Before the day of the fight Bob Fitzsimmons and Tom Sharkey were going to face off to claim the world heavyweight title. The only problem was that J.J. Groom and John Gibbs, the promoters of the scheduled fight, did not have a referee. Fitzsimmons’ manager was afraid that a fixed fight was in order, thus he refused every referee suggested by J.J. Groom and John Gibbs the promoters of this match ("The San Francisco call). Fitzsimmons was on the verge of pulling out of the contest which is why the sponsors of the heavyweight championship found a candidate that would be perfect for the match. The referee was Wyatt Earp but when he was approached with the job offer, Earp objected Wyatt Earp told the promoters of the fight that if they could not find a suitable referee for the match then the sponsors could find him at the Goodfellow’s Restaurant eating dinner, which was across the street from where the fight is scheduled to happen. After searching for another referee, they were running out of time and had no one left to suggest for the match so they went to Wyatt again and told him they could not find another referee, so he agreed to judge the fight (Cellania, Miss. "Wyatt Earp and the ‘Fixed' Heavyweight Title Fight). The attendants were not very pleased to find out Wyatt Earp was the referee but he did in fact judge other matches before giving …show more content…
In partnership with Charlie Hoxie, Wyatt and Josephine Earp opened a two story saloon called The Dexter and made an estimated $80 thousand which in common time is around $2 million. They then opened another saloon in Tonopah, Nevada, the site of another new gold find. In about 1911, Wyatt Earp began working several mining claims in Vidal, California, retreating back to Los Angeles in the hot summers with Josephine Earp ("Wyatt Earp."