Famous Bruisers Remembered

Particularly Johnny Kilbane, Young McGovern, Joe Rivers, and Stanley Ketchell

JIM TULLY

THEY walk down the hall of memory, a kindly, a brutal, a naive and a scar-faced crew. They represent to me the unspoiled primitive, with just enough of the complex to make them interesting. Since making my debut as a writer, I have met many of the leading artists of the nation. Gladly do I confess it, I would turn from nearly all of them for an evening with a company of bruisers.

For I too have traded wallops for bread. If the bread was bitter at times it was only because the poet in me had a weakness for caviar. And caviar is a food which grows in the valley of boredom. Now, a tired writing person with eyes that have seen rather a trifle too much, I would trade a great deal of the glory to be once again a roughneck Irish lad with a whalebone body and a granite jaw. But then, I spoiled my career as a bruiser by watering the sprout of a writer in my head. The ideal is always just over the hill.

Life has always been a circus to me. It is smeared with the tawdry and the beautiful . . . the intelligent person and the motion picture actress. I have heard childless club women chatter about the joys of motherhood. I have seen a harlot cry herself to sleep over a rag doll. I have heard scenario writers talk about their art . . . and I once met a young intellectual with pity for life.

But the bruisers are waiting . . . their gloves all laced.

THE great bruiser is born with his fighting quality. He carries that something into the ring with him when he first crawls through the ropes. Much is said about trainers and managers developing fighters. They really have about as much to do with it as professors of English have in developing writers. The great bruiser, like the great writer, must always be on his guard against the little people. Seldom does a manager ever have but one great fighter . . . Jimmy Dunn discovered Kilbane and went to the top with him. Jack Kearns did the same with Dempsey, Tom Jones with Billy Papke, Billy Nolan with Battling Nelson, the Baltimore barber with Joe Gans, Dan Hickey with Paul Bcrlcnbach, and so on. The fighter makes the manager always. If this were not true, the managers would develop other young fighters when their meal tickets are punched full of holes. Once in a while their reputations allow them to pick up pugilists already made—such as Kearns who is now managing Mickey Walker, and Tom Jones managing Wolgast in his prime. But the fighter is born . . . the manager is a slob of destiny.

I boxed the semi-windup, the night Johnny Kilbane fought his first main bout. He battled Jack Whittaker, the lemon-coloured negro, who just missed being another Joe Gans. The wily Kilbane slashed him into oblivion. Kilbane and I were good friends. He stalled on entering the ring for his match with Whittaker, in order to give me a chance to see the opening round of his bout. I hurried to my dressing room and was back at the ringside before the introductions were over.

He entered the ring with the poise of Hugh Walpole late for tea. Whittaker, the lemoncoloured master of boxing, eyed him from his corner. Kilbane ignored the master. He wore at the time a black cotton sweater and a smile of confidence. It was as if he saw the fcathcrweight championship, which he later won and held for eleven years. The cotton sweater was discarded afterward for a robe of silk. The purse of two hundred dollars later grew into one of seventy-five thousand.

The gong rang for the first round. Kilbane, with the inscrutable smile, walked forward. No blow was struck for two minutes. Then Whittaker worked in close and was, in the parlance of the ring, tied into knots. He was held in such a position that his hands were useless. He might as well have been lecturing before the National Geographic Society. This continued for twelve rounds. The coloured master, who just missed greatness, learned a great deal that night from the youngster with a genius for bruising in his head. 1 fought like a maniac . . . the crowd stood ... I can still hear the thunder of its applause as I write. Kilbane had to get ready for his bout which followed mine. Jimmy Dunn, his manager, took his place in the ring. An old ringster who had held Freddie Welch to a twenty round draw, his touch and his voice were soothing. "Keep in close, Jimmy . . . don't let him nail you with his right . . . and once you get in—battle like a fool. Step fast or he'll get a draw or maybe the decision." He threw a spongeful of ice water on my back as the gong rang. It was like an electric shock. I ran clear across the ring and nailed McGovern in his corner. Never before had I been keyed up to such an elemental pitch. The sting of the double-cross hurt me. I won the bout in McGovern's corner in that round. I never again asked my fighter to be good in the ring. Kilbane won that evening—I won in Lima. Our ways diverged.

Three months later I was again, by accident, on the same card with Kilbane. I was training in Findlay, Ohio, for a main bout in Lima. A week before my contest in Lima, Johnny was appearing in Findlay. I went there to train his rival, and incidentally to get into condition myself. I was not fond of the lad whom 1 helped train for Kilbane. He ran a restaurant and saloon and charged me for my drinks. The meals, of course, did not matter. I liked his wife, however. She was kind. But when Kilbane came to town I immediately joined forces with him. It was the only thing to do.

On the night of the contest l was prevailed upon to enter the ring with Young McGovern whose opponent failed to show up. I was reluctant to take a chance with McGovern. He was a dangerous man. All the same, 1 had no fear. But my reasoning was businesslike. Should I lose to McGovern I would automatically lose a main bout, at much more money, the next week in Lima. I would also gain nothing by whipping him. He would gain much by whipping me. Pugilists are never conceited.

I stated my reasons to the promoters. 'They talked to McGovern. He promised to be good. Kilbane said to me, "Go on, Jimmy—you can lick him. He's a cinch." But I was not so sure. Kilbane was a pugilistic genius and l was an embryo writer.

HI M IL story would end here had li McGovern been "good". He wasn't. He came out of his corner, his leather mallets of agony flying. I never endured such a round. Plainly I was in for a double-cross, that thing which Arnold pulled on Washington. McGovern had beaten me to the getaway and I went to my corner, a bloodmad young mick.

Then I heard Kilbane say to me, "Keep on top of him, Jimmy. Battle hell out of him. Don't let him get set. He's out for the Lima date." His voice was as soft as a girl's. A keen intuitive psychologist, he knew better than to irritate a man who was facing trouble. The gong rang and in a moment I was gone.

We collided in the centre of the ring. T here was never such a half-minute of agony. McGovern backed away. "Come on youand battle! I'll hang the cross around your neck!" I saw his lips go tight shut. He was the superior boxer. But I kept on top of him. I gave him no chance to get set. As a result I had to carry the fight at a heart-breaking pace.

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A year later Kilbane was matched with Joe Rivers in California. I had preceded him to the coast.

No man had ever stood in front of Rivers fifteen rounds. Kilbane, the lithe lad from Cleveland, faced the Mexican under a torrid sun. The scheme was, at the time, to railroad Rivers into the featherweight championship. Save for the cog that was Kilbane, the wheel of his life ran smoothly.

Charlie Eyton, now the General Manager of Famous Players-Lasky, was the referee. Tom McCarey was the promoter. Nothing went as per schedule. The tiger that was Rivers had met his master. I heard McCarey say at the end of a heart-breaking round for Rivers, "I'll bet five thousand dollars I kin make him lick him." It must be remembered that Rivers was the greatest drawing card that ever fought in California. So McCarey had his reasons.

There was drama at the beginning of the fourteenth round. Could Rivers stop Kilbane as he had every other man before that period? He tore out of his corner, his lips skinned back, his muscles bulging. There was the roar of twenty thousand voices as he worked his way inside Kilbane's guard with a terrible uppercut. The blood gushed from the future champion's teeth. His brain was befuddled. The instinct of genius remained. Breast covered with blood, head woozy, his frame shattered with the impact of blows from one of the greatest infighters alive, he yet managed to save himself. And during the last halfminute of the round he was on top again.

The stillness of desert midnight came at the end of the fourteenth. Kilbane, the challenger from Cleveland had survived. Both bruisers trekked wearily to their corners.

Something deeply and differently psychological entered the souls of both combatants at the beginning of the fifteenth. Kilbane seemed to feel that Rivers could not stop him. And Rivers seemed to feel that he could not stop Kilbane. The Irishman held a bloody left in the Mexican's face. It worked like a piston rod. Rivers shook his head and rushed. Kilbane's right streaked upward and caught him in the pit of the stomach. Rivers staggered backward. The crowd stood again. The inscrutable smile blended with a sneer on Kilbane's face.

He held his mastery till the end of the twentieth, and last, round. Then he knocked Rivers down. Eyton hesitated and held Rivers' hand up indicating that Rivers had won by a decision. Kilbane cried in his corner.

The irony of it all was the aftermath. Eyton's unfair action did not get Rivers any closer to the featherweight championship. It ruined his chances for the lightweight crown as later events will prove.

Kilbane was forced to meet three men before he was given another chance at Rivers. He met and defeated Joe Coster, Patsy Kline and Frankie Connelly. On their second meeting he knocked Rivers out in sixteen rounds Two months later he defeated Abe Attell for the championship, and remained champion eleven years.

After Eyton had robbed Kilbane of the decision, Lightweight Champion Wolgast and his manager, Tom Jones, came to his corner where a few of us consoled him. Wolgast said very slowly, "That's the rawest deal I ever saw. Eyton'll never referee another fight of mine while I'm champion." And Jones, more boisterous, said, "I'll say he won't."

Two years later Rivers had grown into a lightweight. He was matched with Wolgast at McCarey's for the crown. The Champion's ultimatum was—Eyton shall not referee.

Billy Roche of San Francisco was chosen.

The men faced each other on the Fourth of July. It was one of the bloodiest battles ever fought. Toe to toe they stood—the haters of one another. Wolgast's opinion in an interview . . . "Rivers has a splendid body but not the courage of a louse" . . . was proven wrong. The brown bruiser fought the most determined battle of his life. The sad part of it was . . . he faced a mightier man. Mightier by a shade—even at the beginning of the tremendous thirteenth round, which was the end. Always were they on their toes—with blood-bespattered bodies, and sun-scorched and painlashed faces. It was the epic of each career—and they wrote their names high with blood-soaked hands. The audience screamed . . . knowing that such a battle could not last till the twentieth round.

They crashed out of their corners . . . the audience hoarse . . . screaming louder and louder. For a brief second after a terrific mix-up they whirled about like dervishes mad with pain. They smashed in close again with one last insane and death-defying rally. Their breath came in laboured gasps and they grunted heavily as leather sledges slammed against raw and aching bodies.

Under the storm of blows each battler sank to his knees. They rose and sank, and rose again. As though recharged with new life at each rising, the blows were so fast that human eye could not count them. It was impossible to tell one man from the other as they ripped tremendous smashes to muscle-lined stomachs, which quivered under the impact of the blows.

Finally one form sank down—and down. Another sank over it. They managed to rise with mighty efforts of will—worthy of greater men in a greater cause. They fought till both sank from exhaustion. Weary bloodcovered arms fell to their sides. They collapsed like tired children with the desert sun in their eyes. As the referee counted, one of the men slightly stirred—then tried to rise. It was the greatest example of sheer will power I have ever seen. If Rivers ever needed. Eyton he needed him in this hour of battle. One of the battered tornadoes was on one knee—but absolutely unconscious. The other was trying to rise as the count of ten was reached. Wolgast won . . . by a knee.

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Both men were carried unconscious from the ring like broken statues which storm has wrecked.

During the Berlcnbach-Delaney contest, held at Madison Square Garden in December, 1925, it was held by many ring followers that Berlenbach would find it impossible to knock Delaney out. Delaney had once knocked the stolid Berlenbach for the count. The history of the ring proves, with but few exceptions, that a knocked-out fighter is not able to turn the tables on the antagonist who laid him low. Stanley Ketchell, the greatest middleweight of all time, was one of the few to reverse the rule. He knocked Papke out after that gentleman had finished him in eleven rounds.

Ketchell went to the mountains and roughed it three months. He defeated Papke on their return engagement and re-won the championship.

Ketchell was the all around superior of any pugilist I have ever known. He knew life as well as art and literature. Entirely self-taught, he had great brain capacity and understanding.

He was well known in different underworlds of the West. Women in the brightly red-shaded districts were fond of him. He was also fond of them.

One of the greatest bruisers that

ever lived, he had a splendid sense of drama. I have known him to time one of his magnificent rushes in the ring so as to make the audience rise at the psychological moment.

He was handsome in a strong masculine way. He was the mauler with pity. Ruthless, so far as his own ambition was concerned—he would share everything he had with anybody. Mary MacLane said in one of her books, "I have two pictures on my desk—, one, of Stanley Ketchell, dead middleweight prizefighter, and one of John Keats."

Indeed Ketchell was more of a poet than many of the superficially articulate lads who are now publishing verses. But, as he once said to me, "Writing's a woman's business, Jimmy. A man should either herd sheep—or women—or battle in the ring."

Ketchell was shot to death over a woman whom he really did not want. Loved by many women he came to his end in a little Missouri town . . . killed by a yokel who loved a rustic female.

Alas, poor Ketchell. Weeds were growing on his grave a few years ago. It was minus a stone. He was known as the Michigan Assassin. A very comet of life, he wandered out of a little Michigan town and pulled a few stars out of the sky. Then they brought the Michigan Assassin back— assassinated. The weeds should flourish strong over such dust. It was made of thunderbolts.