- Michael Daley (boxer)
-
Michael Daley [sometimes Michael Daly](1865–1910) was a boxer from Bangor, Maine who held the lightweight title for New England in the late nineteenth century, and was a claimant for the lightweight title of America in 1893. In 1903, however, Daley was convicted, along with world middle-weight champion George La Blanche of robbing a drunken man in a Bangor hotel and sentenced to two years imprisonment. According to the New York Times Daley was from a 'highly respectable' family.[1]
Daley fought and defeated Marcellus Baker of Boston in 1884.[2] The New England lightweight championship had been bestowed on him by 1887, when the VC Club of Gardiner, Maine awarded him a belt emblazoned with the title after an exhibition fight with another Bangor boxer, James Mehan.[3] In 1889 Daley went fifteen rounds in Boston with another boxer formerly from Bangor, Jack McAuliffe, 'The Napolean of the Ring', who finished his career undefeated. Daley survived with a technical draw.[4]
In 1892 Daley was undefeated, and by 1893, was claiming the title of lightweight champion of America.[5] But he had to fight for the title that year against Austin Gibbons, at the Crescent City Club in New Orleans. The contest was a grueling one, and Daley's longest, and ended in his knock-out in the thirty-first round.[6]
In 1899 Daley bought the former Elk's Lodge in Bangor and fitted it out as a boxing academy.[7]
Daley died in a Bangor jail cell while under arrest for another crime in 1910.[8] He had opened a new boxing club earlier that same year.[9]
References
- ^ "Two Pugilists Sentenced", New York Times, Feb. 17, 1903
- ^ Lewiston Evening Journal, Oct. 21, 1884, p. 2
- ^ Lewiston Saturday Journal, Feb. 19, 1887, p. 2,
- ^ Chicago Tribune, Dec. 6, 1889, p. 6
- ^ Lewiston Evening Journal, Feb. 4, 1893, p. 23
- ^ "Fighter Found Dead in a Cell", New York Times, Dec. 27, 1910
- ^ Lewiston Evening Journal, Jan. 6, 1899, p. 8
- ^ "Fighter Found Dead in a Cell", New York Times, Dec. 27, 1910
- ^ Boston Daily Globe, Jan. 11, 1910
Categories:- American boxers of Irish descent
- People from Bangor, Maine
- Boxers from Maine
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
