Old champions by Rob Snell


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Have the days gone by when a sturdy Fighting man can come from nowhere and leap to the championship class in a single bound?. It seems that way, with our modern innocuous ten-round no decision boxing. To-day a champion ignores all challengers and waits months, or years, without taking the slightest risk of losing a title to a formidable rival.

Each challenger is as carefully inspected as an insurance applicant, his weak and strong points tabulated and the risks matched and balanced and summed up before the champion even

deigns to answer his challenge. It wasn't like that in the old days.

Then champions were jealous of their ring fame and too quick to oppose aspiring rivals. Consequently it happened now and then that an unknown found his chance to become world famous over night.

I was in San Francisco when Tom Sharkey came ashore at Vallejo from the cruiser in Philadelphia and fought some fireman bruiser from another ship. Sharkey knocked his man out with the first punch struck, won thousands of dollars for his shipmates, who had wagered six months' pay on their Champion, and made such an impression that he was talked of even in San Francisco forty miles away.

In those days the good fighters, went at the sport like huntsmen. They weren't rabbit hunters. They liked to go after bear and elk and big game. So when Sharkey's name appeared in the sporting columns all the skilled fighting men in his class immediately took interest in him. Result, in a few days the sailor, who had finished his term of enlistment in the United States Navy, was offered a number of good matches. He didn't look for soft marks to work up on — which is the modern practice. He took them as fast as they came. First he knocked out Australian Billy Smith in seven rounds, then John Miller in nine, and then fought an eight-round draw with the great old veteran of those days, Alex Greggains.

The sailor having shown himself to be a mighty tough customer, Joe Choynski gave him a match. Joe always was a sport. And Sharkey, coming with a rush knocked Joe out in eight rounds. That fight made Sharkey famous. Choynski was a tremendous hitter and as clever as any heavyweight. Twice he knocked the raw sailor clean through the ropes and out of the ring, to fall on his head on the floor. And twice Sharkey ran around the ring to his corner, climbed in under the ropes, and leaped to his feet and after Choynski like a wildcat. After beating Choynski, Tom

knocked out Jim Williams in three rounds.

By this time he had attracted the attention of Jim Corbett. then heavyweight champion and the idol of the Queensberry world. Jim came to San Francisco and at once consented to take Sharkey on for a four-round bout. It was a risky thing to do. No modern champion would have considered such a risk for a second. Sharkey had shown himself a tremendous mauler.

I was in both camps during the training, Corbett, secure in his dazzling skill, laughed as he said he'd make a fool of "that sailor dub". Sharkey grimly declared he'd lick Corbett. When the fight came off Sharkey rushed the champion with a speed and fury that offset his skill and forced him to cling desperately to avoid the bewildering flurry of unscientific blows that came from every angle. Time and again Sharkey threw Corbett off and rushed him into the ropes before he could even place a simple jab. Half a minute before the end of the fourth round a police lieutenant

leaped into the ring to save Corbett from a knockout in the roughest mauling the champion had ever taken.

The bell clanged the official end of the round and the referee called it a "draw." Sharkey, with that other half minute, might have become world's champion. Think of It—a raw sailor, with a half dozen land fights under his belt, beating a Jim Corbett in four rounds. The mere possibility made Sharkey famous all over the country. From that time on until he fought Jim Jeffries for the title, three years later, Sharkey was always a championship possibility – always in the position of runner-up. He was the man who had to be whipped before a heavyweight, champion could wear his crown with ease and security.

In that battle with Jeffries Sharkey was again within reach of the world title - only a doubtfully close referee's decision at the end of twenty-five furious rounds barring his way. Sharkey carried the fight to Jeffries every minute of the twenty-five rounds. After the twentieth Jeffries, realizing

that the decision was lost unless he fought desperately, hammered with all his might at Sharkey's heart every time Sharkey plunged in. He broke three of Sharkey's ribs, battered him so that, although he whipped many good men afterward, he never was the same untamable fighter again, and put him out of the title hunt.

The leap of Jim Jeffries into the top rank of fighting men was even more sudden than that of Sharkey, he was given his chance to fight a champion before he had long been in the ring, and Jeffries won. Big Jim was a boiler maker near Los Angeles. He began fighting by knocking out a negro heavyweight quite famous on the coast in those clays. He joined Jim Corbett's training camp at Carson before the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight and learned a lot about boxing by studying Corbett's action.

After Carson Jeffries fought eight fights in California and one in the east, then retired to Los Angeles only a fairly well known heavyweight. Billy Brady, the famous theatrical man, had a world of faith in Jeffries . he persuaded Jeffries to come East again. Meanwhile Brady had talked of a Jeffries match to Bob Fitzsimmons, then champion, and had suggested that as Jeffries weighed about 225 pounds to Fitzsimmons 158, Fitz’s great skill and hitting power might be offset by Jeff’s strength and bulk sufficiently to make it a good match. Incidentally, Brady told Fitz that they would draw a good gate because Fitz hadn’t been in the ring for some time and people wanted to see him. Fitz took the match on , confident that he’d knock Jeffries out with ease. He believed in his own adage that “ The bigger they are the harder they fallâ€.

On the night of the fight Fitzsimmons walked to Jeff’s dressing room to throw a scare into Jeff. Brady had his giant boiler maker artistically stretched out on a cot to show his tremendous chest and huge muscles. Fitzsimmons came in, and even Fitzsimmons was impressed with that first glance that he stopped for a long look. Jeffries got up with a grunt and shook hands. Fitz began discussing the way in which they were to fight. He illustrated hitting in the breaks.

“You’ll have to protect yourself at all times†said Fitz. “How about that ?â€. “Oh fight any way you please†growled Jeff, and putting his hand against Rob’s shoulder he shoved him away so violently that he fell against the wall. Jeffries stretched himself on the cot as if to take a little nap before the fight. Fitz awed for once in his life walked out.

But Fitzsimmons was the gamest man in the ring and a real champion. Impressed as he was with the gigantic strength of his youthful rival he carried the fight right to Jeffries furiously from the start. The end began to show when Jeffries knocked Fitzsimmons flat on his back with a straight left on the mouth. Although he fought with even greater fury afterward Fitz never fully recovered from that blow and when Jeffries measured him and struck him fairly on he point of the chin in the eleventh round, the freckled champion fell like a log. Jeffries, twenty four years old and only two years a professional fighting man, had won the world’s heavy weight championship.

If Jeffries could come along to day, just the same powerful boiler maker of twenty years ago he’d be allowed to mingle with our present heavyweight champion. Willard might be willing to fight him, but fighting has become purely a business affair. A champion is managed by a syndicate, like a railroad or a gold mine. And no syndicate would give Jim Jeffries a chance.

So unless another chance comes along in the sport of boxing we’re not going to see any more champions come up in the mushroom fashion of twenty years ago. To day they like the “soft ones†too well.

End

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