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Show lr : I Bat Nelson's Own Story of the Hyland Fightj (By Battling Nelson) Well, the fight has proven that my old predictions came true. I stated some days ago in my writings that I would win my fight in from seven to fifteen rounds, but under no condition would I allow it to pass tho old twenty-third, my lucky skldoo round. I finished HylanJ In the twenty-third, and I look upon this as a great boost for my predictions. Hyland is a very tough little fellow and must be given credit for the groat stand he made, as ho was, to my way of Beelng it, fighting an up-hill battle from first to last Jn tho twenty-flret twenty-flret round I gave the notice for tho moving picture men to keep on grinding grind-ing to1 tho finish, written all over him. I knocked him down several times In the last few rounds, and must say that he used some of the gamenesa which made mo the undisputed lightweight i champion of the world. I discovered very early in the battle that I could have fought him for a week and blocked all hla punches with my anatomy without suffering a knockout. There was a funny coincraenco toe-fore toe-fore the battle started. While I was ' bandaging my hands, Hylamrs manager man-ager went to the center of the ring . and took his choice of gloves. It 16 t common ring etiquette in Coffroth's arena to have Sol Levlnson make ' each fighter's gloves to order. He j . takes tho measure of each fighter's i hands a few days in advance of the brittle and gives each, fighter a try-on of three or four pairs of gloves so he can select the ones which suit him the ! best. i When Hyland tried his on he pinned pin-ned his name Inside of the glove. When I tried mine oh. Instead of my name, I applied tho magic "23." i When I picked up .the odd pair of gloves I discovered Hylan(1 had made a mistake and tied my gloves on his hands securely. I Informed Hyland of his mistako, but he was not anxious to change, bo I showed him the magic "23" I had applied ap-plied InslJo my gloves, saying, "You had better take your own gloves or else I will do the samo to you as I did to Jack Clifford." When I fought Clifford in Ogden he was suspicious of the gloves and thought mine were smaller than his. He Insisted on having my gloves. Of course, I am anything but suspicious of hoodoos, so I said, "Jack, if you want my gloves you can have them, but I hate to knock you out with your own gloves." but I did. With Hyland something on tho same lino of conversation camo off with the exception of the "23," which I showed him Inside his gloves. "I will have to knock you out with your own gloves," I said. "I will try and do it for you as quickly as I did for Clifford, but under no conditions will I allow you to go by round 23," and I did not. Hyland is a grand Httlo fellow personally, per-sonally, as well as some fighter. He fought a clean battle with the exception excep-tion of holding more than the rules allow. Of course, he will have to be excused for that, as thore must have been a certain amount of method In his battle he was losing. Outside of that he took his punishment like a gamester and went down with flying colors, fighting to the last notch ye3, and I might say with the last ounce of strength ho had in his make up. |