When African-American boxer Gunboat Jack made boxing the ‘biggest sporting draw’ in Bangalore

Boxer Gunboat Jack. From the late 1800s and until the mid-1900s, boxing, like golf and polo, was a big part of Bangalore’s sporting culture. Among the city’s top-notch boxers was, quite strangely, a non-Indian with a unique name – Gunboat Jack. He became the welter-weight, middle-weight and light heavy-weight champion of India.His real name was James Cozley, an African-American boxer who made Bangalore his home. He had an illustrious career as “Champion of the East”, rising from welter to light-...