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Show TIME HAS ARRIVED FOR WILLARD-FULTON BATTLE Minnesota Giant Has About Cleared Way to the Right to Challenge; Les Darcy Acquires Wisdom; Tommy Gibbons Shows Cleverness. By T, S. ANDREWS. Special to The Tribune. MILWAUKEE, Feb. 17. Just about a year11 ago the writer supgesterl the matching of Fred Fulton, the Miuuesota giant, with Jess Willard for a championship cham-pionship match at New Orleans over the twenty-round route, but there were many who howled that it would bo a crimo to send the . poor young man against the champion. Jt had been suggested sug-gested by the writer that Fulton should iirst defeat two good men, which he agreed to do, and then tackle Willard; in fact, it went so far that articles were signed in Chicago for the match and forteits posted, but when the howl came Torn Jones, manager of Willard. Wtook down his money, with the. consent NIke Collins, who at that time man-ajjeTVulton, man-ajjeTVulton, and that postponed the event. Fulton was taken ill at New Orleans and fell off from 215 to 184 pounds, but despite this fact he fought twenty rounds with the tough Porky Flynn and won the verdict, but did not stop him. Then ho followed with knockouts of Fireman Jim Flynn, Andre Anderson, Al Reich and Tom owler, and now he has added to the list the name of Char-Icy Char-Icy Weinert, the Jersey heavyweight, who was touted as the right man to meet Champion Jess Willard. Weinert was stopped in less than two rounds and the chances are Fulton would have handed the same dose to other heavyweights heavy-weights had they taken Weinert 's place. i'um, ti,uut; i& iiutwmu Jul cv uiunu between Fiilton and Willard for the title. The indications are that such a match will be made, but there is ft good chance that the big fellows will first clash in a ten-round contest, either in New York or Milwaukee, and the western west-ern city is favored by both Tom Jones and Frank Force, managers of Willard and Fulton, respectively. Fulton showed in his short fight with Weinert that he has the strength and speed. He was fast and used his straight left with such accuracy that the Jersey Jer-sey man was all in be'fore the end of the first round. He never had a chance alter that, and in the second, when Fred crossed his right over to the jaw, it was all over Weinert beine in such bad shape that Referee Bill Brown stopped the uneven contest and awarded Fulton the fieht ou a technical knockout. knock-out. Probably some of the followers will give Fulton some credit now. Darcy Learns Wisdom. Ibiring a chat with Les Darcv, the tralian champion, in Chicago last weck, the young middleweight aud also his tutor and adviser, Mirk Hawkins, made it plain that thev were well up in the ethics of the boxing game. When the proposition for a Darcy -Gibbons match came up the Australian champion cham-pion said: "Since coming to the states I have been getting wise, as vou Americans Amer-icans say, to many things in the boring game, and 1 have found out that Mike Gibbons, the claimant of the title in this country, is an expert over the short route, meaning ten rounds or less. They tell me that he is wonderfully fast for that distance and can set a pace that is hard for any man to follow. Of course, in order to do that he must have a lot of cleverness, otherwise he would soon find himself in trouble with a good man in front of him. Now, if Mr. Gibbons is as clever as thev sav he is, and it would be hard for aiv fighter fight-er to beat him in a short-distance match, the natural thiug to do in mv case would be to demand a match over the recognized route of twenty rounds and fight it out for the title. However, there are many enthusiasts in the northern north-ern part of the states, also in the east and west, who might like to see the two of us in the ring, and I am willing to arrange such a match of ten rounds with the understanding that no matter what the result may be in the short one, Gibbons will guarantee to meet me over the twenty-round course at New Orleans or whatever place it can be held, so that we may decide the championship of the world. "They have been telling me in the east that Al McCoy is the champion middleweight of this country, but out west they say Gibbons is the'real champion. cham-pion. W ell, it makes no difference to ii, t. ...... v .. ...t-.w... x am jeaay to meet any of them and settle the question ques-tion of supremacy. I might say, too. that should Gibbons and myself 'meet in a ten-round bout and either one should score a clean knockout, it would stop all arguments about a twentv-round twentv-round match. You may rest assured that if I could win in a short bout I would do so, and I guess Gibbons would do the same. My trip here has been an eye-opener for me. The country is wonderful won-derful and everyone seems to be working work-ing at top speed all the time. But with all the wonderful things here, to my mind, there is no climate like that of Australia." Boxing at Wallace. While the boxing game is being held down in California, the little city of Wallace, in Idaho, is trying to break into the limelight with fifteen-round contests, with the hopo of exteuding them to twenty if the occasion demands. Lewis Newman of Denver, who at one time managed Htanlev Yoakum and Jack Torres has moved his tent to Wal lace and is now busy trying to put that city on the fistic, map and at the (Continued on Following Page.) TIME IS M Ki FOLIHia GO (Continued From Preceding Page.) same time gr'i -:v.o r.f the ilver dollars dol-lars for whhdi that locality is famous. It is in the midst of a big mining center, cen-ter, and there are more than 7'V'O miners who would rather attend a boxing match any dny Than sit down to a f'o chicken banquet. Lewis is a.-soi iated wirh j Frank Haney in the Wallace Boxing club, and they have started negotia- ! tions for some classy matches during ! the coming spring and summer. Sid Mitchell, the Australian welterweight, who made Milwaukee his home for a time, i.-, located there, and is now matched to fight Dick Wells, the Cincinnati Cin-cinnati welter, fifteen rounus. while Kd-die Kd-die Johnson, the Colorado welter, and Johnny Tillman of Minneapolis are. being be-ing mentioned for another battle to follow. fol-low. Willie Ritchie has, been boxing out that wav and is wanted for a title i matchwith Jack Britton, the title hold-; er. Newman has also made an offer j for a championship match between; Richie Mitchell and Freddy Welsh, ; which is out of the question just now, as Mitchell has already offered the champion .12.fji)rt flat for a match in the sou tli. It shows, however, that the western fans and promoters are alive, and will not let the game ot boxing die down if they can avoid it. Tommy Gibbons Clever. Tommy Gibbons, brother of the pham-tom pham-tom Mike, demonstrated his class when he defeated Boh Moha in Milwaukee last week. Tommy had never been taken seriously in the west prior to this time that is. outside of St. Paul and Minneapolis and his showing against the cave man was a surprise. Moha has been in manv battles, and may be -going backward, but, at that, he is a hard fighter to beat at any stage. He is always dangerous and can take more than the ordinary human being can stand. Tommy not only showed a clever left hand, but lie proved that he could also hit, for he jolted Bob severely in the latter part of the contest. con-test. About the seventh round Tommy's left glove was torn the matting coming out which made it necessary to secure another. There were no more gloves of that size six ounces on hand, so the attendants finally securfed one of five ounces of a different color. It made little difference in the result of the contest, as Tommy kept jabbing with his left, but the seconds of Robert immediately im-mediately set np the claim that the smaller glove enabled Gibbons to get the best of Moka. Anything for an alibi! ali-bi! Aside from that. Tommy showed many of Brother Mike's tricks in boxing, box-ing, but he was not afraid at any time to stand up and swap punches, something Mike seldom does. In the future fu-ture all the aspiring middleweights will have to figure with Tommy Gibbons, no matter whether Mike is in the game or not. |