Mike Collins was the son of Irish parents, born in Hudson, Wisconsin, to a family that included several children, and later, depending on your part of view, he was part of one of the most famous or infamous fight cards in the history of boxing. Some time after his death he was remembered in a story by one of the most famous sportswriters in the United States, this promoter, manager and boxing magazine publisher.
How did this son of Irish immigrants become so widely recognized among the nation’s sporting press, operating as he did from a base in the middle of the country, St. Paul, Minnesota, a location that got very little attention for many other even larger issues?
Shelby, Montana, that’s how.
Shelby is part of American boxing history and lore, the site of a professional boxing card in 1923 that bankrupt the tiny community of 500 people, a community that invested everything it had and more to put on a fight for the world heavyweight title matching the champion, Jack Dempsey against Tommy Gibbons, a contender from a boxing family in St. Paul. Tommy was relatively unknown outside boxing circles at the time although his brother Mike had been claimant to the middleweight championship of the world.
Mike Gibbons and Collins, in fact, became partners in Gibbons & Collins Boxing Promotions based out of the Exchange Bank Building in St. Paul. Apparently available throughout the day and evening, their stationery letterhead included numbers for their night telephones. Gibbons could be reached at Humboldt 1245, Collins at Kenwood 0926.
Collins became party to a group that included Dempsey’s manager, Jack “Doc” Kearns, in the staging of one of boxing’s truly historic fights in certainly one of the smallest if not the smallest town to host such a spectacle.
Collins was credited as matchmaker for the fight. Kearns was known for his shrewd wheeling dealing, although Shelby’s business leaders bore large shares of the blame themselves for what became a fleecing of the small community. Oil had been discovered in the surrounding area and there was a train stop in Shelby offering sales potential for entrepreneurs and real estate hucksters.
Even Damon Runyon, the celebrated journalist and short story writer, found interest enough to write about the fight and Collins after his death. In one article, Runyon penned the following:
Mike Collins died in Minnesota some weeks ago. I was with Jack Kearns in Chicago one day when he got a long-distance telephone call. He came out of the phone booth grinning. That was Mike Collins, he said. He has got his kiddin’ clothes on. He says some guy has wired him offering me (by that, he meant Dempsey) $200,000 to fight Tom Gibbons in some place in Montana called Shelby.
I never heard of Shelby, I said. Neither did I, said Kearns, and I’ve been around Montana quite a bit. I don’t think Mike ever heard of it himself. He is just putting on a rib. No, in fact, Collins was not putting him on, and Kearns went on to negotiate a contract of $300,000, not $200,000 as originally offered. In an attempt to reach the patriotic side of would-be customers, the fight was scheduled for July 4. It did not help. The citizenry of Shelby and the surrounding area could not afford the $20 to $50 ticket prices. There were some 7,702 paid admissions. More than 12,000 reportedly barged their way past ticket-takers without paying a cent.
Kearns in particular and Dempsey to a smaller extent went to the bank. Shelby’s four banks went broke. Gibbons, who lost the 15-round decision in the blistering heat, profited to a much smaller and incommensurate amount, according to some accounts not much more than expenses, although family members have discounted those claims. Collins, of course, had a widely varied career in boxing. He managed fighters, heavyweight Fred Fulton of Rochester among them, put on numerous boxing promotions, published the Boxing Blade, as well as Ring Battles of the Ages: A Complete and Gripping Story of all the great Heavyweight fights of which History Has Made Mention.
Shelby, however, wasn’t the only controversial promotion of his career. Minnesota did not legalize boxing until 1915, so Collins promoted fights in Hudson under Wisconsin guidelines. In 1914 he promoted a fight between Mike Gibbons, a classic, scientific boxer, and Bob Moha, a roughhouse brawler from Milwaukee.
Moha fouled Gibbons in the second round, hitting him below the belt and was disqualified. Collins refused to pay Moha and the case went to court, where it was debated for two years, until the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Moha had violated his contract by fouling his opponent and was not entitled to remuneration.
Evidence produced during the trials included Gibbons’ protective cup which was thoroughly dented, prompting some to wonder if someone hadn’t taken a sledge hammer to it. Collins became forever connected to Shelby, but he wrote his boxing legacy by promoting fights, by managing boxers and by writing and editing his publications, a legacy now recognized by the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame.
