OCR Text |
Show WILLARD IS READY TO DEFEND TITLE World's Champion Says He Is Willing to Take On Challengers at Rate of One a Week if Promoters Pro-moters Make Right Kind of Proposition; Discusses Dis-cusses Some of Men in Heavyweight Division. Hemple was all cut up. bruised and sore, still he never asked me to "pull" my punches and was always ready to take me on whenever I asked him to. Well, the way 1 showed Savage up caused the newspaper man. who had always al-ways thought Johnson would win tn a. walk, to wire a two-column story to his paper that T wduld surely give Johnson a great fight, with an equal chance of winning if the scrap went twenty rounds or ovgr. Po I know I can beat Savage. I really think T could stop him in most any round T desired. Gunboat Smith was given a decision over me out on (lie coast a couple of years ago. He was at his best then, still T think the referee made a mistake when he gave Jim Buckley's man the award. Since then Smith has gone hack fast. He didn't hit Weinert a single hiow when they met a few weeks ago in Brooklyn. Then the "Gooner" took on Jim Cowler, the fighter that Jim Corbett brought hack with him from Australia. Cowler, I have been told, doesn't know a thing about fighting. Tot Smith just did shade him In a slow and uninteresting bout. Discounts Smith. Next time out Smith took on my old sparring partner, Hemple. and again put up a roiten fight. So I don't see where Smith figures in the running now. As for Coffey, he was going along immensely im-mensely until he ran into Fireman Jim FMynn down at Brighton Beach. The fight was stopped in the ninth round because be-cause Flynn's seconds thought he had injured in-jured his hand. Jim told me afterward that he could have easily finished out the remaining round and that Coffey was every bit as tired as he was. Throw put this one bad fight of Coffey's Cof-fey's and' he still figures the best of the bunch, with the possible exception of Weinert. 1 would like nothing better than to fight Coffey first of the bunch. They tell me that he is a wonderful drawing card in New York. Well. I'm in the boxing game for the money there is in It. So, naturally, give me the biggest drawing card. Now as for Weinert. He is only 19 years old and T understand that he is a marvelous hoxer, but sadly lacks a good punch. He may get the wallop as he By JESS WILLARD. (Heavyweight Champion of the World.) (Copyright, 1916, by A. M. Merritt. AH rights reserved). (This is the first of a new series of articles written by Jess Willard. liea vv weight champion of the world, which will appear exclusively in this citv in The Tribune. In this series Willard will discuss the present-day ring fighters In an impartial way. There are several among them who hav challenged him. The next article arti-cle will appear September 8. and will tell what he thinks of the forthcoming McFarland-Gibbons fight.) BEFORE I whipped Jack Johnson for the heavyweight championship champion-ship of the world I declared that If I won the title I would fight any white man in the world. And I will. 1 am ready right now to sign up with any man the promoters are willing to get for me. Just let some promoter make me a good offer and I'll jump at the chance to get back in the ring so fast that it will take his breath. I have been challenged chal-lenged ever since I knocked out Johnson. John-son. Why, even bantamweights have issued challenges. But most of these were press work schemes. Right now it looks to me as though Jim Coffey. Frank Moran and Charley Weinert were the best of the heavyweight heavy-weight crop. Let them fight it out among themselves and I'll tackle the winner. Still. I am ready to fight them ali. one week apart, if a promoter comes through with a strong enough offer to make it worth my while to give up the show business. bus-iness. By the way, this acting stuff doesn't appeal to me. I don't like it. It is much harder for me to be an actor than to fight the toughest men in the game. My contract with the show people expires in about six weeks. Then I want to go home to Los Angeles, rest up for a couple cou-ple of weeks and enjoy myself with the kiddies, then bring on your heavyweights. heavy-weights. A fighter's place is in the ring, and I want to get back at my trade. T am going to fight only five more years. I hope to earn enough money In that time to be so well fixed financially that I can retire from the riug and go into another business. Supremely Confident. I am confident that I can easily dispose of all the heavyweights of today. Al Reich looked awfully good when he first started. They tell me that he hits straight and hard and is really the classiest clas-siest one of the bunch. But they tell me that he doesn't seem to get ahead very fast. That he doesn't like the game when It - gels too rough. It looks that way. too. He let Porky Fiynn, a trial horse at the best, outpoint "him. Then he took on Coffey and was knocked out. He had Coffey floundering around the ring from a one -two punch and was afraid to go in and finish him. Then Jim got his bearings back and stopped Reich. Then Jim Savage outpointed Reich . Well, if Jim Savage can do that, Reich must he sadly lacking somewhere. Savage Sav-age was one of my sparring partners when T was training for the fight with Johnson. Now I'm going to tell you something about him. He Is a wonderfully clever two-handed boxer. But I don't believe he is the gamesl man In t lie world by any means. And he never hit me one good punch all the time we were training in Havana. A prominent New York sporting writer came down in Cuba to "cover th champ'onship battle. He had seen Savage Sav-age fisrht many times. develops. T have been told bv men who know the fight game that If 'the Jersey lad is brought along slowly and carefully that within the next year or eighteen months he will be r championship possibility. possi-bility. T hope that he isn't rushed too fast. But I will fight him. as well as any other man, if he. insists and can get a promoter to give me my price. I am ready, it's up to some promoter to make me a worthv offer and I'll hop Into the ring. "lavage is one of the best boxers I ever saw." be told me the night he arrived on the boat from Tampa. "1 think he can outbox any man In the world in ten rounds." So T invited thr- expert out to my camp the next moinlne. I asked Savage to work with me after 1 had slugged six hard rounds with Jack Hemple. Jim and T boxed three rounds. He didn't hit me anv where except on the arms. In the third round T labbed him with a straight left to the face and he yelled that he had wrenched his shoulder. For two days be wouldn't put on the gloves with me again. And T hadn't hurt him in the least. On the. other hand, |