WITHIN THE RING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 215, 11 August 1937, Page 14

WITHIN THE RING

BIG CHICAGO FIGHT.

A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION.

(By “Ringsider.”)

Battered“and beaten, with his face cut into crimson ribbons, but game to the last punch, James J. Braddoek lay unconscious in the resin at one minute and ten seconds of the eighth round of his championship fight with Joe Louis, writes Grantland Rice of the big heavy-weight contest at Chicago on June 22. Braddoek fell like a poled ox as Louis whipped a blasting right cross to the open chin. It was one of the most terrific single punches I have ever seen in the ring. Up to this point Braddoek had taken a mauling. His features were so badly scrambled that a stout heart could have stood up against the deadly salvo. Fifty thousand spectators, who had paid in over a half million dollars, sat stunned as the Louis right cross landed and Braddoek whirled in the air and fell as stark and stiff as a dead man. It looked for a few seconds after the count that Braddoek might have been badly hurt. He had to be carried to his corner with blood pouring from a half-dozen open wounds. His head was hanging to one side. There was no glint of life left in his half-open eye. Braddoek never had a chance. He was outclassed by youth, speed and power to an over-abundant degree. Braddoek had only his gameness and his stamina to carry into a war against a fighter who had him outclassed in every other way. A DIFFERENT LOUIS.

Louis was a far different fighter frond the man that lost to Schmeling. He was cool and crafty. He took his time. He had Braddoek on the dim, twilight borderland of the dream country more than once, but he took no chance of any sort. He proved that lie had come a long way in defence from his Schmeling debacle. Braddoek wanted to swap punches with a fellow who could trade him one for three and still collect. Here is one leading example. In the first round Louis had Braddoek half groggy. “There he goes!” the crowd shouted as Louis nailed Braddoek with

a left hook that shook' him to both heels. But, in place of falling, Braddock came back with a savage charge, with a right uppercut that knocked Louis down. As the count started Louis came back to hi 3 feet, but Braddock had shown that, whatever might happen later on, he was not afraid. Then those fer de lance lefts of Louis began to split Braddock’s left eye just as they closed Sclimeling’s orb. Braddock began to bleed. In the second he took another heavy beating from lefts and rights that came too swiftly for him to duck or block. By the fourth round Braddock began to tire. In the fifth round he threw a stiff left against Louis’s nose and started a counterflock of blood. But Louis never blinked. He was bleeding badly as the round ended and the crowd roared its approval of 'Braddock’s comeback. BEGINNING OF THE END. The beginning of the end came in the sixth. In this round Louis was a dark whirlwind. Braddock took a worse hammering here than Max Baer took through the entire New York show. Few expected to see the fight pass the seventh round, but, in the seventh, Louis grew cautious again. He was. taking no sort of a chance. He was not out to gamble when he had a sure thing broken and reeling in the way of a wide-open target. There might be something still left in that Braddock’s right, and Joe Louis lias no fondness for a right hand. Louis kept pumping lefts and rights into Braddock’s gory frontispiece all through the seventh round, ' waiting for the main opening. It came early in the eighth, when the Brown Bomber, without any warning, suddenly exploded the right cross that left “Old Jim” at the end of the road. He came up from the ash-can to the heavyweight championship of the world, but even as he lay dead asleep in the dust of the resin there will be no return journey to the ash-can. He fought the best fight he had in his system. He gave everything he had. It was not nearly enough against the overpowering odds of youth and speed and power. ,

Farr’s Rise To Fame. Tommy Farr, British heavy-weight boxing champion, wins the first round for the next fight for the heavy-weight championship of the world, said the Daily l Express of July 14 (after a

legal ' battle between promoters had finished). He sails to-day for New York to fight Joe Louis for-the New York State Athletic Commission* world title on August 26. He is ready to sail back to fight Max Schmeling, of Germany, for the British Boxing Board of Control’s world title at the White City on September 30. Facts of Farr’s rise to fame ar On March 15, Farr fought Ben Foord. Farr received £750. He won. On April 15 Farr fought Max Baer. He received £2500. He won. On June 16 Farr, who had been paid £250. training expenses, beat Walter Neusel. (P’arr’s purse was £3500.) Farr is to fight for the world’s title in America, and so add a' new page to the history of the ring. It is popularly supposed that Phil Scott fought Sharkey for the world’s championship. Those who consult the more reliable books of records will find that ho did not. Farr will be the first British fighter to contend for the heavyweight crown outside his own country. Gunner Moir fought Tommy Burns for the title, but that fight was at the National Sporting Club. Farr has also this great distinction. Ho was invited by America to fight for.the championship. There never was a question of his having to go to the States to prove himself. His quality was accepted, in the same way that the quality of Carpentier was conceded, when he was signed up by Tex to fight Jack Dempsey. And, what is still more significant, he is given a chance of beating Louis by not a few of those who have hitherto condemned British outsizes for being horizontnlists. Rest For Year. Henry Dunn, the Wellington lightweight, who had the misfortune to suffer an eye injury in his bout with Colin Craib at Timaru and was unable to continue after the tenth round, has announced his intention of laying off from the game for a year. He intends to build up and should come back a much stronger fighter.

Dempsey Earned £BOO,OOO. Jack Dempsey earned more money in the ring that any other two fighters. In he 12 years of his active career, and the 74 fights thereof, Dempsey’s financial reward amounted to £BOO,000. Gene Tunney ranks next to Dempsey in the list of rich financial rewards of the prijse ring.