Real name Giuseppe Curreri Nationality American Height 1.63 m Nickname(s) Scotch Wop Stance Orthodox Martial art Boxing | Name Johnny Dundee Total fights 333 Reach 63 in (160 cm) Role Boxer Draws 45 | |
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Division Featherweight, Lightweight, Super featherweight | ||
Eugène Criqui Vs Kilbane & Dundee
Johnny "Scotch Wop" Dundee (November 19, 1893 – April 22, 1965) was a featherweight and junior lightweight champion boxer who fought from 1910 until 1932. He was born Giuseppe Curreri in Sciacca, Sicily, but was raised in the United States. Though Dundee was a clever boxer with little knockout power, he was highly skilled at fighting off the ropes and was always in outstanding condition. Statistical boxing website BoxRec lists Dundee as the #3 ranked featherweight of all time, while The Ring Magazine founder Nat Fleischer placed him at #4. The International Boxing Research Organization rates Dundee as the 5th best featherweight ever and boxing historian Bert Sugar placed him 32nd in his Top 100 Fighters catalogue. Dundee was elected to the Ring Magazine Hall of Fame in 1957 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991.
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Johnny Dundee
World featherweight champion
Dundee earned a world title fight in his 87th fight and fought to a draw with World Featherweight champion Johnny Kilbane in 1913. The slick boxer waited until his 265th fight for another shot at the title. His patience paid off. He won the junior lightweight championship in 1921 when his opponent, George "KO" Chaney, was disqualified in the fifth round. Dundee earned the distinction of being the first universally recognized junior lightweight champion in history. Then in 1922 he knocked out Danny Frush to earn recognition in New York State as the featherweight champion of the world.
On July 6, 1922, Dundee defeated "Little" Jackie Sharkey by unanimous decision in a fifteen-round Junior Lightweight title bout at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Sharkey was down briefly in the fourth, and again in the fifteenth in what several boxing critics considered only a modest showing for Dundee. The New York Evening World wrote that Dundee was "losing his fighting fire", by allowing the bout to go fifteen rounds. The Evening World considered Dundee to have taken every round, though he made a strong showing in the early part of the fourth. Sharkey had lost earlier to Buff on January 15, 1920, in an eight-round newspaper decision of The Jersey Journal in Jersey City, New Jersey. The bout was quite exciting and Sharkey was said to excel at infighting having a reach advantage over Dundee. The bout was close and pushed Dundee to his limits, though he won "by a shade".
Dundee successfully defended his junior lightweight crown three times before losing it to Jack Bernstein in 1923. Two fights later he unified the featherweight title by defeating Eugene Criqui and finished 1923 by regaining the junior lightweight title in a rematch with Bernstein.
Later career
Dundee lost the junior lightweight title to Steve Sullivan on June 20, 1924, and then relinquished the featherweight crown two months later. The last significant fight of his career was in 1927 when he challenged featherweight champion Tony Canzoneri but lost a 15-round decision. Dundee finally retired in 1932 after posting a six-round decision over Mickey Greb.
Legacy
Dundee faced all of the great fighters in the featherweight, junior-lightweight, and lightweight divisions of his era. He fought the great Benny Leonard nine times, Lew Tendler three times, and boxed lightweight champions Freddie Welsh and Willie Ritchie.
Dundee was regarded as a skillful boxer with great footwork. During his career he had 330 bouts and won featherweight and junior lightweight titles. Only two fighters in history, Len Wickwar (463) and Jack Britton (350) had more fights than Dundee. Perhaps more remarkable was that Dundee was knocked out only twice in his long career.