The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-08-20
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Tommy Ryan, as he now called him. self, was adding to his income by fight could be pitted against him.
 Most lof these early contests in which Tommy took part were fought with skin-tight gloves. Tommy won all of them, and later made trips to several other cities to take on their period was in 188s. when Tommy was keighteen years old, when it took him thirty-three rounds to knock out Dick England.
 By the time he was nineteen Tommy had a reputation which extended all lover the middle West. He had never been licked, and, uatura1ly, the Detroit fans wanted to see him trimmed. The Hibernian element were especially anxious to dig up man who could put itsover Tommy, for they suspect ed that Ryan was only bogus Irish man Martin Shaughnessy. about whose Irish origin there was no doubt, was picked to turn the tricks. He was a good scrapper, and it looked as if Tommy had this time bit off more than he could F1etcherize.
 But not so. Martin put up a game, hard battle, sheered on by the An cient Order of Hibernfans, and at times he looked like a winner, but in ithe twenty-third round he was knock ed down and out. Shaughnessy's
 
 however. and demanded another
 match forttheir man. This time they hung upM $500, which looked like a. young fortune to Tommy, who had never seen such a bunch of money in his life Martin also hankered for that coins and he scrapped like an Irish demon, but to no avail. Several times the tide of battle seemed to turn against Tommy, but he always weathered3 the storm, and in the for tS-sixth round Shaughn essy was Knocked out cold. That same year Tommy fought a fifty-seven round draw with another Irishman. Jimmy Murphy. He then decided to seek new fields, and a few months later found him in the Chicago fight colony. His first scrap was with Con Doyle, and was pulled off in a little town in Indiana, Tommy winning by a knock Tout in the twenty-ei ghth chapter. He Knocked out several other good men. and then went to Canada, where he stopped Ed Bartlett.
 Tommy was then in the welter- weight division, and the champion ship at this weight was claimed by Danny Needham, the Minneapolis 1 fighter. In 1891, shortly before his twenty birthday, Tommy fought 1 Danny. in Minneapolis and after a hard battle lasting seventy-six rounds Ryan l won by a knockout. Ryan's claim to l the welterweight title was disputed lby Mysterious Billy Smith. They thought six round draws in New York and Boston, and in 1894 they were
 matched to go twenty rounds for the title in Minneapolis It was a close thing, but Joe Choynski, the referee, 1 gave the verdict to Tommy They l fought again in 1895, at Coney Island, and in the early rounds Smith had the best of it and knocked Tommy down. In the end. howevere. it was called a draw In a. third session in 1896 Tom my won on a foul. In 1896 Ryan was knocked out by Kid Mccoy, his former sparring partner Both Ryan and Mo l Coy soon entered the nniddleweigEt ranks, and both claimed the cham 1 pionship of that division for several l years. Tommy continued active in i the ring until 1907. when he retired, after a career in which he had been defeated only by one man, Kid Mccoy.