Brunch Boxing Remembers: Jack Blackburn
- Matthew Brown
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
02/10/2026
He never wore a world championship belt as a fighter. Instead he forged champions with knowledge, discipline, and belief. In the long story of boxing, that legacy endures.
Charles Henry Blackburn was born on May 20, 1883 in Versailles, Kentucky, the son of a minister. Known to history as Jack Blackburn and to Joe Louis as Chappie, he built a life in boxing that stretched from the bare knuckle grind of the early 1900s to the bright lights of heavyweight championship nights.
Blackburn moved to Indiana at age ten and was raised in Indianapolis and Terre Haute. As a teenager he discovered boxing. One story recalls him hired as a sparring partner for a day who nearly knocked out the man he was meant to help. Fighting professionally from 1901 to 1923, he began as a lightweight and later campaigned as a welterweight. Though he never captured a world title, he earned deep respect for his ring intelligence and exceptional defense.
His official record lists 99 wins, 26 losses, and 19 draws with 39 knockouts across 147 recorded bouts, though many fights from that era were never fully documented. He often gave away weight and still held his own. He sparred with Jack Johnson and once bloodied the future heavyweight champion’s nose in the gym. At 135 pounds he stood firm against larger men and sometimes beat them.
Blackburn shared the ring with a roll call of legends. He fought Joe Gans three times in no decision bouts and defeated him once by newspaper verdict in Philadelphia in 1903 despite being dropped early. He lost a fifteen round decision to Gans in Baltimore in 1904 and later fell to him again in 1906. He met Sam Langford six times, battling to multiple draws in fierce contests where he was often outweighed by as much as thirty pounds. In Boston and Philadelphia newspapers frequently credited Blackburn with having the better of their early meetings.
He also faced Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, Harry Lewis, Harry Greb, Panama Joe Gans, and many other standouts. Against Lewis in 1907 he delivered a master class in defense and distance, using a sharp left jab and a three inch reach edge to outbox the future welterweight champion according to local reports. When he met Greb in 1915, the Pittsburgh papers praised his ability to block, slip, and sidestep even as youth and volume punching favored Greb.
Blackburn fought Dave Holly at least five times in Philadelphia area bouts that were largely no decision affairs judged by newspapers. He traded punches with George Gunther ten times, scoring a fifth round knockout in 1907 with a perfectly timed right hand. He defeated Jimmy Gardner, Blink McCloskey, George Cole, Mike Donovan, and Young Ahearn in hard fought matches across Pennsylvania and beyond.
Not all of his battles were clean or confined to the ring. In 1909 an argument involving his common law wife escalated into a shooting that left a man dead. Blackburn was sentenced to fifteen years and served four years and eight months before release for good behavior. The incident left a scar down the left side of his face and marked a turning point in his life. After prison he continued fighting but advancing age and lost time dulled his results. He retired in his mid thirties, attempted a brief comeback, and fought on until 1923.
In 1914 he gave away thirty pounds to heavyweight Gunboat Smith and still pressed the action despite knockdowns. In 1920 he was stopped by the younger and heavier Kid Norfolk. In 1922 Panama Joe Gans halted him in Indianapolis. His final bout came in 1923 when at forty he could no longer answer the bell with the same force.
If Blackburn’s in ring career brought respect, his second act brought immortality.
After drifting through odd jobs in Chicago, he was introduced by John Roxborough and Julian Black to a young Golden Gloves standout named Joe Louis. Blackburn agreed to train him in 1934 and laid down strict rules. Louis listened. From balance and timing to punch accuracy and psychological feints, Blackburn taught him the fine points. He would raise a brick in his hand and force Louis to duck, then explain how to use expectation against an opponent. He studied each rival and instructed Louis when to conserve energy and when to close the show.
On June 22, 1937 at Comiskey Park, Joe Louis knocked out Jim Braddock to win the world heavyweight championship with Blackburn in his corner. Louis would defend the title twenty times. After Max Schmeling handed Louis his first defeat, Blackburn publicly credited Schmeling and privately wept in the dressing room. He was teacher, strategist, and father figure. Louis later said he lost three people when Chappie died.
Blackburn also shaped other champions. He helped mold Sammy Mandell before Mandell won the lightweight crown in 1926. He worked with light heavyweight champion John Henry Lewis and bantamweight champion Bud Taylor. His trainees included Art Lasky, Jackie Fields, Lew Tendler, Sailor Freedman, Von Porat, Billy Ryan, and briefly Jersey Joe Walcott.
His life outside the ropes remained turbulent. He struggled with alcohol and carried a gun. In 1935 he was indicted for manslaughter after a shooting but was found not guilty. His health declined in the early 1940s. After months of pneumonia he died of a heart attack on April 24, 1942 during a routine physical. Only months earlier he had been in Louis’s corner. Thousands attended his funeral at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago. He was buried at Lincoln Cemetery. Louis and his wife later named their first child Jacqueline in his honor.
In 1992, Jack Blackburn was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame for his exploits as a trainer.
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