Jack Sharkey
| Jack Sharkey | |
|---|---|
| Statistics | |
| Real name | Joseph Paul Zukauskas |
| Nickname(s) | Boston Gob, Sharkboy |
| Rated at | Heavyweight |
| Height | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) |
| Reach | 72 in (183 cm) |
| Nationality | American |
| Born |
October 26, 1902 Binghamton, New York |
| Died | August 17, 1994 (aged 91) Beverly, Massachusetts |
| Stance | Orthodox |
| Boxing record | |
| Total fights | 55 |
| Wins | 38 |
| Wins by KO | 13 |
| Losses | 14 |
| Draws | 3 |
Jack Sharkey (Lithuanian: Juozas Povilas Žukauskas, October 26, 1902 – August 17, 1994) was an American world heavyweight boxing champion. He was born Joseph Paul Zukauskas (his birth surname is sometimes given as Cukoschay), the son of Lithuanian immigrants, in Binghamton, New York but moved to Boston, Massachusetts as a young man. Sources report little of his early life until, at the outset of the First World War, teenaged Joseph repeatedly tried to enlist in the Navy. Turned down because of his age, he was not able to enlist until after the end of the war.
It was during his tenure in the Navy that he first showed interest in boxing. Tall and husky for a man of his generation, Joseph was encouraged by his friends in the service to box. He quickly established notoriety as the best boxer aboard any vessel on which he served. During his brief returns home to Boston he took part in his first fights for pay, the first on January 24, 1924, against one Billy Muldoon, whom he knocked out in the first round. By the time of his honorable discharge just short of a month later, he had won a second fight and was already earning write-ups in the Boston papers.
He took his ring name from his two idols, heavyweight contender Tom Sharkey and heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey. He won an important fight in 1926 over black heavyweight contender Harry Wills, but his first big year was 1927, when he defeated former light heavyweight champ Mike McTigue in twelve rounds and Boston rival Jim Maloney in five. That put him in the ring on July 21, 1927, with his idol, Dempsey, the winner to meet heavyweight champion Gene Tunney for the title. For six rounds Sharkey out-boxed Dempsey, who probed low with his punches. In the seventh round Sharkey turned his head to complain to the referee about Dempsey's low punches and Dempsey landed a classic left hook that knocked Sharkey out.
In 1928 Sharkey defeated heavyweight contender Tom Heeney and former light-heavyweight champion Jack Delaney. Early in 1929, signed in a Tex Rickard promotion to fight Young Stribling in Miami, Sharkey and all involved suffered a scare when Rickard died unexpectedly. All preparations ceased, as Rickard was laid to rest in New York. Unhappy with the uncertainty of it all, Jack complained to sportswriter Dan Parker, "That man isn't in his grave yet, and already they're trying to break my contract." In fact Bill Carey, president of Madison Square Garden saved the day by appointing Jack Dempsey himself to the task. Dempsey, a close personal friend of Rickard, had never handled a promotion, before, but did so now with what might be called "large and largesse". Between leasing the Carl Fisher mansion on Miami Beach, as well as the George Washington Hotel, the latter of which was equipped for the press with a 24-hour bar, the Sharkey-Stribling fight at the old Flamingo Park, drew 40,000 fans, including 423 writers, and did $405,000 at the box office, an amount unsurpassed in the South, until television receipts for Clay vs. Liston in 1964, managed a richer gate.
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