Jack Sharkey boxer

Jack Sharkey (born Joseph Paul Zukauskas, Lithuanian: Juozas Povilas Žukauskas, October 26, 1902 – August 17, 1994) was a Lithuanian-American world heavyweight boxing champion. Sharkey was born to Lithuanian immigrants, in Binghamton, New York (his birth surname is sometimes given as Cukoschay), but moved to Boston, Massachusetts during his youth. Sources report little of his early life until, at the outset of World War I, 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 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 local Massachusetts papers.He took his ring name from his two idols, heavyweight contender Tom Sharkey and heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, to gain acceptance in the Irish-dominated boxing world of Boston. 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, he 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.A fight held in Yankee Stadium later that year gave Sharkey the United States heavyweight title when he knocked out former light heavyweight champion Tommy Loughran. This victory earned him the opportunity to fight for the vacant world title against the German contender Max Schmeling on June 12, 1930. Sharkey was disqualified in the fourth round after delivering a punch that landed below Schmeling's belt. This was the first time in boxing history that the heavyweight championship was won on a foul since Joe Goss in 1876.