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Show DEPLORES LACK OF FIRST-CLASS BOXERS Frank Erne Says Ten-round Bouts Are Wrecking Pugilistic Game. By Tribune Special Sport Service. NEW YORK, May 23. "The crop of prrseut-day pugilists isn't as good as that wbifh used to he harvested back in the old days." remarked Frank !'n e, once the lightweight champion, and rega rdod by many as one ot the brainiest fighlers that ever donned the mitts ' 1 There are might v fpTr . boxers, and pven I'ewer ring generals tha n there us" I to br ten a nd twenty years ago. Th" vpaori for that is tho many ten-round, ten-round, no-decision bouts that, are being staged in these day?. Ten rounds is no test for 'i man. It' no hard job foT even a medincrp ficrhter to last out ten rounds. Hut when h has to go the route for t wentv nr t wenty-fi ve rounds --That's when the pae begins to tell, and that's whern generalship and box-ii)Lr box-ii)Lr abilitv com"S in. "Th1 majority of present-day fighters fight-ers are Tint ring' generals because thev are rea.lly never called upon in a ten-nmrKl bout to show or use generalship. general-ship. But in the old davs a fighter ivho war-tt "t a ring general never amounted to much and didn't last. , ve rv long. ' ; Around about the fifteenth and eighteenth ronn'M is when ihe pace of a real lighter begins to tell on a man. It is then lie mut draw heavily not. niilv nu his waning strength, but upon h'v 'braille. Tt is then that he must be-gi be-gi n to show his generalship maneuver tint niilv to keep on his feet and alno to keep' a-eong. but to beat the other fe'ln-.v (Id-.vn, 11 It was the hoy with the brains who came to the top in the old days. Brute strength didn't ronnt. miKh. K ;! ' M- rose almost to tho top, not i.eejniw. h v. a.s a wonderful fightine ma r h i ii' . hut )nruu?r. he was a great r: ii" r: I . The n me if; t run ol iTmnrv !? :i n . Jin. (V.rbotl and n hnn.-h of t tm Ot her old timer. Thev -ve y i n-;illv l.r;:in lighter- . mm who didti 'I dep.-nd "P'im their- ShVJiVlh. )ul MJ.on thrir brain- a nd u"m lh- -tiiI'Iv i'l-a' kth'-v figured uut while in the id n:. ft waa a treat to watch the old-timers. They used ecience mixed with strength, whereas in this day science seems to be something of a lost art, and only exhibitions exhibi-tions of strength are the rule. " Packey McFarland is the peer of all boxers in the ring today. He is the type of old-time generals. He is as brain v as any man who eer stepped tvithin the ropes, and he uses those brains every moment of the time. His brains control his feet and his hands. His brain always is trying to figure out the other fellow's plan, and Packey usually doesn 't have to figure long before be-fore be reaches his answer. And then it's a walkaway for Packey. "One of the strangest thing?, in my opinion, is the short-age of real fighters in the present, day. There is not a heavyweight who is in Corbett 's. Fit?.-; 1 simmons 's, Hharkev's or Jeffries 's el3ss' when ther were in their prim. There I isn't a real middleweight fighter in the I game today, although there are one or two men who, may develop into good fighters some of these days. "Tn mv opinion Joe Gans was the greatest tighter that ever was seen in the lightweight division. lie wa- a wonder. Rut Gans made the mistake of his life when he trained down to 133 for Nelson. It weakened him so that he was only a shadow of his former self, and Nelson won from him. Nelson, never wa.s in Gans 's class n nd never would have had a chance with him if Joe hadn't weakened himself too much for his first fight, and 1 hen hadn 't been broken down physically when he tackled Nelson for the second time.'' |