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Show Who's the Best? TPODAY'S ring addicts can be segregated into three groups: Those who believe Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis to be a good fighter, those who think him a great fighter, and those who believe him to be the greatest fighter of all time. Several of the nation's outstanding outstand-ing boxing authorities are enthusiastic enthusi-astic enough about the Brown Bomber to regard him not only as today's best lighter, but as the king of them all, past and present. Those same sports authorities will find many to disagree with them And the dissenters are bold enough to say that Louis isn't even the greatest fighter in the ring today. They back that statement up with cold, convincing logic. Henry Armstrong Is their choice. Henry's recent knockout victory over Davey Day at Madison Square Garden was his sixth successful defense de-fense of his welterweight title in the 10 months that have passed since he took the toga from Barney Ross. It was the forty-fifth consecutive victory In his featherweight, lightweight light-weight and welterweight division campaign. Armstrong won all three titles tn the course of a year, relinquishing one voluntarily. Day was his thirty-ninth thirty-ninth knockout in the string of fights. That record stacks up very favorably favor-ably with the one hung up by Louis. In one way it is even more impressive impres-sive than the heavyweight's string of victories. Armstrong has gone out of his own weight class to account ac-count for many of his wins. When he conquered all contenders in the featherweight field he abdicated, moving into the lightweight circles, where he removed the 135-pound crown from the brow of Lou Ambers. Am-bers. Hammering Henry captured his third crown in the heavier welterweight wel-terweight division. His natural fighting weight is between be-tween 133 and 135 pounds. When he defends his welterweight title his opponent is allowed to pack 117 pounds, which means that Henry gives away from 12 to 14 all-important pounds. The busiest fighter -in the ring today, to-day, Henry is one big barrage ot fists from the minute he steps into the ring until he has knocked out his opponent or has heard the final bell. Usually his opposition isn't bothered a great deal for the first few rounds. But his constant clouting wears them down until victory is within sight And once he has it sighted, he doesn't let it get away. King of Golfers TPWO years ago, when he was playing at Detroit's Oakland Hills, Ralph Guldahl demonstrated the same relentless, driving force that carried him to victory in the recent Masters' golf tournament on the Augusta (Ga.) National course. While playing the Detroit course Guldahl was at the top of bis swing when he noticed a newspaper photographer pho-tographer in direct line with the ball. The cameraman was leaning far over the ropes. Barely pausing, Ralph stated in even tones: "If yon want to get your face knocked off, it's all right with me." fie followed through with a terrific ter-rific poke as the photographer jerked back his camera and escaped es-caped in the nick of time. Guldahl is a mechanically precise, pre-cise, cautious player. He seems nerveless in action, merely going fail RALPH (-LLDAIIL through the motions. But every time he steps up to the tee he leaves little doubt that he is the super-golfer super-golfer of today. Especially when the class of the field he dominates is considered. He has won the Western Open for the past three years and the National Open the past two years. In winning the Masters', Guldahl called his shot. Before the tournament tourna-ment began he announced that he would win it. His successive rounds were 72-G8-70-C9. for a total of 279. the lowest score by three strokes in the six-year history of the most exclusive ex-clusive tournament of the game. Though he doesn't like to gamble, his boldness in the Masters' was startling. On one long hole, where a water hazard in front of the green calls for a terrific second shot to reach the flag, he banged one five feet from the flag, sinking his putt for an ea&le three. He played it tha hard way with the same aplomb as he would have playing it safe. From the moment Guldahl steps up to the first tee the thought never occurs to him that he isn't the world's best golfer. Which be very well may be. His opponents and contemporaries contempora-ries conceded that he is the toughest tough-est of tournament players, always at his best when the going is rocky, and cool as ice under fire. jj Western Newspaper Union. |