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Show IJQHN L.'S HARDEST was mpm The Seventy-Five Rounds Described De-scribed in Detail by Nul-BEATEN Nul-BEATEN MAN WAS GAME: HE STOOD UP STURDILY But It Resulted in Trrrihle Punishment Pun-ishment and a Final Collapse. By John L. Sullivan. Tn m lnt letter I promised to toll of the fight with Jake Kllraln at Rlchburg, Miss.. Iti July. 18S9. which was my long-est long-est and greatest battle. Jake deserves all the bouquets that came to him for his grit In that smash swap, for although he did not fight the stand-up battle 1 cx-jiected. cx-jiected. he showed that he was ane from his heels to his head. He gave me a terrible tight, all right. When we got the word to open up. we swung together like a couple of healthv bulls. He handed a o.uick lift tow. ml 1 me, but I knocked up his arm with my ft and countered lightly under Jake's lu art with my right as he danced away. I PI tied Mm. hitting with my left and bi fore I knew how It happened, Jake back-hecied me cleverly. The bat k-hct I i something you don't see. in the ring today. It is delivered by catching a man as he comes In, putting your left arm around his body, your right forearm across hie throat and your right heel behind his left foot. Then, with a j inlck heave, you can throw him over and down on his back I went down fcr the first fall of the fight and the crowd roared for Jake. As I .lumped up and went to my corner, I said to Kllraln. 'So you want to wrestle, do you" Well, 1 II give you enough of that. ' I got to his body In the next round with a couple of rights, while h- pasted nie with a nasty left under the eye right off the reel as the round opened. Seeing, my chance, I gnt'died htm around the body antl put hlni down on the turf with B thud ihat nearly shook the wind , it of him. As we went to ui corners, th cheeps were all fur me. In the third round, I nearly ended the light, and if I had It would "have saved Jake a lot "f lime and trouhle, hut his gamenesa pushed him along for all that was coming to him, Foity Rounds of Awful Punishment, it lumpen ed this way in the thud: We sparred around for a while, me anxious to get my paws on him. he trying to keep nir off, for by this time he knew I had him when it came to a wrestle. He made several correct plays for my face, landing land-ing a few tlmc-s. when 1 slipped "ut a lead Jake drew back, thinking I wa3 going to grapple Mm. In-tead T brought my right over his guard and landed full on his jaw Jake went down like a clothes pol and rolled over, kicking His seconds grabbed Mm and lugged him to his corner and began to get him In shape for the next quadrille. While the' crowd yelled "Sullivan, Suluvail!" loud enough to tip off the militia as to where we were. My memory i not good enough to tell ! )i.v the whole light went by rounds, and a scrapl k i had which contained an account of all my fishts was lost in a lire mime years ago. so I will have to 1 skip some of It and touch onl the mo In i points. It was a hard wearing light Sometimes Kllrnln hack-In eletl or cro-s-buttocked me for a fall, but round after round closed with Jake going down from a blow or a throw His face was badly CUt and his hotly welted and bruised from my blows, while inv nose and left eye n- re -swollen by the linn- the twenty-fifth lound was reached. 1 had been playing for KUrain'S heart. , and everj time he led with the right I irl.-d my hardest to land on that same spot again, under the Idea that a pouhd-I pouhd-I lag on any one spot is the most wear-1 wear-1 ing form of attack, ami Jack's flesh 1 around the heart, for a space about six ! Inches square, was cut and bruitsed by ; the time the thirtieth round was reached. 1 had taken many a hard punch and some tough falls during the battle ami before the fortieth round Jake began to land on my stomach My seconds had given me tea with whiskey In It as a strengthened and there was loo much whisky, so that by the fortieth round my stomach was up?ct, and I was vomiting vomit-ing after I had gone back to my corner and Kllraln wanted to call it a draw, John L. Wouldn't Consent to n Draw: "I'll give you all the draw you want,' i yelled at him. and the tight went on. In a round or two. I came back strong and began to go after Jake hard. He got so that he would drop as soon as my : hand landed on him, and of course that would close the round. This went on for a dozen rounds or so and I was still landing on that spot under the heart. Pretta soon. the flesh and skin were pounded loose from his i lbs and a bunch of it was hanging like a big tumor. I have said that Kllraln was game, and i he certainly proved it in that fight. Although Al-though beaten to a pulp, he came back, round after round, for more. Ho couldn't hit hard enough to hurt me any more, but every time he got the call he came 1 out of his corner, only to be knocked down or thrown, and i arrn-d back. All the latter part of the fight, the l t-ting t-ting had been coming my way and at this time nobody would bet a nickel on Kll- I rain. He was sure a beaten man and those who had been cheering for him In the early part of the fight had shot their bolls and were silently watching their gallant lighter coming to hie last round. The end came In the seventy-fifth round Jake came out of his corner, g.iiin- ,i ,ai tarn, badly punished, his legs wobbling under him. his face crushed and cut, his body leaning over to protect that place on his left side when I'd been hammering so long. I rushed him. and smashed him on the Jaw, knocking him against the lopes practically practi-cally senseless. I was ready to smash him again when something white was thrown from his corner, falling at my i I Charley Mitchell had thrown a towel no a signal that Kllraln was beaten and ihat I had won the long and hard battle Poor Kllraln was a sorrv sight In his hour of defeat, but he h lost with honor in one of the greatest ring conti its In the history of the prize ring, and even those who had lost most heavily by his defeat wire satisfied that he had tried iiis besl to save their money. After the Battle a Race for Liberty. The next thing 1 knew, liuldoon and Oleary had surrounded me and gave me a hustle out of the ring while fighting off the crowd that had broken down trn-ropes trn-ropes and were fighting to get a chance to shake hands with me i never heard I SUCh roaring as I was pushed Into a wagon and a rcsh made for tho train As we got aboard the cars, another train I ' hoo-choolng down the track and the holler was made that the Mississippi militia was on it and would arrest trie lot of US. I ddn'l km W to this day how I did it bUI when the alarm about the militia : was raised I dived heud first through the window of an ordinary coach and ran like a rabbit several hundred 'tnis to a swamp, wneri i hid until the alarm , was declared to be a false one. I got out of the state ., .MisSiysi,pi all right, only i i" be arrested and brought back, it , i ..si me 118,000 to. keep from going to th peniti nilar for a year, h-j t financially I came out away ahead on the fight at that. All of the foregoing is ancient history I and some of It does not look pretty on paper, but it Is worth reading, so the Sports who have forgotten what we used i to go through can size li all up as against the la-de-dah work done In the ring today l ighting was a man's work then, and a fighter went Into the ring expecting to come out of It on a stretcher If In- didn't put the other fellow Into the dot trs' hands Now fights mostly go to the one that can run the longest, and the j bellOWS counts for more than the wallop Plain Fighting Without Falls. The grooming of a lighter nowadays I makes some of us old fellows laugh. We I used to tight our own battle--. Now they ' an- mapped out by experienced trainers i who go about It as a general would plan B battle We didn't do any rag-chewing about weight. The main thing was to get I tO lighting. There were no limited con-tgStS, con-tgStS, so that a man could figure closely J on his method of carrying the battle or win on the slender thread of points It 1 was fight from gong to gong, and until one mun was down and oat. It was mighty seldom that I had a man with a bottle of smelling salts, a lot of towel wavers, oranges, lemons, chunks of Ice to rub on the neck and back and the Other stage props, used in the ring today. to-day. Some of u greatesl tights were under conditions that would make some of the fancy boxers shudder. II il Kit:: not used himself up In training for O'Bri.'n. he might not have had to Stop to repair his bellows None of the i "ii thi i n . 1 1 in m daj wrestled with COWS, Jumped over mountains, held exhibitions exhi-bitions at a quarter per head admission to let the reubens all know we were using 1 ourselves up training, but we managed to i get Into the ring In pretty good condition. It was the man with the clout and the sand and the skill tnat usually won I have heen against i lot of good men In my uav and I' In en against nil awful lot of dubs, but l always had to look out for the fighter and not the fancy boxer. It ' was owing to a combination of the two i and my own fault of not taking care of I myself that I lost tin- championship. |