Abraham Jacob Hollandersky
Abe "The Newsboy" Hollandersky (December 3, 1888 – November 1, 1966) became the second American boxer to win the Panamanian Heavyweight Title when he defeated Californian Jack Ortega in nine rounds in Panama City on May 30, 1913. American congressmen, Naval personnel, and canal workers were among the crowd of nearly two thousand who watched Hollandersky gain victory over an opponent who outweighed him by over thirty-five pounds. The "New York Times" announced Hollandersky's best known win the following morning.
Abraham Jacob Hollandersky
Perhaps the single fight that most influenced the "Newsboy" to retire was his brutal loss to welterweight Dave "KO" Palitz on September 6, 1915, in Lawrence Hall in New London. An accomplished welterweight, Palitz would unsuccessfully challenge Lou Holtz for the Connecticut State Welterweight Championship in 1920. During a boxing and wrestling tour in the Southwest and Mexico in the first half of 1915, Hollandersky had suffered from an illness of several weeks which may have contributed to his lack of conditioning for the bout. The "Springfield Courier" said of the twenty round battle that "K. O. Palitz of this city handed Abe the worst trimming a man ever received in a local ring, though the newsboy was on his feet at the end of the bout". New London's "The Day", noticing Abe's puffy face, swollen ears, and blackened eye after the fight, wrote "he looked as if his demise were near at hand." The following February Palitz defeated Abe again in a less brutal ten-round match which Hollandersky had staged and promoted. The day of boxing featured boxers Joe Azevedo, an exceptional lightweight, Young Terry, and Charley Curley. A glance at Abe's personal tally of fights at the back of his autobiography indicates he may have sparred with both Curley and Young Terry. Though Hollandersky continued to find matches, and even returned to Panama for several lucrative bouts in 1916, he may have sensed his days as a competitive prize fighter fighting top talent were numbered.