Poker and faro were his games of chance, but it was boxing that was his sport of choice. While his fellow peacekeeper Bat Masterson went east to make his name as a sports writer in New York City, Wyatt went west to California and began a short lived career as a boxing referee. A choice that would lead to one of most embarrassing sporting moments of the Victorian age.
The fight in question, held in San Francisco, involved "Sailor" Tom Sharkey, a tall, imposing Irishman with a temper and fighting fists to match versus "Ruby Bob" Fitzsimmons the current heavy weight champion in the boxing age that was unregulated and chaotic at best. Rules are made to be broken, they say, but when there are no rules to begin with, all bets are off! This was to be the big one as Fitzsimmons had already fought and won bouts against Peter Maher with a knock in the first round, and later when he KO'd the reigning champ, Gentleman Jim Corbett in 1897. Technically there was no current legitimate champ so this match was made in heaven as it would be decided who was King of the Ring. Something else to ponder. Two things actually, at the time of the fight boxing was considered an illegal activity in San Franciso adn the first fight on the coast under the Queensbury Rules of boxing that now replaced the old London Rule which was one raucous reign of terror in the ring where anything was legal except the use of weapons!
The new rules called for three minute rounds, padded gloves, (no more knuckle sandwiches and the all important Ten Count. Prior to that, a boxer was "out" if he couldn't get up from the canvas or if he died in combat! The crowds were massive and the promoters knew they would be so the only large enough venue was the old Mechanics Pavilion and the betting on the Barbary Coast was hot and heavy and the booze was flowing and anticipation was at a fever pitch.
As an added attraction and boxing bonus the promoters asked local resident and former lawman Wyatt Earp to ref the fight thereby assuring a sell-out crowd SRO! Wyatt had made it alive and well from the old wild west, but he was not the legend then that he became later. His notoriety followed him and the camps were divided on whether he was a good guy or a bad guy at the time, but lets face it....crowds will spend dough to see the bad guy more often than they will for the good guy!
Many thought the fix was in, but which way the match wind would blow based on Earps ruling was not known, and both fighters and their managers felt the other had paid off Earp to rule in the opponents favor. The night of the fight arrived, the crowds filled the seats, it was hot, crowded, smokey and dank. The fighters entered the arena and got into their corners in the ring. The ring announcer mustered up his best shrill barker voice and announced with mucho gusto and pride...Ladies and Gentlemen...I Give you Wyatt Earp!"
Enter into the ring the one, the only Wyatt Earp. Wait! Is this a boxing match or the OK Corral all over again. The crowd couldn't believe what they were seeing. Earp was packing a heater in his pocket. A damned six gun as though he was facing off against the Clantons-McClaury gang once again Tombstone! This however, was not Tombstone, but a boxing ring in San Francisco so a local policeman spotted it first, entered the ring and made Earp surrender his weapon before the match could get underway.
Both boxers were hitting foul at times and Earp failed to call them on it. There is speculation that Earp wasn't familiar with the new rules of boxing, while others thought he was in the Sharkey pocket as his missed punches were clear fouls. Fitzsimmons was clearly in the lead and at one point Sharkey was down on the canvas in pain and without a count was sent to his corners while Fitzsimmons stood in the middle of the ring laughing. At that point...the point of no return for Earps reputation was reached and breached. He went to Sharkey's manager and said.."I'm calling a foul, your man has won!"
The crowd now went wilder than Dodge City on a drunken cowboy Saturday night. "Fix! Fix!" they yelled. Sharkeys people ushered him out of the ring and the arena as fast as they could while Fitzsimmons started to yell but you couldn't hear him over the roar of the crowd. Newspaper sports reporters were there in force covering the event and felling that the fix was in, they gave Fitzsimmons ample column space for interviews on his perception of being robbed of the title.
Sharkey who claimed that Fitz had fouled him to the point where he could have died was just as vocal in the sports public forum, but when the National Athletic Club wanted to send doctors to examine these wounds, Sharkey's manager refused to let them do that, which would have put the issue out in the light of day. (later he was examined and the doctors conclusion was that the wounds suffered were inflicted after the bout!) Fitzsimmons had never been known as a fighter who played dirty in or out of the ring so the mystery grew in proportion and the rage against Earp was intensified. Newspaper headlines took sides as well with the Hearst pubications siding with Earp.
At stake was the $10,000 prize which was frozen until a court could decide after the fact what had happened and who had won. A judge ruled that a court could not take sides or make a determination in a boxing dispute for the simple fact that boxing was illegal in the city in the first place, so sadly, the prize purse was never awarded to either Sharkey or Fitzsimmons. Both fighters met again in the ring in 1900 in New York where Fitz knocked out Sharky in the first round. Fitz was already the Heavy Weight Champ of the World and soon would also be the Light Heavy Weight Champion.
Wyatt Earp never ref'd again. Remember his wearing a pistol in the ring? It was consiscated, he was fined and later the pistol returned. He now pursued a career in Hollywood as a consultant for the fledgling motion picture industry and died in 1929 in Los Angeles. He's buried in Colma, California just south of San Francisco, the site of his last stand in sports. The Sharkey-Fitzsimmons fight was his last "gunfight" and unlike the outcome at the OK Corral, this time he lost the battle.