tough campaigner who had faced the best of the heavies. The ring was
pitched on the stage of the opera house. In the second round, Weinert
jolted Anderson with a left hook and followed through with a vicious blow
to the jaw. Andre reeled, tumbled backward through the ropes, rolled off
the stage, and fell into the orchestra pit where an assortment of musical
instruments had been stacked. He landed seat first in the wide, inviting
mouth of the big bass horn, to the keen delight of the spectators. That
incident saved the show.
Tightly wedged into the horn, Andre strove in vain to extricate himself
while Billy Joh reached across the ropes and tolled off the fatal ten.
* * * * *
It was some twenty-five years ago that Hollywood’s Victor McLaglen
arrived in New York to make a personal appearance at the premiere of one
of his movies. That same day, February 3, 1933, Boston heavyweight Ernie
Schaaf was billed to box Primo Carnera, the Italian Behemoth, at Madison
Square Garden. Vic, who had been a boxer and wrestler himself prior to
gaining fame in the movies, was an ardent fight fan. As soon as his
personal appearance was concluded, he rushed over to the Garden to watch
the main event.
I was sitting directly in front of him at ringside when McLaglen suddenly
rushed from his seat upon seeing Phil Schlossberg, one of Schaaf’s
seconds, accompanying his fighter down the aisle to the ring. Vic greeted
Phil with a mighty slap on the back and broadly grinned as both recalled
their six-round match at Vancouver in 1908.
Curious as to the details of their bout, I questioned him after he had
returned to his seat.
“I’ll always remember that fight with Phil,” he replied, “because it
almost resulted in my death. For two rounds we were fighting on even
terms. In the third, Phil split my lip with a punch and the blood began
to flow freely down my throat. When I returned to my corner, my second,
a nervous fellow, asked me to toss my head back, and as I did, he poured
a ‘healing lotion’ down my throat. I collapsed immediately, and as I was
unable to catch my breath, I had to be carried to my dressing room. What
I’d had was ammonia—a good dose of it.
“You can take it from me, Nat,” concluded Victor, “I never again took a
mouthwash without smelling it to make sure it wasn’t ammonia!”
* * * * *
On December 15, 1947, I saw a comical performance by Mexican welterweight
Nava Esparza, in a bout with Brooklyn’s Rocco Rossano at the St. Nicholas
Arena in New York City.
Twenty-six seconds after the fight began, Esparza was counted out in the
quickest knockout in the history of the St. Nick Club. After the ten
count had been tolled, Nava was helped out of the ring. He climbed down
clear-eyed, apparently in complete control of himself. As he got to the
bottom step he reached down and picked up his own water bucket.
Quickly reversing his movements, he climbed back into the ring with the
bucket. What for? To await the next fighter. Later in the dressing room
he snapped back into focus, and was surprised to find out that while
dazed, he had attempted to become a second.
* * * * *
A yarn that got a big laugh from servicemen to whom I told these stories
during my visits to training camps and hospitals during the last war,
concerned Sam Langford’s fight with Jim Smith, an inexperienced but
towering 6′ 2″ Negro.
It was in the Autumn of 1911, and I was assigned to cover the fight at
the Atlantic Gardens on the Bowery in New York City, a famous old club
that operated during the Frawley Law club membership days. Lew Raymond,
a colorful figure, was matchmaker and promoter. Langford, a frequent
performer at the club, was popular with the patrons who packed the arena
every time he fought. Smith came into the ring physically unfit, and Sam
decided he would end the affair in a hurry.
I was in the dressing room with Sam and his manager, Joe Woodman, when
Smith and his handlers passed Langford’s dressing room on the way to the
ring.
“Yuh gonna let me off easy, Sam, ain’t yuh?” Smith asked.
“Yuh gonna stay so long as ah think it’s good fer yuh,” replied Sambo.
The bout got under way. Smith started dancing around the ring to avoid
Sam’s hits. Now and then Sam did contact his opponent’s body, but he
couldn’t get over a clean shot.
Came the fifth round.
“Fer why yuh keeps running like dat?” inquired the angry Langford, as he
stopped in mid-ring and looked at his opponent with disgust. “Is yuh so
frightened you’se afraid to fight? Come on in an’ do some fightin’!”
But all he got was a laugh from Smith.
Suddenly, as Smith wheeled about to get out of the corner, Sambo leaped
forward, let go one that came up from the floor and struck Smith with
such force on that part of his anatomy where the monkey has his tail,
that Big Jim was raised off the floor and landed with a thud on the
canvas. He lay flat as Referee Billy Joh counted him out.
When Smith finally got to his feet, he looked angrily at Sam and said:
“Why yuh ’it me dere?”
“Cause yuh got eyes in yoh head but dere’s none you got behind yuh.”
* * * * *
Here’s another on Sambo that took well with servicemen.
In 1913, Sam was booked to fight John Lester Johnson, a burly Negro who
could hit and who had fought a ten round no-decision bout with Jack
Dempsey when the Manassa Mauler made his début in New York. Raymond had
booked the pair for the Atlantic Gardens, and the place was jammed on
the evening of the affair. Johnson was a “new one” on Sam’s list, but
he knew enough about Sambo not to gamble on his punch. So when the bout
began, like many other Langford opponents, he started to race around the
ring.
Several circuits had been made when Sam suddenly halted, stood a foot or
so away from the ropes, and watched his man scamper about like a scared
jack-rabbit. He was convinced that his opponent wouldn’t remain long
enough in one place to make a fight of it, so he did some quick thinking.
He estimated the speed at which Johnson was moving, then let a winding
right go at his fleeing rival. The punch caught John Lester “on the fly”
and halted his flight with dramatic suddenness. The fist landed on the
base of the spine, and Johnson went crashing to the floor. His head was
clear, but the clout had paralyzed his legs, and he was counted out and
had to be carried to his dressing room.
* * * * *
It was at the Howard Athletic Club in 1908, that I first met Stonewall
Allen, the Negro “Fighting Parson.” He was one of the strangest
characters in the New York sporting world. A good boxer, he always
prayed publicly before he left his corner for the first round. On this
particular night he met a tough sailor boy, Mike McGarry, the “Fighting
Tar.”
Half-way through the first round the sailor caught Stonewall with a smash
on the mouth and knocked out three of his teeth. As the “Parson” stopped
to pick them up, a wild swing caught him on the jaw and flattened him out
for the full count.
When he recovered his senses, Allen, as was his custom, knelt and prayed.
The boys in the gallery began to razz him. One of the sports writers at
the ringside asked him in a loud voice what he was praying for after
being knocked out.
He rose to his feet and, rolling his eyes heavenward, answered:
“I’se thanking de Lawd for gibing me a soft spot to land on.”
* * * * *
Al Singer was a terrific puncher. He was so confident of his ability to
punch holes in anything on two legs that he entered into a match with
Jimmy McLarnin, September 11, 1930, then the hardest hitter, pound for
pound, of any boxer in the game. It was an overweight affair, and Al
ought to have known better.
For two rounds he outboxed McLarnin. In the third session, Jimmy induced
Al to swap punches. It was a terrific spectacle to see these two human
battering rams going at it without any attempt at defense. The crowd was
whipped to fury as the bone-crushing smashes struck home. But it was
too good to last. McLarnin unleashed a straight right to the point of
Singer’s jaw, and down he went.
Jimmy was so certain that Al was out for keeps that he did a few
handsprings, his usual procedure after a victory. But Singer began to
rise at “nine,” and as Referee Johnny McAvoy was bringing down his arm
for the “ten,” Al leaped to his feet.
McLarnin was just finishing a handspring at the time, and Singer, seeing
his chance, rushed in. He missed a crashing punch by the fraction of an
inch, and McLarnin replied with a smashing left hook to the jaw which
finished Singer’s interest for the evening.
* * * * *
A few months later, Al Singer fought Tony Canzoneri in Madison Square
Garden, November 13, 1930. Tony nearly set up a record by battering Al
into submission in one minute and six seconds. The knockout came with
dynamic suddenness and swept the fans off their feet. A left hook caught
Al off his balance and drove him back on his heels. Another punch of the
same sort finished him.
I was staring fascinated at the drama when Ed Hughes, a sportswriter
and cartoonist, sitting next to me said, “What the hell happened? I was
writing that the boys had come into the ring!”
* * * * *
I also recall the strange ending to the New York début of Babe Herman,
flashy young Californian, whom Jack Kearns managed during the early
1920’s.
Herman’s opponent was Irish Johnny Curtin, colorful Jersey City slugger,
and the scrap was held at Charley Doesserick’s Pioneer Club.
For five rounds it was Herman’s brilliant boxing and sharp-shooting
against Curtin’s rugged two-handed aggressiveness.
The Babe nailed Irish Johnny on the chin with a vicious right just as
the bell clanged the end of the fifth. Beyond jolting him as it landed,
the punch seemed to have no serious effect on Curtin. Gingerly, Irish
Johnny turned to walk to his corner. He had taken about two steps when,
suddenly, the full force of that wallop caught up with him, and he
pitched forward on his face.
Despite the frenzied manipulations of his handlers during the minute’s
rest, Irish Johnny was still out and unable to answer the gong for the
sixth.
* * * * *
The bizarre results of “delayed-action” punches also gave a strange twist
to the ending of a battle I saw in New Orleans in 1921 between Happy
Littleton, hard-hitting local middleweight, and Jack Bloomfield, clever
Englishman.
Littleton clipped Bloomfield on the chin in the ninth. Jack staggered for
a moment, then turned away from Littleton, groped his way to a corner,
and started to stumble along the ropes.
While the bewildered Littleton looked on, Bloomfield, in the manner of
a Leon Errol or Jimmy Barton, reeled around three sides of the ring and
was headed for a complete lap when his legs finally caved in, and he
collapsed to the canvas to be counted out.
* * * * *
Can a man, standing on his feet, be unconscious and be counted out by
the referee? It has been done, and I’ve seen it. I saw a lightweight
championship change hands, May 28, 1917, in such a bout. Benny Leonard
had cornered champion Freddy Welsh. Welsh was unsteady on his feet and
desperately trying to hold himself up. He slipped one arm over the
highest rope, and braced himself just as Leonard landed a hard punch to
the jaw. Welsh started to fall toward the floor to get a moment’s rest.
Benny, always a very shrewd fighter, started a quick flurry of punches
which knocked Welsh across the top rope.
Kid McPartland, a very good referee, made Leonard step back. The champion
was out, hanging on the ropes, his feet on the canvas. McPartland counted
the final ten over him, and as convincing proof that poor Welsh was
absolutely unconscious, he slid off the ropes at the end of the count and
fell in a limp heap on the canvas.
Not long after his victory over Welsh, Leonard beat Phil Bloom in a fight
that had a peculiar ending. Benny hit Phil on the chin, and Phil retired
from the fight with a broken ankle. He had sat on it when he went down.
* * * * *
I recall a discussion which once arose between a group of sports writers
and experts concerning queer happenings in the ring.
One mentioned the case of Willie Lewis and Sailor Burke. I saw that fight
at the Fairmont Club, on August 13, 1909. It was a ten-rounder, and both
men were tough and clever.
Willie Lewis was a really great welterweight. He met and beat the
top-liners of a period which included such battlers as Billy Papke, Harry
Lewis, Dixie Kid, Mike Gibbons, and Curley Watson. But Sailor Burke had
a big punch and was as hard as granite. In the first round he dropped
Willie with a hard right to the chin for a count of six.
Willie returned the compliment in the second session by putting the
Sailor down for nine. It was a peach of a blow—a left hook that lifted
Burke clean off his feet.
Then came the fantastic third round. Both men were mixing in the middle
of the ring, with Lewis having a shade the better of the milling. They
stood toe-to-toe, hammering away at each other with lefts and rights to
the body and jaw, when suddenly Burke started a right hook.
Willie tried to beat him to the punch with a similar blow. Both wallops
landed good and true—both men staggered—and then, to the roar of the
crowd, both slumped to the canvas.
Referee Billy Joh was amazed. For a moment he didn’t know what to do.
Shouts came from all over the house. In both corners the handlers were
wild with excitement, yelling their heads off. Then Billy jumped between
the fighters, and with head down, started to count.
It was an extraordinary situation. Burke, who had landed on his face, was
trying to turn on his side, but Lewis, in falling, had toppled in such
a position that part of his body was resting on the Sailor’s knees, and
this prevented him from getting to his feet.
The count went on; “three ... four ...” Then Lewis started to wriggle,
partly releasing Burke “... five ...” Willie was scrambling to his feet.
“... six ...”
The gong went for the end of the round and saved the situation.
Eventually Lewis put Burke out for keeps in the sixth round, but the
thrill of that third session had drained the spectators of interest.
As soon as the fight was over, I went to the dressing room and had a
talk with Billy Joh. I was anxious to know what would have happened, if
neither man had been able to get up and the gong had not sounded.
“I was puzzled for a moment, Nat,” said Billy, “but I soon remembered we
are fighting no-decision bouts. For the sake of records, I should have
continued the count and the man who got to his feet first would have been
the winner.”
* * * * *
Two of the strangest knock-downs I have ever seen took place at the same
Fairmont Club, one between Boyo Driscoll and Biz Mackey and the other
between Soldier Kearns and “One Round” Davis, both in 1911.
In the fight between Kearns and Davis, the latter was handing a whale of
a beating to Kearns and apparently had victory well in hand. But Kearns
stepped in and like lightning shot up a magnificent uppercut which turned
Davis over in a back somersault.
A cry rose from the crowd as Davis finished the somersault on the back of
his neck, his head bent under him and his toes resting on the floor.
“Good heavens!” said a voice near me. “That must have broken his neck!”
The referee began to count, and Davis still maintained his dangerous and
grotesque position.
“Pick him up!” the crowd roared. “His neck’s broken!”
And it looked as if a tragedy had happened. I saw Kearns step forward to
help his fallen opponent, but his handlers shouted for him to keep still.
Davis didn’t move, and the count went pitilessly on.
As soon as he had ticked off “ten,” the referee rushed in and raised
Davis from the canvas. He was still out and his head swung helplessly on
his shoulders. His handlers ran into the ring to cries of “Get a doctor!”
They carried him to his corner, where a few minutes later he was revived.
Half-an-hour later, I was talking to him. He was still slightly dazed,
but so far as I could see, really none the worse for his experience. How
he escaped severe injury to his neck was a mystery to me.
Billy Joh refereed the Boyo Driscoll-Biz Mackey fight and was forced to
count over both men at the same time. This extraordinary affair began
when the boys were close to the ropes, hammering away at each other’s
body.
Billy Joh stepped in and separated them. As he did so, the fighters went
for each other with everything they had. Both landed with a right to
the jaw simultaneously. Driscoll went spinning toward one side of the
ring and Mackey toward the other. They were stretched out flat while
spectators howled with delight. Mackey was up at “Seven,” swaying like
a drunken man. At “nine” Driscoll stumbled to his feet. Each staggered
about the ring unable to do any fighting. It was extraordinarily comic.
Laughter rocked the house as the men groped blindly to find each other.
When eventually their gloves met, they fell into a clinch and remained
that way without doing anything to each other until the gong sounded.
* * * * *
Many things that look queer to spectators are no joke to the fighters,
but I must confess that I have often sat at ringside and enjoyed some of
the antics. Some years ago two husky lightweights, Hugh Ross of Kentucky
and Tom Kelly of New York were pitted against each other in a ten-round
bout. When the final gong sounded, Ross was all in, on the verge of
collapsing. As he fell into his chair, grasping the ropes, he turned to
his second:
“What round was I knocked out in?” he inquired.
Seconds later the announcer was hailing Ross the winner, but the groggy
fighter didn’t realize it. In the dressing room he couldn’t be convinced
that he hadn’t been kayoed. He thought his handlers were spoofing.
[Illustration: 21]
CHAMPS AND CHUMPS
Every profession has its quotas of goofs and bulge-heads. Boxing leads
them all in quality and quantity of whims, fancies, peculiarities, and
idiosyncrasies. The history of the champs and chumps of fistiana is a
saga of trickery, superstition, and practical jokes that would fill a
good-sized public library.
Since the gaslight days when fighters wore skin tights and fought
bare-knuckled for a hundred rounds, performers of the roped square—an
amazing collection of grotesque personalities—have used tricks that
would confound a Hindu fakir, and followed fetishes that would stymie a
practitioner of Voodoo.
Of the fighters I have known intimately, Leonard, Johnson, and Young
Corbett ruled the roost when it came to making disconcerting remarks
that enabled them to regain their equilibrium while they were palming
off the hot stuff on their opponent. Philadelphia’s Lew Tendler wasn’t
quite certain that he had knocked champion Benny Leonard bow-legged in
the eighth round of their fight at Boyle’s Thirty Acres in Jersey City,
July 27, 1922, and forgot to put across the finishing touches when Benny,
smiling, said to him:
“You hit pretty hard, Lew. Why don’t you hurt me?”
Tendler, uncertain how to take the remark, permitted Leonard to hold on
and to talk until it was too late to put over a haymaker. Leonard was as
happy as a lark when he pranced to his corner with the knowledge that he
had hoodwinked Tendler into missing an opportunity for a knockout.
Leonard had another favorite ruse that he’d use whenever he faced a tough
opponent, as in the meeting with Richie Mitchell in the old Garden.
Benny, while taking the referee’s instructions, turned to his rival and
remarked:
“Now, boy, let’s make it a real fight. Those fans want to see action. But
if I knock you down, don’t get up too soon. Take nine, you may need it.”
Of course, he usually spoke so that the ringside scribes could hear what
he had said, and that added to the discomfiture of his opponent. Benny’s
remarks paid good dividends.
* * * * *
Harlem Tommy Murphy would cut loose with a line of gab every time he
dropped an opponent. A talkative fellow, Harlem Tommy would upbraid his
man for not doing well, and then, after he had dropped him for the count,
he would remark:
“Sorry, old top. Give my regards to the folks when you get home.”
Former world bantamweight champion Johnny Coulon, came to pay me a
visit when I was in Chicago recently. We discussed some of his fights,
especially the one in which he beat Frankie Burns in New Orleans in a
twenty-round bout, February 28, 1912. Coulon asked me if I recalled how
he kidded Burns out of a possible knockout in the fourteenth round, when
Frankie had caught the champion with a corking right to the chin.
Coulon was tossed back on his heels. It looked as if he would tumble to
the canvas, but he caught himself in time, grasped the left arm of his
opponent, backed Burns against the ropes and then, while trying to clear
his head, said:
“Why, Frankie, you’re a sap. You have a good punch but you don’t know
how to toss it. Watch me!” Instead of taking advantage of the position
he held by virtue of that stunning wallop, Burns tore himself away from
Johnny’s grip and covered up while maneuvering himself out of range of
Coulon’s right. While he retreated, the champion fully regained his
faculties and, following Burns, actually caught him with a powerful right
to the chin that almost dropped the challenger.
Burns never knew that he had been duped. But it wasn’t the first time
Coulon had come up with this stunt when stunned.
* * * * *
Fighters are probably the most superstitious of all athletes. In
many years of experience with their ways, I have come across some
extraordinary cases of ring superstition. Few boxers I have met are free
from it.
One of them was Gene Tunney. He dismissed luck as a factor in the fight
game, although he had plenty of it—for example the “long count” he was
given in his contest with Jack Dempsey at Chicago. But Gene affected to
despise everything that savored of superstition.
“It’s up to me,” he would say coolly.
Incidents that would have driven most fighters into a state of
superstitious fear had no effect on Gene, and his almost inhuman calm
sometimes had a bad influence on his opponents. He never batted an
eyelash. He was cool, collected, a study in perfect composure. No fighter
in recent years, with the exception of Loughran, approached Tunney’s ring
demeanor.
Dempsey, on the other hand, was like Jeffries in that he was so nervous
that he twitched and tossed, moved his feet to and fro in the resin,
worked his hands over the upper strand of the ring, and could scarcely
await the call to battle. He was pulling at the leash every moment he
waited for the bell.
Dempsey had his full share of superstition. He always went into the ring
with a dirty old maroon sweater thrown across his shoulders. Once I asked
him about it.
“That sweater, Nat,” he said, “has been with me ever since I began
fighting. I bought it in St. Louis out of my first ring earnings, and I
have never been beaten while wearing it. Once I left it off and lost the
decision.”
Jack handed the tattered garment to me for inspection. It was certainly
an odd fetish for one of the best-dressed boxers of modern times.
“You may laugh at me, Nat,” he went on, “but that old sweater brought
me luck against Fred Fulton, Carl Morris, Bill Brennan, and Georges
Carpentier, and I’m sticking to it—to the last thread.”
I didn’t laugh, because I have often thought that fighters in the heat of
battle get a clearer insight into the nature of things than most of us.
Just before Dempsey left his dressing room for his memorable fight with
Luis Firpo, “Doc” Kearns decided that Dempsey was so invincible that he
no longer needed his lucky garment.
I was at the ringside and saw Jack climb into his corner. He was wearing
a brand-new white sweater with which he’d entered the ring.
“Here, Doc, take this,” he said. “I don’t want to see it again. For my
next bout give me that old sweater you wouldn’t let me wear tonight.
That Firpo fellow nearly put me out because I didn’t wear that sweater.”
* * * * *
Many Catholic fighters cross themselves before the first gong. Johnny
Summers, star British boxer, among others, always took a rosary into the
ring.
When Harry Wills, the ebony-skinned New York heavyweight, fought Jack
Sharkey, both fighters were asked to say a few words to the radio
audience before the bout started. Sharkey obliged by shouting into the
microphone:
“I’ll whip Wills tonight. I’ll knock the bozo out!”
“Harry, will you say something?” asked the announcer.
“Sorry,” replied Wills, “I’m superstitious. I never say anything before a
fight. It brings me bad luck.”
But when the fight was over and Wills had been declared the loser on a
foul, he rushed to the mike and cut loose with a barrage against referee
Patsy Haley, who had disqualified him.
* * * * *
Bob Fitzsimmons was very superstitious.