Jack Root

Career

He fought out of Chicago. He was elected into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011. His bout with George Gardiner on July 4, 1903, is claimed by some to be the first title bout in the new division.

The fight was caught on film.

Jack Root, George Gardner, and Bob Fitzsimmons all held the light heavyweight world championship title in 1903. On July 3, 1905, Root fought Marvin Hart for the vacant world heavyweight championship.

Root served as a lieutenant in the United States. Army during World War I. After his time in the service Root became the president and boxing manager of the renowned Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium.

Achievements

• Root (with the support of some historians) claimed that he was the first light heavyweight champion of the world. Root contended that his manager, Lou Housman, created the division and billed the Root versus Gardner fight, which Gardner won by knockout in the twelfth round. During the 1980s, however, some boxing historians found records indicating that Joe Choynski won a twenty-round decision over Jimmy Ryan on August 18, 1899, in a fight billed as being for the light heavyweight championship. Choynski never seems to have made any claim to be the first light heavyweight champion, however. The former champion, Jim Jeffries, had retired and declared that Hart and Root were the two top heavyweights. Jeffries refereed the fight to name the new champion, which Hart won by a twelfth-round knockout.