The St. Louis Republic., 1900-08-21
Will Welcome All Fights Possible
Before September Interest
in Fridays Mill.
HAS FITZ LOST HIS CUNNING?
Experts Say He Has Not Shown
Much of 1t in His Last Two
Battles, but May Have
1t, for All That.
BY W. w. NAUGHTON.

REPUBLIC SPECIAL.
New York. Aug. 2o.-A few nights more
and another preliminary heat in the worlds
championship stake will be trotted. This
time the starters will be Fitsimmons and
Sharkey-the farrier and the tar.
In the ordinary course of events, sport
dom, at this stage of the game, would
| scarcely have recovered from the feelings
of exhaustion and ennul which follow anv
pugilistic happening of the magnitude of
the -Fftzsimmons affair. 1t would
be difficult to arouse enthusiasm over any
thing with jabs and upper cuts in it.
But circumstances alter cases.
Ihls Is the getaway month of the Horton
measure. The bruisers are punching their
battles and the air is filled with upholstered
fists. For the patrons of the sport It is a
case OF enjoy it while you have it. Talk
ABOUT 1t or forever hold your peace Pretty
soon you'll enter upon an era where the
rlsht cross will cease from troubling and
the left Shift be at rest
ana the sports are talking. The prospect
OF iisht famine is sauce pquante to every
thing on the August menu.
Just now. of course FitZsmmons and
Sharkey have the center of the stage.
Some interesting discussions are in progress.
init Of all sorts of argument is: Has F'itz-
summons lost his stiffness? Another is:
Did Jeffries knock all the fight out of Shar-
Key that time at Coney Island?
II one We're to judge by the style of the
tight he put UP against Jeffries and Rubin,
tltzSimmons is not as shifty as he was in
other years. He certainly makes fewer
moves and. until he has another fight or
two behind him. it is rather early to de-
termine whether he captures more men.
When Bob F1tzSimmons arrived in this
country ne was dashing boxer of the Jem
and finally out-punched his opponents.
After he had gone against a few heavy
Teights we ne appeared to change his, style.
simmons, the clever, became known as
tltZsimmons the knocker-out.
Like all Australian boxers, he had the
striking only at an object as it bent toward
him. This lends double force to the punch
If 1t reaches the mark.
He made an especial study, of distance
and, given an opening, could drop his man
with but few inches of lee way for which,
ever fist he brought into play.
He became shfty, in every sense of the
lure his men on; to get them excited and
TO throw them off guard. Then, when
iHe hi ITSELF he tumbed
stalked to his corner without stopping to
look at his handiwork.
In his fight with JeffrieS, Fitzsimmons
seemed fired with desire to go close and
swap rights. Jeffries's crouch puzzled him,
but still he did not restort to stiffness
He Kept walking up to the cannon's mouth
until the end came.
For nearly five rounds he made a slug
ging match of 1t with Rubin Had the
finish come any time before the end of the
fifth the match would have gone on record
as blow-for-blow engagement which was
won by the harder puncher. Even as It
IS, the thing fingers in the memory of
hundreds as an affair of that description.
although there is no doubt that the Cor
the fight.
To say that Fitzsimmons "has lost his
swiftness" on his showing with Rubin
would be premature. 1t IS said that no
fighter can map out battle until he faces
the foe. and 1t may be that something
which transpires early In the Ruhlin-F1tz-
simmons match caused the Cornishman to
press in and give smash for smash. Pos
sibly he decided after sampling Ruhin's
punches that he could more than hold his
own with Gus in milling engagement.
FitZsi1nmons has limited that he will han
die Sharkey somewhat differently. The In
ference is that he has a good deal of re-
spect for the sailor and his cannou-ball
rushes. If Bob adheres to his purpose he
may give US a reliable line in regard to
his resourcefulness.
While deciding whether Fitzsimmons is as
shifty as the Fitzsimmons of a few years
ago. the contest may also determine
whether the battering Jeffres administered
to the sailor impaired the latter's useful
ness fighter.