Bill Brennan and Bartley Madden By Rob Snell


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Reno Evening Gazette

23 Jan 1920

Sporting Memories

By

Al Spink

The fight at Kenosha between Bill Brennan and Bartley Madden the other night, in which Bill won the decision after ten lively rounds of milling proves that big Bill's defeat at the hands of Jack Dempsey at Milwaukee in February. 1918 was a fluke, pure and simple.

Madden, a magnificent looking man, game as a pebble and strong as a giant, battled all the way with Brennan and showed himself a fighter of the first class.

For the first three rounds it was even Stephen, but after that big Bill took the lead and led all the way. His splendid showing proves him the best heavyweight seen in these parts for a long while, and this does not even bar Dempsey.

Leo Flynn, Brennan's manager while here, told the whole story of Brennan's defeat by Dempsey. and it gives an entirely new coloring to that battle and proves than Brennan is fairly entitled to another chance at the champion.

"It was in January, 1918," said Flynn, "that Brennan, while in New York, received two offers, one to fight Dempsey for a $1750 guaranty, and the other to meet Tom Cowler for a $1500 certainty. I asked Brennan which offer he wanted to accept and he replied: “Take the Dempsey offer. I know I can beat him and it's the best offer anyhow."

"Brennan had boxed with Dempsey in a New York gymnasium and he had no trouble with him. He thought he could beat him easily. So instead of training properly, Bill took things easily. When he faced Dempsey that night Bill weighed 21 pounds, or 30 pounds more than his best weight.

In the second round of the fight Brennan slipped and broke his right ankle. While suffering from the break Dempsey was able to knock Bill down twice, but he got up, and on the one leg he fought five more rounds, and in the fifth round, with broken ankle and all, he gave Dempsey a punch in the face that made him stagger to a far corner and stay there the balance of the round. And there he stayed until I threw a towel into the ring, considering it a crime to allow Brennan, in his condition, to go on any further.

Today Bill is so certain that he can whip either Carpentier or Dempsey that he will fight either on a winner-take all basis." As a matter of fact, Brennan has a much better record than Dempsey and is certainly entitled to a battle with the latter. As a Knocker-out, Brennan has beaten all records. Out of eighty-five fights he has scored sixty eight knock outs.

Unlike Dempsey, Brennan did not want to be drafted, but enlisted in the navy of his own free will and did his best in the war with the best of them Like Dempsey, he is only twenty-six years of age and like Dempsey too he is at this writing at the very top of his fighting power.

Bartley Madden, whom Brennan outpointed, is a stronger and better-looking man than Dempsey. Madden, like Brennan is twenty-six years of age. He was born in County Galway, Ireland, and created something of a sensation in In New York when he knocked out Jim Coffey in a fight for the Irish championship.

Madden's parents live in Dublin and he will visit them this year when he crosses the pond with his manager, Lichtenstein, to challenge the winner of the Dempsey - Carpentier fight, providing that battle is pulled off on foreign soil, as it is pretty certain to be.

Madden, although a big fellow, standing five feet, eleven inches, weighing 190 pounds and with a reach of seventy inches, is very light on his feet, boxes as fast as Packey McFarland and is always aggressive in action. That Madden is a great fighter is proven by the fact that he has fought three draws with Brennan and whipped such good men as Jim Savage, Jack

Herrick, Tom Cowler, Battling Levinsky, Homer Smith and "Wild" Bert Kenney He has also fought draws with Battling Levinsky, Billy Miske and Tom Gibbons. He has never lost a referee's decision.

And that Brennan, too, is a wonderful fighter is proven by his victory over so good a man as Madden. Madden like Brennan did his bit in the war and no stones can be thrown at him on that score. It was early in 1914 that he joined the British forces and he was on the fighting field until the latter part of 1915, when after receiving injuries in battle, he was invalided home.

Like Tom Sharkey, Madden spent nearly all of his early days at sea. He was a sailor before the mast, sailed under many flags and has visited all parts of the world. Eastern critics who saw him defeat Coffey and others believe him the equal of any man living.

Among those who admired both Madden and Brennan was Charles Cochrane. the English promoter, who came to Chicago for the purpose of signing up Dempsey for a match with Carpentier, to be brought off in London. Cochrane wired Kearns, Dempsey's manager from Chicago, telling him that he was ready to give Dempsey $200.000 to go to England and fight Carpentier. Cochrane told of how he stood ready to deposit $200.000 in a Chicago bank to be paid to Dempsey as soon as he had fulfilled his part of the contract.

Cochrane received no reply to this only bona fide offer made Dempsey to fight Carpentier, but the next day he read in the morning newspaper of how Jim Coffroth, one of the owners of the Tijuana race course near San Diego Cal., had offered $400.000 to Dempsey to fight Carpentier to fight there. . "Mr. Kearns is evidently spoofing and trying to make me raise my offer. I shall pay no more attention to him. On completion of my theatrical business I shall return to England and arrange for Brennen or Madden to come over and meet Carpentier.

"The Frenchman is the drawing card, anyhow, and no matter who he meets the match will draw big money. Now that I come to thing of it, there might be some objection in England to Dempsey anyhow, due to his war record, which I knew nothing of until I reached this country Brennan and Madden have fine war records, so no one can have any objection to their trying for international honors, and now that Dempsey has turned down the liberal offer I have made him I may bring either Brennan or Madden over to try the issue, for, just as I said. Carpentier is himself a great card on the other side and is sure of a capacity house without reference to the man that faces him."

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