Hezekiah Moscow

Hezekiah Moscow (c. 1862 – c. 1901) was a West Indian migrant to Victorian London who worked as a lion tamer and competed as a professional boxer under the ring name Ching Hook. In the 2025 Disney+ series A Thousand Blows, a fictionalized version of his character is portrayed by Malachi Kirby.

Early life Moscow was born around 1862 in the British West Indies, although, as with many Black boxers of his era, his origins remained described inconsistently and vaguely in all newspaper boxing reports. at the East London Aquarium, also known as the Shoreditch Aquarium, in Bishopsgate. In 1884, he was charged by the RSPCA with "cruelly ill-treating" four bears in his care,

Career From around 1888, Moscow gained prominence through regular sparring exhibitions at venues such as the Sebright Music Hall, where he performed twice nightly against opponents including Sam Baxter. He also worked as a second, master of ceremonies and benefit organizer, managed boxing saloons including at the City of Norwich pub and the Walnut Tree in Stepney, and was sometimes given the honorary title "Professor" for his teaching work at clubs such as Watford Boxing Club. In one of them Moscow is in fighting stance and the other shows him in private clothes; the archive describes him as a boxer who came from the Caribbean and lived in Whitechapel in late nineteenth-century London.

Personal life He married Mary Ann Maddin in 1891, and their daughter Eliza was born the same year.