The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-04-07
F|TzS|MMONS WILL
FIGHT NO MORE
He Is Planning a Physical Re.
treat at DuneIlen for
Pastime.
HAS GREATEST RING CAREER
OF ANY FIGHTER KNOWN
Jack 0'Brien Also Announces
That He Will Retire
After May.

Tribune Special Sporting Service.
NEW YORK, April 6.-Such as they
are. the new crop Of fighters is slowly
pushing the old guard to the wall The
few opportunities that do open these
days are usurped by men who had
never been heard Of few years ago,
and willingly OF unwilliDgly the vet
erans of the squared circle are giving
way 10 competition. Fitzsimmons is
the latest to concede that he is passe,
as pugilism goes nowadays, and Jack
o 'Brien will quit the game for year
at least, he says, after he fills his en-
gagement to meet Burns at Los An
geles. Fitz has been as good as in re-
tirement for the last two years, but
fight followers have not given up hope
that he would once more climb inside
the ropes. stripped for action, and ever
and anon a rumor has risen that he was
coming back and would take on somo
one of the new men in the ring. simply
to show that he was far from being
down and out.
These reports have been contradicted
every time, but they bob up in a new
place and the wearisome round of con
tradiction has TO be gone through with
again. This time. though, it would APP
pear TO be a final decision against Fitz,
for from ring standpoint the old fight
er has failed and his wife has clinched
the matter by opposing any scheme
for re-entering the ring even II 1t was
TO meet Tommy Burns. Therefore the
only thing left for Bob TO do in the
line of the strenuous life is to bring to
q head his favorlte plan for starting
physical culture retreat at Dunellen,
y. j.
This will mark the end of a ring ca
reer which was begun in 1880 III Ii
mura, New Zealand, and which has been
punctured by bouts with Jim Corbett,
Tom Sharkcy. Gus Ruhlin, Peter Ma
hre. Jim Jeifries and host of lesser
lights The Cornishman, last tight
| of any Importance was at San francisco
| in 1905, when Philadelphia } ack
| O 'Rrien knocked him out Ill thirteen
rounds, and since then FitZ has been
aweing the theatergoing public h.
| knocking out n dyed-in- wool VII
lain at matinee and evening perform.
ances in "The Village Blacksmith y
and other pastoral melodrnmas:
On top of the word of the old cham.
pion IS retirement, it Is blow to tho
! o 'Brien is going to rest for year al"
| fer meeting Burns in May. for the gem
eral feeling is that if that popular eX-
ponent of literature and boxing gets
ont of earshot Of the gong and the ref
cree 8 voice for twelvemonth 1t VIII
mean his permanent departure: At any
rate it is almost sure that if he does
return he will not be IN form TO put
any claim to individual supremacy nm"
| less he has one of the few and far be"
tween comebacks to form that some pu-
giIists have enjoyed, If Philadelphia
! Jack does leave the ring however, nc
y,ill vic with Jim JeffrIes as 81 property
holder. for between his battles he has
been accumuIating much of the more
substantial goods of this world IN the
way%of hotels and real estate, and IS
now further along Easy street than
most men who heretofore have made
their hands and heads alone gam them
! q living,