He weighed roughly around 150 pounds and had sort of pinkish, tousled hair, a long stubborn jaw that always showed a four-day stubble of beard, and a pair of the most baleful and vindictive blue eyes ever placed in a human head. His lips were thin and his teeth always bared in a snarl. He was utterly vicious, truculent, and brutal. He would heel, rip, thumb and butt with his head. He was meant to be strictly a rough-and-tumble bar-room fighter."
(Paul Gallico - sports editor of the New York Daily News)
New Yorkers had gathered to cheer their favorite, Ruby Goldstein, the pale-skinned boy with the big eyes they called the Jewel of the Ghetto on a warm June night in 1926. They had cheered him through 23 straight victories; tonight would be another as he knocked out some rube from out West, a raw kid called Ace Hudkins.
When the fight was made, another ghetto favorite, lightweight Sid Terris, sounded a warning. Sid had outboxed Hudkins in Chicago for a decision a few months previously, and he cautioned, “That Hudkins, he’s too tough. Keep him away from Ruby, I’m telling you. He’ll chase anybody out of the ring" But they hadn’t heard of Ace Hudkins in New York and they backed Ruby with every dollar not nailed down. It was all over inside four rounds. Ace climbed off the canvas in the first round and in round four hung Goldstein over the ropes like a bundle of wet washing.
The Evening Journal headline on June 26 said it all: “$400,000 Changed Hands. It would be remembered as the fight that broke the Jewish banks.” It was the fight that made Ace Hudkins.
(by John Jarrett)
