BATTLING SIKI

Amadou Louis M'barick Fall, known as Battling Siki, was the first African-born boxing world champion. Born in French-Senegal, he won the world World Light-Heavyweight Championship after knocking out Georges Carpentier in 1922.

Born in the port city of Saint-Louis, French Senegal. His father died when he was young. At age 10 he was brought to Europe and abandoned.

In July 1925 Siki was stabbed and hospitalized days after defeating Jimmy Francis by 2nd round KO. Francis, like many boxers in New York at the time, was connected to mobster Owney Madden. Biographer Steven Benson speculates this was payback for Siki failing to throw the Jimmy Francis fight.

On 15 December 1925, he was stopped by a policeman who saw him drunk on 42nd Street, not far from his apartment, and not far from where he had been stabbed in July. Siki stated that he was on his way home, and walked off. Later he was found lying face down, shot twice in the back at close range, dead at the age of 28. An autopsy revealed that the bullets hit his left lung and kidneys, causing a fatal internal hemorrhage