Salt Lake Telegram | 1949-08-10 | Page 21 | Ezzard Charles Gets Favored Role over Gus Lesnevich

1 j ! II.' . y" x &Sel ? W Stftddard Gats a Jack A formal presentation of aa all-star Jacket waa made to Bingham'a Boyd Stoddard, who couldn't play ut game borauise ef aa Injury. Giving It are I Martin Garcia. Weat; Barney Dargaa, Judge Memorial, Me-morial, and IMrk Gonzales, Bingham. Stoddard dropped a rail on hla foot during ilunimr work. Ezzard Charles Gets Favored Role Over Gus Lesnevich By Charles Einstein NEW YORK. Aug. 10 (INS) The gloom and doom boys, titltst Ezzard Charles and challenger Gus Lesnevich, meet more or less in secret at Yankee stadium Wednesday Wednes-day night for the heavyweight championship of elsewhere. The fistic delight, scheduled to begin at 10 o'clock EDT) and routed at the usual 15 rounds, is recognized aa a title match throughout the territory of the National Boxing Assn. For practical practi-cal pu poses, that meana everywhere every-where except Siberia, where it doesn't matter; the British Isles, where It might, and the state of New York, where it does. In the face of the somewhat semlpro rating handed down by the local boxing commission, Wednesday night's production is supposed to attract about 25,000 people, enough to rattle around the giant atadium like marbles in a cistern. Mr. Charles, lean man who looks aa If he spends half his waking wak-ing hours watching movies with sad endings, has promised to electrify elec-trify the gathering with a display of pure savagery. He says, specifically, specifi-cally, that he will knock Lesnevich out in aeven rounds or less, a guarantee guar-antee that sits well with the odds, which are 3 to 1, Charles. Mr. Lesnevich, howsomever, la not amused. He says he la going to knock Charles out inside of eight rounds. Whatever happens wllr be change maybe welcome, maybe not from the old-style Charles-Lesnevich Charles-Lesnevich routine, in which the two boys bombarded each other with unsavory comments but never once atepped Into a ring together. That waa in the old days when both were light heavyweights. They still are (pending an official result from Wednesday's weigh-in, both were expected to be at 180 pounds), but it Is no longer proper to say so. Charles enters the ring the favorite, not so much on pure punching ability aa on the principles prin-ciples of stamina, age and his opponent's op-ponent's eyes. At 38, the dark-skinned dark-skinned Clncinnatlan holda a six-year six-year age advantage over lesnevich; lesne-vich; the latter, moreover, haa proved to be a fellow who cuts easily under the eyes. It could prove his undoing Wednesday night as It haa before. The winner of the boot probably will face the winner of the forthcoming forth-coming Lee Savold-Bruce Woodcock Wood-cock fight In London, which probably prob-ably ww come off pending another change of heart on the part of Woodcock. Of late, he haa been Issuing more retirement notices than Marshall Goldberg. '