Boxing Promoter: Tex Rickard

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George Lewis Tex Rickard was arguably the greatest fight promoter of all time. Rickard was born in the state of Missouri before moving to Texas at a young age. At just 9 years old, Tex finished up with his schooling career in search of money making alternatives. He would begin working as a young cowboy in the Texan cattle arena. At the age of 24, Tex moved to Alaska during the gold rush days where he would stay for over a decade. Always in pursuit of finding a greater dollar, Tex followed the gold rush through to the state of Nevada, the state where he found the career that would make him famous.

Being a gambling man, Tex would try his luck at a sport he knew little about. Boxing took his fancy and after promoting the successful "Joe Gans vs Battling Nelson" bout, he found some serious national attention. He improved his promotional skills and his boxing knowledge over the next few years before making good coin on the bout that he billed as "Fight of the century" that consisted of Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries.

Rickard believed that spending big amounts of cash on building up fights would attract big amounts of publicity, which in turn helped him have huge financial successes with his promotions. The cowboy, turned gambling man, turned fight promoter made his money work for him and cashed in big after some major bouts from his favorite draw card; a slugger named Jack Dempsey.

With Jack Dempsey in his pocket, Rickard took the sport of prize fighting into a new era by promoting the first ever million dollar match. A crowd of over 80,000 people flocked in to watch Dempsey destroy Frenchman Georges Carpentier. It's said that the gate takings reached more than 1.7 million dollars.

Rickard and Dempsey continued to do good numbers together; a few years after the Carpentier fight, Dempsey would battle Gene Tunney in front of a crowd well over 120,000 people. Though Dempsey lost the fight, the gate takings reached over 1.8 million dollars; a real winning promotion. The rematch between the two men would draw a smaller crowd (over 100,000) but the takings smashed their previous record and is said to have reached a total of over 2.5 million dollars.

Rickard's life was one of many achievements. Not only did he promote some of the biggest names in prize fighting history, but he also built the New Madison Square Garden; Built the Boston Garden; Founded the New York Rangers hockey team and helped start the Ring Magazine. He died on the 6th of January, 1929 and was later inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.