Why Mike O’Dowd is on this page

Michael Joseph O’Dowd (5 April 1895 – 28 July 1957) was an American boxer and World Middleweight Champion. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, he won the world title on 14 November 1917 by knocking out Al McCoy in the sixth round — the challenger had been dropped six times before the count finished — and held the championship until 1920.

The First World War interrupted his title reign. In 1918, while serving in the United States Army, O’Dowd became the only active world boxing champion to fight at the front, a distinction that earned him a popular following long after his career ended. During those years he also held the legendary Harry Greb to a draw (25 February 1918) and posted victories over future International Boxing Hall of Fame members Jack Britton, Mike Gibbons, Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis and Jeff Smith.

He was knocked out only once across his entire career, in his final fight on 16 March 1923. After retirement he lived quietly in Saint Paul until his death from a heart attack at a Veteran’s Hospital in 1957, aged 62, and was buried at Calvary Cemetery. O’Dowd was inducted into the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2014.

Sources

• Wikipedia — Mike O’Dowd (article).
• Wikidata Q2392687.

Heritage notes

Family root: diaspora-likely.

The directory threads Mike O’Dowd back to the Ó Dubhda clan story via the surname-variants reality — the same family carried these spellings as it scattered. See the septs and the diaspora for the wider pattern, or the Clan DNA Project for the genetic connections being mapped now.