?If I want to be admired at all ? and I don?t know if I care to be admired at all ? I want to be known for some accomplishment of the spirit??
?Most critics have expressed the opinion that Hansen might be a great fighter, possibly champion, if he had a fighter?s heart. Their almost universal verdict, however, is that Knute?s ?sand is too fine.???George F. Downer, Milwaukee Sentinel, September 4, 1928
That was a surprisingly delicate and deft way of putting it compared to the more popular notion that the 6?4?, 210-pound boxer Wall Street tried to put on the heavyweight throne almost 90 years ago had no sand at all.
That wasn?t so, but it was true that Knute Hansen preferred dabbing canvasses with paint rather than his opponent?s blood, and that sometimes he made even Gene Tunney sound like a Bowery Boy.
As when a reporter visited Hansen at his art studio in Paris in 1929, and Knute told him:
?I am an artist at heart. At least I want to be. I have a desire to express myself. It is impossible to express myself in the ring. Nothing but brute force there. One is admired for physical prowess.
?If I want to be admired at all ? and I don?t know if I care to be admired at all ? I want to be known for some accomplishment of the spirit.
?These are,? acknowledged Hansen, ?dangerous things to say for a pugilist. One does not enhance one?s popularity with such talk. Boxing circles all over the world are apt to sneer at me, and the newspapers are liable to give with all sorts of stinging wisecracks. But I cannot be otherwise than I am.?
Actually, the sneering and jibing had already reached crescendo pitch by then, and Knute?s popularity in boxing circles and his prospects for advancement in the ring were kaput thanks to a crash in 1928 that shook his Wall Street backers almost as hard as the one that plunged the country into the Great Depression 10 months later.
The interest of auto magnate Walter Chrysler and other American titans of commerce and industry in Knute Hansen, and their effort to make him their heavyweight cash cow, started with the abdication of champion Gene Tunney in 1928.
They were glad to see him go. An unpopular champion, Tunney?s final title defense against Tom Heeney was a far cry from the million-dollar attraction Gene?s two fights with Jack Dempsey had been. Chrysler et al were investors in Madison Square Garden and promoter Tex Rickard?s boxing enterprises, and now was their chance to get in on the ground floor of a new ring era defined and dominated by a dashing, romantic colossus whose lineage went back to Viking days.
Born in Denmark, Knute Hansen moved to Racine, Wisconsin, as a boy and started boxing there. After winning two pro bouts in Milwaukee in 1924 and then traveling around South America as sparring partner for fringe contender Jim Tracey, Hansen worked as a deckhand on merchandise ships that traversed the globe. During stopovers in the Philippines, China and other exotic ports-o-call, he put on the gloves with native fighters ?just for the excitement of it.?
?I made my way by picking out the local champion and fighting him,? Knute later recalled. ?I was my own press agent, and would always write ahead, saying, ?Here I come!? They would always be waiting for me with a bout arranged. Gosh, they thought I was Jack Dempsey!?
New Yorkers got a different impression when Hansen fought German champion Franz Diener (October 8, 1926) and Spanish import Paulino Uzcudun (February 25, 1927) at the Garden. In both fights Knute started out strong, only to lose heart and the decision when the other guys didn?t fold up right away. (The story goes that Hansen had flattened Uzcudan in a Paris sparring session and Paulino was leery of meeting him in a real fight. Before their Garden match, Uzcudan?s handlers instructed him to smile the first time Knute landed his vaunted right hand. Paulino did, and Hansen went into reverse for the rest of the fight.)
Then they called him ?The Melancholy Dane,? said he had ?a charlotte ruse where his spine is supposed be,? and according to Sam Levy of The Milwaukee Journal, ?Whenever his name was mentioned the reply would be: ?Why, Hansen ? he?s too yellow to be a fighter.??
Knute was supposed to play the sacrificial lamb in British champion Phil Scott?s American debut at the Garden on November 4, 1927. But it turned out Scott had less chin than Dorothy Kilgallen (Author?s note: For Clarence George), and Hansen polished him off in the first round.
That?s when the Wall Street gang put its dough on him. But fluky Knute didn?t make it easy, running off to Europe, marrying the daughter of a Russian nobleman and signing so many managerial contracts that when he got back to New York the boxing commission had to unravel the dizzying array of claims on the man Rickard, in obeisance to his got-rocks patrons, was suddenly calling the best bet to wear Tunney?s discarded mantle.
When the legal scrum was settled, Billy Gibson ended up as front man for the Wall Street fat cats. Gibson had managed Tunney and intended to get out of boxing with him, but Rickard told him, ?You don?t want to retire. I?ll fix it so you can be [Hansen?s] manager. You can?t go wrong if you string with the millionaires.?
The next step toward Knute?s intended coronation was to get him back into the ring for just the second time in almost a year. But even the New York referee (Kid McPartland) imported by the Hansen conglomerate for the occasion was powerless to save Knute from a brutal knockout by virtually unknown K.O. Christner in Cleveland on December 4, 1928.
It reportedly took Hansen three hours to regain his senses after Christner smashed him to the deck multiple times in the ninth round.
?When his befogged brain had cleared a bit,? Sam Levy later wrote, ?he said: ?Do you think I?m yellow? Do you believe any fellow who wasn?t game would get up as often as I did, trying to beat the KO count after my trips to the floor?
??It isn?t right to call any fighter yellow. If he did not have guts he would not become a fighter. The same fellows who are quick to accuse me or anyone else of lacking a fighting heart would be the first to lay down if they got punched on the nose.??
Hansen went to Paris to paint. He should?ve stayed there, but instead he returned to the ring and sealed his reputation as a pugilistic joke by losing eight of his last 10 bouts (one no-contest), mostly by knockout. In the mid-?30s there was a comic strip heavyweight boxer called Dynamite Dunn, and even his record included a one-round knockout of the Melancholy Dane.
What his accomplishments of the spirit were after that, I don?t know; but there are two things about Knute Hansen that need to be entered into the record.
One is that in World War II Hansen was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and participated in the invasion of Normandy.
The other is this item from the October 4, 1936 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
?The strong right arm of Knute Hansen, former heavyweight fighter, averted a possible tragedy early this morning when a patrolman later pronounced unfit for duty walked into Stewart?s restaurant, at 56 7th Ave., Manhattan, and menacingly flourished his revolver.
?All was quiet in the restaurant when, shortly before 4 a.m., Patrolman Edward Petersen of the East 22nd St. station stepped in and became boisterous and drew his gun. Hansen, who is manager of the restaurant, persuaded him to put the weapon away and leave. Petersen, on vacation since September 21, was in civilian clothes.
?In a few minutes Petersen came back, whipped out his gun and pointed it at Hansen. The former fighter rushed up to him and knocked the gun from his hand. As he did so the gun barked and a bullet pierced the front window. Patrolmen from the Charles St. station went to the restaurant and placed Peterson under arrest.?
