By the age of 18, Ernie Schaaf was back in the civilian world and ready to take on his professional boxing career. He left the Navy with an impressive resume for an upcoming heavyweight. He was the Navy heavyweight title holder and he won an International Amateur Championship belt.
To guide his career he turned to Phil Schlossberg, a long time Navy man with a career that spanned two decades serving in the Spanish American War and World War I. In the ring, he had similar success as Ernie. He was once Navy Champion, Armed Forces Heavyweight Champion and National Amateur Champion. Schlossberg was also a Boston guy who helped Ernie's former shipmate, Jack Sharkey, start his professional career.
The young fighter made the move to Massachusetts from New Jersey to be with his manager.
Mechanics Hall in Boston was the site of his professional debut. It was March of 1927 against Al Friedman, a boxer from Roslindale. The victory was one of 10 he would earn throughout the year. But it wasn't a perfect year. Ernie lost three fights struggling twice against Yale Okun, a well-respected Newark fighter. The defeats were learning opportunities. Ernie faced Okun two additional times beating him in October of ’27 and then again in January 1928. Throughout his career, Ernie would develop a trend of figuring out his difficult opponents.
His first years as a professional he worked on his skills as a boxer and continued to mature physically. He gradually put on weight and would fight mainly around the 200 pounds mark. He would also reach his full height of 6’ 2”. “Ernie has taken on weight gradually still to retain his neat and compact build,” wrote W.A Hamilton of The Boston Herald. “[He] hasn’t lost any of his speed and punches with the force of a trip hammer.”
It was in October of 1928 that Ernie took some of his earnings as a boxer and bought a nine room home for his family in Wrentham, Massachusetts, a quiet rural town 25 miles from Boston. Ernie’s family left Elizabeth and made the move North. Ernie and Schlossberg also set up a training camp in Wrentham on one of its lakes.
From the start of his professional career, Ernie was being mentioned as a heavyweight contender, and Schlossberg was often credited with carefully transitioning him from an amateur into a pro. Damon Runyon, famed sports columnist, praised Schlossberg for his development of the former Navy champ. “He took Schaaf along with great care for a year or so, and is now moving him against fairly good men,” he wrote in his syndicated column Says Runyon. “Schlossberg does not believe in using ‘set-ups’ for Ernie, though the opponents may prove nothing more than that when they lift their hands against the blonde sailor.”
Runyon continued in the colorful parlance of the time, “You will hear a great deal of Schaaf in the next year. He can sock ‘em, and the ringworms love the socker. I know of no young heavyweight who can beat Schaaf right now, and few of the old ‘uns will be able to handle him in twelve months.”
Early in his professional career, Ernie worked on finding balance between cleverness and aggressiveness in the ring. The early results were mixed. “As a clever boxer Schaaf was something of a disappointment, and when he lost decisions to Harold Mays in New Jersey and to Big Boy Peterson at the Arena, he promptly abandoned the idea of being a fleet-footed boxer and determined to walk in and punch with his opponents in the future,” wrote David Eagan sports writer of Daily Boston Globe in 1928.
In an example of learning from defeats and working to his strengths as a boxer, Ernie beat both men by returning to the more aggressive punching style of his amateur days.
Another factor cited for the defeats against Mays and Peterson would play a role in the Carnera fight. In both cases, Ernie was willing to enter the ring sick. “He was too game to allow heavy colds and a bad throat conditions to keep him out of the ring against either Mays or Peterson,” Eagan wrote.
His most legendary fights came against Max Baer, a hard hitting boxer from California. In 1930 Baer faced Frankie Campbell. The bout would end with Campbell in the hospital eventually dying from brain injuries. Three months after the Campbell fight, Baer faced Ernie for the first time. It was Baer’s first appearance at Madison Square Garden and Ernie would consider it one of his toughest professional fights. It was a ten round slugfest in which Ernie earned the victory. The rematch occurred two years later and Baer beat Ernie badly. The fighters went the distance, but Ernie was knocked unconscious just as the final round came to a close. Though saved by the bell, Ernie was out cold for close to five minutes. It was the severe nature of this beating that people wrongly speculated contributed to the tragedy that occured in the ring with Carnera several months later.
Other notable fighters Ernie faced included Tommy Loughran, Dick Daniels and Johnny Risko and James Braddock, whose life story was brought to the silver screen in the film Cinderella Man.
New Management
In November of 1930 Schlossberg agrees to a deal with John Buckley and Sharkey selling Ernie's contract for $12,500 to both men. In 1928, Schlossberg told reporters he would never sell the contract for any amount of money, but it appeared to be a mutual decision to go their separate ways. As far as why the change was made, the most detailed explanation simply states Ernie and Schlossberg “part good friends” and the boxer believes his new management “can procure more work for him.”
The new arrangement proved to be complex. It was said that Ernie had a great admiration for Sharkey and looked up to the boxer as a mentor. Sharkey was a colorful character who made bold pronouncements in the press. He was a successful fighter eventually winning the heavyweight championships while managing Ernie. He would become the only boxer to fight both Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis. Sharkey pushed the young boxer and was openly critical of Ernie’s work ethic during a stretch of defeats, but they seemed to have a mutual respect.
The relationship was also complicated by the fact that Ernie wanted a heavyweight championship shot. As 1932 opened up, Ernie was a legitimate title contender, but he had to play second fiddle to his co-manager. He was ranked number 3 in the world behind Max Schmeling and Sharkey. Ernie felt Sharkey would defeat Schmeling and then he would be unable to fight for the title. “Of course he can’t challenge his own manager for the championship so it may be a long time before he gets a chance to become a champion,” wrote Robert Edgren a sports reporter for The Washington Post. “There’s no doubt that Schaaf would be in there fighting Schmeling but for Sharkey’s first claim to a title fight.”
Ernie believed the title went through Sharkey, and he needed to have new management to make that happen. In Janaury 1933, a month before his fight with Carnera, Ernie announced he would not renew his contract with Buckley and Sharkey when it would expire on March 1. John Buckley said in response, “I don’t think Schaaf will sign with us again. Ernie has his own ideas about what he wants to do and I know one of them is to fight Sharkey. He has wanted to fight him for a long time but knows that under existing conditions he never would get the chance.”
Buckley continued, “There was no argument between Schaaf and myself when he declared he intended to cut loose from the contract we hold with him. I told him it was all right with me.”
At the age of 24, Ernie was driven and he wanted to be the champ. “I want a crack at that heavyweight title and will fight anybody who stands in my way, Sharkey, of course included,” he said.
But before the contract would expire and before he would get that shot, Ernie had to face Carnera.
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Part IV: Wrentham Becomes "Real Home"
