JEM BELCHER AND TOM CRIBB
After Jem Belcher’s signal defeat at the huge hands of Pearce, the
“Game Chicken,” two years passed by before the temptation once again
to risk the chances of the ring overpowered the old champion. During
that time his life as a publican had by no means improved his already
enfeebled physique. And those two years had seen the rise to fame (and
that fame steadily growing) of one Tom Cribb, a Gloucestershire man
like Pearce and Belcher himself, a heavy, slow, ponderous fellow, who
had beaten good men, the best of whom was Bill Richmond, the black, and
who had been beaten but once, when quite out of condition, by George
Nichols.
Once again Belcher’s jealousy blazed up, and he challenged Cribb. The
challenge was accepted. At that stage of Cribb’s career it could in no
wise be avoided, but his backers were not at all easy. They knew what
Jem Belcher could do, they knew that their own man was dead slow. They
were afraid that, despite the old champion’s unathletic life, Tom Cribb
would never be able to touch him.
The fight took place on April 8th, 1807, for _£_200 a side. The place
chosen was Moulsey Hurst, on the Thames, almost opposite to Hampton
Court, the scene of innumerable prizefights. The battle attracted all
the foremost sportsmen of the day, and the gutteral exclamations of
the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV., were heard amongst the
chatter at the ring-side. John Jackson kept “time.”
In spite of his pasty face and weedy appearance Jem was still the
favourite. His arms, never remarkable for muscular development, looked
thin and meagre, his whole body poor. But the lion-hearted courage
of the man had so firm a hold upon the imagination of his friends
that they believed him still invincible. It was easy enough to invent
excuses for his defeat by Pearce.
Cribb was a shorter man, but fully two stone heavier. He was built on
the heroic scale, with huge chest and shoulders and the arms of an
inelegant Hercules. To the more dismal of his friends, who warned him
of Jem’s speed, he replied, grinning. “You’ll see, he’ll break his
hands on my head.” Cribb’s was a very tough nut, and with considerable
experience behind him he knew it.
The fight began with the usual caution. Then Jem darted in with a
couple of spanking blows at his adversary’s face, and almost before
Cribb knew where he was, he had jumped away again out of reach. Again
Jem did this and yet again. All the stories he had heard of Cribb’s
great strength were comfortably balanced by the discovered truth of the
stories about his slowness. But the next time Jem leapt in upon his man
Cribb was ready with a heavy right-hand counter on the ribs; and then
before he could get away Jem found himself whirled off his feet and
flung hard upon the ground.
In the next round Jem backed away, tempting Cribb to try for another
fall, and as the big fellow lumbered after him, Jem stopped abruptly
and sent in lightning blows with left and right, a bang under the chin
and again and again on the face and nose, so that the blood ran fast.
Then like the vainglorious fool that he was, he closed with Cribb, and
exerting all his strength, flung him on the ground.
It was an idiotic thing to do, for to throw a man two stone heavier
than yourself is more exhausting than to be thrown by him. And Jem
Belcher knew it, but seeing the opportunity could not resist it, well
knowing as he must have done, that Cribb could endure any amount of
such treatment. Thereafter for a little while, it is true, Jem was all
over Cribb. He was infinitely the better and the faster boxer. Lord
Saye and Sele, Jem’s principal backer, watched him with satisfaction.
“He’ll have Tom blinded in half an hour,” he said: for again and again
Jem’s sharp knuckles had landed on his opponent’s shaggy eyebrows.
But the amateur had not thoroughly studied the anatomy of Cribb. He
had not noticed, for example, that his eyes were unusually deep set,
so that though his brows were badly bruised and constant sharp blows
had fallen on the cheekbones as well, the subsequent swelling had not
closed Tom’s eyes as it would have other men’s. Moreover, when blow on
blow upon the hard bone of his brows had lacerated the swollen flesh,
the flow of blood partly relieved the swelling. But for some rounds Jem
Belcher hammered him unmercifully. Left and right, quickly following
up advantages, he drove Cribb before him round and across the ring.
Thrice in succession he exerted his strength and, closing, threw his
antagonist heavily upon the grass.
But Tom Cribb was hard and healthy and strong. He might be a poor boxer
at this time, but he knew how to play a waiting game, and he had the
moral courage to bide his time and the physical courage to endure the
inevitable punishment, and now at last he saw that Jem’s rushes were
slower. The grim-faced, battered fighter looked across the ring at the
slim and delicate fellow, so light a burden upon his second’s knee,
whose face showed not a mark, and he nodded to his own attendants. “You
watch,” he said.
When they came up again, the spectators noticed that there were bruises
about Jem’s ribs, and that when Tom’s infrequent body blows did land,
he winced with obvious pain. But he continued to take care of his
head. For a round or two Jem had been slowing down, then once again he
pulled himself together and went for Cribb with the fury of despair. He
understood now what it was to fight a man so vastly his better in sheer
strength. And under the rain of his punches Tom Cribb retreated and
at length fell prostrate in his own corner. Many folk at the ringside
thought that the fight was over. Half a minute to go--could Cribb
recover? His seconds sluiced him with cold water, rubbed his limbs,
dragged him up. There he was, staggering at the scratch, a pitiful
sight, broken, bleeding, but upright, and, as the moments passed,
steadier, with left foot out, hands up and head erect. And again Jem
went for him and landed a couple of blows, right and left, upon his
head. Then he backed away towards his own corner, glancing at his fists
as he did so. Tom Cribb grinned, and turned for an instant towards his
own corner, nodding, as much as to say, “Told you so.” Jem came forward
again and made a hesitating attempt at a blow. Tom guarded it easily
and went after him, pressing him towards the ropes and finally sending
him down with a heavy right on the ribs. In the next round Jem came up
again, clearly afraid to hit, and this time with a terrific-body blow
Cribb sent him clear through the ropes.
[Illustration: JOHNSON & PERRINS
_Published August 27 1812 by A. Smerton St. Martins Lane._]
The turn of fortune had been amazingly sudden. Not three minutes before
every one save Cribb and a few of his supporters had thought the end
had come and in Jem’s favour. Now Tom knocked him down again without
anything like resistance. And at the end of forty-one rounds and
thirty-five minutes, Jem Belcher had perforce to give in. Immediately
afterwards he walked, weak but not dead-beat, round the ring, showing
his hands to the spectators. They were quite useless. Tom had been
right: his hard head had driven up the knuckles so that the lightest
hit was to Jem exquisitely painful.
It was an honourable defeat, though a bitter disappointment to Jem
Belcher. Well he knew that in all but strength and hardness he was
the better man. And he knew, too, that few, save Cribb, could endure
the amount of punishment that he had given before his hands went, and
that in the days before he lost his eye and before he had weakened his
constitution by drinking, Cribb could never have stood a chance with
him.