Evening Star Newspaper, June 8, 1930, Page 86

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, DP. T, JUNE & 1930 After Sharkey and Schmeling—What Why the Heavyweight Fight Racket Will Continue a Hopeless Mess, Even Though the Coming Battle at Yankee Stadium Is Supposed to Settle a World Championship. BY WILLIAM BRAUCHER. T has been some months now since a little group of willful men, seated around a table, decided that the milk fund bout of June 12 between Max Sigfried Adolf Otto Schmeling and Jack Josef Paul Kaukauskas Sharkey would constitute what should be called a heavyweight championship. Accordingly, the narge of the winner of the bout will be en- graved on the handsome trophy that Solid Man Willlam Muldoon sand Equally Solid Man James Joseph Tunney have authorized as the token of international gladiatorial supremacy. Mind you, the boxing commission hasn't said that the gentlemen’s full or real names would be cut into the trophy, probably because that would Jeave little room for the monickers of such men is John L. Sullivan, Jim Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons and a few other pugs of an earlier and less schooled era. At any rate, either Jack Sharkey, the screaming squire of Bos- ton, or Max Schmeling, the hurtful hamburger of Germany, is about to become world heavyweight champion. And after that— The deluge! By which it is meant that followers of the racket known as boxing are about to come face to face with a situation in which the champion is no better man than you are, Gungha Din, and that with a little bag punching and judi- cious yelling you have a grand chance to be- come heavyweight champion of the world your- self. Schmeling and Sharkey are the best of a bad lot of heavyweights. Beyond that, neither has shown convincingly the qualities that go into the making of a champion. There have been similar situations in ring history. But not since the retirement of Jim Jeffries 25 years ago have ring fans been con- fronted with the spectacle of two synthetic con- testants battling for the belt that John L. wore so well. Jeffries had won the title from Bob Fitzsimmons, who, by the way, was regarded in that day as something of a foreign menace him- self. But Fitz, a Cornishman, upon winning the title from Corbett, had become an American citizen. Jeff defended the title for a few years and gradually the heavyweight crop of the period decayed to a state of stagnation almost as uninteresting as the harvest of today. OR three years before his retirement in 1905 Jeff was idle. The talent could not be found to give him a fight. Finally he decided to call it off and become a rancher. Jeff refereed the Mawin Hart-Jack Root match in Reno in 1905, at which the ambi- tious promoter announced that the winner would be accepted formally as the new heavy- weight champion, The situation today paral- lels that of Jeffries’ day, but Jefl always stoutly denied that he had sanctioned the disposal of the title in that manner. Anyway, Marvin, old boy, won the fight and was declared champion until a champion should come along. The champion wasn't long on the way. It wasn't a year later than Tommy Burns defeated Marvin Hart in a 20-round decision fight at Los Angeles. It is a queer quirk that the name of Tommy Burns appears on the Muldoon-Tunney cham- pionship trophy, but the name of Marvin Hart, from whom Burns was supposed to have won the championship, is strangely missing. As it was in the day of Marvin Hart and Jack Root, when these two were selected as the best of a very mediocre assortment of cauli- flower, Sharkey and Schmeling have ‘been named as “logical”’ contenders today. Either Sharkey or Schmeling is to become the next world champion, which makes the rest of the heavy caulifiower division look like an old-fashioned bartenders’ picnic caught in a thunderstorm. A long rise in the heavyweight stock market started with Jack Johnson. White hope after white hope was brought along with a view to ereation of a Caucasian champion. One after snother they were knocked back into oblivion. People began to realize that Johnson was one of the greatest fighters the world ever had seen. ‘The frenzy to find a man who could beat him down worked itself gradually into a fury. Then, finally, Jess Willard, the giant from the Kansas plains, clicked. 2 Fighting interest was sustained with Willard. Who would be the one to beat the behometh from the West? Four Winters and Summers passed before the question was answered, And bhow it was answered! IA‘ TIGER man orawled from under a box car, popped over the Kansas giant under To- Jedo’s scorching sun, and the golden reign of eaulifiower reached its apex. For seven years Dempsey, the mauler, held sway, and during those years followers of fighting saw in action one of the most savagely destructive panthers of the arena that ever drew leather over sm fron claw. The climax—or call it an anti-climax, if you like—occurred in Philadelphia on that rainy night in September, 1926, when the tiger fought the wolf and was slashed to ribbons by Tunney. Then, to prove the verdict wrong, the tiger The Muldoon trophy. The names of heavyweight champs are engraved on its plaques, but this time it will provide the answer to the riddle, “When is a champion not « champion?” The answer being, “When he’s either Tom Sharkey or Max Schmeling.” came back after beating the Sharkey man, knocked eold the ring wolf that had defeated him, but lost the title through what will always be known as one of the eruelest breaks of Juck & fighter ever received. Interest in the tiger man has not died. It persists, thoagh the likelihood of his ever re- turning to the ring wars is remote. But after his defeat at Tunney’s hands, there came a terrific letdown in the caulifiower market. Tun- ney, picking his own opponent, Tom Heeney, cost Tex Rickard a gob of prestige and Madison Square Garden a chunk of vulgar money. Then, to top it all off, Gentleman Gene announced his retirement from the arena and its crude affairs, and the mad scramble of the Merry Andrews of the prize ring began. It was out of the scramble of these cox- combs of the squared circle that Sharkey and Schmeling emerged. At least it is the opinion of those boxing police—the New York Athletic Commission—that they have emerged, so there you are. One of these two men will be cham- pion—then who else i there? Echo answers very few indeed, and run of mine folk at that, sir, SHARKEY will be champion? Then why not K. O. Christner or Young Stribling or the oaken-hearted Johnny Risko, who beat the Screaming Squire no longer than two years ago? Squire Sharkey did not look so well against Christner, who was supposed to be a tune-up for the first battle at Miami between Sharkey and Stribling. Against Stribling, Sharkey did not demonstrate clearly championship caliber. And Risko handed him a most disagreeable pasting in the Garden in 1928. Schmeling will be champion? Then how about Larry Gaines, the Canadian Negro bat- tler who inflicted so much body punishment on Max that the German was forced to quit? Gaines in this country is no more than a third- rater. And how about Gypsy Daniels, who knocked out Herr Maxie in a round? Are not these two entitled to return battles for the world heavyweight championship if Max can beat Jack Sharkey? The woods, indeed, will be full of contenders, no matter who wins in this battle between the Bostonian of Lithuanian extraction and the young Teuton from Hamburg. But looking over the whole previous crowd from top to bot- tom, there seems to be no championship possi- bility worth the consideration. It appears you'll just have to wait until a champion comes along —and when he does, you'll know it quickly. When Tommy Loughran deserted the light- heavyweight class and ate his way up to 189 pounds there was a great stir throughout the land over the clever Tommy’s chances of becom- ing a big-wig in the heavy division. Tommy, however, walked smack into one of Jack Sharkey’s stiff right hands and was forced to look around for a chair. Not a few of the critics said Loughran was too fat, that he had tried to acquire weight too rapidly. But he was still too fat nearly a year later when Ernie Schaaf, a young German-French-Bostonian, out- punched him to gain a decision in Philadel- phia. Loughran cannot be considered ready for a shot at the championship right now. Well, how about this Schaaf fellow who con- quered Loughran? But here you come face to face with another record that is confusing to say the least. It was only last year that Schaaf was defeated by Con. O'Kelly, who is no very great shakes as a box fighter; by K. O. Chris- ner, the venerable rubber puddler of Akron, and by that destroyer of possibilities, Johnny Risko. For the present, you'll have to set aside Mr. Schaaf. He wouldn’'t be ready for Sharkey or Schmeling yet. ALL right, how about Victorio Campolo, the Big Horse of the Argentine? Didn't he knock out Tom Heeney in quite as convincing a fashion as Tunney performed the same task? ‘True, but here comes that lad Risko again, the boy of whom Tex Rickard once said, “Never saw nothin’ like Risko! He'll never be cham- pion himself, but he licks everybody that looks like one!” Risko steps in with two authorita- tive decisions over the Argentinian Equine. His affair with Campolo in Miami was called a draw, but Referee Kid McPartland ran like a deer after he had made that atrocious decision. Risko remains ®ampolo’s master, and in order to be champion you're supposed to be the - master yourself. Another reason why you cannot become sleepless over the chances of Campole becoming heavyweight champion is the way he has been handled. Some of his advisers have been try- ing to make a boxer out of the giant. Victorio has a very viclous hammer hanging from his right shoulder, and if allowed to cut loose in ‘he manner of Luis Angel Firpo he might ® (> send quite a lot of the talent into a tallspin. As a boxer, however, he is just one more giraffe. And while you are talking about giants the huge bulk of Primo Carnera obtrudes itself upom the discussion. Here is an interesting study, but you can discount Carnera in any chame pionship talk for some moons to come. The * official boxing police—meaning athletic com- missions again—have" frowned reprovingly upon the antics of the big plug from Italy, whose merry junket from village to village has been halted by suspension. Naively, here is how: WHEN Carnera came to this country, carrye ing unlimited museum possibilities for pube licity, of course the boxing commissions every~ where held up their hands, opened mouths wide and exclaimed: “Here, indeed, is a fearful fellow! He will wade across the land, engaging in grueling bat- tles with the toughest talent that America can provide. Probably he will battle Jack Dempsey in his very first match. Then Tunney will rush out of retirement and be crushed to earth by this fire-breathing behemoth! Oh, for pity's sake!" Boxing commissions, you know, can always be depended upon for the bizarre and the in- teresting. Isn't the present “world heavyweight championship affair” the proof of the custard? The boxing commission, having expressed its apprehension over the destructive itinerary of the Italian Ibex, sat back complacently and prepared to count the dead. Oh, positively! From city to city went lumbering the Colossus of the Canals. And each one of the men he met inevitably resorted to the same device, something crossed between a beautiful jacke knife dive and a straightaway plunge, IT was all very beautiful and awesome and inspiring. Customers flocked to the gates and battled to lay their nickels on the Jine. They were inspired by the hope of seeing & massacre something like Custer’s Last Stand, At length, the boxing police began to wone der when these grueling fights were beginning to come off. Mostly they were one-round af- fairs, in which there was all gentility and@ sweetness. Primo would nudge his determined adversary, whereupon the deponent promptly would emulate Annette Kellermann. “By George, we’ll investigate!” the brave commissions shouted to the querulous custome ers. “This is too much!” Then came the denouement. The fire-breathe ing behemoth ran into a most impolite eus- tomer on the Pacific Coast in the person of Leon “Bombo” Chevalier (probably Al Jolson). Leon walked calmly out of his corner im round one, wound up a haymaker and deposited it flush on the great jowls of the Jabberwocky. Down he went.” There was pulling and hauling for five rounds, and in the sixth the Primo gently shoved Leomn to the canvas. Leon was on one knee, blow- ing his nose, when a towel came fluttering into the ring and the referee hastened to call a knockout. The boxing commission of California sprang then into fierce and grandiose action. What devil's heresy was this! A phony fight. Oh dear, oh dear! So Primo has been banned, and it is all very funny. After fight upon fight, with the strang- est enemies that could be brought against him, to be ruled out for connivance with only the reason of an unauthorized towel, isn’t it just teo bad?