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During the 1880s, National Police Gazette publiser Richard Kyle Fox helped create modern boxing by conducting promotions, offering prize belts, and publicizing the exploits of boxing great John L. Sullivan. Fox used the Gazette not just to chronicle the adventures of buxom showgirls or to sensationalize the latest heinous crime; it also was a pulpit to denounce hipocrites who opposed the modern sport of boxing. Through his tenacity, and good fortuen in having hte deeds of a legend such as Sullivan to play up, Fox became one of the most influential sports figures of hte nineteenth century; and it made him a millionaire. Sullivan was just as fortunate, becoming world famous. This article tells the story of Fox, Sullivan, and the National Police Gazette during part of Fox's lengthy tenure as editor and publisher. The Gazette, while it is perhaps best known for its emphasis on sex and crime as a precursor to today's tabloid journalism, also should be remembered for its unrelenting, early support of professional prize fighting.
One of the most oft-repeated stories in boxing circles in late nineteenth-century New York was that of the meeting between magazine publisher Richard Kyle Fox and boxer John L. Sullivan. As the story goes, Fox, an Irish immigrant to New York City who had built his publishing empire from almost nothing, donned his silk topper in early April 1881 and went to Harry Hill's saloon on Houston Street to have a few drinks, smoke his ever-- present cigar, and eat roast beef. The bar and dance hall, with its trademark blue-and-red lantern outside, was well known among the sporting crowd of gentlemen; it also was a popular place for prostitutes and gamblers. It was known to have been patronized by Oscar Wilde, Lillian Russell, Thomas A. Edison, P.T. Barnum (the building's landlord), and Diamond Jim Brady. On that April evening, Fox was accompanied by his well-known sports editor, William E. Harding, and the two were given the royal treatment by Hill. As they sat down, they noticed a crowd around a man at another table. They realized at once that he was John L. Sullivan, the up-and-coming fighter from Boston.
Of Irish descent, he was born in America, on October 15,1858, in a house near...