Honolulu Record, August 26, 1948, vol. 1 no. 4, p. 6
Tommy Ryan was an Exceptional Boxer
By Ed Hughes
Tommy Ryan, who died the other day, was a ring wonder. He had been welterweight champion and he retired undefeated middleweight king in 1907. Ryan, right name Joseph Young, "had everything." He was courageous, tricky, superbly skilled and he could hit. That is not all.
Ryan knew when to quit the ring before he was licked. Also, though he slugged 20 furious years, he left the ring clear-headed. Nor is that all. Ryan promptly made a fortune in California real estate. Nor is that all. He kept it.
Once Out-Foxed
Only once did life hand him a fast one. That was when Ryan, Fox of the Ring, was out-foxed by the super-fox, Kid McCoy, when Tommy was welter champion. It's still the ring's classic example of the double cross.
McCoy, a conscienceless "con" guy, joined Ryan's staff as a kitchen hand and spar mate. Daily he absorbed whalings from the boss— and studied Ryan's style. Some time later McCoy wrote the lordly Ryan a heart-rending letter. He was hard up, in Bad health, too. Couldn't a bout be cooked up between 'em? Easy coin for both. That is, if Tommy would agree not to cut loose on him.
Ryan was a businessman. Never dodged the tough ones but he liked "sucker" touches too. The "match" was made. The Kid secretly trained like a Spartan, whereas Ryan, for once, neglected to condition himself. So McCoy licked him in 15 rounds and grabbed Tommy's welter crown.
Ryan never forgot the McCoy defeat, though not chiefly because he had been licked. His was the matchless chagrin of the wise guy who discovered he had been out-slicked by another slicker.
A stomach ailment caused Ryan to quit while middleweight champion. It also caused him to "frame" some of his closing performances. At his best, frameups weren't necessary.
Hear him: "My hardest fight was with Tommy West, a tough middleweight. It lasted 15 rounds and I won by finally closing both his eyes. The ring canvas was so soaked with the blood from both of us that the club couldn't use it again. I didn't fight again for six months."
Made Jeffries A Champion
Ryan was as capable a teacher as he was a gladiator. He took the clumsy young Jim Jeffries and developed Jeff's famous crouch for the title fight with Fitzsimmons. Tommy's idea was to "hide" Jeff's midriff from Fitz's deadly solar plexus wallop. It worked. Few gave the crude giant a chance against the great Fitzsimmons. Yet Jeffries kayoed Fitz and became the heavyweight champ of the world.
Old timers tell me that no middleweight— barring Fitz — could have beaten Ryan. Zale and company, today, would have been dust-offs for him. McCoy was the one man near his weight that Ryan couldn't lick, and the Kid was a light-heavy.
Yet, in life's final reckoning, Ryan held all the cards against McCoy.
The Difference
Ryan lived to see McCoy, most merciless of fighters, go to pieces after a brilliant career. The Kid had some half dozen marriages, murdered his last mate, served long years in San Quentin. They were honorable years compared to his parole and "reformation." Henry Ford, the auto man, "salvaged" the ring's cruelest specimen. Ford installed McCoy as one of his pet uniformed goons to beat up his union workers!
Maybe that job sickened even the heartless McCoy. He died a suicide, explaining: "Life today is too tough for me."
Ryan, on the other hand, wound up wealthy arid healthy, unbelievably fortunate. His last proud boast was: "I guess me and my wife have enjoyed a happy married life longer than any other fighter."
Why just fighters? The Ryans had been looking at each other for more than 50 years.