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Show THINKS BAT NELSON BEST OF THEM ALL Jess Willard Pays Tribute to Man He Terms "Greatest Fighting Machine in History"; Recalls Re-calls Some or" Hard Battles in Which Nelson Participated; Endurance Almost Beyond Belief. By JESS WILLARD, Heavyweight Champion of the World. (Copyright, 1915, by A. Merritt. All i rights reserved.) .j. HA-VE often been asked whom I con-I con-I sirlered the greatest fighter of all j times. Well, I can't ea.y, there have A. been so many great battlers. Bat-ling Bat-ling Nelson probably was the most remarkable piece of fighting machinery in the world. He stood out alone as a model of persistency, bulldog courage and tenaci ty of pu rpose. Nelson earned the lightweight championship cham-pionship of the world in the face of handicaps which would have discouraged any man on earth, with the single exception ex-ception of the lion-hearted Dane. When Eat first became ambitious to be a top-notcher he lacked almost every qualification of the true athlete. He had but two qualifications in the beginning. These two carried him to the top of the ladder, even after it was considered that he had seen his best days. Hurt in Sawmill. When ho was twelve or thirteen years of age Nelson got a job in a sawmill. One day an accident occurred, and he was dragged out of the machinery, a bruised and bleeding form. Both of his arms were fractured and a big gash was opened in his right cheek. His ear was crushed and its hearing destroyed forever. for-ever. For seven days he was unconscious. uncon-scious. Three months later he was dis-i dis-i charged from the hospital. His left arm was in such condition that It has been impossible ever since for him to straighten straight-en it out completely. But he never iost his norve. That accident ac-cident showed clearly that he possessed remarkable gameness and a constitution that it was almost impossible to shatter or break down. While his record has been printed many, many times, I'm going to tell It again, just as Bat told me one night about six months ago. His first fight took place at Hammond. Ind. He took a Saturday afternoon off and visited a circus that was In town. A burly announcer- was crying: "One dollar to any man who can slay six rounds with 'Wallace's Giant.' " Bat a Giant Killer. Little Bat thfew off his coat and rushed into the arena. In a minute he had slipped on some gloves. He was so small that the crowd hooted and yelled for him 1 to get out of the ring. They didn't want to see him killed by the giant. But Bat j insisted that he be given a chance, and refused to leave the ring. The 180-pound er rushed at the slender kid, who weighed about 120 pounds. Nelson Nel-son met him with a right hook on the jaw and the giant was knocked cold. The circus hands were so mad at seeing see-ing their champion floored that ten of them rushed to the ring, grabbed Nelson and threw him out of the tent. "They not only refused to give me my $1. but they even rofused to give me back my coat," Nelson told me. It was In 1904 that Nelson began to fight real classy men. He headed for the Pacific coast, arid on tile wav dropped off a freight car at Salt Lake City. After Af-ter showing what he possessed in a local gymnasium, the Battler was finally matched with Spider Welch, a sensational sensa-tional San Francisco lightweight. Started in Salt Lake. For fifteen rounds Welch battered Nelson Nel-son all over the ring, fciut ho couldn't even floor the young Dane. In the sixteenth six-teenth round Nelson connected with his opponent's jaw, and soon had him floundering. floun-dering. A wicked punch just below the heart knocked Welch out. An hour later Nelson was on his way to San Francisco. Fran-cisco. He landed in the Golden Gate city breathing fire and defiance, fight oozing out of every pore. Marti ri Canole, the greatest left-hand puncher ever known In the lightweight class, hai just made a name for h i mself , and the two were matched. Round after round Canole pounded Nelson all over the ring, but the Battler never faltered, and in the nineteenth jammed a terrific left into Canole's liver. For hours it was thougtu that Canole would never recover from the punch. Then came Eddie Hanlon. the pride of the Pacific coast. San Francisco fans "couldn't see" Nelson yet. They figured it was a lucky punch that defeated Welch, and a still luckier one that knocked out Canole. Against Hanlon Nelson adopted the same tactics he did in his other two big scraps. He relentlessly forced Hanlon from corner to corner, taking" terrific punishment himself, but i;i the nineteenth round he landed a wicked left to the liver and Uanlon wont down and out. Then he began to fight regularly, and earned a fortune; He lost to Jimmy Britt in twenty rounds, Ihe decision being be-ing a very unpopular one. Tn fact, to this day the Battler insists that 'the referee, Billy Roche, made a terrible ; mistake in raising Britt's hand at the finish. But Nelson more than evened up the score with Britt. They were rematched. and the Dane stopped Jimmy in the eighteenth round. T( was the most vicious vi-cious and sensational fight the coast has over known. Then came the battle with Joe Gans at Gold field. This was on Labor dav, 1908. Tt was to a finish, for the light-Weight light-Weight championship of the world, an honor then held by the Baltimore negro. Gans Into Discard. Fight thousand people paid a total of $i9.7l5 to see the boys pound away a t each other for forty-two rounds. Then Gaps went down and out from that same left-hand punch that had defeated Welch, Hanlon and Britt. The refere. George Siler. began counting Gans. on t f then he changed his mind and declared that Gans had been fouled. Nelson always claimed the punch was a fair one, and to prove that ho was Gans' master he took the negro on again two years later. Ho knocked Joe out in the seventeenth round. Still Gans thought he was (he better man. So Nelson gave him his third ohance. The last lime they met Nelson scored a knockout in the twenty-first round. NelBOn's last championship battle was perhaps the greatest and most brill tunt of his career, despite Ihe fact that he lost it. His opponent was Ad WolgHst. the battle taking place at Point Richmond. Rich-mond. February 32, 1910. The men fought forty rounds, ind although the Battler lost, he was still on his feet when the referee stopped tho en count Of. But he didn't quit fismtine then. Kvef sime lie has been taking on a bout here and there. Only on Labor dav of this oar. a few days aso in fact, hr wont twenty slashing rounds with Bohbv V .nigh flown in Juarez. He certainly was the most woidjerfu) piece of machinery; the rame ever knew, and I don't know but what 1 would have to call him the greatest of all Mghters. |