![\"CoffeeCooler\"](\"http:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/CoffeeCooler-190x300.jpg\")
<\/a>By Chris \u201cMan of Few Words\u201d Benedict<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cMr. Archibald of the Standard Oil got tickets for us\u2026went to the Athletic Club last Saturday night and saw the Coffee Cooler dust off another prizefighter in great style,\u201d Mark Twain wrote to his wife Olivia on January 4, 1894 after watching Frank Craig defeat Joe Ellingsworth in New York City.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were 10 rounds, but at the end of the fifth the Coffee Cooler knocked the white man down and he couldn\u2019t get up anymore (official records list it as a 7th round KO). A round consists of only 3 minutes, then the men retire to their corners and sit down and lean their heads back against a post and gasp and pant like fishes while one man fans them with a fan, another with a table-cloth, another rubs their legs and sponges off their face and shoulders and blows sprays of water in their faces from his own mouth. Only one minute is allowed for this, then time is called and they jump up and go to fighting again. It is absorbingly interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The man Mark Twain was so taken with was Frank Craig, who at that time was the Colored Middleweight Champion and kept company with \u201cBarbados Demon\u201d Joe Walcott (no, \u201cJersey Joe\u201d was not the first) and George Dixon, the first black world champion in any division (first in 1890 as bantamweight and a year later at featherweight), nearly two decades prior to Jack Johnson and even twelve years before the great lightweight Joe Gans dethroned Frank Erne courtesy of a first round knockout. By virtue of the fact that Dixon was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, Gans is credited with being the first African American (emphasis on American) champion.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, Frank Craig, as mentioned by the former Samuel Clemens, also had what simply must be the best and most original nickname in the colorful history of the fight game.
\n\u201cThe Harlem Coffee Cooler\u201d. How no outside-the-box-thinking caf\u00e9 owner in Harlem ever appropriated his name to feature on a sign above the door of their beanery is beyond me. In any event, given to the hyperbolic predilection of accepting and co-opting tall tales as gospel truth as Ring Magazine founder Nat Fleischer may have been, he swore by the account given by George Dixon as to how Craig\u2019s moniker was bestowed upon him in the fourth of five volumes of his masterful study of African American pugilists Black Dynamite.<\/p>\n
Haunted by the ceaseless challenges of a local \u201cgutter fighter\u201d known as \u201cBully\u201d Singleton, who harbored no aspirations toward a legitimate boxing career and was envious of the attention being given to Craig because of his, Frank quite literally took matters into his own hands one night in a restaurant where he and a friend were dining. Nursing a nasty hang over which hardly helped his already characteristically surly mood, Singleton stumbled in and ordered \u201cblack coffee, hot, and plenty of it.\u201d Taking notice of Craig, he immediately began hectoring the prizefighter, trying to tempt him out into the alley. To his surprise, Craig had had enough of Singleton\u2019s shenanigans and called his bluff before \u201cBully\u201d could take a sip of his first steaming cup, which Singleton assured the excited patrons \u201cwill be plenty hot when I come back here.\u201d<\/p>\n
He may have been born on April 1st (in 1868), but Craig was no one\u2019s fool. Without landing a single punch, as the story goes, Singleton was greeted with a straight left from Frank, followed by right hooks to the jaw and body shots with both hands before being laid out with a lip-splitting right uppercut. His antagonist showing no signs of life, Craig joked that \u201cI guess his coffee will be cool enough by the time he gets round to drinking it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d put an exclamation point on his April 7, 1891 fistic debut with a 10th round knockout of Seaman Fisher, who would have been better suited to a career in marine biology from the sound of his name and, considering that this seems to have been his only fight, may well have been persuaded to switch vocations. His first loss came against Billy Dunn by way of 3rd round knockout in his fifth professional scrap and would manage no better than a draw in their two subsequent instances of renewing hostilities. Sandwiched between the Dunn fights was an opportunity for \u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d to put his appropriately named opponent GW Coffey on ice in the first round.<\/p>\n
Frank challenged Philadelphia\u2019s Joe Butler for the Colored Middleweight Title on March 18, 1893 and was rewarded for his efforts in traveling to Butler\u2019s hometown by falling victim to a 2nd round knockout. Having rebounded with victories over Steve O\u2019 Donnell, an Australian heavyweight and prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Peter Jackson, and O\u2019 Donnell\u2019s countryman Billy McCarthy, avenging a prior loss to the highly regarded Aussie middleweight, Craig next took on Joe Ellingsworth in the aforementioned match attended by the author of the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. It was arranged by New York Athletic Club matchmaker Mike Donovan who offered Ellingsworth a $200 incentive on top of the $1,500 purse if he could knock \u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d out. Instead, Joe peeled himself off the canvas and walked off empty-handed.<\/p>\n
Consecutive four-round points losses to undefeated Australian middleweight champion Dan Creedon were equalized by a battering of Dick Baker at New York\u2019s Lenox Lyceum so one-sided, reported The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, that police stormed the ring to stop the fight after Craig had knocked Baker down for the third time in less than a minute. The four-round decision rendered in the rematch with Joe Butler went Frank\u2019s way and, in unfriendly Philadelphia no less, \u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d was crowned Colored Middleweight Champion on February 20, 1894.<\/p>\n
With George Dixon in his corner, Craig faced off against Peter Maher, an Irishman renowned for a murderous right hand, at the Boston Music Hall five months later. Respectfully wary of Maher\u2019s right, Frank fought defensively, jabbing and counterpunching from a safe distance, but buckled Maher\u2019s knees with a right cross of his own before the bell ending the second round, as Fleischer misremembers-the fight actually ended in that stanza. John L. Sullivan, sitting ringside, leapt upon the ring apron and, shoving Maher\u2019s seconds aside, ministered to the shaken Irishman with a whiskey bottle. \u201cTake a swig of that, Peter,\u201d urged Sullivan, \u201cthen go in and knock his head off.\u201d Which is damn near what happened as a rejuvenated Maher smashed a punishing right uppercut into Craig\u2019s jaw. \u201cFrank\u2019s feet shot into the air, he seemed to turn a half hand-spring, and crashed sideways to the floor,\u201d Fleischer wrote. George Dixon, not alone in fearing that his friend might be dead, dashed between the ropes to watch in relief as Craig was revived by a bottle of ammonia held beneath his nostrils. This would be his last fight on American soil for more than five years, as he would vacate the United States, not to mention the Colored Middleweight Title he never once defended.<\/p>\n
Frank Craig followed in the footsteps of \u201cThe Black Prince\u201d Peter Jackson who, just years before, had crossed the Atlantic and enjoyed not only professional success but celebrity status. Similarly, the British citizens seemed as smitten with \u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d for his proficiency at prizefighting as they were his penchant for chewing gum, a trend that accelerated considerably in the wake of Craig\u2019s arrival in the United Kingdom. His London debut saw him square off against John O\u2019 Brien at Covent Gardens\u2019 National Sporting Club. \u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d apparently had a taste for pastry and was seen dictating a telegram to an usher from his corner inside the ring intended for his landlady who had promised him apple dumplings upon his return home. Sensing a short night\u2019s work, Craig asked that she have them ready sooner than later. Sure enough, it took all of two rounds for Frank to dispose of O\u2019 Brien and he was forced to waste little precious time in satisfying his sweet tooth.<\/p>\n
His British sojourn began with a winning streak of a baker\u2019s dozen. Craig fought 11 times alone in November 1894 (five days in a row at one stretch), all but one of those victories coming by way of knockout. A faceoff with Frank Slavin at Holborn\u2019s Central Hall did not go nearly as well. Having publicly mocked the tentative Australian until he finally relented to Craig\u2019s taunts, Frank \u201centered the ring attired in a huge green dressing gown\u201d and \u201csat in the corner playing a mouth organ whilst awaiting the arrival of Frank Slavin\u201d, according to the Cessnock Eagle. Scheduled for 20 rounds, Craig came out of a crouch in the opening minute of the fight only to be instantly obliterated by a left\/right combination.<\/p>\n
What was supposed to have been an April 13th meeting with Ted Pritchard wound up being a re-acquaintance with John O\u2019Brien instead. The Yorkshire Herald published an account of the evening which claimed that O\u2019Brien was a last-minute replacement for Pritchard who was suffering an undisclosed illness. Evidently O\u2019Brien had been \u201cdrinking in a pub from which he had to be fetched, entered the ring blind drunk, and had a job standing up before somehow getting through the first round, only to retire.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was right around this time that Craig was swept up into the web of intrigue enveloping Oscar Wilde\u2019s 1895 indecency trial when a 28 year-old laborer named Vincent Crawford (or vice versa) survived a suicide attempt after jumping out of his window rather than be subject to the threats alluded to in a series of letters from Wilde. Whether Crawford (or Vincent) was involved intimately or simply peripherally with the Pictures of Dorian Gray author, it is safe to assume that he must have been in possession of some rather scandalous knowledge concerning Wilde\u2019s homosexual lifestyle which was the focus of the smear campaign. It is suggested that the missives contained warnings that Vincent\u2019s testimony would lead to grievous bodily harm and rumors swirled that none other than \u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d was the ruffian intended to carry out Wilde\u2019s supposedly sinister bidding.<\/p>\n
Frank Craig returned to his native New York in September 1899 to much pomp and circumstance. His steamer was met at the harbor by thousands of spectators, so many so that-while a brass band played \u201cHail to the Chief\u201d (verses having been adapted from Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, appropriately enough)-two people were nudged off the dock and into the waters below from where they required rescue. Unfortunately, the pugilistic displays put on by \u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d after the fact did not exactly justify such ceremony, winless in four fights. Two of these losses came against Jack Root who, six years later, would go up against (and get knocked out by) Marvin Hart for the World Heavyweight Title vacated by James J. Jeffries who also refereed the contest.<\/p>\n
Craig\u2019s return to London would go uninterrupted but for a handful of trips to Ireland from that point forward. In August 1900, \u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d put on a sparring exhibition at Sunderland that concluded with his customary challenge to anyone present to last three rounds with him, one which was taken up by a dock worker who Craig demolished with no apparent problem. The crowd took exception to the treatment of the local strong man and it is said that an orange thrown with great velocity from the music hall\u2019s upper rafters was sufficient to floor \u201cThe Cooler\u201d. Be that as it may, irate shipyard workers set upon the stage to exact revenge in the name of their fallen comrade and Craig was only able to flee to the safety of his dressing room seconds before the heavy protective curtain descended from the ceiling. In what came to be known as The Sunderland Riot, the bloodthirsty mob raged through the streets outside, taking out their frustrations by horribly beating a black acrobat who had been performing on the bill as well because he resembled \u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d closely enough to suit their awful needs.<\/p>\n
Craig is supposed to have worked in conjunction with promoter Bella Borge to stage a battle royal at Blackfriar Ring in London\u2019s East End. These sad spectacles involved up to a dozen black men (sometimes blindfolded) fighting for the amusement and profit of mostly white bystanders and, for the victor, perhaps a bottle of rot-gut whiskey or whatever pocket change was tossed onto the canvas. This unsubstantiated incident is supposed to have worked out in the financial favor of \u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d when he inserted a pre-arranged ringer into the competition who easily emerged as the last man standing, earning a handsome sum from local bookmakers which was split between the mischievous co-conspirators.<\/p>\n
Though gaining in age and slipping in strength and dexterity, Craig fought on until 1912 and even staged a one-night-only comeback ten years later, a three-round decision loss to Jim Rideout. Frank\u2019s official career record stood at 69-39-10, 43 KOs. The October 16, 1937 issue of Britain\u2019s News of the World carried a story chronicling the sad decline of \u201cThe Coffee Cooler\u201d, appearing before a magistrate after having been charged with striking a black woman over the head with a bottle. Furthermore, the article stated that Craig, now in his late sixties, had been reduced to $25 a week stints in boxing booths at fairs and carnivals, taking on any and all comers.<\/p>\n
Frank Craig died in Chelsea, England in January 1943 at the age of 74. In his travel book Following the Equator, Craig\u2019s one-time admirer Mark Twain wrote that \u201cTruth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.\u201d However vaguely Craig\u2019s legacy may be mired between the distant realms of reality and speculative fantasy, one thing remains certain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Harlem Coffee Cooler\u201d is the uncrowned champion of badass boxing nicknames.<\/strong><\/p>\n[si-contact-form form=’2′]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Chris \u201cMan of Few Words\u201d Benedict \u201cMr. Archibald of the Standard Oil got tickets for us\u2026went to the Athletic Club last Saturday night and saw the Coffee Cooler dust off another prizefighter in great style,\u201d Mark Twain wrote to his wife Olivia on January 4, 1894 after watching Frank Craig defeat Joe Ellingsworth in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13430],"class_list":["post-54533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-frank-craig-the-harlem-coffee-cooler-do-you-take-your-boxing-legends-with-one-lump-or-two"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54533"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}