxer to fight on American soil. He arrived unknown. He left with a record and a reputation — and in doing so cracked open a door that nobody would ever fully close again.

Francisco Guilledo walked through it in 1922. He fought as Pancho Villa and became the first Filipino world champion in any sport — not just boxing. 

Villa once trained at Newman’s, and he carried that distinction the way he fought: clean, efficient, devastating, with a quiet certainty that tended to silence whatever doubts were in the room. He was twenty-three years old and already the best fighter on the planet at his weight. He died at twenty-three, too — a dental infection, of all things, just weeks after his last fight. The sport has never entirely recovered from the loss of what he might have become.

Small Montana came along a decade later, training at Newman’s when he wasn’t across the bay in Oakland, and picked up where Villa left off — winning a world title of his own. 

Paddy Ryan himself, the same man who had built the gym, was in his corner for that run. Think about that for a moment. The co-founder of the institution was working the corner of one of the best small fighters in the world, passing whatever he knew directly into the next generation of champions.

Little Dado — Eleuterio Zapanta — followed in those footsteps. The first two-division Filipino world champion, he last fought a fellow Filipino, Little Pancho, at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium in a world title fight that ended in a draw. 

Little Pancho — Eulogio Villaruel Tingson, Pancho Villa’s half-brother — had trained at the same gym preparing for that very fight. 

Ceferino Garcia came next, shaped in part by that same atmosphere. By the time he climbed to the middleweight championship, the point had been made plainly enough — Filipino fighters were not merely competitive at the top of the sport. They were defining it. Dazzling hand speed, brilliant footwork, a rhythm and timing they brought with them from across the Pacific and refined on the hardwood floors of the Tenderloin.

Gabriel Flash Elorde, the longest-reigning world champion in the 130-pound division, trained and sparred at Newman’s alongside Sandy Saddler and later with Harold Gomes — opponents he would face on great cards at the Cow Palace in the late fifties and early sixties. 

Gabriel “Flash” Elorde on a treadmill at Newman’s Gym. August 1960. (Photo courtesy of the San Francisco History Center)

Photographs from the San Francisco History Center show him on a treadmill at Newman’s, young and focused, the city still new to him, the titles still ahead.

My father, Hermie Rivera, once said that had Newman’s remained open, Manny Pacquiao and Luisito Espinosa would have fit right in. He would know. 

He had been a mentor to the young Pacquiao and personally brought Espinosa — Earthquake Louie — to San Francisco before crowning him the first Filipino bantamweight champion in Thailand. These were not idle words from a man given to sentiment. They were the considered judgment of someone who had watched Filipino fighters work their whole life and understood exactly what Newman’s had meant to them.

The fight game lived in rough places, like London, like Manila, like New York, like the Tenderloin. A.J. Liebling called Stillman’s in New York the University of Eighth Avenue. He was right about Stillman’s Gym, but he forgot to mention its West Coast counterpart — Newman’s Gym, which was older, and which nobody there would have bragged about out loud.

Newman’s was the Tenderloin’s gift to boxing. And the Filipinos — those early wanderers who stepped off boats with nothing but their hands and their hunger — were the greatest gift the Sweet Science ever received.

The Cadillac Hotel still stands at Eddy and Leavenworth.

Inside those walls, fighting men once made the ring at Newman’s Gym their home.

Acknowledgements

• 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.

San Francisco once had an institution of higher learning for boxers — an elite fight club and fistic academy (of sorts) on the West Coast.

No diplomas, no degrees were given— just a pat on the back or a playful jab to the breadbasket for the hard, honest curriculum of the squared circle.

It was called Newman’s Gym.

It only exists in memory now, but it was once the oldest and one of the most revered boxing gymnasiums in the nation.

Follow boxing’s trail long enough and it brings you here, to the Tenderloin…and to its historic past.

When Joe Herman and Billy Newman took over the old Taussig & Ryan gym in 1942, they did not arrive as strangers to the fight game.

They arrived as lifers.

Joe Herman — born Anton Scherer on January 28, 1899 — had been introduced to fighting as a newsboy in street-corner tournaments in Southern California. By the time he was done as a professional, he had logged more than a hundred bouts across California and Australia, fighting through the old four-round era when the game was still finding its shape on the West Coast. In Fresno, where he fought and promoted, people knew him as the Valley Champ. 

He was also a founding member of the California Boxers Hall of Fame and the California Society for Boxing. When the fighting was over, Herman became whatever boxing needed — trainer, manager, matchmaker, promoter, publicist when it came to that. 

He worked with hundreds of fighters over the decades, and those who knew him said much the same thing: steady, even-tempered, not one to hold grudges.

Together, Herman and Newman co-managed their one mutual world champion — Tony Olivera, who held the NBA Flyweight title — and worked with former titlists Tony Marino and Carl “Bobo” Olson.

William “Bill” Newman was Herman’s partner and, in most ways that mattered, the heart of the place. What Newman is remembered for is not any single fighter. It is the decades he spent keeping the doors open. 

Champions and beginners walked through the same entrance and received identical treatment, which is to say nobody received special treatment. You worked, or you found somewhere else not to work. 

If a fighter needed gear, Newman found a way. If someone was short on money, he covered it. He never made a thing of it.

The gym bore that character. By the early 1980s, Newman’s was reputedly the oldest boxing gymnasium in the United States and the last serious professional fight gym left in San Francisco. You could feel the history in the walls — in the worn canvas, the smell of leather and rosin, the photographs staring down from every surface. The names that had passed through the place read like a roll call of the sport’s golden age — Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, James J. Braddock, Max Baer, Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, Sandy Saddler, Sonny Liston, Floyd Patterson, Sugar Ray Leonard. Different eras, different divisions, same address.

Then there was Miles Davis, who sparred there regularly and was known to remind his partners not to punch his mouth. He had a gig that night.

And there was a nineteen-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, who walked through the door sometime around 1960. Known at the time as Cassius Clay, he had just won the national amateur light heavyweight title in San Francisco and punched his ticket to the Rome Olympics. 

He was supposed to go home. He could not — he hated flying, missed his ride, and ended up staying a stretch. 

He trained at Newman’s during those weeks, and when it was finally time to leave, Billy Newman reached into his pocket and handed the young man three hundred dollars to get back to Louisville by ground. 

The man who became Muhammad Ali never forgot it.

Newman died in March 1984. Joe Herman had gone just weeks before, struck by a car in San Francisco at eighty-five. The two men who had kept that gym alive for over four decades were gone within a month of each other.

I remember meeting Don Stewart’s office in 1983 or 84, Stewart himself seated among his gallery of photographs, a pose similar to the picture above, the way a man sits in a room he has earned. 

Born in 1910, he had been a fighter once, something like 26 and 3, before moving into training. 

By 1984, with Newman gone, he was the last keeper — running things day to day, keeping the doors open for at-risk youth at fifty cents a day. 

He had worked with Sonny Liston, Gerry Cooney, and a young George Foreman fresh out of the Job Corps. Foreman had sought him out specifically. 

The gym’s reputation still meant something, even then.

The office was a proper man cave — photographs and artwork covering every surface, the ephemera of fighting heroes stacked and hung without apology. A museum before anyone called it that.

The gym eventually closed in 1984 and relocated a block south on Leavenworth near Golden Gate and held on into the mid-nineties before closing for good.

My father once watched Foreman train at Newman’s in the early eighties and told me about those sparring sessions more than once, to make sure I understood what it meant to be in a room where legends worked. It was my father, along with Jack Fiske of the Chronicle and Al Corona of the Examiner, who first brought me to Newman’s just before the original site closed in 1983. 

The Tenderloin Museum now occupies a space within the Cadillac Hotel. The neighborhood’s history — its people, its tensions, its long complicated life — finally has a home.

Newman’s Gym memory and its legacy lives on  — in every fighter who laced up inside those walls, in every corner man, in every boxing fan who understood and appreciated the fight game.

Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings:

• 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.
• https://www.tenderloinmuseum.org/

The Cadillac Hotel

At the corner of Eddy and Leavenworth, the historic building still stands — Renaissance Revival in its bones, with Baroque flourishes and traces of Art Nouveau worked into the stone.

Most people walk past without a second look. The Tenderloin does not slow down for sentiment. But if you stop long enough, you begin to see something in that building — something time has not managed to take.

The Cadillac Hotel rose from the rubble of the 1906 earthquake and fire, part of San Francisco’s long climb back to its feet. The city was rebuilding its skyline and remaking its identity, and the Cadillac went up in that spirit — a proper hotel in a neighborhood that was still figuring out what it wanted to be.

For nearly two decades, it was a part of the welcoming committee and was a resting site for visitors from all over the world. 

A world class hotel in a world class city.

Then, in 1924, a ballroom on the premises found a different calling.

James Julius Taussig — “Moose” to everyone who knew him — and William J. “Paddy” Ryan opened a boxing gym inside that ballroom and called it Taussig & Ryan’s. 

Neither man could have known what they were getting themselves into. 

What started as a local fight club became, over the next six decades, one of the most storied boxing gymnasiums in the country, and beyond.

Moose Taussig had the eye. That particular gift — seeing a fighter before the fighter knows he is one — cannot be taught, and Taussig had it in full. He built a boxing club, gave local pugilists a place to call home, then pushed further, matching his stable against rivals at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium on Grove Street. 

His first star was pugilist Willie Meehan, a durable heavyweight from San Francisco who carried one of the great footnotes in the history of the sport: Meehan defeated Jack Dempsey — the Manassa Mauler — twice in five fights. Those victories put both fighter and gym on the national map, and the reputation built steadily from there.

By the mid-1930s, Hawaii came calling and Taussig answered, taking on roles as promoter, matchmaker, and cornerman across the Pacific. Late in his career he traveled even further — serving as public relations man to Dempsey and Yujiro Watanabe, considered the father of Western boxing in Japan. The world, it turned out, was not too large for a man from Eddy and Leavenworth.

Paddy Ryan was the other half of the equation, and in many ways the more lasting one.

Before he ever taped a fighter’s hands, Ryan had already lived more than most men dream of. He joined the United States Navy at sixteen and served thirty years. 

During the Spanish-American War and the Battle of Manila Bay, he acted with such extraordinary bravery that the government awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor. I shall take liberties in repeating that— Congressional Medal of Honor— a true-to-life hero.

When that chapter finally closed, Ryan carried those same qualities into the fight game — the steadiness, the discipline, the quiet authority of a man who had already been tested by something far more serious than boxing.

When Taussig left for Hawaii, Ryan stayed on. The gym was in his blood by then. He managed, trained, advised — and for more than a few young men from difficult circumstances, functioned as something close to a father. Those who knew him remembered a stillness in the corner and a feel for the game that went bone-deep.

In 1942, Ryan sold the gym to Joe Herman and Billy Newman, two fight men who had been around long enough to know exactly what they were buying,

not just a gym but a piece of living history with its very own orbit.

Ryan died that same year — January 9, 1942, at sixty-one. The loss was felt across the Bay Area boxing community in a way that lingered.

The name on the sign changed. 

The place did not.

What Taussig and Ryan built inside that ballroom on Eddy and Leavenworth was something rarer than a boxing gym. 

It was a room where the sport’s hard knowledge accumulated year by year, passed from trainer to fighter to the next man through the door. 

Cities of the fight game have their own versions of the fight club — Broughton’s Amphitheatre in eighteenth-century London, Gleason’s and Stillman’s both in New York, the Wild Card in Los Angeles. San Francisco had the Cadillac Hotel.

Years later, the city made it official in 2009. The Cadillac Hotel, at 366–394 Eddy Street and 300–324 Leavenworth Street, became San Francisco Landmark No. 176, became a recognized part of the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District.

Stand at the corner of Eddy and Leavenworth long enough, and something stirs — ghosts of leather and sweat that refuse to go quiet. 

Newman’s Gym once lived inside those walls. 

Stop into the Tenderloin Museum and see for yourself.

Sources, References, Acknowledgements:

• 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.

June 2, 2026

San Francisco, California

In the fight game, a man’s reputation is either his greatest asset or his heaviest burden. 

For Sampson Lewkowicz, it has only grown stronger and more special through the decades.

Long before the world figured out what Manny Pacquiao would become, Sampson already knew.

He was there at the beginning, helping piece together the fights and opportunities that gave Pacquiao solid ground to build on. 

History tends to credit the man throwing the punches and rarely gets around to crediting the man who made the calls, opened the doors, and believed first, when believing still carried real risk.

Nowadays, the names on Mr. Lewkowicz’  résumé and his promotional company Sampson Boxing are easy to find— stars like David Benavidez, Sebastian Fundora, Gabriela Fundora, and former Pinoy champions Donnie Nietes, John Riel Casimero, Marvin Sonsona.

According to the WBC website, he has helped the careers, one way or another, of the following titlists and contenders: Jaison Rosario, Javier Fortuna, Sultan Ibragimov, Javier Castillejo, Leavander Johnson, Celestino Caballero, Hugo Ruiz, Anselmo Moreno, Michael Katsidis, Chris John, Rafael Concepcion, Krystof Wlodarzyk, Hanna Gabriels, Kina Malpartida, Cecilia Comunalis…and many more.

But anyone who knows their boxing will tell you that a list of names only goes so far.

What it cannot tell you is whether a man kept his word when keeping it cost him something, or whether the fighters in his corner still trusted him when the cameras were pointed elsewhere.

In Sampson’s case, they did, and they still do.

I can speak to some of this firsthand.

I first met him on July 26, 2003, completely by luck, at press row during a fight card featuring Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao and Emmanuel “Carnicero” Lucero at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, California.

The match was a successful title defense of Pacquiao for his IBF World Super Bantamweight Championship belt.

I had aspirations of being a reporter back then and was still learning about the fight game, and was there partly in my capacity as the manager for former world champion Luisito Espinosa, who was at ringside looking to make connections for a comeback.

Press rows back then had a particular old school energy to them — organized chaos, full of people who had seen enough of the game to have strong opinions about all of it, the kind of setting where you picked things up fast just by staying alert and keeping quiet.

Mr. Lewkowicz found us and introduced himself, and we simply talked.

Much to our surprise he knew who Espinosa was, and he understood the Filipino boxing tradition going back further than most people in that room, and spoke about it with the ease of someone who had earned that familiarity rather than borrowed it for the occasion.

It left an impression on me that twenty-five years have done nothing to diminish.

That genuine connection to Filipino boxing runs through everything Sampson has done.

He recognized those fighters early, invested in them when the rest of the promotional world was looking elsewhere, and built relationships durable enough to survive the particular pressures this sport puts on everyone involved.

When Filipino boxing people talk about Sampson Lewkowicz, the word that keeps coming back is mapagkakatiwalaan — trustworthy — and in boxing that distinction matters enormously.

His staying power is not complicated once you understand how he operates.

Recently, I respectfully asked Sampson to describe his philosophy. He answered the way he handles most things — simple and direct.

“Always tell the truth,” he said. “Be loyal to the ones loyal to you. Be good to your people and they will go the extra mile for you. There are no shortcuts to building something that will last.”

Easy enough to say, but the test is whether a man actually lives by it, and the people who have worked with Sampson across decades and continents will settle that question quickly if you ask them.

The fighter at the center of his attention right now is Charly Suarez, a Filipino contender with real ability and a genuine case for feeling wronged.

Most ringside observers who watched his recent challenge against Emanuel Navarrete came away believing Suarez had done enough to walk out with the title, and the judges’ decision has not sat well with anyone paying close attention.

Rather than quietly regroup and wait for the politics to peter out, Suarez is stepping forward into one of the most ambitious settings of his career, with Sampson beside him and a rematch firmly in his sights.

“I saw that Charly could use some help landing the rematch he is owed against Navarrete. I also know that Filipino boxers will fight anyone, anytime. That is why Charly is taking this fight in front of his fans in San Francisco. He wants to be the best and sharpest version of himself when we do the rematch.”

Mayor Daniel Lurie is behind it, promoter Ed Pereira is the driving force, and Sampson Boxing leads the way, and veteran Northern California promoter Paco Damian brings the local relationships and hard-won experience that turn big ideas into actual events.

The target is the all-time boxing attendance record — one hundred thirty-five thousand, one hundred thirty-two.

That is the official live attendance record for a boxing event, Tony Zale and Billy Pryor, Milwaukee, 1941, and it is the kind of audacious goal that either becomes a landmark moment in the sport or a cautionary tale about overreach.

Sampson is fully committed to making it happen.

“I met a man named Ed Pereira and he asked me to help him put together a very special event in San Francisco,” Sampson said. 

“He showed me the events he has done in the past and impressed me with his ambition. Plus, I have a very wonderful partner named Paco Damian who has been promoting boxing in Northern California for many years. Together, we are a team planning to do something special for the city and for boxing.”

He understands better than most what a night like this can mean for Filipino fight fans, having watched that community show up in remarkable force across multiple countries and multiple generations of fighters.

When the subject turned to MMA, bare-knuckle boxing, and everything else competing for the combat sports audience, Sampson did not hedge or qualify his answer.

“There will always be boxing,” he said. “You can add kicking and wrestling, you can take away gloves and try other things, but all combat sports are at their best when a boxing match breaks out.”

The endearing moniker ‘Picasso’ has followed him for years, drifting through arenas and hotel lobbies and press rows across several continents, and when I asked him why the tag, he answered with his characteristic humility.

“I don’t have any say in what people call me,” he said, “but I do appreciate all the love and friendships I have built with so many great people all around the world in my career.”

It is the right answer, and without him trying to make it so, a genuinely revealing one.

The comparison was never really about abstract genius but about a man who spent decades building something real and lasting — carefully, seriously, with genuine craft — while the years and the fights and the titles came and went around him.

The work held up, the relationships held up, and the reputation held up in a sport where very few things do.

Belts and titles rotate and records get broken, and promoters cycle in and out of boxing like bad weather, but the fighters who trusted Sampson still trust him.

And on July 11, 2026, he will stand in the middle of the Civic Center in San Francisco helping chase a record that most sensible people would have talked themselves out of chasing.

That alone tells you something important about who he is and how he has always operated.

Pablo Picasso once said the purpose of art is to wash the dust of daily life off our souls.

Sampson Lewkowicz never said anything like that, and he didn’t need to.

Mr. Lewkowicz just kept showing up, kept his word, and kept placing fighters in positions to become something greater than they were when he first met them…which in boxing is as close to art as it gets.

Ed Pereira and iV Boxing Presents in collaboration with The City of San Francisco, California

History in the Making

Saturday, July 11, 2026 — Civic Center Plaza, San Francisco, California

• Promoters: Sampson Lewkowicz (Sampson Boxing) Lead Promoter
• Paco Damian (Paco Presents)
• Akihiko Honda (Teiken Promotions)
• Felix “Tuto” Zabala Jr. (All Star Boxing Inc.)
• Matchmakers: Paco Damian & Christy Martin

Featured Bouts:

• Anthony Olascuaga vs. Andy Dominguez Velasquez
• Yan Marcos vs. Guido Emmanuel Schramm
• Charly “King’s Warrior” Suarez vs. Manuel “Tino” Avila
• Gurgen Hovhannisyan vs. Uila Mau’u
• Oscar Bonifacino vs. Raul Escudero
• Blake Binskin vs. Elijah Smith

California State Athletic Commission sanctioned.

Acknowledgements: 

All photos in this article are courtesy of ivB Boxing and Sampson Boxing Promotions. 

Our very best regards and gratitude to Mr. Sampson Lewkowicz for keeping boxing alive and well.

Thanks to Andre Courtemanche, President at Big Media Buzz for the kind and tremendous assist.

Edwin Ensign Tait was a man who saw boxing not just as a sport, but as an art, science and an honest way to make a living—one that needed the right vision, the right fighters, and the right stage to flourish. He was a game-changer, someone who knew how to take raw talent and turn it into something world-class.

Born on February 1, 1888, in Chicago, Illinois, Tait grew up in a city that demanded toughness. That same moxie and ambition would define his life and career, one that spanned over seven decades. He left a lasting impact on boxing, entertainment, and sports promotion. 

At the heart of his success was Churchill & Tait Enterprises, a powerhouse in the fight business that put Filipino boxing on the map. He was the brains behind the swatorium that Frank Churchill built.

Tait had an uncanny ability to spot talent where others were short-sighted. Under his guidance, Filipino boxers weren’t just local heroes—they became international contenders, fighting on some of the biggest stages of their time. He himself fought for his fighters outside the ring as fiercely as they fought inside it, ensuring they got the opportunities— and the respect— they deserved.

From the 1910s to the 1930s, he was a driving force in shaping boxing during its early days in the Philippines. A skilled amateur boxer, he had a knack for conversation that made him both engaging and insightful. To his peers and the fighters who stood by him, he was more than just a promoter—he was a fiercely loyal friend. With those qualities, he personified the spirit of a renaissance man in the fight game— determined, charismatic, and resolute.

Tait’s love for the fight game was inspired by his older brother, Stewart “Little Eddie” Tait, whom he regarded as the greatest fighter. Stewart, seeing the potential for lucrative ventures in Hawaii and the Philippines, called upon the one man he knew who had the talent and business acumen to succeed— his younger brother Edwin.

It didn’t take much to convince Edwin. Fueled by his passion for the sport, he set out on a journey that would take him to Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, that would shape his destiny.

In 1907, with little more than determination and a hunger for opportunity, he managed to stowaway on an Army transport ship bound for the Philippine Islands, then an American territory. That journey would mark the start of his deep and lasting connection with the country and its emerging boxing scene.

When he arrived at Pier 7, his older brother Stewart “Little Eddie” Tait there to greet him. From that moment forward, the landscape of Philippine sports and entertainment would never be the same.

In 1917, during a trip to Albay Province, Edwin found his first real chance to shape Manila’s boxing community. He wore many hats at once for the rising Churchill-Tait Enterprises— as matchmaker, treasurer, secretary, and even office boy— at the Olympic Club, Manila’s exclusive boxing venue.

It was the Manila Carnival of 1918 that carved his name. Edwin Tait organized a boxing extravaganza so unique that it spawned modern-day copycats. The fistic festival lasted nine days. For the first time, Filipino boxing stars shone the brightest on the grandest stage. It was there that Kid Dencio was crowned the bantamweight and featherweight champion of the Orient.

From 1911 onwards, Tait catapulted the Olympic Club to become Manila’s premier boxing destination, drawing large crowds to its weekly shows. His vision and hands-on approach generated widespread interest and significantly boosted ticket sales. 

Now armed with a larger cash flow, he would eventually plot the rise of the grand Olympic Stadium on Avenida Rizal. The Stadium exported fighters from Australia, the United States, Hong Kong and China, raising the level of competition. Tait knew that keeping boxing alive as a business required superb matchmaking, diverse fight cards, and evenly matched bouts.

Tait was the driving force behind Churchill-Tait Enterprises, an advertising firm connected to a multitude of industries, like copper mining, billboard construction, and carnival events. His expertise in advertising played a major role in boxing’s growing popularity. His strong connections with sportswriters— such as American journalists Joe Waterman and Bill Miller— helped bring more attention to the sport. He also contributed to the launch of Boxing News, the first Filipino-Spanish-Tagalog boxing publication run by Filipinos, which gave local fighters a voice and helped elevate the sport. Of note, Boxing News was in circulation before Nat Fleischer’s The Ring, the magazine that would later be known as the “Bible of Boxing.”

With his keen eye for talent, Tait helped develop fighters like Pancho Villa, Elino Flores, Macario Villon, Francisco Labra, and practically every Filipino fighter who was willing to put on a great show.

Without overstating the obvious, boxing has inherent dangers. The death of Filipino fighter Dencio Cabanela served as a painful reminder of the risks inside the ring. Tait was in Cabanela’s corner when he suffered fatal injuries in a bout against Bert McCarthy in Melbourne, Australia. On July 2, 1921, Kid Dencio was ahead on points, but in the 13th round, Dencio suddenly paused, pointed to his head and sheepishly smiled. He later collapsed and was brought to Saint Vincent Hospital where he died due to his injuries. The tragedy was gravely mourned in the Philippines, Australia, and the boxing world.

Just before World War II, Tait saw the looming danger. He and his wife, Maurine, managed to leave Manila, narrowly avoiding the devastation of war. His brother Stewart chose to stay behind.

When he passed away at 86 years old on October 30, 1974, boxing lost one of its greatest movers and shakers, and to this day his influence is felt. 

Every Filipino fighter who steps onto the world stage today walks a path that Tait helped build. His story isn’t just about boxing. It is about vision, determination, and a belief that greatness can come from all walks of life if given the right chance.

Today, Edwin Ensign Tait’s contributions to Philippine boxing, entertainment, and business still resonate even though many modern-day fighters and promoters are unaware of his influence.

Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings

• Photo of Edwin Ensign Tait is excerpted from his United States Passport (Courtesy of NARA by way of Ancestry.com, Public Domain)
• The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) • Sun, Oct 9, 1955
• The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) • Sun, Oct 9, 1955 • Page 32
• National Archives Records Administration 
• Birth and Death Dates of Edwin Ensign Tait, taken from FindAGrave.com

• All references in this article are based on multiple sources like The Ring, The Boxing Blade, The Referee, Cablenews American, BoxRec.com, BoxerList.com, The Tribune, The Manila Bulletin Daily and others
• 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 reasonable effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.

In the early 1900s, as boxing fever swept through the Philippine Islands, Stewart Alfred Tait became more than just a name in the crowd—he was the man behind the curtain. 

A natural showman with a fighter’s heart, he didn’t just introduce boxing to the islands; he helped shape it into something Filipinos could claim as their own.

Born on April 23, 1884, in Cook County, Chicago, Stewart was the son of Edward Tait and Celia Ensign. They called him “Little Eddie” as a boy, but the name never quite matched the man he became. 

Restless and wide-eyed, he didn’t settle for the ordinary. His early days were spent moving through carnivals, crossing oceans, and— eventually— fighting beside both Filipino and American troops in World War II. His story stretched far beyond tents and ropes. It lived in the people he lifted up.

When World War 2 came, Tait was captured and interned at the Santo Tomas Camp. 

But even behind barbed wire, he didn’t stop giving. He shared his carnival tents and supplies with fellow prisoners, turning hardship into hope. 

Courage came naturally to him— on the battlefield, in the ring, and in life.

Before Manila became his home, he crisscrossed the East Indies with his brother Edwin, staging carnivals and shows from one island to the next. They called him the “Barnum of Borneo” for his flair and grit. He had a knack for knowing what people wanted before they did. When he first walked the streets of San Francisco, it wasn’t the gold rush that caught his eye— it was the nickelodeons on Market Street. Those tiny theaters playing silent films for a coin gave him a new vision: entertainment that moved people.

Boxing was in his blood, too. He fought in two pro matches and kept lacing up during his time with the Army Transport Service. Between ports and battles, he logged 40 amateur bouts aboard Pacific crossings. But his real fight was waiting in Manila.

Once he arrived, the game changed.

For over four decades, Tait lived and breathed Filipino boxing. He partnered with Frank Churchill to launch the country’s first professional fights. He didn’t just promote matches— he built an entire ecosystem where Filipino fighters could thrive. They didn’t have to dream of America. They could fight— and win— at home.

It was Tait who discovered a scrappy young man named Eustaquio Duarte aboard the USAT Sherman during World War I. 

He gave him a new name— Eddie Duarte— and sent him on the path to history as the first Filipino pro fighter. A single moment. A single meeting. That’s all it took. And the ripples would be felt for generations.

Source: Tacoma Times, Aug 4, 1940• Page 14• (Tacoma, Washington)

But Tait’s influence went well beyond boxing. He introduced the country’s first dine-and-dance cabaret, the first merry-go-round, and even the first movie theater in Honolulu before bringing cinema to Manila. Before Hollywood arrived, Tait was already producing films with all-Filipino casts, proving that stories didn’t need subtitles to move people.

He managed the Olympic Club on American Lake in Tacoma, Washington— first as a GI dance hall, later as an ice rink— and brought that same energy to Manila’s own Olympic Stadium. 

Whether it was a ring, a rink, or a stage, Stewart turned every space into something alive.

He made movies on a shoestring budget, but they meant everything to the people watching. 

That was Tait’s gift— he knew how to make something big from almost nothing.

What made him different wasn’t just what he built— it was how he made people feel. He believed in Filipino talent and gave it room to breathe. He didn’t just pass through the Philippines. He became part of it.

In the end, Stewart Tait found something richer than fame. The people didn’t remember him as a businessman. 

Filipinos remembered the fights, the laughter, the music, and the flickering lights of a projector on a warm Manila night. 

They remembered the man who gave them a stage.

And he remembered them right back.

Notes of Appreciation:

• Banner Photo of Stewart Alfred Tait is from the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin (Photo Morgue, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)
• The Tacoma Times (Tacoma, Washington) • Thursday, Aug 29, 1940 • Page 1
• Seattle Union Record (Seattle, Washington) • Wednesday, Dec 14, 1921
• Special thanks for their kind assistance to Christina Moretta (Photo Curator, Acting Manager) and Lisa Palella (Library Technical Assistant II) at the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library
• The Tacoma Times (Tacoma, Washington) • Thursday, Aug 29, 1940 • Page 1
• Seattle Union Record (Seattle, Washington) • Wednesday, Dec 14, 1921
• The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) • Friday, Jul 15, 1949
• Tacoma Times, Aug 4, 1940• Page 14• (Tacoma, Washington)
• The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) • Fri, Aug 3, 1923 • Page 20
• 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.

If you’ve ever stumbled across the names Little Pancho, Small Montana, Speedy Dado, Young Tommy, or Star Frisco—and felt something stir— more than likely, you’ve felt the touch of the man who gave those names their story.

Born on December 15, 1891, William Eli Miller— known to most as Bill— was more than a reporter. He was a storyteller, a publicist, and the unseen hand behind some of the most enduring legends in Filipino boxing. While the Tait brothers and Frank Churchill brought electricity to the ring, it was Miller who made sure the memory stayed alive. He didn’t just cover fights; he gave them meaning.

As a U.S. Army Sergeant Major stationed in Manila during the early 1900s, Miller arrived just as Philippine boxing was beginning to take shape. He quickly found his place— not as a promoter or matchmaker, but as the man who could turn punches into poetry. His words elevated the sport; his writing carried fighters beyond the arena lights.

Throughout his long career, Miller wore many hats— columnist, agent, editor, and feature writer. His work appeared in The Ring under Nat Fleischer, the Los Angeles Times, and The Philippine Republic. He also served as sports editor for the Manila Daily Bulletin and penned a syndicated column titled ‘To You I Tell It’, where he captured the emotion behind each bout. He didn’t just list results; he told you why they mattered. He made readers feel like they knew Pancho Villa, that they had walked alongside Speedy Dado, or shared a quiet moment with Small Montana in a corner gym in Manila.

When Miller moved to Los Angeles, his reach only expanded. From 1942 to 1956, he served as lead publicist for the Olympic Auditorium— promoting cards that featured Rocky Marciano and building anticipation for the unforgettable matchup between a 36-year-old Muhammad Ali and a young, rising Leon Spinks. But boxing wasn’t his only canvas. He championed acts like the Harlem Globetrotters with the same depth and care. For Miller, sport was never just spectacle— it was spirit, rhythm, and the human story behind the stats.

Off the page, Miller was a devoted family man. He adored his wife, Adelle, and took immense pride in his sons— one a U.S. Air Force serviceman who passed before him, the other a UCLA graduate and respected attorney in Los Angeles. He didn’t lead conversations with credentials; he led with love. “My son is engaged,” he’d say. Or, “My son Pete is an attorney.” That was Bill— humble, grounded, and full of heart.

He also had a sense of humor that stuck with you. In a letter to a fellow columnist, he once joked, “You may remember me as the tall, handsome feller with roguish eyes— the one who always looks the other way when the waiter brings the check.” That was classic Miller— witty, self-aware, and unmistakably human.

He passed away on June 4, 1975. But what he left behind continues to echo across the history of the sport. His stories didn’t just report— they remembered. They honored. They stayed.

And before he left us, he shared one last keepsake— his personal list of the greatest Filipino fighters he ever saw in the ring:

1. Dencio Cabanela

2. Pancho Villa

3. Pete Sarmiento

4. Clever Sencio

5. Speedy Dado

6. Francisco Flores

7. Ceferino Garcia

8. Johnny Hill

9. Ignacio Fernandez

10. Young Tommy

He didn’t just write their names; he gave them weight. He gave them life.

Because of William Eli Miller, the Filipino legends didn’t fade; they just kept swinging.

Edward Gallaher never stood in the spotlight. But for those who know where to look, he was always there— quietly guiding from the corner, just out of frame.

Born in Ireland around 1872–76 and naturalized as a U.S. citizen around 1896, Gallaher rose through the Marine ranks as a non-commissioned officer. He wasn’t known for barking orders.

He was known for being calm, observant, and precise— almost too precise, as if he had manicured his entire persona to remain a mystery.

He left no known photo of himself behind.

No rank proudly etched in stone.

His fingerprints, though, are all over the rise of Filipino boxing.

Kid Dencio: The Copper Shop Kid

There was one boy Gallaher couldn’t forget. A wiry, mop haired teenager from Pampanga named Gaudencio Cabanela— just another helper at the Navy Copper Shop in Olongapo. He wasn’t paid much, but he moved like he belonged in the ring. Gallaher noticed the way he mimicked the Marines, took hits without flinching, punches seemed to roll off his shoulders, and kept coming back.

One day, Gallaher walked in on a scene straight out of a boot camp fever dream— a 200-pound Marine launching a medicine ball full force into the kid’s chin.

Most would’ve called it abuse. Dencio called it training.

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t fold. He just stood there, waiting for the next one.

Gallaher raised an eyebrow— and maybe even cracked a smile.

No official drill manual recommended it— but it worked.

That was all he needed to see.

With a nod and a quiet word, Gallaher set the wheels in motion.

He sent the boy to Manila— to Churchill, Tait, and the Olympic Club. From there, the kid became something else entirely.

In 1921, Cabanela faced Llew Edwards at the Olympic Stadium. Lighter, younger, and with everything to prove, he outmaneuvered the seasoned champion early, bringing the crowd to its feet.

Bill Miller of the Manila Daily Bulletin wrote, “the best fight Manila had ever seen.”

Another headline called it “the most sensational fight ever witnessed in a Manila ring.”

That night proved what Filipino boxers could do.

And none of it happens without Gallaher.

More Than a Mentor

Gallaher didn’t just discover fighters. They discovered him. He gave them purpose— and often, a paycheck.

Before the world saw them as contenders, men like Silvino Jamito and Frisco Concepcion worked directly for him. Gallaher was their employer— part Marine, part businessman, part connector.

Jamito had been doing odd jobs around the barracks when Gallaher pulled him aside and told him he moved like a fighter. It was Jamito who later pointed Gallaher toward the wiry kid working at the Copper Shop— Kid Dencio.

Frisco Concepcion, the first man to ever defeat the great Pancho Villa, was also part of Gallaher’s quiet circle. When Frisco’s fighting days began to fade, Gallaher didn’t cast him aside. He handed him a camera. That moment changed everything.

Frisco became the eyes behind Gallaher’s story. With each click of the lens, he froze a moment— a Marine’s bruised smile, a fighter’s clenched jaw, a dusty gym soaked in afternoon light. Frisco Concepcion was no longer just a boxer. He became a witness.

Gallaher never called himself a publicist. He didn’t need to. Posters went up. Matches got attention. Local fighters got their chance— because he made sure of it.

He didn’t just open the door— he stayed behind to keep it open, long after others had walked through.

And in lifting them, he found his own quiet kind of immortality.

The Legacy in Silence

Edward Gallaher never chased the spotlight. He didn’t pose for pictures. He didn’t leave behind a box of medals or a book of memoirs. Just a few clippings. A community that remembered. And a single poem.

He stayed in Olongapo long after his military days, living among old fighters, expats, and locals who called him ‘Kuya’ or simply Mr. Gallaher. When his time came, he passed quietly at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manila— one of the most respected facilities in the country. There was no headline. No grand farewell.

But for those who remember the boy from the Copper Shop— for those who stood near the ring on the night Dencio became a star— his legacy is undeniable.

Attached below is a poignant poem by Gallaher, published after Gaudencio Cabanela’s death.

“The Champions”

By Ed. Gallaher, Manila –                       In memory of Kid Dencio

“…nine, ten!” the referee,                Eternity,                                                 

Has called the fatal toll,                       Raised high the victor hand—                   Of him all champions one grim day must meet,                                                Doomed to a sure defeat.                   Though brave the stand—                     The prize, his dauntless soul—              Still shall the toll                                “…nine, ten!” be counted as he lies        With sightless eyes,                    Unhearing, “…out!” at last.                     And Death, the victor, in his arms shall take                                                   Pitying, the champion that has passed.  And o’er the Styx                                  Shall bring him to that Land                            Where champions are—               Champions of peace and war;    Champions of all time!                        Those brave of earth                             Who lived as men should live;               Who gave as men should give;              Who fought as men should fight,—     Champions by regal right!                     Who passed out smiling,—                   Victors, though vanquished!

That poem may have been his only public cry of grief. Or maybe his final lesson: That the ones who matter most are the ones we lift— not the ones who remember us.

Some say the only known image connected to him is a photograph of a boxing match— perhaps one he captured himself.

One final frame from a man who never asked to be remembered— only to make sure others were.

History tends to forget the quiet builders. But Frank Churchill won’t be one of them.

His name lives deep in the roots of Philippine boxing— not as a side note, but as a cornerstone. What he helped create was more than sport. It was a movement. A legacy built with grit, instinct, and the kind of heart you don’t learn in school.

Born on May 2, 1878, in Winthrop, Massachusetts, Churchill came up in the tough streets of Boston—where the shadow of John L. Sullivan still loomed. He had a restless nature and a nose for opportunity. From prospecting in Alaska to taking a desk job in Manila, from soldier to promoter, he moved through life with purpose. Whatever path he took, he left a mark.

He co-founded Churchill and Tait Enterprises— a venture that brought parades, carnivals, and prizefights to the islands. 

The timing couldn’t have been better. 

The Philippines was coming out of war, and the people needed an outlet. Churchill gave them boxing, and they gave him their loyalty.

His turning point came at the U.S. Customs House, on the banks of the Pasig River. 

What began as clerical work led him straight into the fight world. He started small— helping organize local matches at the Olympic Club in Quiapo and Palomar Park in Tondo.

 But Churchill had vision. He saw boxing not just as entertainment, but as something that could unify a nation.

The matches got bigger. The venues got louder. And then came his greatest achievement: the Olympic Stadium on Calle Doroteo Jose and Avenida Rizal. 

That arena would become sacred ground for Filipino fighters— where boys became champions, and champions became legends.

Still, Churchill was never in it just for business. He took care of his fighters, not just when they won, but when they fell. He paid debts. He helped their families. He kept promises long after the final bell. For men like Gaudencio Cabanela, Francisco Guilledo, and Inocencio Moldez, he was more than a promoter. He was family.

Together with partners Stewart Alfred Tait, Edwin Tait, Joseph Hyman Waterman, and William Eli Miller, Churchill built an industry. They didn’t just import boxing. They helped the Philippines make it their own.

The local scene exploded. Fighters like Eustaquio Duarte, Francisco Labra, Silvino Jamito, Elino Flores, Pete Sarmiento, Johnny Hill, and Inocencio Moldez stepped up. So did American champions like Mike Ballerino, Sammy Schaffer, and Tod Morgan. Through war, politics, and shifting times, boxing became something permanent. Churchill had helped make that happen.

On March 30, 1933, Frank Churchill passed away at 54. Some said it was his heart that gave out. Others said it was the loss of his beloved Guilledo— Pancho Villa— that he never recovered from. 

To Churchill, Guilledo wasn’t just a world champion. He was the son he never had.

But his story didn’t end there. What he sparked became a wildfire— burning through generations, etched in every fist that rose from the barrios to the bright lights. 

Churchill didn’t just bring boxing to the Philippines. He gave the people a fight they could call their own. 

And the Filipinos answered in kind— with loyalty, with love, and with legacy. 

They never forgot the man who gave them the thrill of battle, the roar of the crowd, and the pride of a nation in the ring. 

He brought them the fight game. 

And they made it theirs forever.

Sources:

• The photo of Francis Aglar Churchill is from the collection of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame (Circa 1926, Public Domain)
• All references in this article are based on multiple sources like The Ring, The Boxing Blade, The Referee, Cablenews American, The Manila Bulletin Daily and others
• 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.

The Oakland Auditorium, now known as the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, occupies a holy place in the Pantheon of  Philippine boxing. Long before championships were unified and sanctioning bodies standardized the language of greatness, this civic hall became a place where Filipino fighters were not merely featured, but immortalized.

In the early 1930s, opportunity in boxing was unevenly distributed. Filipino fighters, many of them migrants navigating a society shaped by exclusion laws and racial hierarchy, fought often and traveled relentlessly for recognition that rarely came into fruition.

Oakland offered something unique.

The Auditorium was a public building, built for blue and white collar workers and the city at large. To fight there was to be placed squarely in the front and center of city life, not on its margins.

That threshold was crossed decisively in 1932.

On October 12 of that year, the Oakland Civic Auditorium hosted what was openly billed as the first Filipino versus Filipino championship bout on American soil. Promoted as the Battle of Brown Dolls, Young Tommy faced Speedy Dado for the Bantamweight Championship of California. The advertising was explicit and unapologetic. There was no attempt to soften the fighters’ identities or disguise the stakes. Two Filipinos fought for a state title, in a major venue, before a mixed San Francisco Bay Area crowd.

And Oakland became a major part of Philippine boxing history that day. Filipino boxing was no longer an imported novelty. It became a matter of public record. Three years later, the Auditorium moved from legitimizing Filipino boxing to shaping future champions of the squared circle.

Caption: Small Montana wins a 10-round points decision over Midget Wolgast, on September 16, 1935, to win the NYSAC Flyweight title at the Oakland Auditorium (Oakland Tribune)

On September 16, 1935, Small Montana defeated Midget Wolgast in Oakland and earned recognition from the New York State Athletic Commission as world flyweight champion. With that decision, Montana became the second Filipino world champion and the first to be crowned in California. The location mattered more than people realized at the time. New York’s Polo Grounds had announced Filipino excellence to the East when Pancho Villa won his title in 1923. Oakland confirmed that excellence in the West. The Auditorium was no longer merely hosting history. It was making it. By the late 1930s, Oakland’s role was unmistakable.

On November 30, 1938, the Auditorium staged a fight newspapers treated not as a curiosity, but as a division-defining bout. Small Montana faced Little Dado. Coverage framed the match within a lineage that ran from Jimmy Wilde and Pancho Villa to the present. Betting odds were even. Photographs placed two Filipinos at the center of the boxing universe. The  American Flyweight Championship and the World Flyweight Title recognized in California, were at stake. Filipino boxing had become a big part of the conversation in American culture sporting life.

Little Dado’s rise confirmed that he belonged. He was ranked among the world’s elite flyweights from 1938 through 1943, and consistently recognized in the top five by The Ring magazine and rated number one in 1939, during a time when the The Bible of Boxing considered the title vacant. 

In 1941, Dado won the vacant world bantamweight title (California version) against tough Tony Olivera on April 24, 1940 in Oakland (Boxrec.com), making him simultaneous champ in two divisions.

Oakland remained the place where his rise first seeped into public domain. It was where Little Dado’s name became forever intertwined with Small Montana’s, and where Filipino fistic excellence was etched in stone. Oakland’s significance was never limited to champions alone. It was also a proving ground for fighters who carried Filipino boxing forward. 

Early in his career in 1936, Ceferino Garcia boxed at the Auditorium and lost a California welterweight title there before moving up in weight. Oakland did not crown him that day, but it catapulted him. He refined the bolo punch, and ultimately became world middleweight champion. 

Pinoy stars like Young Tommy returned repeatedly to the Bay Area circuit, embodying the grind that sustained Filipino boxing between headline moments. 

These fighters fought often, traveled constantly, and filled cards that kept the Auditorium alive as a fight hall. Behind the scenes, promoters understood the importance of the venue. Men such as Joe Waterman and Louis Parente placed Filipino fighters on Oakland cards because the venue conferred legitimacy. To fight at the Auditorium meant scrutiny, press coverage, and consequence. It meant being part of the city’s sporting life.

The audience completed the equation. On fight nights, the crowd reflected the Bay Area itself. Filipinos sat beside Mexican fans. Black and white dockworkers cheered side by side.  In an era shaped by segregation and exclusion laws, the arena offered a brief suspension of rigid boundaries. Inside the ropes, endurance and skill carried the argument. 

Oakland’s place in boxing history is confirmed by what happened inside its ring. The same canvas that crowned Montana and framed Dado also welcomed fighters who would later stand among the sport’s giants— most notably Sugar Ray Robinson, widely regarded as the greatest boxer of all time, along with American greats such as Max Baer and Archie Moore.

Joe Louis appeared at the Oakland Auditorium late in his career during a West Coast exhibition tour. Though the bout was not part of his championship record, it placed the sport’s most recognizable heavyweight on the same canvas that had crowned Filipino champions, underscoring Oakland’s standing in American boxing history.

Just as important, Oakland played a singular role in Filipino boxing history. It hosted the first Filipino-versus-Filipino championship ever staged on American soil. It crowned the second and third Filipino world champions. Over the years, the building saw younger fighters come through as well. Ceferino Garcia and Speedy Dado boxed there before their names carried weight, alongside many others working their way forward. The fights added up. Taken together, they explain why the Oakland Municipal Auditorium remains part of boxing’s shared memory.

The Comeback Trail

The Auditorium, now restored as the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, has undergone a major interior transformation and is scheduled to reopen to the public in January 2026.  A grand reopening is already set, including a family musical among the early offerings. 

Located on 10th Street near Lake Merritt, the Beau-Arts style building was built in 1915 as a grand municipal venue that has featured numerous public spectacles, concerts, conventions, rallies, and historic sporting events for more than a century. It too has served the public once as a temporary hospital run by the Red Cross during the 1918 influenza pandemic.

The ring and the ropes may be gone but the memories remain. In Oakland, Filipino boxing crossed from presence into permanence…where Filipino boxers once stood, fought and crowned champions of the world.

Acknowledgements:

• 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.
• Originally published on PhilBoxing.com. 
• Link: https://philboxing.com/news/story-175792.html

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 2025! 2026!

Dreamland Rink

Before the condos and skyscrapers rose like silent monuments to the wealthy, before memory gave way to glass and steel, there was a place in San Francisco where fists, not fortunes, determined your worth.

A place called Dreamland— how fitting. The rink, the auditorium, the pavilion— all under one shimmering name. It began as a skating rink in 1906—built on the scorched bones of a city leveled by the Great San Francisco Earthquake.

A few months after the calamity, Dreamland’s owners saw an opportunity to revitalize business thereafter. In between seasonal offerings like ice skating, conventions and opera, the low-peak rental season was enhanced by featuring boxing. 

For decades, San Francisco was a big fight town and the boxing promoters gave the fans their money’s worth.

Forget slow, cautious fights. 

Give the people action. 

They slashed the gloves down to five ounces. 

They cut fights to just four rounds. 

They lit the nights with the crack of leather on flesh— and the crowd loved it.

And when they looked for fighters willing to tear into battle from the opening bell, they turned to two sources: the scrappy Americans… and the fearless Filipinos.

The Rise of Filipino Fury

Eddie Duarte was the first to answer. Born in Daanbantayan, Cebu Province, toughened in Manila’s dust and docks, Duarte didn’t ask for favors. He came to Dreamland to throw hands, fighting men like Ben Gard, Johnny Schiff, and Joe Murphy under the harsh lights and howling galleries.

When the posters couldn’t decide what to call him—“Kid Duarte,” “Filipino Duarte”—Eddie let his fists do the talking. 

Every jab, every hook, every desperate clinch was a message: We belong. We can fight. We will not be forgotten.

Then came Maximiano “Max” Villon, known later as Macario Villon. Faster than most, ruthless when needed, Villon turned Dreamland into his proving ground— knocking out foes like Jack O’Keefe before they could get started.

And Francisco “Cowboy” Reyes, rugged and relentless, carved his own path through Dreamland’s smoky halls, trading blows with American tough guys like Johnny Ortega and Harry Wallace.

Speedy Dado is confirmed to have fought at Dreamland in San Francisco on three occasions: a 10-round draw with Pete Sanstol (June 9, 1933), a 10-round decision loss to Young Tommy for the California State bantamweight title (May 19, 1933), and an earlier decision loss to Canto Robledo (November 6, 1931). 

Ceferino Garcia fought fellow legend Barney Ross at Dreamland Auditorium in San Francisco on September 13, 1935 — dropped him in the first round, pressed him through ten, and still came away without the win. The judges gave it to Ross. Unanimous. Non-title. Controversial then. Still is.

Dreamland’s Ghosts Never Sleep

The Dreamland Rink was more than brick and timber. 

It was a shrine to those who fought when four rounds were a lifetime— and every second mattered. 

Today, when you walk by the corner of Post and Steiner, you won’t find Dreamland anymore. 

Instead, you’ll find towering condos, aka townhouses,  few can afford. Luxury for the chosen few.

But back then, for a couple of coins, anyone could step into Dreamland and witness history: Filipino boys— immigrants, laborers, sons of the Pacific storm— fighting their way into America’s heart.

In the rafters, in the wind, in the memory of leather and blood, you can still hear them:

Duarte. Villon. Reyes. Speedy. Garcia.

Fighting not for fame. 

Fighting not even for survival. Fighting because in Dreamland— for one night, in four savage rounds— they were kings.

Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings:

• 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.
• All references in this article are based on multiple sources like PhilBoxing.com, The National Library of Australia, Elephind.com Database, Newspapers.com, Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, The Ring, The Ring (Records and Almanac), The Boxing Blade, The Referee, Knockout, Cablenews-American, BoxRec.com, BoxerList.com, The Tribune, The Manila Bulletin Daily, The Philippine Republic, and others.
• Regarding the photos of The Dreamland, a special thanks to Christina Moretta (Photo Curator, Acting Manager) and Lisa Palella (Library Technical Assistant II) at the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library for their gracious assistance. 
• The  most celebrated fighter to grace the ring at Dreamland was Jack Johnson, the Premier American Heavyweight Champion of the World, circa 1910 (Photo source: Photo Morgue, San Francisco History Center @ the San Francisco Public Library)

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.

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.