Joe Glick

Joe Glick (1903-1978) was an American boxer from Brooklyn who established himself early as a top contender among junior lightweights.

Joe Glick was born in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, on February 22, 1903, and began training as a boxer in his teens.

He worked as a tailor prior to his boxing career.

Barely eighteen in 1921, he won nine of his first eleven fights in the Brooklyn area, showing exceptional promise at an early age.

Six of his first eleven wins were won by knockout.

He lost only two of his better publicized fights in 1922, setting an exceptional early fight record.

On January 26, 1923, he was knocked out by Petey Hayes at the 9th Coast Defense Armory in New York, but did not incur another loss until June 9, 1923, against Jimmy Hutchinson.

He had only two additional losses in 1923, as the quality of his competition continued to steadily improve.

Bernstein had briefly taken the World Jr. Lightweight Title on May 30, 1923, at the Coney Island Velodrome against Johnny Dundee.

Glick was unable to beat Bass in his three meetings, but did obtain one no decision.

He had two Junior Lightweight Title shots against Tod Morgan in 1926–27, but was unable to take the championship.

Moving up in weight class, he also excelled as a Lightweight.

His long career spanned twenty-three years and included over two hundred verified bouts.

At 23, in a ten-round bout on January 29, 1926, Glick defeated Johnny Dundee, the former 1923 Featherweight and Junior Lightweight champion who was nearing the end of an exceptional career.

According to the Milwaukee Sentinel, the rising Glick was a 2–1 favorite against Dundee, who, despite his reputation, had been retired from the ring for six months prior to his bout with Glick.

Partly as a result of this win, Glick was matched with Tod Morgan, Junior Lightweight Champion on September 30 of that year and was decisively defeated in his first fifteen-round title shot in Madison Square Garden.

According to the Associated Press, Glick took only one round of the fifteen-round match.

In between these two bouts with Morgan between January 1926 and December 1927, Glick stayed busy fighting exceptional boxers including Benny Bass and Jack Bernstein.

Future Boxing Hall of Fame recipient Bass would at one time hold both the World Jr. Lightweight and Featherweight Title.

In a second World Junior Lightweight Title on December 16, 1927, Glick fared better against Morgan in a controversial match.

Glick lost the bout as a result of punching Morgan below the belt in the fourteenth round.

At least one source, Oregon's Bend Bulletin wrote that for each of the three times Morgan was down on the canvas, "it was from a questionable body blow which was struck near the foul line."

The Bulletin also noted that the "9000 fans started yelling low blow as early as the second round".

Glick dropped Morgan for nine counts once in the second and twice in the fifth, and may have won the bout had he not been disqualified for a low left to the groin in the fourteenth by referee Eddie Forbes.

Morgan was hurt by loops to the head, often to the jaw, and digs to the body at several points in the bout.

Glick began the first with a strong and effective attack against Morgan.

Glick was first warned of a low blow in the third round, and had lost previous fights to low blows.

Though he was ahead on points prior to the foul, Glick subsequently lost his second chance at the Junior Lightweight title.

He would never get a third opportunity.

Shortly before his second bout with Morgan, he defeated Bernstein in a widely attended ten-round match on November 14, 1927, at Madison Square Garden.

Oddly, Glick was suspended for a full year from boxing by the Philadelphia Boxing Commission for stalling during his bout with Al Gordon in Philadelphia on February 13, 1928.

The suspension applied only to Philadelphia, and Glick fought extensively in New York and New Jersey the remainder of the year, meeting elite lightweights.

On November 16, 1928, in one of his most well attended bouts, Glick met Baby Joe Gans in Madison Square Garden in New York before a crowd of nearly 19,000.

The United Press expressed distaste in the quality of the match, though the local New York Times was quite impressed with the quality of Glick's fighting, and the crowd ardently supported the ten round points decision in favor of Glick, the New York native.

After the zenith of his early career as a Junior Lightweight in January 1929, Tex Ricard, manager for Jack Dempsey, still rated Glick third among top Lightweights in America.

In January and March 1929, Glick faced the exceptional Jimmy McLarnin, a former Lightweight champion, but lost to him in both bouts.

Glick's first bout with McLarnin in Madison Square Garden on January 11, garnered large attendance, and though Glick lost the ten round bout by unanimous decision, McLarnin's nose was broken in the bout.

His second bout with McLarnin in the Garden on March 1, attended by nearly 19,000, ended when Glick was knocked out in the second round.

Glick also lost to Louis "Kid Kaplan," former Featherweight champion, in April 1929.

In 1930, Glick fought Tony Canzoneri, former World Featherweight champion, and hall of famer Jackie "Kid" Berg, Featherweight World Champion from 1930 to 1931.