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Show Lmm electee) lot pasvc : . The Target Joe Carries BiEdgeiir His Punches '" By JOE WILLIAMS (Special to The Telegram) NEW YORK, Jan. 2-Jos Louis fights Bob Pastor in a ten-rounder at Madison Square Garden tonight Tho Detroit negro Is a heavy favorite favor-ite to beat the New York whits man. But there la much delicate if-lng and but-lng among the experts. They still recall with a certain poignancy that the negro was a heavy favorite to beat Max Schmel-ing Schmel-ing and that he wound up sniffing the acrid resin. We were wrong on SchmeHng, aa the wide, wide world knows by now. What hurts is that we might easily have been right All that was needed need-ed was a little more careful consideration con-sideration of the main factors involved. in-volved. Schmeling had two very Important assets a right hand and experience. We all knew Louis could be hit by a right hand and that fc4a onsarioneo waa limited. Figured Fig-ured on a purely elemental basis, then, Schmeling, Instead of being the underdog, should have been the favorite. Looking back on a fight, these things are always easy to see except that In this case they should have been Just as easy to see before the fight Possibly the reason they weren't seen was that most of us were blinded by Louis' tremendous hitting ability, his long run of successive knockouts. knock-outs. On Schmeling's side were two large, vital forces, but we blithely ignored them. We had decided Louis waa Invincible and that was that The photographic mind Is a stubborn stub-born thing. It refuses to take the time to debate with logic and facts. - Bob Pastor ... It's a laughing matter now. 1 ine picture oi a ngnter in a spectacular spec-tacular triumph is hard to erase. That's why the public Is so surprised when old champions topple. They remember the old champions as they last saw them. They fail to take into account that the challenger might be coming up while the old champion Is going back. The whole history of the prize ring stresses this point John L. Sullivan's greatness was still esteemed es-teemed by the multitudes at New Orleans when It must have been clear to impartial eyes that the Boston Bos-ton strong boy had deteriorated into a plodder. The same was true of Jeffries at Reno, Willard at Toledo, Johnson at Havana and Dempsey at Philadelphia. Yes, Dempsey at Philadelphia. There never was a turn that ahould have been easier to call than this one, yet 99 per cent of tho fight world called It wrong. Dempsey had begun to slip even before he retired, aa his mediocre showing against Gibbons at Shelby proved. Coming back after three years of Idleness, he was Just an ordinary heavyweight; he couldn't poseibly figure to be anything else. This should have been as plain as a waltzing mouse on big Jim Farley's Far-ley's bald skull, but practically nobody no-body bothered to see it, or even try to see it All we remembered was that Dempsey had climbed back Into the ring and massacred Firpo; that he had stopped Fulton with a punch; that he had stiffened Brennan and cut Willard's dour pan to tatters. Those were the lively pictures that filled-the photographic mind. , The Louis debacle wasn't altogether alto-gether analagous because there was no reason to think at any time that the negro, being a young fighter, had slipped in the slightest but the mind pictures of his explosive hitting hit-ting in earlier bouts betrayed the critics into a belief that no matter what Schmeling might have in the way of effective gifts, he still wouldn't be good enough to stand up before the negro's fierce punching. punch-ing. - Edge . In Experience And now we come to the Pastor proposition and, I grant you, it is high time. I think it is entirely, logical to pick Louis in this one and for the very same reasons that we failed to pick Schmeling, or rather for the very same reasons that we should have picked Schmeling. Schmel-ing. The most important of these is experience. In this respect Louis carries the big edge. When I say experience I don't mean age, years in the ring or number num-ber of bouts. As a matter of fact, In these things there isn't much to choose between Louis and Pastor. What I am referring to is experience experi-ence in the clutches, experience when the chips are down, experience experi-ence in big fights. This is the first big fight Pastor haa had. Louis has had five or six. Including the all-important all-important Schmeling fight out of which he must have gained a lot of savvy. If he didn't he never will. It was known In advance that Schmeling had a right hand which if It landed would scalp an opponent oppo-nent This isn't known of Pastor. True, his best punch is a right hand, but he has yet to demonstrate that it comes close to matching Schmeling's Schmel-ing's in violence. Schmeling literally liter-ally spun John Rlsko clear around with a right hand to the Jaw, and he beat Louis into a state of collapse col-lapse with the same punch. Pastor has yet to prove he Is capable of anything like this. ' Bob Lacks Wallo Louis not only spotted Schmeling experience and I am again talking about experience in big fights but he was against a man who could hit hard enough to drop him. As far as it is possible to perceive in advance, ad-vance, Louis won't be spotting Pastor Pas-tor anything. He has been through the tough wars and Pastor hasn't. He is a murderous puncher with either hand and up to now Pastor has shown he is just a fair puncher with his right These things being so, or seemingly seem-ingly so, it is impossible to pick anybody any-body but Louis. If the negro gets the range he may end the fight in a round or two, even admitting the New Yorker's full store of courage. Much will depend, naturally, on the 1 strategy the men bring into play. Particularly Pastor. If he elects to fight a cagey, step-around, jigging fight, the issue will be prolonged; if he comes rushing In, his normal style, he is liable to get smacked with great firmness and finality, thus insuring an early bed hour for i all and sundry. |