Sport: Boxing Inducted: 1991 Country: United States Born: November 8, 1868 in San Francisco,
California Died: January 1943
Although
he was never given a chance to fight for the World Heavyweight
Championship, Joe Choynski fought the great boxers of his
time in non-title bouts. Unfortunately for Chrysanthemum
Joe, who often gave away 30 to 70 pounds to an opponent,
the Light-Heavyweight Division was not created until 1903,
a year before he retired.
In 1894, the 5'10", 170-pound Choynski knocked out future
heavyweight champion Bob Fitzsimmons in the fifth round of
their non-title match. Three years later,
Joe fought heavy-weight champion-to-be James J. Jeffries
to a 20-round draw. In 1901, Choynski stopped the great Jack
Johnson (also before he wore a heavyweight crown) in three
rounds. He also battled young Jim Corbett three times in
1889, three years before “Gentleman Jim” took
John L. Sullivan’s heavyweight crown. The first fight
was a no-contest battle, while the last two were won by Corbett.
Each is described as a “non-title barn-burning bout.”
When Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, and Johnson were World
Champions, they refused to give Choynski a title
bout.
Both Fitzsimmons and Corbett were later to acknowledge that
the
hardest blows they ever took in the ring were delivered by
Joe Choynski. Said Corbett about their June 1889 battle in
his 1925 autobiography, The Roar of the Crowd: “[Choynski]
was to be the very toughest battle I had ever fought or was
to fight; one in which I was to receive more punishment than
I have ever had in all
my battles put together.”
Jeffries, commenting on his draw with Choynski, said, “In
that fight, I received the hardest blow I ever took in my life.”
Choynski
retired in 1904, after 20 years in the ring. As testimony to
his regard in the boxing world, he was elected to the Boxing
Hall of Fame in 1960, long before most World Champions were
to be so honored.
His recorded professional record: 77 bouts—won 50 (25
KOs), lost 15, drew 6, nodecisions 6, and 1 no-contest.