Battling Siki -vs- Georges Carpentier 9/24/22 (Extended Footage)

On September 24, 1922 at Buffalo Velodrome in Montrouge France, the deal was allegedly for challenger Battling Siki to take a dive in his title fight with Light Heavyweight champion Georges Carpentier. So said Siki. It’s hard to imagine why such an arrangement had to be made since Carpentier was a seasoned veteran with one of the best reputations of any boxer in the world. Whatever deal was made between whomever, Carpentier insisted he was never informed. Still, a dive need only a diver to take place. Take the hit and take the fall. Siki however, believing that Carpentier was in on the fix, expected the fight to go easy until the moment of untruth. Having not received the memo, Carpentier was all business from the opening bell, and blew into Siki as one would expect from a champion. Having received a slap when expecting a kiss, Siki got pissed off. No dive took place. When the fight ended after a flurry of punches in the sixth round, Carpentier was initially declared the winner on a foul. Minutes later, Siki was instead declared the winner by knockout. The matter went to court.

This was a great fight, with both boxers giving their all. Like most early fight films, the better the print, the better view of the action. The video here is compiled from several sources. The majority of the footage comes from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. The image is very sharp compared to most I've seen. The only adjustment I made was slowing the film speed. Round 4 was not included in the Australian print, as well as the last portion where you see the judges over rule the referee, with the decision being "megaphoned" to the crowd. I found and inserted those sections from a 16mm print. I left all the source audio in place, rather than showing a silent video. The clip of Siki at the end with an entourage is likely from British Pathe News.