Subj: The BAWLI Papers No. 62
Date: 99-03-05 01:39:53 EST
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The BAWLI Papers
(Boxing As We Liked It)
Edited by J Michael Kenyon

Issue Number 62
Thursday, March 4, 1998
New York City, New York, US of A
__________________________________________

IN THIS ISSUE: FEATHER KING McGOVERN
GIVES 9,000 CHICAGOANS A GOOD SHOW
__________________________________________

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_________________________________________

CHAMPION TERRY McGOVERN MEETS WHITE

(Chicago Tribune, Tuesday, April 17, 1900)

Terry McGovern, bantamweight, featherweight and
knockout champion, will tonight at Tattersall's fight his
fifth battle in Chicago. In turn he easily disposed of Billy
Rotchford, Patsey Haley, Billy Smith, and Eddy Santry.
Tommy White, the 126-pound champion of America, is
the man selected to face the little man from Brooklyn in
his fifth battle before a local crowd.

In making the match McGovern took his first step
toward the lightweight division, the premier honors of
which he appears to be at some time destined to
caputre. McGovern, having beaten all the men of the
featherweight division, is sighting for higher honors, and
the upward march must before long lead him to lay
siege to the championship citadel now occupied by
Frank Erne.

In making the match with White, Sam Harris, manager
of McGovern, says it is only a six-round argument, but
for a longer route he might hesitate about giving away
weight. The apology is hardly necessary, as few ring
followers doubt McGovern's ability to clean up most of
the aspiring lightweights without any trouble.

White is without doubt one of the cleverest fighters and
ring generals that McGovern has yet met. While never
classed as a knockout fighter he has in his long career
met and defeated many men who could outslug him.
His gameness is unquestioned, and he will not, like
many of McGovern's victims, be beaten before he gets
in the ring. If defeated, he will go down with colors
flying, and should he be on his feet at the end of the
sixth round it is safe to assert he will have as many
points to his credit as McGovern.

In order to beat him McGovern will have to bore in, for
at long range work White is easily his superior. White's
friends are confident his experience and clever defense
will carry him safely through the six rounds, but the
large majority of ring followers, who have seen Terry
accomplish his jig time knockouts, feel just as sure that
he will stop White before the limit is reached. White has
trained hard for the bout and is in the best of condition.
McGovern has not prepared especially for the contest,
but as usual is never far from being at his best. White is
expected to come in the ring at between 128 and 130
pounds and McGovern will probably scale about four
pounds less. Whatever the outcome the battle is sure to
be spirited. Much interest is being manifested in the
contest and the advance sale of seats points to a
crowded house.

In the preliminary bouts Jack Moffat will make his first
appearance before one of the big local clubs since he
broke his arm in New York. He will meet Jim Adams of
Omaha, a light heavyweight, who has been seen in a
number of bouts around Chicago, his last appearance
being against Bob Long, with whom he fought a draw.
Billy Elmer, the actor p;ugilist, who appeared for a long
time in the ring scene in "Sporting Life," will face Barney
Connors, the local middleweight. Elmer has fought a
number of battles, but has not been in the ring for some
time. Three other preliminary bouts are billed.

George Siler and Malachy Hogan will referee.
________________________________

McGOVERN FAILS TO WIN AT TATTERSALL'S

(Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, April 18, 1900)

For eighteen minutes last night Tommy White stood in
the path of a McGovern cyclone and emerged
comparatively unscathed at the finish. In addition to this
the Chicago 126-pounder started a little whirlwind on his
own account at the finish which sent the Brooklyn
wonder to his corner with a look of regret on his face.
McGovern was sad because White had, as he claimed,
hung on to him unnecessarily.

The 9,000 spectators who journeyed to Tattersall's to
witness the encounter cared naught for this. they had
seen the phenomenal Terry in action for six full rounds
and had seen a local man accompany him the entire
distance. As round after round went by and White
walked to his corner the cheering grew louder and
louder. And when, in the last round, White started his
own little breeze of uppercuts and jabs the crowd broke
out in wild applause, which was renewed as the
contestants in the memorable battle filed their way to the
dressing rooms.

It was a contest that will live long on the local annals of
the game. McGovern, who had been seen in four
contests in the same ring, had easily disposed of
Rotchford, Haley, Smith and Santry, and was thought
by most of the crowd to be able to give White his
quietus before the end of six rounds. In this he failed
signally, and though he lost no friends by his failure, the
honors of the go were given to White.

The one weak point of the contest was the agreement
that if both men were on their feet there was to be no
decision. The concession, it is claimed, was demanded
by Sam Harris, McGovern's manager, by reason of his
man having to concede ten pounds in weight. It is
doubtful if White weighed more than five pounders over
his opponent, but he was willing to accede to the
request, and the Tattersall's association announced the
conditions previous to the contest.

What the result would have been had a decision been
rendered rests with Referee Siler.

McGovern was the aggressor in the first five rounds,
and though many times wild in his attack he sent home
many hard blows on his opponent. White clinched many
times to save himself and had a clean knockdown
registered against him. All this while he put up a good
game fight and kept his faculties in fast working order. In
the last round he cleanly outpointed his man, but it is
doubtful if his work in this would have entitled him to an
even break. White, in addition to having a slight
advantage in height, weight, and reach, was in better
condition. Not that McGovern was much out of shape,
but coming in after being on the road with a show does
not leave a man exactly on edge. His vigorous style of
fighting, if continued for a few rounds, is bound to tell,
and this was the case last night, for after the first three
rounds the champion slowed down and his blows lacked
their usual steam.

It was 10:40 o'clock before the preliminary bouts were
over. These were of mediocre character, the Schultz-
Sherlock bout being the best contested. Barney
Connors was too heavy and strong for Billy Elmer of
San Francisco, the actor-pugilist. Though defeated,
Elmer put up a game fight and took a hard grueling until
his seconds mercifully threw up the towel. Jack Moffat,
who made his first appearance since he broke his left
forearm against George Gardiner in New York, entered
the ring too soon and again fractured a small bone. The
injury, though not so serious as the first one, will keep
him out of the ring for some time. In Jim Adams of
Omaha he met an opponent fully fifteen pounds heavier
than himself. Moffat got the decision.

After the pair had left the ring there was a short pause
and then the cheering announced the coming of the
principals in the windup. White, accompanied by Harry
Gilmore, Henry Stender, and Willie McGurn, was the
first to enter the ring. McGovern came a few seconds
later with Sam Harris, Kid Bernstein, Charley Mayhood,
and his constant attendant, Constable Nelson.

White had seated himself in the corner occupied by
McGovern in his previous fights, and Terry, deeming it
his lucky seat, insisted on tossing for it. He won, and
White smilingly took the opposite chair. After receiving
instructions from Referee Siler the men sat smiling,
awaiting the tap of the bell. White shook his first at
McGovern, who broadened his smile in response.

The gong sounded, and McGovern almost sprinted
across the ring to White. White, unliked many of the
Brooklynite's victims, did not appear to be hypnotized by
the fast moving fists confronting him. McGovern finally
let go a right which landed on White's shoulder, and the
battle was on. The little Brooklynite was the
personification of energy, and White's defensive abilities
were taxed to the utmost. He ducked, clinched, and
blocked as best he could, but the flail-like arms of Terry
were ever on the move, and many blows went home.

The I-told-you-so portion of the crowd settled down,
looking for a speedy termination. White slipped over,
and rested on his knee for a count of eight. He then
jabbed Terry's face to show he was still in the fight.
McGovern then fell over, and a few seconds later White
did the same thing. McGovern then let go a left swing,
which avoided by dropping to his knee. The bell rang
and the first stage of the journey was reached.

The looked-for knockout did not materialize in the
second round. McGovern began a fusillade of short-arm
blows for the body, but here White's generalship came
into play, and he soon clinched to a safe position.

In the middle of the round White took a hand at
attacking, and two stiff jabs on Terry's nose brought
applause. Terry never let up in his attack, but many
times was wild. He would make a short swing with his
left and then send his right hard, followed by another
left, and they came so fast that White, clever as he was,
had to take them. Terry went to his corner, his reddened
face showing signs of his exertion.

Early in the third round McGovern sent his right over
White's right eye, cutting a bad gash from which the
blood flowed freely. Terry was anxious and wildly forced
the pace. He tried a hard left uppercut and fell against
White on the ropes. After much hard fighting Terry
swung his left to the breast, scoring a clean knockdown.
White did not appear dazed, but took a count of eight,
and when Terry foxily walked behind him he wheeled
around on his knees and faced him. The sound of the
bell brought a rousing cheer from the crowd, which
began to realize that White had a good chance to go the
limit.

In the fourth round McGovern again fell over after
making two wild swings. McGovern got White in the
corner and rained in several savage blows, but White
came out strong and fought back.

Fighting in the fifth round was slower. When the sixth
started most of the spectators looked for a repetition of
the previous rounds, with White mostly on the
defensive. After several clinches White suddenly let
himself out. Starting his attack with a long, swinging
uppercut, he connected hard with Terry's body. Then he
drove a similar blow to the chin, fololowed with another.
McGovern was astonished, even if not damaged, and
set out to reply in kind. White met him with a stiff left jab
and then again uppercut him. He had all the better of
the round, and stalled McGovern's hard rush at the
finish by clinching.

McGovern said after the battle that it was a hard task to
give a man weight and then have him hang on.

"He's too quick and too heavy for me," the little
champion added, "and let me tell you that anybody who
says White can't hit hard is a fool. He hit me harder than
anybody I ever met."

White said: "The blow which cut my eye was not one
that McGovern delivered, but was the result of his
rushing into me; but of course that is the luck of a fight.
The blow which McGovern landed on my jaw in the first
round was the hardest I ever got in my life; but when I
got up I was all right and I said to myself: 'Well, I don't
believe he can land one any harder than that and it
didn't put me out, so I'm all right.'"

The first preliminary to the McGovern-White fight was
between Young Malone and Sammy Keefe of Chicago
at 118 pounds. The fight was stopped in the third round,
Keefe being practically out.

Kid Schultz was given the decision over Joe Sherlock at
the end of the sixth round. The men fought at 122
pounds.

Barney Connors of Chicago defeated Billy Elmer, the
actor, of San Francisco, in the third round, the fight
being stopped by Referee Siler. Elmer was knocked
down clean in the first round, again in the second, but
knocked Connors against the ropes immediately after
regaining his feet.

Elmer was groggy when he went to his corner in the
second and was weak when he came up for the third.
Connors battered him badly, and when the fight was
stopped Elmer was covered with blood. He made a
remarkably game fight, and resisted fiercely when his
seconds tried to take him to his corner. The round had
gone one minute and ten seconds when Connors was
given the decision. The men fought at 150 pounds.

"Kid" Garfield was given the decision on points over
Henry Lumbard at the end of six rounds.

Jack Moffat of Chicago outpointed Jim Adams of
Omaha in six rather slow rounds. This was Moffat's first
appearance since he broke his left arm in a fight in New
York several months ago, but in spite of that handicap
the fight was his from the first. Moffat injured his arm in
the final round, but not seriously.
___________________________

MATTY MATTHEWS WHIPS BILLY SMITH

(Special to the Chicago Tribune, April 18, 1900)

NEW YORK, April 17 -- At the Broadway Athletic Club
tonight, the welterweight championship of the world
changed hands from "Mysterious Billy" Smith to Matty
Matthews of New York. The New Yorker solved the
hitherto unsolvable mystery with a right-hand punch on
the jaw in the nineteenth round, sending Smith to the
land of dreams.

Matthews won from the first sound of the gong. He
outpoined and outgeneraled his opponent, and,
although his blows were not so hard, they were cleaner,
and always went to the mark. The fight was fast all the
way, and was witnessed by fully 4,000 spectators, who
cheered Matthews wildly at the finish.

Before the fight the betting was lively, Smith the favorite
at 100 to 60.

In the first round Matthews was forced to the floor with a
right on the kidneys, and later went down from a clinch
in his own corner. Matthews had the better of the fourth
round, meeting Smith's rushes with stiff lefts and rights
on the body. Matthews kept leading his left to the face,
but Billy's kidney blows had his body almost raw at the
close of the fifth round. Smith kept forcing, but
Matthews met him with stiff facers every time.

Smith was repeatedly cautioned for unfair fighting.
When they came out for the ninth, Matthews swung his
right to the jaw, and followed with two more of the same,
and Billy began to look serious. In the eleventh
Matthews rushed and three times landed his right on the
jaw, and both fell to the floor in a clinch. Matthews' work
had the crowd on its feet, cheering, when the bell rang.
Matty was after him fast in the twelfth, and time and
again swung his right to the face and jaw. Smith was
bleeding from the mouth, but fought back like a fiend,
and drove some terrible rights to Matthews' body. Left
jabs started Smith's nose bleeding in the thirteenth, and
worried him considerably.

Both landed heavily with rights on the head in the
fourteenth, and Billy's left eye was cut and bleeding
from Matty's jabs. Billy cut out the work in the fifteenth,
and pounded Matty hard about the body. A left swing on
the jaw and a shove forced Matthews to the floor, but he
was right up and finished strong.

Matthews showed the effects of Smith's body punches
in the sixteenth. He was much slower, and did not seem
to willing to mix it up. Just before the bell he swung his
right to the jaw, but Billy only smiled. It was Smith's
round. It was even up in the seventeenth. Matty landed
hard with his right on the jaw, but it did not seem to
bother Smith, who countered with his right under the
heart. Matthews looked tired. They went through the
eighteenth with little done, Smith having a trifle the
better of it.

Smith was the aggressor in the nineteenth, and at close
quarters beat Matthews hard about the body. In the
clinch he threw Matty to the floor. He was up
immediately, and Smith apologized and shook hands.
Matty then swung his right to the jaw for a knockdown.
Smith was up and clinched. Matty threw him off, and
twice more landed the same punch, the last one
dropping Smith clean. He was unable to rise to the
count, and had to be carried to his corner. Time of
round, 28 seconds.
_____________________________

DEMPSEY GETS INTO ANOTHER ARGUMENT

(Chicago Tribune, Saturday, January 17, 1931)

NEW YORK, Jan. 16 (Special) -- Jack Dempsey
refereed his second fight in New York tonight and was
involved in his second unsatisfactory ending to a ring
battle.

The ex-heavyweight champion was the third man in the
ring in the scheduled ten-round bout between Max Baer,
California's young heavyweight, and Tom Heeney, New
Zealand veteran, at Madison Square Garden. The fight
ended in a knockout victory for Baer in the third round,
and a lot of excitement, confusion, controversy and
argumentative discussion among some 8,000 fight fans
who viewed the spectacle.

Whether Baer was entitled to the credit for a knockout
victory was a disputed point when hostilities abruptly
ended.

In the third rounder, under a fiery volley of lefts and
rights to the head and body with which Baer pelted his
foe as he rushed the New Zealander across the ring,
Heeney, more through the force of Baer's rush than
from a vital punch, slipped through the ropes near his
own corner. He fell heavily, but slowly, and was assisted
back into the ring by the upward push of three writers
into whose laps he threatened to fall.

Dempsey, thinking he was pickuping up the count
correctly, tolled off eight seconds over Heeney, who was
kneeling awaiting the full benefit of a nine-count, and
abruptly Arthur Donovan, knockdown time keeper, at
the ringside, halted the downard bang of his gavel,
indicating that Heeney had been counted out.

Dempsey was surprised by the interruption, and Heeney
jumped erect, ready to resume the battle.

Heeney protested strenuously. He was not hurt. Baer
acted as if surprised himself and would have resumed
the action with Heeney had not Dempsey informed them
both that the timing watches had recorded the ten-
second count from the time Heeney went through the
ropes until Dempsey's right arm dropped on the eighth
second in the former champion's count. It was explained
after the bout that Heeney was out of the ring for two
seconds before being shoved back on the battle
platform, and that Dempsey overlooked this elapsed
time when he started counting in the mistaken belief that
no count had been recorded until Heeney returned to
the ring.

Gen. John J. Phelan of the state athletic commission, in
charge of the scene in the absence of Chairman James
A. Farley, who is ill, announced after the bout that under
the rules of the commission Heeney was automatically
disqualified when he permitted himself to be assisted
back into the ring -- a rule adopted after Dempsey's
battlle against Luis Angel Firpo.

The ending to the bout was an injustice to Heeney and
a keen disappointment to the crowd, in the opinion of
many at the ringside.

Heeney could have regained his feet before the
expiration of ten seconds, had he known the count was
confused.

Unofficially the bout was a moral victory for Heeney,
who, thought to be beyond recall as a ring competitor
and more or less of a trial for Baer, actually outfought
the California youth in the first two rounds, giving better
than he received in spirited exchanges, leaping in
valiantly on the attack, bucking or dodging Baer's wild
swings and countering himself with solid smashes to the
body and head. In the second round Baer fought
savagely and pounded the body severely, but Heeney
took the blows, gave his own in return and outboxed and
outscored the younger heavyweight at long range.
__________________________


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