Just minutes from where the 9,300-year-old remains of Kennewick man were unearthed lives another compelling artifact from an earlier era: 91-year-old Jimmy McLarnin, the oldest living boxing champ anywhere in the world (well, except for Germany, where former heavyweight champ Max Schmeling, nine months older and not nearly as complete a fighter as McLarnin once was, is still breathing). Along with Schmeling, McLarnin is the last surviving title-holder from boxing's first golden age, the 1920s and '30s, when the likes of Jack Dempsey, Benny Leonard, Joe Louis, and Henry Armstrong ruled the ring, and Tex Rickard's Madison Square Garden was the center of the boxing universe.
"I started boxing when I was young and I was taught well," McLarnin says. "I was very fast—that's the secret of boxing. If they can't hit you, they can't hurt you."
Back in the days when boxing had only eight weight divisions and eight world champions, McLarnin earned a reputation for being the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. He fought the best and usually won, whipping Fidel LaBarba, Pancho Villa, Jackie Fields, Benny Leonard, Young Corbett III, Barney Ross, Tony Canzoneri, and Lou Ambers. Enshrined in both the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame, he fought 15 world champions and five fellow Hall of Famers. Five times he beat a reigning world champ in a non-title bout, and he held the welterweight crown twice.
Spry now, and just a few pounds heavier than his fighting weight of 147 pounds, McLarnin exhibits little visible damage from the ring. Only his hands give him away: They've been broken so many times, they resemble mangled claws.
"He looked like an angel and punched like a mule," says boxing historian Bert Randolph Sugar. "His left hook is the third-best all-time, ranking below Dempsey's and above [Joe] Frazier's."
JAMES ARCHIBALD MCLARNIN was born in Inchacore, Ireland, in 1906. When he was 3, his family joined the many Irish immigrating to North America. They traveled to Canada in steerage—a journey that left one of his older brothers dead. Jimmy's father, Sam, tried to make a go of it in Saskatchewan planting wheat, but proved unsuccessful at farming. He then moved the family to Vancouver, BC, where he ran a clothing store and raised his 12 children.
Jimmy took up boxing at a young age. The story, oft-told and parts of which are probably true, was that he and another kid got into a scrap for the right to sell newspapers on a busy street corner in Vancouver. McLarnin more than held his own against the bigger foe, and a wizened boxing manager named Charles "Pop" Foster took him under his wing and guided him to the welterweight title.
The details of the apocryphal tale notwithstanding, the facts remain that Pop Foster discovered Jimmy when he was a kid, taught him the intricacies of the sweet science, and molded him into a champion. "He was the secret of my success," says McLarnin, pointing to an oil portrait of Foster that hangs in his living room. "He taught me everything."
To hear McLarnin tell it, Foster operated with one goal in mind: to win the title. He worked for years to develop Jimmy's jab and foot speed, and taught him a power punch he called "the corkscrew." "You went like this—boom!" says McLarnin, shooting out a left jab with a concerted twist at the end. "You put everything into it, from your toes."
Foster closely monitored Jimmy's diet, strictly prohibiting fried or unhealthy foods. ("He said, 'No pickles, no pork, no pastry,'" remembers McLarnin.) Pop also shielded his fighter from unscrupulous promoters; McLarnin claims that Foster refused to deal with mobsters. That strategy may have cost the pair a chance at lucrative fights, but Foster paid that no mind: It was more important that he keep control of his fighter's career.
Because of the limited financial opportunities for fighters in Canada, Foster and McLarnin left Vancouver for San Francisco in 1922. Jimmy had recently turned 16— he'd abandoned school long ago—and looked even younger. Local promoters told them to get lost, and they subsisted for a time on Foster's World War I pension and the occasional crab they caught while fishing in San Francisco Bay.
Foster finally got McLarnin a fight in Oakland in 1923, a four-rounder against George Ainsworth. Jimmy began to make a name for himself the next year, after he and Foster had moved down the coast to Los Angeles. Fighting in the flyweight division, he beat 1924 Olympic gold medalist Fidel LaBarba twice in three months. He was on his way.
IN 1924, AS the American economy continued its postWorld War I boom, Calvin Coolidge won election to a full term as president, attorney Clarence Darrow defended Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb on murder charges, and J. Edgar Hoover was appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Meanwhile, Red Grange led the Fightin' Illini to football glory, and swimmer and Tarzan-to-be Johnny Weissmuller won three gold medals at the 1924 Olympics.
Before 1920, boxing struggled to gain legitimacy in the US. But the lobbying efforts of Jimmy Walker, the soon-to-be-mayor of New York City, led to the passage of the Walker Law, which in 1920 established a state commission to govern the sport. The result? Boxing ranked alongside baseball, horse racing, and college football in the sports pantheon, and New York City emerged as the capital of pugilism.
