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Show .VETERANS RECALL DAYS " OF REAL RING BATTLES Billy Haack Tells of Scrap Between Young Peter Jackson, Now of Salt Lake, and Bobby Dobbs Twenty Years Ago. By T. S. ANDREWS. HpeekU to The Tribune. MEMPHIS, Tonn., March 24. The Southern Athletic club of Memphis, presi'lcil over by the veteran referee, Billy Haack, hus been the scene of many notable battles (luring; the past two decades or more. The name of the club might indicate a swell arena and clubhouse, such as the old Olympic at San Francisco or the National Snorting Snort-ing ciub of London, bur. it is nothing of the kind. It is an old barn-like building of the ramshackle kind, with every inch of space utilized for the seating of 2200 fans. Billy Haack has his own set of rules and what he says in the arena goes at all times. He gives decisions and as a rule they are fair above-board: in fact, Billy has i-jfjCcalled to other boxing centers to act as third man in the ring when the home arbiters could not be agreed upon. The meeting of Ben Rowlands, the Milwaukee middleweight, and Billy Weeks, the Canadian champion, here last -week brought to mind some of the old-time battles. Biddy Bishop, manager man-ager of Weeks, said it was just twenty twen-ty years ago this month that he was here as manager of Young Ivter Jackson, Jack-son, the famous colored fighter of those days. "I had Jackson matchea with the wonderful lightweight, Bobby ' Dobbs of Minneapolis," said Bishop, "and it was a great fight. Young Peter is now living in Salt Bake, but as late as three years ago Dobbs was boxing and running a physical culture school in Vienna." Days of Real Fights. , "Yes,',' chimed in Haack. "Those were the days of real fights, when whites fought blacks. They were twenty-round affairs and usually resulted decisively ose way or the other. The last battle here between a white and black was just seventeen years ago. On that occasion a well-known gambler was backing the colored man. The white fighter had the black badly beaten up to the tenth round and he wanted to quit; in fact, it should have been stopped. The colored fighter did not want to leave his chair, but his manager man-ager pressed a gun against his side and told him ho would shoot him if he did not get out and win. The negro, in desperation, battled away and in the fourteenth round beat the white boy. They had to get the colored fighter out of town that night to prevent trouble. That ended all fights between blacks aud whites here." Continuing, Referee Haack remarked-" We had many champions i-hfiere, among them Johnny Kil-Atrtc, Kil-Atrtc, Ad Wolgast, Battling Nelson, "Freddv Walsh, Kid Williams, Battling Levinskv and Jack Dillon. It was here Spvvhat Kid McCoy got his early start. ' came down 'with Tommy Ryan as trailer and later arranged a match with the 7Si famous Shadow Mabcr and showed wonderful speed and hitting powers. Later McCoy boxed a big heavyweight wrestler of New Orleans ntmerl 'Professor' Schoenfeld. Tho big fellow became so soro at not being able to hit McCoy that he picked the Kid up and threw him out of the ring, Harry Har-ry Forbes of Chicago and Casper Leon of New York, the great rival of Jimmy Barry, fought seventeen rounds, Forbes winning. It was here that the wonderful wonder-ful little featherweight, Oscar Gardner, fought Billv O'Donnell, the latter scoring scor-ing a knockout in tho seventeenth round. Bennv Yanger and Tommy Mowatt of Chicago also battled in the old place, as did Johnny Ritchie, the SI. Louis featherweight; Sam Longford, Joe .leanette, Johnny Coulon, Charlie White, Patsv Sweeney, Danny Duane and many others- who have long since retired. ' There has been a great improvement im-provement in the training of boxers, but as to science there is little the lighter of today has that the star of twenty vears ago did not have." Haack is one of tho few promoters who refuses to "cough up" everything every-thing to the boxers. "If they cannot take a chance with me," says Billy, worth just their share of what they can draw in at tho gate and uo more." Another Severe Blow. The recent contest between Jack Britton, welterweight champion, and Bryan Downey at. Columbus, Ohio, has caused some criticism. One of the Chicago Chi-cago paper critics came out with a rtorv last week to the effect that Britton Brit-ton and Downey had rehearsed their contest, in Chicago before appearing in k Columbus; in other words, it was jnti-mnted jnti-mnted that Britton and Downey had "Vjiberntely fooled the people who paid tlicsmonev to sea them box at Columbus, Colum-bus, publicity has been given the report, re-port, and it is up lo the managers of both Britton and Downey to put themselves them-selves right in regard to the. matter. If thev are guilty of such a proceeding thev should bo barred by legitimate chits throughout the country. If they are not guilty there is no reason why thev should be subjected to such an injustice. It would be only proper tor this critic to ratify the report. There is no doubt that those who follow fol-low the game expected to sec Britton win, without a doubt. Not having seen the contest, 1 am in no position to indue as to its merits, but at the same time the affair should be investigated, for the game is in a precarious enough condition at present lo making matters worse with such doings. Young Ahearn Through. Another star boxer. Young Ahearn of Brooklyn. N. Y.. has seen his best days as a fighter and will no doubt have to take his place among the also raus. Kvcr since his knoi kout in one round by Mike (iibbnns at St. I'aul a little more llian a war ago, Ahoaru has not seemed the sanie fighter. For a time it looked as though he had recovered nil his speed and ruggodness, but it was only a flush. The ihuieing master, as he was formerly known, put up a few great battles neainst Mich bovs as A I McCoy, Zulu Kid, Cns Christie. Ceorge Chip and Len llowlands, but he discovered that his strength was not there when he again tackled his old rival. Zulu Kid. a tough Italian of Brooklyn, whom he had beaten beat-en on pre ions occasions without much trouble. Thev met at the Clermont rink in Brooklyn recently an. I for the first l.art of the battle Ahearn used all his sneclyfiul science against the husky V".'(,r five rounds he made Hi" Italian miss and fall 'about the lirg. :ut in the sixth the bov with the African name connected with a wild swing and the en. I began to appear in sight. In the seventh another wild swing sent Ahearn ilo'-'-n lor the nine count and this was twice repeated before he was counted out. It was a case of his strength giving giv-ing out and he collapsed from blows that at other times would have been shaken off without trouble. Jt. is unfortunate that the clever Ahearn should moot his Waterloo so early m lii'e. for he is only 23 years of ago and should be just in 'his prime. It is the same old storv of starting too young. Ahearn had his first professional pro-fessional fight when only IB vears of ago, and now at 2:-! he is' through as a championship possibility. He has fought in all classes, from lightweight up to heavyweight, but seldom tipped the scales himself over jr.4 pounds. While in Europe he practically won the t light-heavyweight title of that country and was matched with Georges Carpeii-tier, Carpeii-tier, the French star, for the championship champion-ship and a purse of $40,000. when the war broke out. The money is still up in the hands of a London publication, but the chances are that the match will not take place, unless the bov should show a wonderful comeback, which does not seem possible at this time. Always an End. No matter how tough a fighter maybe may-be and how much punishment he may 'be able, to stand, there always comes a I time when he meets his master. That seems to be the case of Bob Moha, the Milwaukee middleweight, who has been accounted one of the toughest propositions proposi-tions in the country for the past six or seven years. Bob never faltered when it came to fighting a middleweight or a I heavyweight. It made little difference to him whether they scaled at 15S pounds or 200 he had confidence in his own ability to defeat any man he went against and that took all fear away. Bob has been going against the best 'middlcwcights in the country the past few- years, but he met his .match when he bumped into George Chip, the New-Castle, New-Castle, Pa., middleweight, in a scheduled sched-uled twelve-round bout at Youngstown, Ohio, a week ago. Had anyone suggested sug-gested at that time that Chip would be j ablo to win pver Moha on a technical knockout, he would have been deemed a fit subject for an asylum, but just the same the former coal miner set a pace that Moha could not follow, and at the end of the fourth round Bob was in such shape that the referee stopped the contest and awarded the decision to Chip. It has been claimed that the referee ref-eree gave the verdict to Chip because Eddie Moha, brother of Bob, threw water on him while near his corner, alleging al-leging a foul, but from all accounts this is not the case. Chip seemed to be at his best and he found no difficulty in getting past Moha's guard. When Ire did this, he landed one of his famous right crosses to the jaw and that is -what took the fight out of Robert. Bob still elaims that Chip did not. score a knockout or anywhere near it, and he would like to have another opportunity to prove that his version is correct. It I is likely that Chip will give it to him. Match Arouses Interest. Boxing fans in the middle west and in fact all through the east and south are deeply interested in the approaching match between Richie Mitchell, the Milwaukee Mil-waukee lightweight pride, and Benny Leonard, the New York sensation, which is scheduled for April 17 at. the big Auditorium Au-ditorium in Milwaukee. This match has been sought by promoters in all the big cities in the country for the past year and a half. The Garden club in Netf York offered $20,000 for the match some time ago. Matt Hinkle of Cleveland Cleve-land had previously offered $16,000. Dominick Tortorieh of New Orleans offered of-fered $15,000 and then raised it to $1S,-000, $1S,-000, and just, before the matefl was closed for Milwaukee Billy Gibson, who manages Leonard, offered the Milwaukee Milwau-kee boy $0000 to fight him in New York Gibson had been, offered $10,-000 $10,-000 for Leonard and turned it down and accepted a straight percentage, which he was no doubt wise in doing, for his share will run bc-vond that, without a doubt. From the way inquiries have been made regarding the match, it is almost al-most assured that the house will run beyond the Wolgast-Ritchie affair, wliich drew over $40,000. Leonard, who has been trying very hard to get Freddie Fred-die Welsh into a marathon title match, signed up to meet tho champion for a ten-round go in New York March 26 when ho found out that he could not get him in a championship affair. Mitchell and Leonard are two of the best boys in the lightweight division and the contest con-test will no doubt prove one of the best seen since the time of the Wolgast-Ritchie Wolgast-Ritchie battle. Mitchell has already started light training, as he wants to be in the very pink of condition for the encounter. It will mean a. great deal to both boys, for should either one score a knockout it would leave him practically practi-cally lightweight champion of America at least he would be recognized as such by nearly every sporting writer. |
