Michael Daley (boxer)

Michael Daley [sometimes Michael Daly] (1865–1910) was a boxer from Bangor, Maine who held the lightweight title for New England in the late nineteenth century, and was a claimant for the lightweight title of America in 1893. In 1903, however, Daley was convicted, along with world middle-weight champion George La Blanche of robbing a drunken man in a Bangor hotel and sentenced to two years imprisonment. According to the New York Times Daley was from a 'highly respectable' family.[1]

Daley fought and defeated Marcellus Baker of Boston in 1884.[2] The New England lightweight championship had been bestowed on him by 1887, when the VC Club of Gardiner, Maine awarded him a belt emblazoned with the title after an exhibition fight with another Bangor boxer, James Mehan.[3] In 1889 Daley went fifteen rounds in Boston with another boxer formerly from Bangor, Jack McAuliffe, 'The Napoleon of the Ring', who finished his career undefeated. Daley survived with a technical draw.[4]

In 1892 Daley was undefeated, and by 1893, was claiming the title of lightweight champion of America.[5] But he had to fight for the title that year against Austin Gibbons, at the Crescent City Club in New Orleans. The contest was a grueling one, and Daley's longest, and ended in his knock-out in the thirty-first round.[6]

In 1899 Daley bought the former Elk's Lodge in Bangor and fitted it out as a boxing academy.[7]

Daley died in a Bangor jail cell while under arrest for another crime in 1910.[8] He had opened a new boxing club earlier that same year.[9]

References

  1. ↑ "Two Pugilists Sentenced", New York Times, Feb. 17, 1903
  2. ↑ Lewiston Evening Journal, Oct. 21, 1884, p. 2
  3. ↑ Lewiston Saturday Journal, Feb. 19, 1887, p. 2,
  4. ↑ Chicago Tribune, Dec. 6, 1889, p. 6
  5. ↑ Lewiston Evening Journal, Feb. 4, 1893, p. 23
  6. ↑ "Fighter Found Dead in a Cell", New York Times, Dec. 27, 1910
  7. ↑ Lewiston Evening Journal, Jan. 6, 1899, p. 8
  8. ↑ "Fighter Found Dead in a Cell", New York Times, Dec. 27, 1910
  9. ↑ Boston Daily Globe, Jan. 11, 1910
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