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
Memories of Hollandersky would linger in the mind of some of boxing's greatest. In March 1911, in an interview with the "Hartford Courant", Abe claimed to have once sold a paper to Jack Johnson, America's first Black world heavyweight champion. No less a boxer than Mohammad Ali compared himself to Johnson, as they both felt unjustly stripped of their heavyweight titles. Bob Johnston, of Johnston's Sport's Palace in San Diego, where both Hollandersky and Jack Johnson would live and visit, claimed to have once hired a down and out Johnson in 1929 to shadowbox at his adjacent Liberty Theatre. According to Johnson, the amiable champion often told patrons as he entertained them with shadow boxing that his opponent was Abe the Newsboy.