Sunday 17 March 2013

90 years ago: Battling Siki challenges the laws of probability

This has nothing much to do with the subjects usually mentioned in this blog, but I've always found it amusing. On March 17, 1923, Battling Siki (50-10-3) defended his world light heavyweight boxing title against Mike McTigue (88-24-7) at La Scala Theatre in Dublin, and the fight lasted the scheduled distance of 20 rounds.

Battling Siki was a native of Senegal who was based in Paris, while Mr. McTigue was a native of County Clare, Ireland, currently based in New York. Julian L. Simon, in his book Basic Research Methods in Social Science (1969), cited this as a classic example of challenging the laws of probability--an African fighting an Irishman in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. The reader may use his Sherlockian skills in deductive reasoning to figure out who won the decision.

No comments:

Post a Comment