George Lewis Rickard
George Lewis "Tex" Rickard was an American
boxing promoter, and founder of the New York Rangers
National Hockey League franchise. During the
1920s, Tex Rickard was the leading promoter of the day, and he has been compared to
P.T. Barnum and Don King.
In 1925, Tex secured the rights to promote live events from
Madison Square Garden in
New York. A key business partner of Rickard's in this period was a concert and boxing promoter named Jess McMahon, who is the grandfather of current
World Wrestling Entertainment promoter
Vince McMahon.
Encyclopedia
George Lewis "Tex" Rickard was an American
boxing promoter, and founder of the New York Rangers
National Hockey League franchise. During the
1920s, Tex Rickard was the leading promoter of the day, and he has been compared to
P.T. Barnum and Don King.
In 1925, Tex secured the rights to promote live events from
Madison Square Garden in
New York. A key business partner of Rickard's in this period was a concert and boxing promoter named Jess McMahon, who is the grandfather of current
World Wrestling Entertainment promoter
Vince McMahon. However, due to Rickard disliking the sport of
professional wrestling, he did not co-promote wrestling events with McMahon, and it was not until 1935 that McMahon's son,
Vincent J. McMahon, would begin promoting his Capitol Wrestling Corporation events. In spite of these objections to pro wrestling, Rickard and McMahon did promote boxing matches like the December 11, 1925 Light-Heavyweight championship match between Jack Delaney and Paul Berlenbach.
In the 1920's, the best boxing promoters and managers were instrumental in bringing boxing to new audiences and provoking
media and public interest. Arguably the most famous of all three-way partnership was that of
Jack Dempsey , his manager Jack Kearns, and Rickard as promoter. Together they grossed US$ 8.4 million in only five fights between 1921 and 1927 and ushered in a "golden age" of popularity for professional boxing in the 1920s. They were also responsible for the first live radio broadcast of a title-fight .
Tex Rickard was awarded an NHL franchise in 1926 to compete with the now-long-forgotten
New York Americans. The team was immediately dubbed "Tex's Rangers", and the nickname stuck. Rickard managed to get future legendary
Toronto Maple Leafs coach Conn Smythe to assemble the team, but Smythe was replaced by
Lester Patrick before the inaugural season. The team turned out to be a winner; in their first season, the Rangers finished atop the American Division, but would lose to the
Boston Bruins in the playoffs.
The Rangers won the
Stanley Cup over the long-defunct
Montreal Maroons in only their second year in business, but it was not without some desperation: coach Patrick had to be their goaltender for two periods of game two of the finals after regular goalie
Lorne Chabot was injured. He opened "Boston Madison Square Garden" in 1928. The name got clipped to
Boston Garden.
He was engaged in fight promotion in Miami Beach when he died June 5, 1929, of complications following an appendectomy.
See also: Boxing in the 1920s
Trivia
- One of the rumors surrounding the mysterious Etta Place was that she married Rickard around 1910, and the two moved to Paraguay, where he built her a ranch before he decided to return to promoting boxing. Place was the girlfriend of the Sundance Kid
[i]
...
, the famous
outlaw that rode with
Butch Cassidy and the
Wild Bunch. The rumor is not confirmed.
