The history of championship bare-knuckle boxing in America traditionally starts with Tom Molineaux. So what better organization to honor him than the Police Gazette Boxing Corp, the oldest bare knuckle sanctioning body in America. Here’s the story of how it took until this month to get Molineaux his proper due.
Legend has it Tom Molineaux was born into slavery in Virginia in 1784 and won his freedom by winning boxing matches. Afterward, he moved to New York City and continued his boxing exploits, soon declaring himself “Champion of America.” At the time, however, America was not ready to honor its boxing champions and Molineaux decided to move to England in 1809 and ply his trade in a place that showed greater appreciation for the manly art. He won several fights there and had two famous bouts with English Champion Tom Cribb that Molineaux lost–one was very close–but that boosted his reputation nonetheless. In 1815, Molineaux retired from boxing and toured the British Isles putting on exhibitions. He was visiting Galway, Ireland, in 1818 when he suddenly died, apparently from tuberculosis. He is buried in Galway.
Twenty-seven years later, in 1845, the National Police Gazette published its first issue. Thirty-six years after that, in 1881, the Police Gazette announced that it would become the first boxing sanctioning organization in America and that championships had to be decided bare knuckle. All fighters were eligible for championships regardless of ethnicity, and for the next 13 years the Police Gazette did such a good job organizing and promoting boxing that the sport was finally legalized. However, by 1894 it was clear the laws would only allow the gloved version to continue. So the Police Gazette’s bare knuckle sanctioning went into hibernation.
Then in February 2016, two things happened. The first is the National Police Gazette reauthorized bare knuckle sanctioning, giving responsibility for the duties to Scott Burt of the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame, who had already been working for years to honor bare knuckle fighters. The other thing that happened that same month is PBS aired an episode of their show Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr in which hip hop star LL Cool J discovered he is a direct descendant of Tom Molineaux. Later, he did a podcast with Mike Tyson and explained to an impressed Tyson his relationship to Molineaux.
In 2021, Lorenzo Hunt won the Police Gazette World Cruiserweight Championship. Hunt and Scott Burt listened to the Tyson podcast and an idea was hatched. Hunt contacted LL Cool J about accepting his Police Gazette Belt as a way to honor Tom Molineaux, and LL Cool J agreed. Scott Burt rededicated the Belt and on August 5th the formal presentation took place at the Rock the Bells Festival in New York City. So 214 years after Tom Molineaux left New York and America, he finally received the championship recognition he deserved all along.
