Bantamweight legend Panama Al Brown
Miles Templeton recalls the times when Panama Al Brown toured the UK
ONE of the all-time greats of the bantamweight division is Panama Al Brown, active between 1922 and 1942 and the winner of 129 of his 160 contests. He is consistently ranked by experts and historians in the all-time bantamweight top 10, and in a 2016 article on the Boxing News website, Mike Lockley placed him at number four.
He was a complex character out of the ring, and he led a colourful and interesting life before tragically dying in 1951 at the early age of 48. He was a gay black man and so he had to contend with a lot of prejudice, and I suspect that this might account for his choosing to spend a large part of his life in Paris, a city notable then, as it still is today, for its tolerance. Brown fitted easily into French society where, as well as being an extremely well-known boxer, he was also an accomplished tap-dancer, part-time actor and flamboyant socialite.
Talented 200-plus-bout contender Kid Socks had a knack for embarrassing champions yet never won a title himself
“THE Wrecker of Champions” – as boxing epithets go it isn’t a bad one. The owner of that sobriquet was a fighter from London’s East End called Kid Socks. His career stretched from 1922 to 1934 and took in over 200 pro bouts – an eye-watering tally, yet Socks was no journeyman. At various times in non-title fights, he beat the reigning flyweight champions of Europe, Britain, France, Belgium and Ireland, plus the reigning bantamweight titlists of Britain and France.
This, of course, was in an era of eight universally recognised weights with one world champion at each, when holding a British title was akin perhaps in terms of kudos to holding a world crown today. Socks’ traceable record is 107-77-25 but he never won a title of any sort, which says much about the calibre of the fly, bantam and featherweights competing in Britain at the time.