JOCK MCAVOY: Jack Dempsey, the Mafia and one night in New York City

Madison Square Garden. New York City.

It was a Friday. 20th December

1935. The streets and stores lie bare as a blinding blizzard swept across ''The Big Apple.'' Even with Christmas just a week away, the city that never slept lay dozing, for such was the ferocity of the storm, New Yorkers had decided to stay at home and sit it out. Many instead tuned into their wirelesses for the big fight live from the ''Garden''. The local hero and Middleweight champion of the world Eddie ''Babe'' Risko was fighting some unknown ''Limey'' called Jock McAvoy from across the pond. He was expected to be just another successful W on Risko's record. Indeed, so little was known about McAvoy and his fighting credentials, that people surrounding the champion, some holders of highly dubious reputations according to the NYPD and Edgar Jo Hoover's FBI, didn't even bother to give the contest an official title status. Almost as if it was below them to let their guy fight this bum from nowhere. They said he was from some darned place called Manchester, Collyhurst in northern England.

Wherever the hell that was?