Who I Am
I'm Justin Murphy, I had a publishing deal for almost a year with an eBook publisher that resulted in three books – Dothan, The Titans of Capitolism, and Everyone Loves A Scandal. All of them are available through my website
http://www.justinmurphy.8m.com. Recently, my publisher decided not to pick up my next book. I was told that my latest submission The Anti-Hero's Journey and my previous novel Everyone Loves A Scandal didn't match the quality of Dothan and The Titans of Capitolism. I decided to launch my website this blog anyway to keep my name as an author out there, despite no longer having a book deal. Hopefully, I will be able to get a new and better book deal at some point.
My thoughts on The Art and Science of Writing
I've learned a lot from both wrestling and soap operas about how to write and promote your book. Wrestling inspires the basic structure of the story, the plot involving the main character who competes with his rival, and the business side of writing a book. You start with the basic foundation of 10-12 chapters, that could stretch into almost 50 or more chapters, and a few months of writing into writing the book for about six months to a year, which depends on how good the story is.
I learned the first book is the hardest sell, and that it gets easier starting with the second. And that each time you're promoting your book in a different market, because your market appeal grows with each book. Also, that the beginning is just as important as the ending, and that the middle shouldn't be a race to the ending. It should be a slow buildup that intrigues people, and each part of the middle should be handled with care.
Soap operas inspire more or less the craft aspect of the story regarding the characters, and how to weave a canvas. Everyone knows that the main character and his rival have personal lives. The spine of a novel involves the main character and his rival are trying to reach for something that one will achieve in the future.
However, there's also those demons from the past that both characters have to live with that makes it an even more personal struggle for them. Interesting how what are widely considered the lowest forms of entertainment could end up having the most intelligent people working in those mediums, and could end up helping one's career in the most positive way.
My thoughts on The Business of Book Promotion
As a small press author, I always had a good one-on-one relationship with the publisher rather than being sent a memo from an executive at one of the big publishers on Madison Avenue in New York or through your agent. The same goes for people who can help you with publicity -- having a good one-on-one relationship with those people is also great.Every small press author learns how to promote their book and conduct business on their own. The first year of an author's career is always the most important, and you never stop writing. For the first three months, you do market research on your target audience. After you've pinpointed your audience, you spend the next three months writing and promoting your books to cater to that audience.
After the first six months of hard work, you should probably get a least one royalty. You spend the next six expanding on your writing and promotional techniques in this business. In other words, the first six months as a published author are spent getting a foundation established, and the next six getting things off the ground. After that the first year is complete, you can get some people to help out. This is also the point where you start to define your career.
In addition to the fact that most authors of eBooks get the majority cut of the royalties and keep all the rights to their material despite low sales and small publishers not paying any advances beforehand like the guys on Madison Avenue do. This is the complete opposite of authors who are under binding agreements to the big Madison Avenue publishers where the publishers get the rights to the books, and give authors and their agents only a small percentage of the royalties with a big advance. As well as pumping out a big marketing machine to do the author's promotional and business work for them -- although that would be a nice luxury for those on the eBook side of the industry.
My thoughts on eBooks and The Publishing Industry in general
The fact that eBooks are much shorter than their print counterparts and the fact that an author releases several eBooks a year rather than just one, like print authors, has been cited as a problem in the past by many critics. We need to realize that The Internet has changed the industry, and that has resulted in a much shorter attention span for everyone involved. Not only has The Internet brought us eBooks, print authors now also promote and sell their books online.
One of the biggest problems is that most people involved with eBook side of the industry think that it's ''the next wave of the publishing industry'' despite its low sales. Publishers of eBooks honestly need to think more along the lines of small online business alternatives to big corporations, like Napster and Netflix did.
On Napster, customers were able to download music, and provided a small business alternative to the big record companies (which also happened to be on Madison Avenue), after a series of nasty legal battles. Napster agreed to charge fees for their music downloads with a percentage of the profits. Soon after, many similar websites popped up, and gave birth to many unknown artists who began to pop up online writing, producing, and performing their own music that was available online in which these previously unknown artists started to get recognition for their work and started to make a nice profit.
With Netflix, people were able to rent DVDs online, and indeed caused a stir with major Hollywood studios (although not nearly as nasty as the feud between Napster and the record companies), but soon many other sites like Netflix popped up, VHS has now almost completely given way to DVD. Video stores have given way to online rentals, and DVD kiosk rentals. Movies are now even streamed online and downloaded onto computers, and DVDs can even be played on the hardrive of a computer. And like the boom with unknown musicians on Napster, many unknown filmmakers began making films with digital video cameras and digital editing systems on their computers that are available online. Filmmaking on the Internet is just an inch away from being accepted as a viable alternative to the major Hollywood studios.
In all fairness to the motion picture and music industries, the publishing industry has always been the slowest of the three, and the eBook era is no different. There has been a publishing industry recession for the last 10-15 years when they started buying up publishers, half of them were even merged into one publisher. To accommodate these mergers and acquisitions, the middle and lower level authors were released from their publishing contracts while the bestsellers were kept, of course. Those same bestsellers are now mostly used as promotional tools for possible movie deals.
Several years after the corporate buyouts, eBooks surfaced hoping to be ''the next wave of the publishing industry'', however that was not the case as there wasn't much interest at first. Interest did build at a very slow rate when various small eBook publishers started to appear online that featured some of the authors who had been released by the big publishers on Madison Avenue, as well as some new authors. And the big publishers in Madison Avenue even dabbled in eBooks. However, instead of hiring new blood for this outlet, the big publishers decided to rely on the bestsellers, and simply print electronic versions of their hardcover and paperback titles.
Stephen King wrote an eBook titled "Riding The Bullet" that commanded around 400,000 book sales making it the bestselling eBook of all time. There was even a film adaptation made last year that starred David Arquette, but Stephen King's successful experiment with eBooks did nothing to help the book sales of middle and lower level authors who were now having books published online. And the success of "Riding The Bullet" had no long term impact on sales of eBooks in general. In addition to realizing that the eBook side of the industry is at its best as simply a smaller online business alternative to the big publishers on Madison Avenue, these working class authors that make up the middle and lower levels of the publishing industry need to find a collective voice that distances them from the bestsellers who are published on Madison Avenue, and gives eBooks an identity.
Samples of My Writing:
This is an excerpt from my first novel entitled Dothan, a narrative based romance/mystery.
A well dressed middle aged woman walks into an old coffee shop in Dothan, and notices an old yet still handsome man from her past. It’s her old boyfriend Leo Wexler who she hasn’t seen many years; they get one of the tables and start kissing as if they were still teenagers. It turns out that this woman is the famous soap opera writer Aggie Thurston!
They begin to wonder about the future since Aggie has returned to Dothan since her soap opera has shut down production in New York. She thinks that perhaps this is a good time to think about retirement; Leo was a former wrestling promoter who was run out of business by a big national promoter.
Troy State University professor Shelby Harcourt is having a fit because he one of the many professors being laid off at the university. He, much like Leo and Aggie, is wondering about his future as well as the future of his family. His son Greg, a student at Dothan High comes home with a letter given to him at the school, he’s been drafted to fight in the Middle East.
The whole entire Harcourt family gathers around Greg, hugging and crying, and Shelby telling him that everything’s going to be fine and that he’ll make it through the war. After hours and hours of pain and agony within The Harcourt Home, Greg packs up his stuff, and gets on the bus heading for the airport.
The local mass media starts running ads all over town with campaign ads for the upcoming city council elections. On one side of Dothan, we have people who support the war on Iraq, and are fully behind the current city councilman seeking re-election, Republican candidate Gerry W. Buckingham, and there are others who oppose the war and are behind Democratic candidate Jack Corey.
Ever since 9/11, the streets have been rattled with crime. These guys are not some ordinary street gang in Southeast Alabama; these are four hardened criminals who’ve just gotten out of prison. Walking through an alley in Dothan, the group of shadowy figures gets in the face of some homeless guy sitting drunk and half asleep on the ground. ‘’I don’t have any money’’ the gang of criminals then hover over the homeless guy ‘’we don’t care’’.
One slits the homeless guy’s throat, and they take off!
A day later, the incident makes the front page of The Dothan Eagle, and the editor in chief dubs them ‘’Murder Inc.’’ Gerry W. Buckingham vows that as apart of his re-election campaign, he will put a stop to crime in the alleys, and initiate a curfew for the people in Dothan to be at home every night by . But many people in Dothan are very critical of this decision, citing it as a mere excuse and not even as a true solution since many people in town have to work later than 6.
In the working class section of Dothan, a boy named Todd Laurence is going through an old scrapbook in his Aunt Eileen’s apartment. She sits next to him, the two of them flipping the pages of the scrapbook containing old photos and newspaper clippings from the 1970’s of a professional wrestler dressed in white, and wearing a mask. Eileen reveals to Todd that the masked wrestler is his uncle, and despite the fact that the wrestling business is on its deathbed, it shouldn’t stop him from wanting to be somebody or stop him from being successful.
The Democratic candidate for the city council Jack Corey sees a campaign ad on television featuring his old Vietnam War buddies calling him a fraud and a liar and by the end of the ad Corey is able to read the fine print -- it was paid for by Gerry W. Buckingham! He picks up the phone, and tells an old friend who’s a professional researcher to gig up any kind of filth he can find on Gerry W. Buckingham or his family.
Leo Wexler and Aggie Thurston are dancing in a restored jazz club that opened for the first time since the end of WWII. The female jazz singer leading the vintage big band has such a sultry and beautiful voice that one is almost lead to believe that the spirits of both Billie Holliday and Etta James were possessing the physical body of this present day lounge singer.
Then suddenly the lights go out and the music stops, several gunshots are fired, and people screaming. When the lights come back on, half the people in the nightclub are lying on the ground covered in blood. And on top of that, the beautiful lounge singer has been murdered. Everyone is asked to evacuate the jazz club, and both Leo and Aggie are wondering what in the hell happened tonight. Everyone in town is wondering, if they are safe anymore or if Gerry W. Buckingham has sent Dothan straight to hell.
The article that appeared the front page of The Dothan Eagle the next day...........
IS DOTHAN IN THE RIGHT HANDS?
Last night, the gang of thugs dubbed ‘’Murder Inc.’’ struck again at The La Mirage Jazz Club in Downtown Dothan. City Councilman Gerry W. Buckingham vowed to make the small town in Southeast Alabama a much better place after the events that took place on September 11, 2001, The War on Iraq, and the recent rash of murders in the town, but he has still yet to do so.
In his defense, Democratic candidate Jack Corey is now being by various Senators and Congressman in the state of Alabama, and in depth research has proven that Corey indeed served in Vietnam and received many honors during his tenure in the war. Not only that, but it has been proven that these so called ‘’veterans’’ who served with Corey during Vietnam, and called him a disgrace were actually actors paid to make such allegations in the recent campaign ad.
The Mayor of Dothan, Alabama has requested the military records of City Councilman Gerry W. Buckingham from the state department of records in Montgomery. In an attempted to discover what kind of military background our dear brave city councilman had, and to see if America has any business being in a war at this point.
Buckingham’s record with the city council and the city of Dothan, Alabama looks bad enough without all the bad political decisions. The residents of Dothan already consider him to be an inept and inane politician who needs to be removed from before anything gets worse.
Local economy reports indicate that this is the largest drop the economy since the stock market of 1929, and it is pretty certain that people of Dothan, Alabama are not willing to go through yet another great depression or a World War III to get out of this slump. Not to mention that Buckingham has a well publicized history with drug and alcohol, and the current problems of his wild twin daughters are no different.
People in Dothan are longing for the days when city councilmen cheated on their wives with interns who were either attending high school or college, movie stars, and secretly recorded conversations without people knowing it as well as a list of enemies they’d like to get rid of. Now we just have a collection of faded memories and a city councilman who can’t even spell the word ‘’potato’’.
People must ask themselves what this town has come to. Have we as a community lost our sanity? And are we ever going to regain it? The answers to these questions still remain unknown, and will remain unanswered for a few years to come. The future doesn’t look to be very bright for Dothan, Alabama, until we can get a local government that can run this town properly, this newspaper is afraid to say that era in our town’s history will be regarded as The Dark Ages of Dothan.
Former college professor Shelby Harcourt is organizing protests at all the local high schools and colleges -- Dothan High, Northview High, his former employer Troy State University, and Wallace Community College. The Dothan Eagle and all the local TV and Radio stations are sitting in at the schools covering the protests, and riots break out when various police officers try to halt the protests.
The Day of the Protests: Shelby gets up in front of the press and the people of Dothan, Alabama, and let’s them know at the top of his lungs that what the members The Dothan Police Department and The Houston County Sheriff’s Department are doing at these protests are unlawful, unjust, and a direct violation every person’s First Amendment Rights, he also reminds them that he is not the ordinary college educated hippie, and that he has a son fighting over in Iraq who he just wants to see come home.
This is a sample from The The Titans of Capitolism, a non-fiction account of how the family of Vince McMahon rose to prominence in the wrestling business.
In 1882, Roderick James McMahon (often called ‘'Jess'‘) was born into a working class Irish Catholic family in Wilkes, Barre Pennsylvania. Jess would eventually graduate with a Master's Degree from Manhattan College, and would manage the New York based Negro League Baseball Team the Lincoln Giants in the early 1900's.
As World War I dawned, Jess became a booker for wrestling and boxing promoter Jack Curley who was best known for promoting what was then the most profitable wrestling match of all time – the world heavyweight title match that involved the first ever world heavyweight champion recognized in the United States, George Hackenschimdt, the European wrestler who specialized in the Greco-Roman style, drop the title to Frank Gotch who was born and bred in the American Catch as Can style.
In those days, bookers usually ran the ticket office, and collected bets from the spectators. He helped book the now legendary boxing match in Havana, Cuba between the first ever black world heavyweight champion Jack Johnson and The Great White Hope Jess Willard, of course due to the racist attitudes of the era; the bets were in favor of Willard over Johnson. However, it is unknown whether or not Johnson was paid to take a dive in order to drop the title to Willard. However after he beat Johnson for the title, Jess Willard and wrestling's world heavyweight champion Frank Gotch were then booked in The Sells-Floto Circus, and Willard had a falling out with Curley and his bookers (which included McMahon) that resulted him pulling out of the engagement in Curley filing a breach of contract lawsuit against Willard. Their lawyers would eventually settle out of court with Willard paying a $10,000 settlement to Jack Curley's promotion.
Despite the documentation that Jess McMahon was the booker for the Johnson-Willard championship fight, there have been films made and books written on Jack Johnson that bear absolutely no mention of McMahon. There has never been any explanation given as to why his name was omitted, whether he was only a minor factor in the situation, reporters from that era had axes to grind with McMahon, or that piece of information on Jess McMahon was a fabrication.
Other things to consider about Jess McMahon are the facts that aside, there are only bits and pieces of information written about him. Also, any photo documentation of Jess McMahon only exists within two sources – the personal collection of Vince McMahon and the archives of Madison Square Garden at McMahon's office in Stamford, no explanation are given as to why photo archives of him are so rare and hard to find. Unlike most bookers he allegedly wasn’t a cigar smoking card playing con artist, and is supposedly one of few promoters/bookers of that era to actually have a college education. According to Lou Sahadi, a reporter for Wrestling World magazine in the 1960's, Jess McMahon ran a neat and proper office, and ran the office from 9 to 5 to maintain a close relationship with his family in Far Rockaway, New York.
Wrestling legends Lou Thesz and ‘’Classy’‘Freddie Blassie claimed that McMahon was considerate of his talent, treated them well, and was very honest with them. Sadly, both passed away a few years back, so they are unfortunately unable to back up these claims. There are only two explanations as to why information on Jess McMahon is so rare, either he was indeed the notoriously private family man that everyone claimed or had some criminal past that he did best to keep hidden from all around him as best he could, and which ever version is true, it's all under lock and key with his grandson Vince McMahon.
Jess McMahon would eventually jump ship to Curley's rival promoter when the Walker Law was passed in New York legalizing boxing promotion in the region. In a bid to get even with Curley, Jess Willard arranged for fighter Jack Dempsey, and his manager Jack Kearns to have the state legislature grant Curley's promoter Tex Rickard a license to promote all boxing events in the state. Faced with the idea of making a lot more money under Rickard, McMahon severed all ties with Curley and began booking boxing cards for Tex Rickard.
In retaliation to Rickard's monopoly, Jack Curley began to assemble a stable of top wrestlers, The Polish Zbyszko Brothers (Stanislaus and Wladek), Jewish wrestler Gus ‘'Americus'‘ Schoenlein, and Middle Eastern wrestler Yussif Hussane. He brought world heavyweight champion Joe Stecher to defend the title against Wladek Zbyszko, but a few days earlier during a sparring match by world renowned Greco-Roman wrestler Aberg Aberg, so he was replaced by ‘'The Masked Marvel'‘ Mort Henderson. Stecher's title defense against Henderson drew a great deal of money, and Curley's wrestling matches were beginning to rival Rickard's boxing fights.
Jack Curley then working with Boston Promoter Paul Bowser booking Wladek Zbyszko against Ed ‘'Strangler'‘ Lewis in a series of matches, then wrapping it up in New York with Zbyszko defeating Lewis in the finals of a tournament to win a version of the world heavyweight title that was separate from the version Joe Stecher held.
Law enforcement began to crack down on gambling at sporting events most namely wrestling and boxing, so to get the state legislature off his back, Curley had a revolutionary idea. He held a press conference with Gene Melady who was the manager of Earl Caddock who held yet another version of the world title in the Midwest, Midwestern promoters Carl Marfigi and Oscar Thorson, carnival promoter Otto Floto, and newspaper reporters Ed Smith and Sandy Griswold.
At the press conference, Curley announced that he would be changing the format of his wrestling cards to keep up with the interest of the modern wrestling fan, and bring wrestling into The Roaring Twenties. The matches would now have a 15 minute time limit, and would only have one fall. This new style would take Curley's feud with Rickard to a whole new level, not only were they now competing in profits, but now they were also competing at the same pace.
Jack Curley struck a deal in the Midwest, and both Joe Stecher and Ed ‘‘Strangler’‘Lewis were wrestling for Curley full time. The deal was struck with Lewis' manager Billy Sandow and Stecher's manager and brother Tony Stecher. With this deal, the Midwestern carnivals that gave birth to professional wrestling were now entirely a thing of the past, and the most influential figures in the business were now working along the Eastern Seaboard.
No one can exactly pinpoint why or how Jack Curley and Tex Rickard began their feud, maybe it’s because they were so much alike. Both Curley and Rickard got their start out west, with Curley coming from a newspaper background and Rickard coming from a gambling background. Both became involved with boxing, and were both involved in promoting the fight between Jack Johnson and James J. Jeffries. However, Curley branched out into wrestling, and made a profit while Rickard detested it because he wasn’t nearly as successful in the wrestling field as Curley was.
Both promoters soon moved to the Eastern Seaboard in order to make more money for them, and to expand wrestling and boxing beyond the confines of some carnival athletic show in the Midwest. Once the relocation took place, the fans were no longer permitted to participate in the build ups to the big main events, an approach that was much too tacky for sporting events in the East Coast.
In the Midwest, a wrestler or a boxer would challenge an easy mark from the crowd in order to win prize money with a wrestler getting challenged by a carnival worker with a build up leading to the match between the two carnie workers. However, the new crowds in New York were tougher and more cynical, so both Curley and Rickard started using newspapers to draw money rather than sucker a bunch of marks at some midway attraction which gave their promotions a much more polished and legitimate feel. Adding to that polish was the 15 minute time limit Curley placed on the matches making them faster paced in contrast to the very slow exhibitions that were put on at carnivals, the same sort of psychology applied Rickard’s boxing by limiting them to only 15 rounds.
Tex Rickard promoted the world heavyweight championship fight between Jess Willard and Jack Dempsey, and Willard most likely dropped the title to Dempsey as a reward for helping secure Rickard's monopolization of New York. The fight didn't draw very well, and Jack Curley responded by creating a tournament involving the various wrestlers who were claiming to the world heavyweight champion – Wladek Zbyszko, Joe Stecher, Ed ‘'Strangler'‘ Lewis, and John Pesek (who become legendary under the name Wally Dusek). Zbyszko defeated all three in the tourney, and was now scheduled to face Earl Caddock who was now a returning veteran from World War I where Stecher defeat Caddock in Madison Square Garden on January 30, 1920.
Tex Rickard was furious when he discovered that his business rival Curley was promoting a wrestling card in what he believed was his arena. With financial backing from circus promoter John Ringling, Tex Rickard formed The Madison Square Garden Corporation which included the formation of the hockey team The New York Rangers as well as forbidding wrestling matches to be booked in the arena, and soon had it go public in yet another attempt to lock Jack Curley out of the business.
As a result, Jack Curley decided to start promoting boxing matches again, but since Rickard had control over all boxing events in the state of New York, Curley opened an office in Jersey City, New Jersey. He then brought European boxer George Carpentier to America as the star attraction in his first boxing promotion in half a decade.
Carpentier was booked to defeat a boxer named Battling Levinsky on October 12, 1920, he then began to challenge Tex Rickard's world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey. Rickard saw the writing on the wall, and knew that a championship fight co-promoted by him and his long time rival would be the fight of the century.
Curley and Rickard scheduled the fight for July 2, 1921, and was the first sporting event to make more than $1 Million from ticket sales. The fight had 80,000 fans in attendance, and was booked to have a working class American fighter overcome the upscale European pugilist to retain his title, and was booked for four rounds to make it long enough to appear as a newsreel in movie theaters. Things were going so well that Tex Rickard decided to lift Madison Square Garden's ban on promoting wrestling events for one night in which he would allow Curley to promote the latest match in a feud between current world heavyweight champion Stanislaus Zbyszko and former champion Ed ‘'The Strangler'‘Lewis.
The state legislature gave Curley notice that they no longer wanted Lewis to use his signature hold ‘'the headlock'‘, and during the match at Madison Square Garden, Lewis applied the hold to Zbyszko, and was disqualified. When Curley revealed to Lewis, his manager Billy Sandow, and Zbyszko that had been the finish he had booked in addition to why he booked it all three were furious, all three left Curley's promotion, and had no desire to work for him ever again.
Tex Rickard would book yet another match between Lewis and Zbyszko with Zbyszko dropping the title to Lewis. Rickard immediately started plugging a dream match between Lewis and boxing's world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey which would most likely garner the biggest turnout in the history of sporting events. On December 30, 1922, Ed ‘'Strangler'‘ Lewis announced that he, his manager Billy Sandow, and his new trainer Toots Mondt had signed for the match, and that it would be taking place in Wichita, Kansas. About a week later on January 7, 1923, Wichita promoter Tom Law revealed the rules of the match – Dempsey would have to wear regulation boxing gloves, the match would consist of 15 rounds each lasting three minutes, and a one minute break in between rounds.
Law also mentioned that Dempsey could not apply any wrestling holds on Lewis, and if Dempsey knocks Lewis to the mat, Lewis has to the count of 10 to get up or Dempsey wins. However, Lewis can win the match by either pinning Dempsey or making him submit. Also, if either man is thrown out of the ring, can't return by the count of 10 they lose, if Ed ‘'The Strangler'‘ Lewis applies an illegal hold on Dempsey, and doesn't break after the count of five, he is disqualified. If one man backs the other into a corner, and doesn't emerge from the corner after the count of five then that competitor will be disqualified. However, Jack Dempsey later stated that neither he nor his manager Jack Kearns had signed on for the match.
After months of negotiating, talks between Dempsey, Kearns, and Rickard fell through, and Lewis, Sandow, and Mondt managed to get out of their contract with Rickard. Jack Kearns promoted a 4th of July championship fight in 1923 with Jack Dempsey defending his title against Tom Gibbons in Shelby, Montana. The fight was a big flop, and caused the town to go bankrupt as well as the two banks that financed the card.
The big questions regarding the wrestler vs. boxer main event between Ed ‘’Strangler’‘ Lewis and Jack Dempsey is why the talks between Dempsey and Rickard fell through as well as how Lewis managed to get out of his contract with Rickard. Doc Kearns may have had a dispute with Rickard, possibly over money, but no one was exactly pleased with this turn of events since Lewis was the top wrestling star of the era while Dempsey was of course the biggest in boxing. It also could’ve had to with Rickard’s dislike of wrestling, and Rickard may have felt that Lewis, his manager Billy Sandow, and his trainer Toots Mondt would find a way to double cross him or Dempsey.
Another possibility is that Rickard didn’t believe that a wrestling vs. boxing match wouldn’t go over very well considering wrestling and boxing were two different mediums of athletics putting those clashing styles in the ring together would be very messy and very ugly for the crowds to watch no matter how much money it would’ve made. Lewis would’ve probably grown tired of Dempsey’s punches, and put him in one of his submission holds in an attempt to turn Dempsey into a human pretzel, thus injuring him as a result.
Rickard simply wanted to use this match to hurt Jack Curley financially, and despite a recent falling out, Lewis’ camp may still have felt some sort of loyalty to Curley. As for how Lewis got out of his contract with Rickard, Mondt could’ve easily to physically injure Rickard if he didn’t release Lewis while Sandow most likely used his political, legal, and possibly illegal connections with the mafia to get the job done. Also, Lewis may have not wanted to take a dive for Dempsey either that or Dempsey did not want to put Lewis over which could also explain why Dempsey and Kearns walked away.
Kearns and Dempsey returned to working with Rickard, and also returned to making a million dollars in profits from the ticket sales. The promotional war between Jack Curley and Tex Rickard was once again heating up when both Curley and Rickard went before The New York State Athletic Commission to get a license to promote wrestling in Madison Square Garden. Rickard, the arena's owner, was denied the license when the commission ruled in favor of Curley.
Curley’s head must’ve been spinning once his wrestling promotion started to falter at the box office, it obviously didn’t make sense to him because the business had been doing great in The Roaring Twenties, he had gotten a permit to promote wrestling in Madison Square Garden, but his longtime rival boxing promoter Tex Rickard had majority stock in the arena, and had prevented him from holding any cards there. He had to settle for promoting his wrestling cards in the 71st National Guard Armory, much smaller venue. It’s possible that could’ve been the very thing that turned off wrestling fans who would’ve probably been expecting a much bigger wrestling show.
However, Jack Curley did make a good business decision by managing the careers of the top leading man in silent motion pictures Rudolph Valentino, opera tenor The Great Enrico Caruso, and tennis star Big Bill Tilden. He also was trying to do what he could with the wrestling business, but he knew that if he continued to compete with Tex Rickard, he knew he’d be digging himself into an early grave so he figured that he should bypass Rickard and compete with Ed ‘’Strangler’‘ Lewis, Billy Sandow, and Toots Mondt by forming a group of his own.
He felt Tex Rickard had become too powerful to compete with directly, and Curley decided to re-focus his wrestling promotion on trying to give the best show possible. Even if he could no longer go head to head with Rickard’s marquee value boxing fights in Madison Square Garden, he could build up a whole base of business at a different location, no matter how much smaller it would or would not be. He could still make a profit, he just needed to attract a smaller audience for his smaller venue.
However, despite the state of New York permitting Curley to promote wrestling in Madison Square Garden, Tex Rickard would call a stockholder’s meeting of The Madison Square Garden Corporation in which the stockholders ruled in favor of denying Curley the right to promote in their arena. Curley then resorted to promoting in the smaller 71st National Guard Armory, but he soon started losing money.
To recoup the money was he was losing from wrestling, he booked a publicity tour for silent movie legend Rudolph Valentino, concerts for the world renowned opera singer The Great Enrico Caruso, and tennis matches for the popular tennis player Big Bill Tilden as well as promoted swimming events. World Heavyweight Champion Ed ‘'Strangler'‘ Lewis, his manager Billy Sandow, and his trainer to Toots Mondt were now promoting wrestling shows as ‘'The Gold Dust Trio'‘, they were now Curley's main competition in the wrestling business.
Lewis was taking on all comers such as old foe Stanislaus Zbyszko, his own trainer Toots Mondt, wrestling's first sex symbol Jim Londos, and John Pesek. A new contender was needed, so Billy Sandow booked football star Wayne Munn for a match against Lewis in Kansas City, Missouri on January 8, 1925 when body slammed and pinned to become the new world heavyweight champion.
During the buildup to the May 30, 1925 rematch in Michigan City, Indiana there was a match on April 5 in Philadelphia where Munn was defending the title against Stanislaus Zbyszko, Zbyszko was booked to lose as he had been most every other match in that past year which was actually more than he had lost in his entire career. He and Jack Curley patched things up with Curley paying him a hefty load of cash to screw Munn and double cross him out of the world heavyweight title.
Munn and Lewis still worked their scheduled rematch without the title, and on the same night in St. Louis, Zbyszko dropped the title to former champion Joe Stecher in St. Louis. Curley would form a whole new consortium with Tony Stecher (Joe's brother and manager), St. Louis promoter Tom Packs, and California promoter Lou Daro to compete with The Gold Dust Trio.
Curley's old rival Tex Rickard opened the third Madison Square Garden on December 11, 1925 with financial backing The New York Life Insurance Company in which Jess McMahon booked a boxing match with Paul Berlenbach getting a victory over Jack Delaney, thus Berlenbach retained his world light heavyweight title this event did not phase Jack Curley much at all, and his days of putting up with Rickard were long behind him.
Despite the fact that Curley was now back in power and that The Gold Dust Trio were now losing money, Ed ‘'Strangler'‘ Lewis still remained a big star, and the press was craving for a world heavyweight title match between with Joe Stecher defending against Lewis. Before retiring from wrestling to spend more time on his farm, Stecher made a deal with Lewis' manager Billy Sandow to drop the title to his client in St. Louis on February 20, 1928. Curley and his organization were not pleased with what happened, they simply refused to recognize Lewis as the new champion until he came to their promotion, and defend the title against German wrestler Hans Steinke, The Gold Dust Trio had no interest in co-promoting with Curley's outfit.
The Gold Dust Trio sold the world heavyweight title to Boston promoter Paul Bowser, and to close the deal, Lewis jobbed to yet another football player Gus Sonnenberg. Why on earth would Ed ‘’Strangler’‘ Lewis, Billy Sandow, and Toots Mondt sell the world heavyweight title to Paul Bowser? They could’ve easily used to their advantage, and have Lewis defend it all over the country, it’s called a good business move. Instead, they sell it to the neighboring promoter in Boston. Sandow must’ve paid Tony Stecher (brother and manager of the previous champ Joe Stecher) handsomely to drop the title. The philosophy of business in wrestling is to help you, not hurt the other promoter, and The Gold Dust Trio did everything they could to hurt Jack Curley as much as possible.
Tex Rickard also tried to hurt Jack Curley on numerous occasions, but that’s kind of a different situation considering it was a matter wrestling vs. boxing, and those are two different fields of business despite having similar practices. Above all, the worst decision in this business deal was making a football player world heavyweight champion no matter how much fans love him. Several months later, Curley's old rival boxing promoter Tex Rickard was working on expanding his boxing operation into Miami, Florida and London, England when he suddenly had to have his appendix removed, and died of an infection stemming from the operation. Following Rickard's death, Jess McMahon acquired the majority share that Rickard once held in The Madison Square Garden Corporation, and was now promoting in the other arenas Rickard promoted in such as The New York Coliseum, The Philadelphia Arena, The Hampstead Arena
(in Long Island), and The Knights of Columbus Hall (in Bridgeport, Connecticut.)
It’s always sad when someone passes away before completing an endeavor they really want to achieve. If Rickard had survived to expand his boxing promotion into Miami and London there’s no telling what he could’ve accomplished financially. Even sadder is the fact that no one will ever know if Jack Curley or Tex Rickard ever buried the hatchet before Rickard’s death.
He is possibly the main individual responsible for boxing’s growth and success during the early 20th Century, and his feud with Jack Curley most likely brought out the best in both promoters, and obviously brought out the best in both wrestling and boxing. Due to these two men, The Golden Age of Sports in 1920's reaches its monumental Zeitgeist. For wrestling and boxing historians alike to overlook what either promoter accomplished is grossly unfair to both wrestling and boxing in general.
This is a sample of my dialogue based mainstream novel Everyone Loves A Scandal.
Reverend Peter Jacobs, the middle aged, well-dressed man in his 50's stood behind his pulpit at The First Baptist Church in Dothan, Alabama. His congregation was also full of middle aged white Christian conservatives who looked bloated or had fallen asleep. He absorbed the air as he listened to the peaceful hymns of the church choir.
He stood there with his right hand placed on the Holy Bible while his left hand contained copies of the latest issue of some filthy magazine.
He waited for the choir to finish their hymn, and started to preach his sermon.
''My children, what’s in my left-hand today are copies of the latest issue of Culture Magazine’‘, said Jacobs.
The congregation seemed attentive.
‘’It’s a dirty magazine published by a new member of our community who just moved here named Charlie Sanders,’ said Jacobs.
The congregation got wide eyed.
What kind of culture is this smut peddler teaching our young people?'' asked the good reverend as he flipped through the pages of the magazine.
Jacobs held up the pages of the magazine for the congregation to see.
He flipped through various nude pinups of women before pulling out a full frontal nude poster.
The congregation gasped at what they saw displayed within those pages.
One woman looked like she was about to puke in her purse.
The church became silent as the sound of her vomit erupted amongst the congregation.
A clergyman helped her exit the pew, and gave her a cup of water.
The clergyman guided her outside so the smell of her vomit wouldn’t catch in the church.
Jacobs looked disgusted, but continued with his sermon.
''Aside from all the nude layouts, there are feature articles on abortion, and gay marriage and homosexuality between lesbians,’ Said Jacobs.
An unwed pregnant woman held her head down in embarrassment.
Two woman who sat together every Sunday on the same pew sunk in down onto the floor to avoid being spotted by Jacobs.
‘’And most horrendous of all, there’s a caricature of Michael Jackson dressed as a minister molesting some young boy'', uttered Jacobs in anger.
Some people in the front pews busted out laughing.
They stopped when Jacobs gave them all a dirty look.
A clergyman at the church passes out copies of Culture Magazine, and the congregation was appalled and disgusted at what they saw.
A rich old lady looked appalled at a photo of a young girl in her 20's who flashed her breasts in a pinup.
Her wealthy husband had his copy of the magazine turned to the page, and he had a big smile on his face as if he got an erection from looking at the nude photos.
A poor widowed mine worker passed copies of the magazines out to his young sons.
They all gawked and laughed at the photos.
A middle class housewife took the magazines away from her children while her husband ogled at the photos.
The housewife slapped her husband in the back of the head.
''This magazine is an abomination to our society, and is ruining the wholesome image of our little community here in Southeast Alabama. This community needs to stand up to this kind of filth, and we need to stand up to it NOW'', proclaimed Jacobs with the congregation cheering on Jacobs.
When the sermon was over the congregation exited the church, the congregation had a reaction mixed between laughter and disgust.
Meanwhile, Jacobs and a fellow clergyman got drunk with bottles of booze out behind the church.
''How do you plan to handle that sick bastard?'' asked the clergyman who had alcohol on his breath and smells like he hadn't had a bath in 10 years.
''You get me WTVY and The Dothan Eagle on the phone, and I'll show you how to handle em'', said Jacobs in a grim voice as he took hold of the clergyman's hand.
This is a sample of my dialogue based unpublished manuscript The Anti-Hero's Journey.
Carter Nixon was young, unemployed, and had doubts about his own future. He lived in the small town of Dothan, Alabama all of his life, and didn’t know where he was headed. He wondered whether or not the job economy would pick up. This was the lowest point in economic history for unemployment. There weren’t any opportunities in sight. He looked out the window of his uncle Montgomery Kennedy’s basement, he thought life moved too slow. He felt that time stood still, as if there was no hope. As if there was no reason to even exist.
Carter moved some of his uncle Montgomery's boxes.
''There's still no jobs open around here'', said Carter as scrubbed the floor with a sponge.
Montgomery glanced at him with a smile, he then walked over to Carter as he hoped to cheer him up.
''Don't worry, the market'll pick up. And besides, your young, so ya still got time.'' Montgomery responded with a twinkle in his eye.
As he looked over at an old box, Montgomery spotted an old pamphlet. He approached it with curiousity.
''I wonder what this is!'' exclaimed Montgomery as he picked it up.
Carter, still new to the real world looked at the old pamphlet while he stood next to his wealthy uncle Montgomery, the last of the old Southern aristocracy.
The young and cynical Carter was shocked by what he saw.
''It's from The New York World's Fair back in 1939'', uttered Carter as he took the pamphlet from Montgomery's hand, and unfolded it.
Montgomery laughed as Carter took a closer peek at the map.
''There's a name written on here, Dr. Larry Ellison'', Carter mentioned.
Montgomery was puzzled as that name sound very familar.
''I believe there was a doctor with that name who built this house in the 1930's'', remarked Montgomery.
Carter felt odd about the pamphlet as he continued to look at it.
''I wonder why it was left here after all these years'', Carter commented.
''There's been a legend in this town for years that a doctor hid somethin' valueable deep in the heart of Downtown Dothan'', stated Montgomery with a huge grin on his face.
Carter seemed annoyed, it sounded like the the plot of an old Errol Flynn movie.
''Oh no! I'm not goin' on some bullshit treasure hunt!'' shouted Carter.
Montgomery felt disappointed because he cared about Carter a great deal.
''It'd just give us more time to spend together, you never saw your father, and I haven't spoken to my son in 15 years. So I thought this'd make up for some of that.'' frowned Montgomery.
Carter thought it was stupid, he thought to himself ''Why would anyone wanna find buried treasure in a town like this?''
''Maybe some other time'', replied Carter.
Carter left the house as Montgomery looked at the pamphlet from The World's Fair heartbroken.
Montgomery wanted to help his nephew since Carter had such a negative outlook on life because he wasn’t able to find a job. He knew if Carter could keep his spirits up, then he would feel better about the job economy – whether he got a job or whether he stayed on the unemployment line. At least he would enjoy life, and the elements of nature that surrounded it. He wished Carter could feel much more happy towards life, that he wouldn’t worry about what would lie ahead, he felt that made people stress out too much.
