The headline left no room for discussion.

“BANGOR’S GREATEST BOXER,” it explained. Period.

The subhead told a fuller story: “A Sketch of the Brilliant Career of the Bangor Boy in the Squared Circle – Will Open a School – Boxing Show Next Monday.”

Former American lightweight champ Mike Daly, or Daley as the Bangor Daily News story spelled it, was coming home to start a business venture featuring “the manly art.”

But was he Bangor’s greatest boxer? What about the legendary Jack McAuliffe, another brawler who spent his youth in the Queen City before going on to own the world lightweight title, becoming one of a small handful of pugilists to retire their crowns without a loss?

Today “The Napoleon of the Ring,” as McAuliffe was called, is recognized as one of the greatest – indeed by some as THE greatest – lightweight boxers in history. Daly has been pretty much forgotten.

Call it politics. Or even ignorance. But in the biographical account of Daly’s foray back to Bangor, published on Jan. 24, 1905 with a large promo photo, McAuliffe, a native of Ireland, was assigned a Brooklyn address with no mention of his Queen City background. Daly had fought McAuliffe twice, and the results of these battles were not always to his liking. And after all, Daly, a Bangor native, still had lots of friends in River City!

It’s no accident both athletes got their start in Bangor, a roughneck place in the 1880s full of Irish immigrants well-schooled in the art of fisticuffs. The atmosphere wasn’t tempered any by the hundreds of sailors and log drivers who floated into town in the good weather to inhabit the bars and brothels in the waterfront district where many of the Irish lived and worked.

While boxing wasn’t completely respectable, or even legal, it was increasingly popular. And every boy with a name like Daly or McAuliffe wanted to be just like his idol, John L. Sullivan, the famous Irish heavyweight.

Daly and McAuliffe started swinging about the same time. Maybe they knew each other. Maybe they fought each other on the streets of Bangor, possibly creating the “bad blood” reported later in their careers.

“After disposing of all the boys in the neighborhood of all weights and sizes, who had aspirations to become great boxers, [Daly] was looked upon as a coming champion,” according to the NEWS story.

It said he won his first organized fight on Oct. 8, 1883, in Norombega Hall when he entered a tournament on the spur of the moment, emerging as Penobscot County lightweight champ. He was 18.

McAuliffe’s first fight of note, but strictly nonofficial, took place in the cellar of a waterfront storehouse in Bangor. He was 16, making it 1882, the year before Daly’s triumph. An “English sailor” was bothering the Irish lad.

McAuliffe challenged the older youth, who was reputed to be quite a fighter. The crowd raised a $9 purse, a good deal of money back then for a teenager. It was a bloody bare knuckles bout until the sailor stumbled and fell, knocking himself out.

Sometime after that the McAuliffe family moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., where Jack worked in a barrel factory. He learned to fight “scientifically” from his friend and co-worker, “the Nonpareil” Jack Dempsey, who went on to win the middleweight title (not to be confused with the more famous heavyweight champ of the same name).

In sifting through various sources for this column, I found that boxing back then was a disorganized affair. Sometimes it is difficult today to tell who was champion of what. Some of the claims were more hype than reality.

Besides the pro-Daly NEWS’ account, I’ve relied mainly on Don MacWilliams’ book on the history of boxing and other sports in Maine as well as a biography of McAuliffe by Nathaniel Fleischer, editor of Ring Magazine, to tell the story of the intertwined careers of Daly and McAuliffe. The tale involved a third Maine boxer, Billy Frazier, an Eastport native who claimed the lightweight title of America for a time before them.

McAuliffe took that title from Frazier in 1886. Meanwhile, Daly, who had been crowned lightweight champion of New England, initiated a campaign to get McAuliffe to fight him for the American title. To get the champ’s attention, Daly knocked out Frazier in June 1887.

McAuliffe and Daly met on Jan. 16, 1888, for four rounds of sparring in Boston that turned into a brawl.

“That there was bad blood between the two was manifest from the call of time, and what was to have been a sparring match developed into a vicious fight, which was stopped in the third round by the police, Daly having the best of it,” according to the NEWS’ account.

According to Fleischer, however, McAuliffe outpointed Daly and no decision was rendered.

A major fight between the two did not occur until the next year, in December of 1889. The 15-round battle ended in a draw, and with it ended Daly’s efforts to be accepted as “the undisputed lightweight champion of America,” according to MacWilliams.

McAuliffe’s biographer, Fleischer, wrote that McAuliffe had clearly outfought his opponent, and had come close to knocking him out. McAuliffe was so enraged at the referee’s call he threatened to retire from the ring.

Of course, the NEWS account in 1905 had a different slant on Daly’s career. In the early 1890s, Daly was touring the nation, “the undisputed lightweight champion of the world.” This conclusion is not corroborated in any other source I’ve seen. Daly is barely mentioned in Fleischer’s biography, which was published in 1944.

To add to the confusion, Daly is credited by MacWilliams with having been America’s lightweight champ from 1886 to 1888 and in 1890. McAuliffe ruled the weight class between 1884 and 1896, according to Fleischer.

Daly’s goal in returning to Bangor a century ago was “to start a school of physical culture … where the manly art will be taught to all who apply. As a boxing instructor Mr. Daly has no superior, having held such positions with some of the most aristocratic clubs and colleges in New England.” His school opened in February at 27 Mercantile Square.

Daly put on several boxing shows at the Armory in Bangor, featuring exhibitions of regional talent as well as himself sparring with local adversaries. Several hundred people attended the shows on Jan. 30 and Feb. 27. The reviews in the newspaper were good.

Daly may not have been the greatest boxer who ever lived in Bangor, but in the early 20th century, when boxing was one of the three or four most popular sports, he was a hero to many fight fans in the Queen City after having a creditable career that had catapulted him, however briefly, into national prominence.

Tom Stewart contributed material for this column. Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at

wreilly@bangordailynews.net