Escobar vs. Leitham II
Fight Post #4
For those of you who are new to my writing, I run a Montreal Boxing History (MBH) account on Facebook and Twitter. I started that venture at the beginning of 2022 to learn more about my hometown’s rich boxing history and teach others about my findings.
Now that I have created the Fight Fundamental platform, I decided to use it to centralize all my writing. That means that all future MBH posts will come from here, and you will get access to them directly in your inbox like the rest of my content.
I started MBH by profiling fighters from Montreal, the first of which was Jack Renault, who fought from 1918-1933. Most of the profiles were brief, but I also wrote a long-form article on Maxie Berger. I am particularly proud of that profile because Berger, like me, was Jewish, and he competed against several legendary boxers who are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
After profiling fighters, I decided to focus on specific fights that took place in Montreal. So far, I have posted about three fights, and they can be found on the MBH Facebook and Twitter pages.
If you know of any fights or fighters from Montreal that you want me to feature, feel free to let me know either by email or in the comments.
Fight Post #4- Escobar vs. Leitham II
Date: June 6, 1934
Venue: Montreal Forum
Attendance: 4,500
Result: Escobar KO5 Leitham
Bantamweight (118 lbs) Sixto Escobar, who would later become Puerto Rico’s first world champion, fought Bobby Leitham of Verdun, in a rematch at the Forum.
The two had already met one month prior, with Escobar winning by knockout in the seventh round in Holyoke, Massachusetts. That was Escobar’s first fight in the United States, with all of his previous 28 contests having taken place in either Puerto Rico or Venezuela. As it turns out, it was Leitham’s last fight, his career ending with a final record of 29-18-8.
Synopsis: Boxrec.com included the following description from the Montreal Gazette, an article that I was unable to locate using my subscription to Newspapers.com.
“This was considered a bantamweight elimination bout by the Montreal Athletic Commission, with the winner to face Mexican Champion Baby Casanova, present ring-side. "A crowd of about 4,500 saw Escobar unleash the lightning in his right hand early in the fourth round, and knock Leitham to the canvas three times. At the beginning of the fifth, another right hand punch to the jaw sent Leitham flat on his back and his second [Manager Sammy Gibbs] climbed into the ring to stop the fight....”
However, I was able to find the brief snippet below from the Stockton Independent, which confirmed the result of the fight.
