"Most of the crowd were standing on chairs now, roaring protestor encouragement. A wadded newspaper landed in the ring, then somebody's hat. The referee kept his fascinated gaze on the fighters, like a young lab assistant observing a couple of ferocious insects.

Davis walked across the ring and fired a left hook that landed, according to one reporter, "about a foot above Zivic's knees." Zivic's face screwed up in pain, then settled into righteous indignation as he glanced at Referee Billy Cavanagh. Cavanagh was looking elsewhere.

Davis returned to the attack. Another low blow brought a chorus of boos from the crowd. Zivic backed away, but Davis pursued him, ripping two more left hooks into his groin. Fritzie, his face contorted with pain, hopped stiffly, first on one leg, then on the other. He fired back at Davis, rocking his head and drawing blood again from his mouth. But Bummy, in his passion, was impervious to punishment. He crowded Zivic, hooked him low, shifted his attack to the ribs and then lowered it once more. Only once did Referee Cavanagh warn him to keep his punches up.Davis dug another left into Zivic's groin.

Finally, at 2:34 of the second round,Cavanagh stopped the fight......Or, at least, he tried to. But Bummy was not yet ready. His answer to the referee's restraining gesture was to bounce a left hook off Zivic's skull. Faced with a more orthodox attack now, Zivic quickly solved it by hooking Davis twice in the face, bloodying his nose. Handlers from both corners, as well as a squad of burly special cops, poured through the ropes and tried to drag the berserk Davis to his corner. Bummy, his arms pinioned now, aimed a kick at Zivic, who had plunged into the struggling mob. Missing the intended target area on Fritzie's trunks, the kick instead caught Referee Cavanagh in the thigh. Bummy finally was hauled, spitting and cursing, from the ring.

The fight was awarded to Zivic on a foul. Even while the excited crowd streamed out of the Garden, journalists and politicians prepared to publish their outrage to the world. General Phelan, chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission, called the fight "the most disgraceful thing I ever saw," and banned Davis from boxing in New York state "for life".

Having joined the Army shortly afterward, Davis was granted a pass by his commanding general and a pardon by General Phelan on condition that he fight Zivic again for an Army charity. In a bout notable for its strict adherence to the commission's regulations, Zivic dealt Davis a savage beating and stopped him in the 10th round. But this orthodox defeat did nothing to break Bummy's rebellious spirit.

Some years later Bummy Davis was shot to death as he charged, bare-handed, into an armed gang trying to hold up the store of a friend in Brownsville. He was still trying to get that left hook across when he went down."

(from sports illustrated)

15th Nov 1940.

"In New York's most riotous ring brawl in years, young Al (Bummy) Davis was disqualified for repeated fouling tonight in the 2nd round of his scheduled 10 round non-title bout with welterweight champion Fritzie Zivic. In the opening session, Zivic battered the floundering Davis about the ring and hit him so hard with a right to the chin that Davis half sank to the canvas, supporting himself on his gloves, with one knee also touching the canvas. Davis was up without a count. In the 2nd round, referee Billy Cavanaugh warned Davis at least four times that he would DQ him if he continued fouling. But Al kept pegging away with his steaming left hook at the champiuon's groin. The fans were screaming, "Foul, foul. Throw him out." And that's what Cavanaugh finally did at 2:34 of the turbulent 2nd round. When Cavanaugh pulled the gladiators apart and motioned Davis to his corner, Davis became almost insane with rage. He tore after Zivic, despite the referee's warding arms, with Zivic desperately trying to fight back. Zivic's manager Luke Carney, joined the fray, then two uniformed policemen leaped into the ring, as newspapers, magazines, and peanut bags showered into the ring." -United Press

"That Zivic is a quittin' bum, he gave me the works and then deliberately stepped into my body punches to make them appear foul. I hit him in the belly and he quit." -Al (Bummy) Davis

"The first two low blows didn't hurt much because my protector caught them. But the third was an uppercut that hurt terribly. I tried to fight back but about every third punch was down in my groin. I was almost paralyzed." -Fritzie Zivic

"I can't talk about rules now because Davis threw them all out the window. We won't need Al Davis anymore in New York. You can say for me that Davis will be barred from NY state for life, and I mean it." -Bill Brown, Commissioner of the NYSAC.

Nate Druxman, a not-so-successful boxer, and a man who sold cigars, jewelry, real estate and toiled in Seattle shipyards, had started promoting local boxing shows at the Seattle Elks Club at Fourth Avenue and Spring Street in August, 1914. A man of considerable ego, Druxman talked former heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in August of 1931 into boxing three exhibition bouts with Denny Lenhart, a Portland pug, that filled Civic Arena. Two years later, on July 11, 1933, Druxman put together the first officially sanctioned world title fight in Seattle, a pairing of Freddie Miller and Abie Israel for the NBA featherweight title. Five years after that, Druxman brought Freddie Steele and Al Hostak together for a Civic Stadium showdown that has since gone down as one of the major spectacles in Seattle sports history.

Steele entered the ring with more than 120 official victories and only four losses in his portfolio, and installed as a slight favorite. He also entered as a fighter compromised by the lingering effects of a broken breastbone he had suffered in a loss to Freddie Apostoli seven months earlier (Jan. 7, 1938, at Madison Square Garden), and injuries he had received in a serious traffic accident (crashed into a stalled vehicle on the Seattle-Tacoma highway near the Fife junction).

Most experts figured that the fight would go the 15-round distance, and they figured wrong. The ballyhoo ended in a blink.

Wrote The Seattle Times in its July 27, 1938 edition that included a dozen photos of the event: “Steele made two bad mistakes, one for lack of a smart battle campaign and the other because he was too groggy to know better. His first mistake was when he came out swinging to meet the Savage Slav. There’s no middleweight in the business qualified to slug it out with Hostak. He hits too hard and too fast.”

Hostak landed the first punch and then floored Steele three more times before delivering the winning blow, a short, perfectly timed left hook to the button that sent Steele toppling pie-eyed to the canvas. Referee Jack Dempsey counted the decisive 10 at 1:43 of the first round.

Steele’s crushing loss, coupled with his previous injuries, essentially ended his boxing career. He did not fight again for three years, losing by TKO to Jimmy Casino at Legion Stadium in Hollywood, CA., May 23, 1941. That turned out to be Steele’s last fight, and he concluded his career with 125 wins (60 knockouts), five losses and 11 draws.

Hostak fought for 11 more years, finishing with 63 wins (42 by knockout), nine losses and 12 draws. He lost the world middleweight title he took from Steele, by majority decision, to Solly Krieger Nov. 1, 1938, at Seattle’s Civic Auditorium, after breaking both of his hands early in the fight and suffering the first knockdown of his career in the 14th round - Steele was among the first in the ring to console Hostak after his loss.

(By David Eskenazi)