The Makings of an Unlikely Catalyst
As it happened, one of the first times that the stars aligned for commercial radio was practically an accident. A now-forgotten Mr. Hopp suggested something which caught the correct person's ear, and which - with help from enthusiastic radio fans - also tapped into a great reserve of pent-up energy in the radio engineering community. As things played out, scores of engineers got involved, as did the young Radio Corporation of America, the Delaware Lackawanna and Western Railroad, a French war hero, a one-time Klondike prospector, a tough guy accused of dodging the draft, and the Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy.
Tex Rickard
The 1920s already were roaring loud. Newsmakers kept making bigger news, athletes kept winning bigger victories, and just to make sure that you didn't miss something big, press agents and promoters made certain that you heard about everything. In the latter category, there was no one like George Rickard.
Tex Rickard
Wikipedia.com
Rickard was a dapper man with a flashy resume. He once had been a cowboy, until a Texas town elected him its Marshal. He later went to the Klondike, where he really did strike gold, which he used to build several hotels. He then traveled to Paraguay, where he lost his fortune when war broke out because of disagreements over international boundaries. Back in New York, the old Madison Square Garden still stood at Madison Square, so Rickard leased it, hoping to promote prize fighting. He made so much money as a boxing promoter that in a few more years he would build a new, bigger Garden, designed primarily for boxing, at 8th Avenue and 50th Streets. When the new arena was ready, into it he would place a new hockey team called the Rangers, who would win the Stanley Cup in their second year.
In 1921, Rickard was working on his long-term plan. He hoped to heighten public interest in boxing, partly by publicizing fighters so that people saw them as stars, partly by building a string of seven large boxing arenas across the country. He would make his biggest fortune ever. A key element of this plan would be promoting a fight that garnered worldwide attention. Instead of calling it The Biggest Fight Ever, Rickard more modestly labeled it The Fight of the Century. He already had decided who the fighters would be.
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