WATCHING A GREAT FIGHT

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2712, 6 March 1916, Page 7

WATCHING A GREAT FIGHT

«. JESSE WILLARD AND JACK JOHNSON. From the time Jack Jolmson, the clever negro, beat Tommy Burns in tho Sydney Stadium, the -world has searched, for a "white nope." White-skiiined lighters were discovered all over the world, but none of them were found to be iti the same class ae Johnson, and matches to prove it were few and far between. Latterly ho became unpleasantly notorious. Then the boxing world heard that a match had been arranged between him and one Jesse Willard, a giant cowboy, at in Cuba. The "white hope" materialised into a fact, and tho historic battle was pictured at tho Town llall on Saturday ovening, to an audience that filled every scat, men mostly, though about 60 ladies weru interested spectators. So great -was the early rush that the crowd jumped' tho reserved seats, and the ushers had a real bad time,adjusting matters before the lights went down. A late start was made. The first few hundred feet pictured everybody connected with the light, from the man who loaned the racecourse to the gentleman of the Hebraio countenance who held the clock. It showed tho referee counting out a mythical "dead 'un," and the two boxers and their trainers at work. Johnson's .torso was distressingly protuberant before the training operations started, and a heavy deposit of adipose tissue had robbed him of his old-timo graco of form. Ho was, in short, coarse and fat —a very different mail from tho black Apolto who knocked Tommy Burns out in Sydney. Willard is just a big, slab-sided giant, towering live inches over the 6ft. lin. negro, with long looso limbs, and the character of a stoic in his firm-set features. He showed a well-defined waist, and looked as hard as his cowboy life and abstemious lecord could make him. The picture, which is well taken, shows the whole of the light from various aspccts, and focuses and enables one to gather precisely what happened and how it happened. Johnson did all the leading and all tho fighting Worth considering for five-sixths of tho battle. He was still on the big side when lie entered the ringj, but looked- a picture compared with his first appearance prior to the training operations. For twenty rounds ho fought like a world's champion, rushing his man to the ropes time after time, and getting in some stunning body blows. Though .Willard backcd upon the ropes, and smothered well, ho ;uust have taken a good deal of punishment, hut he was iu such excellent trim that there was no indication at any point that he was at nil distressed by Johnson's volcanic charges, and when one caught the gleam of Johnson's pearly teeth in tho.fourteenth. round, it looked as though the negro had every confidence in his powers to beat tho white mail. Willard stood up to the punishment like a big rock, but showed no great skill as n fighter, except a gocd smother, which no must have made :i special study of in order to play his game out to a win, and kept his fists up and down tho whole time, whust Johnson shaped wide open, often with his hands open, upwards and outwards, to tempt his opponent, .It was not until the seventeenth and eighteenth round that Willard started to hit out, feeling, perhaps, that his man was tiring, fti tho twentieth and twenty-first rounds Johnson mado a desperate attempt to get in a knock-out blow, but tho wily Willi' rd was quite impfirvious to punishment. In the next round Willard did tho leading, and Johnson's back foot was seen to bo Hat on tho ground, whilst his knoos showed a Jendency to cave. J'olmson was slow to come up on the twenty-fourth gong, and clung _in clinches most pathetically, staggering back at the sundry clips ho got from the big man. In tho sccond-last round tho negro clung so hard that tho referee had to separate them by hand before he would quit the ivy habit; Willard was now chasing him. and the latter dodged feebly, with his drooping lists on a level with his belt. Tho. last 'round was short and business-like. Willard pursued his groggy opponont all over the stage, and finally got in a straight left that felled the mighty one ; the referee tolled the knell of his world championship over his prostrate form, and a crowd rushed the stage to congratulate the young Lochinvar, who had come out of the West to punch himself into fame. The picture will be shown to-niglit and to-morrow night.