HELL RAISER
ONETIME CHAMPION BATTLING SIKI WAS KNOWN AS A TROUBLEMAKER AND PROVOCATEUR BOTH IN AND OUT OF THE RING – POSSIBLY TO THE POINT OF GETTING HIM KILLED by Don Stradley
A patrolman discovered the corpse at 4:10 a.m., December 16, 1925. The body of a young Black man was face down in the gutter at 348 West 41st Street. There were three cents in his pocket and two bullet wounds in his back. Such a find wasn’t so unusual in a Manhattan neighborhood known as Hell’s Kitchen, allegedly named by the local police for its hellish atmosphere and rampant crimes. But this time, the corpse belonged to a man who had been the light heavyweight champion of the world, a flamboyant brawler known as Battling Siki. He was 28. Siki had been a familiar presence in the area and was known for three things: being drunk, being broke and causing trouble. “He was a good husband,” said his wife, Lillian, “but he was just a mischievous boy.” What sort of mischief resulted in Siki’s murder? Whether he was walking his pet
lion cubs down the Champs-Elysees in Paris or destroying barrooms like they were matchstick houses, Siki’s eccentric approach to life had made him a natural headline-grabber. Though initially depicted by his manager as an untamed jungle man, reporters eventually learned he’d been born in the French colony of Senegal in West Africa. His real name was Amadou M’Barick Fall, and he purportedly spoke several languages. His complex personal life included a common- law wife back in Paris, whom he’d abandoned to marry Lillian. He’d also served honorably during the First World War. But even if he wasn’t the ignorant savage that his manager described, Siki was a sort of manchild, stubborn, silly and probably an alcoholic. In the shadow world of boxing where few could be trusted, he was lucky to have lasted as long as he did. In 1922, he’d won the light heavyweight title from Georges Carpentier in France. Siki and others claimed the contest had been rigged for Carpentier to win, but the strongman from French Senegal ignored the arrangement and stopped Carpentier in
the sixth. Siki lost the title soon after in Dublin to Mike McTigue. Siki claimed Irish soldiers had threatened to shoot him if he hurt their man. Sans title, Siki hoped to resurrect his career in America, but he’d apparently left all his skills at the bottom of a champagne glass. His fights played out like farces. Siki clowned for the audience, standing up between rounds to break out the latest Broadway dance craze – the Charleston – while waiting for the bell. It was this version of Siki, more court jester than gladiator, that landed in Hell’s Kitchen, a place where unsolved murders were as common as fire hydrants. Just hours before the murder, a patrolman named John Meehan spotted Siki stumbling down 9th Ave in his usual drunken state. Siki said hello and lurched away into the darkness, supposedly to his home nearby on West 42nd Street. Meehan found Siki’s body a short time later. Three months passed before detectives locked in on a suspect, an 18-year-old local punk named Martin Maroney. Undercover cops had overheard him discussing the murder
Siki in his prime, shortly after winning the light heavyweight crown.
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