Memorable heavyweight fights

Johnson-Jeffries battle
KO’d ‘white hope’ yarn

With the ‘coming Rocky Marciano-

By LESTER RODNEY

NEW YORK

Archie Moore heavyweight title fight stirring

More interest than any heavy fight since the heyday of Joe Louis, we continue last

Week's

pte ent
Mons, J
Louis aN ohnson, Dempsey and

Deatar’obody, but nobody, has
ee the crude but hard punch-
Rocky «aparently indestructible
full + yet, and there is a belated
la Palization that the 38-year-
of thy chie musi have been one
te Sreat fist fighters of history
diq eae still look the way he

ainst Olson.
comes More on Rocky-Archie as it

ske Into focus, and back to our
and he, account of great heavies

favy title clashes of the past.

We * * *

the poe now to Jack Johnson,
Dion 3 Negro heavyweight cham-
Partisang «man with very heated
Whate Sin the “best of all time”

})

bag eetmake Jim Jeffries, who
of ane the comeback attempts
ed onh €tt and Fitzsimmons, retir-
toucheg “0 at the age of 30 and
the crown, a mad scramble for
ati Was finally won in an elimin-
Sorts by Tommy Burns of
of yea,’ Who held it for a couple
Jack I. efore finally losing it to
Tonpenson in Australia.
If ee Was a great champion.
he faq ever run across some of
Will gc” Movies of his fights you
big mc’ 2 fistic treat. For this
Master aces a stylist. He was a
8 jn pvctensive boxer who didn’t
the ex a faney tiptoe dancing to
fough, US!on of hard hitting. He
Xeenty at footed and yet was
I 10nally fast.

nf nate of his fights preserved
. champi, 4gainst the middleweight
San Sag Stanley Ketchell, you
® Fate ®hnson knocked down,
flasheg \oMt. He got up quickly,

ine TOSS the ring at Ketch-

Ties in the best-of-all-time ar

arking back to some of the memorable fistic battles between the big boys.
ot that either the Brockton Blockbuster or the ‘“‘too late’’ Moore are ever apt
guments that rage around the names of Jeffries, Fitz,

ell and let fly two punches. That
was all,
* * *
Jim Jeffries was persuaded out
of his retirement by “White Hope”

propaganda: to try and knock
Johnson off the heavyweight
throne.

In spite of much progress, it is
hardly a secret, least of all to
Negro fighters themselves, that
there is still a tough row to hoe
for good fighters with dark skins,
but it was much worse in the days
of Jack Johnson. The sports pages
were full of rampant chauvinism
of a kind which would never get
by today. Incredibly vicious things
were written about Johnson and
it. was the clamor for a white
champion which forced Jeffries,
the hope of the white supremacists,
out of retirement and into one
of the most dramatic sports events
in American history.

Johnson. answered . the race
baiting the best way he knew
how, taking no guff and giving
it back to the “White hope”
heroes with double barrelled
scorn, which of course, madden-
ed them to a fever pitch and
put a near lynch atmosphere
around the impending fight.
The bout was held July 4, 1910,

under a broiling sun in Reno,
Nevada, before an estimated 20,000
fans. : ,

Jeffries came out in his old style
and right from the start Johnson,
at his magnificent peak, made him
regret the decision to come back.
Movies of this fight show the tall,
standup champion grinning as he
tied up the burly boilermaker’s
bull-like rushes with ease.

In the fourth he opened a cut

Metityn will challenge Strait of Juan de Fuca

over Jeffries’ eye and by the ninth
Jeff could see out of only one eye.
All the while Jim Corbett, in Jeff's
corner, kept baiting Johnson loud-
ly. Johnson answered character-
istically, ‘Whenever he landed a
particularly good punch he would
smile and call over to Corbett,
“How did you like that one?”

When Jeffries landed the one
good blow he struck all through
the fight, Johnson smiled ap-
praising approval and said aud-
ibly, “Not bad — try that one
again.”

In the 15th, he picked up the
tempo and sent Jeffries crashing
to the canvas, the first’ time any-
one had ever induced big Jeff to
leave his feet. The befuddled ex-
champ was up at nine and two
swift uppercuts sent him prompt-
ly down for nine more. Up he
staggered, game and strong, and
a fearful barrage by Johnson sent
him reeling ‘helplessly into ithe
ropes. As the count reached seven
Jefi’s seconds came jumping into
the ring. Johnson had won and
was still champion. :

It should be added here that
Jeffries in later years publicly
repudiated the “white - hope”
Philosophy which had been wrap-
ped around his comeback and
held several friendly meetings
with Johnson.

As for Johnson, his undisputed
sway came to an end under dis-
puted circumstances in 1915 when
Jess Willard, a young giant, knock-
ed him out in Havana.

<3

the eaily

Win "slish c

1 Bell, who swam Lake Ontario last year and conquered |
CY In hannel this summer, will do no more marathon
F Juan antl 1956 when She will challenge the tricky Strait.

Uca. Photos show Marilyn wearily crawling ashore

Gert Whyte's

 SPORTLIGHT

OW that the statesmen are
" beginning to catch up with
the people, we may expect’ to see
more and more East-West sports
competitions in coming months.

Last week it was dobro poz-
halovat for 17 fit and bronzed
footballers of Wolverhampton
Wanderers in Moscow, when the
English team arrived’ for matches
against Spartak and Dynamo.

And in Warsaw, where ath-
letes from dozens of countries
are competing in the Youth
Games, veteran Emil Zatopek,
triple Olympic champion, won
cheers from international youth

attending the World Youth Festi- *

val and the Youth Games when
he easily won the 10,000 metres
final in 29 minutes 34.4 seconds
— 15 seconds faster than his
nearest rival Basalajew of the
Soviet Union, :

* * *

Writing in the Canadian Tri-
bune, George Barr comments that
hockey is no longer the “only
sport in which Canadians excel,
for long-distance swimming has
been raised to the same level.

“Marilyn Bell’ barely had time
to rest from her dramatic con-
quest of the English Channel
when Canadian swimmers for the
second year in a row, monopol-
ized the 26-mile Atlantic City
marathon,” says Barr. “Besides
Tom Park and Cliff Lumsden,
who finished one-two the same as
last year, a Canadian swimmer,
Miss Lies Putt of Montreal, was
the first woman across the line.
(In case you’ve forgotten, Mari-
lyn did the same thing last year).

“The darling of fans this time
was 15-year-old Doreen George
of Humber Summit, Ontario, the
third woman to finish.» Her
plucky exhibition had the crowds
cheering for her all the way,
Doreen’s time of 12 hours 49.5

. near Dover (left) and resting by her coach, Gus Ryder, moments

later, after she had become the youngest person ever to swim

the English Channel.

When she returns to Canada she will

receive a gigantic ticker-tape welcome by Toronto.

minutes {over two miles per
hour) shows promise of bigger
things to tome.”

And a salute, too, of course,
to game Shirley Campbell of Fer-
gus, Ontario, 19-year-old steno-
grapher who almost succeeded
in swimming Lake Ontario last

SHIRLEY CAMPBELL

week, but was pulled from the
water in a state of utter exhaus-
tion within two miles of the
Toronto shoreline.

* * *

While pounding out this piece,
a friend from Sechelt dropped in-
to the office to say hello and
ésk when I intended to write
a column on old time legitimate
wrestling, “and especially about

the hero of my boyhood- days,
George Hackenschmidt.”

That was a little before my
time, although I do remember
that in my youth George: ‘Hack-
enschmidt, the “Russian Lion,”
was spoken of with awe as the
greatest wrestler in modern his-
tory. ‘He stood 5 feet 10 inches,
weighed between 208: and 225
pounds and had a réach* of 75
inches, A clean, scientific grap-
pler, who never used, rough tac-
ties, he held the world title for
some years, losing it to Frank
Gotch, perhaps the last of the
honest wrestlers.

Gotch won’ 154 of 160 matches

‘and would have pinned most of

our current TV “champions”

within five minutes. He defeated

Hackenschmidt twice, in 1908-and

P9140,

* : Cae

When. talking about ancient
sports, wrestling must be includ-
ed, for it goes back as far ‘as
civilization can be traced. (For
the best wrestling story ever
written, read Homer's account of
the match between Ulysses and

‘Ajax in the Iliad.)

_ Once Upon a time ‘a couple of
kings staged an impromptu wrest-
ling match. Watching his French
grapplers taking a licking at the
hands of some English wrestlers,
King Francis 1 of France (1494-
1547) got so mad at the ribbing
he was receiving from King Henry
VUE of England (1494-1547) that
he jumped to his feet in the royal
box, grabbed Hank and started
a hassle. An assortment of dukes
and lords hastily jumped in ‘and
separated the contestants before

any international damage was
done.

Of course, today we have any
number of “lords” and “barons”
and “counts” wrestling in ‘the
United States, but their titles
are as phoney as the antics they
call “wrestling.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 12, 1955 — PAGE Il

ici