Many World’s Champion Boxers Were World’s Champion Eaters

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 275, 10 February 1928, Page 10

Many World’s Champion Boxers Were World’s Champion Eaters

CHAMPIONS WHO WERE BEATE] HOGG FAT” THE KNOCK-OU MORE championships of the ring have been lost at the dinner table than ever were won through the medium of a knock-out punch. The downfall of many a celebrated champion was caused by over-feeding and being “kayoed” by “John Hog Fat.” John L. Sullivan was an enormous eater. He fairly ate himself out of the heavy-weight championship. When he won the big title from Paddy Ryan in 1882, he scaled exactly 175 pounds. When he was defeated by Jim Corbett in 1892, he was over 235 pounds. Some 60 pounds extra weight. What a difference. It was also old “John Hog Fat” who really knocked out Jim Jeffries, Jess Willard, Tommy Burns, Young Corbett, Young Griffo, Gus Rublin, Jack Johnson, and even Benny Leonard, although Benny was a very careful eater and clean liver. COUNTER LUNCHES Years ago many of the old Bowery scrappers really existed on free lunches, that were served in the various saloons along the gay and festive famous street. The old boxers even with this catch-as-catch-can feeding grew over-weight and too slow to fight successfully, for free lunch and mixed ale was rather a bloating diet surely when the going was good ;.nd plenty-. Many a time that brilliant Australian boxer, Young Griffo, who recently passed away, trained on free lunch and mixed ale. Indeed, for many years this was his regular drink sfnd food, day in and day out. FITZSIMMONS HIS OWN COOK If'there was anything old Bob Fitzsimmons prided himself on it was his cooking—or “chuck,” as he called it. He frequently prepared all his own meals, even when in training for an important fight. Fitz was always iiylined to oe very domesticated? and would spend hours getting up a big Sunday dinner for a party of friends, when he was not on the road, and had a comfortable home at Bath Beach or some other spot when his wife, the former Rose Julian, was alive. But after she died Bob drifted about rather recklessly, although he married two other women, who did not seem to make his life at all happy, for he began to drink considerably, and quite suddenly passed away in Chicago from an attack of pneumonia in 1918 without any money to speak of. A wonderful fighter was Fitz, but a mighty poor financier, indeed. like many of the old champions. MODERN “GRUB” KINGS Luis Firpo, the huge caveman fighter from South America, was an enormous eater, but when he was in his prime he could stand it. The night he nearly put Jack Dempsey to sleep, in New Jersey, h'e got away with a huge meal, which included enough

J BY THEIR STOMACHS—“JOHN r KING OF THE PRIZE RING beefsteak to feed a small army. When he went back to his beloved Buenos Aires, the Wild Bull used to astound the natives by his enormous gastronomical capacities. He still does. Paolino Uzcudun, one of Heeney’s most formidable rivals for the right to fight Tunney, is a tiger on “eats.” “I would rather keep an elephant than that Spanish guy,” said “Pete the oat,” who feeds the big Basque “An elephant is satisfied with hay and potatoes, but Paolino wants a roasted ox and a dozen turkeys for dinner alone.” TUNNEY A CAREFUL EATER Tunney is so unlike the popular conception of a prize-fighter that it is no surprise to find that he has none of the huge eating capacities of some of his rivals. Listen to what his trainer says: “When preparing for a bout Gene’s principal food is a fine steak or some lamb or mutton chops with plenty of fresh vegetables—much more vegetables than meat always. No coffee, but three quarts of milk every day No pudding, pies or pastry of any kind, but plenty of fruit and vegetables. “Even out of training the champion seldom indulges in fancy food. Occasionally he may eat a chicken salad or a dish of corned beef and cabbage, but his regular every-day diet is the plain, simple, healthy stuff that every aspiring athlete should live on. “You never hear Tunney complain about his stomach or indigestion like some other fighters, who are continually eating and drinking a lot of fancy muck. No, Gene lives an ideal, clean life in and out of training. That’s mote than half the battle for him. Is he easy to train? I should say so. Why, he really trains himself and knows a lot about getting into fine shape from careful experience and long study.”