    
Title: Battling Siki Description: Battling Siki (Louis Mbarick Fall; Baye Fall; 1897-1925); Senegalese light-heavyweight prizefighter, who recorded an impressive number of ring victories in France following World War I, including a victory over Georges Carpentier, then reigning European heavyweight champion (this win by Battling Siki accomplished after Jack Dempsey had already beaten Carpentier); he created sensational news stories by strolling down Paris boulevards with a pet lion while wearing a tuxedo and top hat or, when similarly dressed, firing off two pistols in the air on public thoroughfares that would prompt his two Great Danes to perform tricks; moving to the U.S., Battling Siki's ring career declined with more lost bouts than wins, mostly because the fighter trained on booze and womanizing - he pursued white women and his two wives were white, such miscegenation (marriages or cohabitation of mixed races) then being taboo; he was found dead, shot twice in the back at close range, lying face down on a New York street on the night of December 15, 1925; no one was ever identified as his murderer, although it was believed that he had been killed by bootleggers irritated at his brawling conduct in a speakeasy that night; Battling Siki had had the habit of getting roaring drunk (as he was seen to be on the night of his death) in a speakeasy, refusing to pay his tab, and then fighting his way out of the place; this is what most probably happened on the last night of his eccentric life; bootleggers; boxers; boxing; fighters; homicides; killings; murders; prizefighters; Location: New York, New York, 1925 Keywords: shootings, speakeasies, pugilism, pugiliests Orientation: Portrait Dimensions: 1200 x 1590 (1.91 MPixels) (3:4) Print Size: 10.2 x 13.5 cm; 4.0 x 5.3 inches File Size: 5.47 MB (5,730,586 Bytes) Resolution: 300 x 300 dpi Color Depth: 16.7 million (24 BitsPerPixel) Compression: None Image Number: 0000096090 Source: Jay Robert Nash Collection |
