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Real name: Oscar Matthew Nielson Nickname: the Durable Dane World lightweight champion 1908-10. Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, 5 June 1882 Died in Chicago, Illinois, USA, 7 February 1954 Career: 1896-1917 Total contests: 131. Won: 59 (38 KOs). Lost: 19. Drew: 19. No decision: 33, No contest: 1 |
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 Truly one of the toughest men to ever lace on a glove, Battling Nelson would use any means, fair or foul, to win a fight. If his orthodox punches failed to do the trick, he would employ his notorious "scissors hook". This was a short left hook aimed at the liver, with his thumb and forefinger extended to give a painfull pinch. If extra methods were needed, he would gouge his opponent's eyes or knee him in the groin.Remarkably, "the Durable Dane" was only disqualified twice. Either referees were more tolerant then, or they turned a blind eye to Nelson's notorious brand of butcherv. Novelist Jack London branded him "the Abysmal Brute".Born in Denmark, Nelson grew up in a suburb, of Chicago. He was a professional fighter at fourteen. His ability to absorb pain was made apparent in a fifteen-round contest, during which he broke his arm, but went on to win on points. He gained newspapermen's attention in an extraordinary bout in 1902. Nelson was knocked down seven times, but he floored Christy Williams forty-two times before stopping him in the seventeenth round. In another fight, against Aurelio Herrera, he did an involuntary somersault after being hit on the chin, yet came back to win the decision.After an impressive eighteenth-round knockout of Jimmy Britt, who claimed the "white lightweight title" during the reign of te great black fighter, Joe Gans, as legitimate world champion, Nelson challenged Gans in September 1906. Promoter Tex Rickard guaranteed Nelson $23,000, more than twice the champion's purse, to secure the fight for the mining town of Goldfield, Nevada. Nelson, outboxed and growing increasingly frustrated, lashed out with a low blow and was disqualified in the forty-second round.Nelson waited two years for another crack at Gans' title. This time he bulldozed his way through the champion's stylish defence and knocked him down nine times en route to a seventeenth round win. A third encounter in 1908, resulted in a knockout win for Nelson in the twenty-first round."The Durable Dane" finally met his match in Ad Wolgast, "the Michigan Wildcat", who was every bit as tough, vicious and unscrupulous as himself. In a bloody, brutal battle to the finish, the Marquis of Queensberry Rules were ignored in an orgy of eye-gouging, rabbit-punching, flying elbows and low blows During the seventh round, Nelson asked the dumbfounded referee "Don't we have any rules at all?"By the fortieth round, both of Nelson's eyes were closed and he could barely lift his arms. He was sent staggering by two hard rights and the referee, Eddie Smith, called a halt to the slaughter. Nelson, the blood spouting from his mouth as he spoke, protested that he would have finished off Wolgast in the next round if the "dumb referee" hadn't stopped him.Nelson never got a chance to regain the title, though he fought for another seven years.The effects of his long, hard battles were apparent when he was floored five times and knocked out in eleven rounds by Englishman Owen Moran, who was no more than a featherweight. He finally called it quits in 1917 after getting the worst of it in a no-decision bout with Freddie Welsh. Nelson lost all his hard-earned money and died in povety, aged seventy-two, in 1954. |
From: A Century of Boxing Greats by P. Myler, 1997
