George Dixon was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1870. He started his professional boxing career at age 16 and won the bantamweight crown at age 18. He was known as a clever fighter and a hard hitter.

Dixon fought an estimated 800 fights, with 38 knockouts in his roughly 150 recorded matches. It was recorded that during his professional boxing career, he won 86 fights, had 38 draws, suffered 21 losses, and had 13 matches with no decisions.

Dixon was the first man ever to win more than two World boxing titles. He held the paperweight, bantamweight, and featherweight titles, and was the first black man to win a World Championship. He was also the first man to engage in 30 or more fights and the first to lose and regain a championship. He used his popularity as an athlete to champion Black civil rights, like getting promoters to reserve seats for Black fans who wanted to see him fight (an arrangement that would have been unheard of in that day and age).

Dixon had the most advanced training techniques of his time – using hand weights while miming punches, and training with one-speed bag suspended from the ceiling and one from the floor. He had a lot of tricky footwork and courage and is credited with inventing shadow boxing and the heavy bag.

Dixon once fought a 70 round bout that took four hours and 37 minutes to complete and ended in a draw. He was also the winner of the Worlds longest bantamweight fight – 40 rounds against Boston’s Johnny Murphy.

In 1955 Dixon was inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, and in 1956 into the Ring Hall of Fame. He passed away in 1909 at the age of 39.