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Show SPEAKING OF SPORTS I By ROBERT McSHANE THE New York State Athletic commission, the National Boxing association and a few thousand fight fans find themselves stuck with a new lightweight boxing champion. The new champ is Sammy Angott, a 27-year-old brawler from Washington, Washing-ton, Pa. Sammy, who has possessed the N.B.A. championship since May, 1940, Isn't much of a fighter. Some of his best friends admit that. But he was good enough to outclass Lew Jenkins, the gaunt individual from Sweetwater, Texas, who held the New York share of the world title. The whole lightweight situation has been muddled since the 135-pound 135-pound title was split more than a year and a half ago. The N.B.A. withdrew its recognition from Lou 1 Ambers when he took on Jenkins, who wasn't even considered an important im-portant challenger, instead of Angott An-gott or Davey Day. The latter two fought It out for the N.B.A. crown, , then, a few days later, Jenkins complicated com-plicated matters by stiffening Ambers Am-bers in three rounds. With the victory vic-tory went New York's edition of the title. A New King The best thing that can be said for the Angott-Jenklns fight is that the championship mess has been cleaned up. Angott is the king. The country's coun-try's two main boxing bodies agreed before hand to recognize the winner as champion everywhere. The fight was an unqualified flop. Jenkins won one round and that on a foul. He had extremely little speed, hardly any stamina and didn't show any of the punching power that carried him to the top. His right hand, which once sent opponents op-ponents "kicking, was a harmless weapon. He didn't throw more than a dozen real rights at Angott, and most of. them missed. Sammy, who fought his way up from the Pennsylvania mines, did the best to make a fight of it. His best, to be startlingly original, was none too good. He won 14 of the rounds merely because he was trying try-ing his hardest. Lew doesn't deserve much in the way of sympathy. Not without reason rea-son did the sports writers hang the "Looney Lew" title on him. His training has been confined largely to night clubs. His entanglements with motorcycles and speeding cars haven't helped him. To be brief, he was asking for a whipping. He got it from Angott. However, any journeyman jour-neyman lightweight could have done the job. A total of 11,343 fans paid $26,816 to be bored stiff for 15 rounds. It Is quite likely that the lightweight division di-vision lost exactly 11,313 fans. |