He began professional prizefighting that year, winning one of his first fights on July 1 against Joe Goodney at the Fairmont Athletic Club in the Bronx. On December 4, he beat Sammy Waltz, future Connecticut State Featherweight champion in fifteen rounds in Meriden, Connecticut. He lost only seven of his first sixty-five recorded fights with BoxRec between July 1916 and September 1919, beating Eddie Wallace in 1918 and 1919 in Philadelphia and Montreal. He fought 1925 World Lightweight Champion Rocky Kansas to a draw on November 9, 1918 in Philadelphia.