Eugène Criqui

Eugène Criqui
Statistics
Real name	Eugène Criqui
Rated at	Featherweight
Nationality	French
Born	August 15, 1893 Paris, France
Died	July 7, 1977(1977-07-07) (aged 83) Noisy-le-Grand, France
Stance	Orthodox
Boxing record
Total fights	130
Wins	98
Wins by KO	53
Losses	17
Draws	14
No contests	0

Eugène Criqui (August 15, 1893 – July 7, 1977) was a French boxer who held the world featherweight title in 1923. After his death, he was added to the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

Boxing career

Criqui in fighting pose

Early career and military service

Criqui was born in the Belleville neighbourhood of Paris. He was a professional pipe-fitter before he turned professional in 1910. He won the French flyweight title in 1912. His boxing career was interrupted when he served in the French military in World War I. While doing guard duty at Verdun, his jaw was shattered by a sniper's bullet. A surgeon reconstructed the jaw using wire, silver, and a goat leg.^[1]

World featherweight champion

After the war he resumed boxing. He won the French featherweight title in 1921 and the next year won the European Boxing Union featherweight championship. On June 2, 1923, he beat Johnny Kilbane by a sixth-round knockout in New York City to win the world featherweight title. Part of the contract for this fight required that he give Johnny Dundee a shot at the title within sixty days. When he fought Dundee fifty-four days later (on July 26, 1923), Dundee knocked him down four times and beat him by a fifteen-round decision. In his next fight, Criqui injured his hand and did not fight many more fights before he retired in 1928.^[2]

Death

He died blind in a nursing home in 1977.^[2] He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005, making him the second inductee from France after Marcel Cerdan.

Notable Bouts

Result	Opponent	Type	Rd., Time	Date	Location	Notes[3]
Loss	Panama Al Brown	PTS	10	1927-04-02	Velodrome d'Hiver, Paris
Loss	Johnny Dundee	PTS	15	1923-07-26	Polo Grounds, New York, New York	Lost World Featherweight Title
Win	Johnny Kilbane	TKO	6 (15)	1923-06-02	Polo Grounds, New York, New York	Won World Featherweight Title
Win	Charles Ledoux	KO	1 (15)	1922-02-04	Paris
Loss	Memphis Pal Moore	TKO	14 (15)	1919-12-26	Royal Albert Hall, Kensington, London
Loss	Charles Ledoux	TKO	12 (20)	1914-07-10	Premierland, Paris
Loss	Percy Jones	PTS	20	1914-03-26	Liverpool Stadium, Liverpool, Merseyside
Win	Percy Jones	PTS	15	1914-02-12	Liverpool Stadium, Liverpool, Merseyside
Loss	Sid Smith	UD	20	1913-04-11	Premierland, Paris

References

1. ↑ Stradley, Don (June 2005), "Marcel Thil & Eugène Criqui: Two Forgotten Frenchmen Immortalized at Last", The Ring, 84, no. 5: 74–75 
2. 1 2 Stradley, Don (June 2005), The Ring: 75  Missing or empty |title= (help)
3. ↑ Eugène Criqui's Professional Boxing Record. BoxRec.com. Retrieved on 2014-05-18.

External links

• Professional boxing record for Eugène Criqui from BoxRec
• International Boxing Hall of Fame Biography