Les Darcy

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Les Darcy boxer
Data
Birth Name James Leslie Darcy
Weight class medium weight
nationality Australian
birthday October 31, 1895
place of birth Stradbroke
Date of death May 24, 1917
Place of death Memphis
style Left delivery
size 1.68 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles 50
Victories 46
Knockout victories 29
Defeats 4th

James Leslie "Les" Darcy (born October 31, 1895 in Stradbroke , New South Wales , † May 24, 1917 in Memphis , Tennessee ) was an Australian boxer.

Life

One of eight children of an Irish farm worker, he left school at the age of 12 and worked as a blacksmith's assistant, where he built strong muscles. Already at the age of 18, the devout abstainer Darcy was the sensation in the main arena of Sydney , where he was initially controversially defeated twice by the American Fritz Holland .
In total, he lost four of his fights, but never went KO .

With good clout and great stamina he beat the Americans Eddie McGoorty, Billy Murray, Jimmy Clabby, George Chip, George "KO" Brown and Buck Crouse and defeated Smith and Holland prematurely in rematches.

He called himself after a winning streak of 22 fights in 1916 "World Middleweight Champion", even if that was largely ignored outside of his home country. In 1916 he was also heavyweight champion of Australia by knockout against Harold Hardwick .

Ambivalent on patriotic issues, he wanted to join the army in 1916. His mother refused to give his consent, which would have been necessary because he was younger than 21 years. He then oriented himself towards a professional career in the USA , where he secretly emigrated without a permit.

All sorts of problems awaited him in the USA. On the one hand, he was followed by the Australian media who accused him of deserting him and the mood in the USA was against him, for example, because of a ban by the governor of New York, he did not get any major fights. An infected tooth then gave him blood poisoning and died at the age of 21. It is believed, however, that the ultimate cause of death was pneumonia.

Shortly before his death, he had become a US citizen and joined the army there. However, when he was buried in Sydney, hundreds of thousands attended his funeral.

In 1993 Darcy was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame .

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Darcy, Les
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Darcy, James Leslie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian boxer
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Stradbroke
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1917
Place of death Memphis