Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1910-07-08
Co|ored Champion Toyed With
White Opponent.
FIGHT LASTED IS ROUNDS
BoiIermaker Was Outpointed From the
Start and Was Knocked Repeatedly
Through the Ropes.


sporting world. He knocked out James
j. Jeffries in the fifteenth round at
Reno, New.
1t was sudden, this defeating of a
hitherto unbeaten man. 1t came very
swiftly, like the dropping of some bolt
that wrecks 10000 horse power dy-
namo.
Hardly had the bell sounded for the
! fifteenth round when the lightning
movement of the negro's right arm in
an uppercut ended in thud. The tre-
mendous head of the white fighting
man swung back as the glove landed
on his jaw just to the right of mid
! chin
| His torso relaxed, his knees trem-
bled, then crooked. Down he went.
Sixteen thousand people leaped to
! their feet and the great dish of the
arena was so still that those sitting
next to the ring could hear the click
snapped his jaw shut and stood wait
ing over the fallen fighter.
The timekeeper had counted nine; /;
/ Jeffries, his head swinging from side
to side on his thick neck, struggled to
his knees, to his feet. Hardly had he
/ Strengthened when two terrific blows
! shot over his feebly rising guard. A
right and left uppercut to the chin fol
lowed. Down the white man tumbled.
This time his body was outside the
ropes and his legs were crooked over
the white strands. He sat launched in
this squat, eyes closed, hands droop-
ing over knees.
roared.
Referee Was Ratified
Rickard, the referee. was ratified. He
stood by the side of the beaten pu-
gilist counting in a dazed sort of way.
Nobody watched him. Everybody had
his eyes on Jeffries.
In the uproar Timekeeper Harting
counted Jeffries out Nobody heard
fries corner and lifted up the ropes,
while the fighter clambered blindly
through.
The man stood, half crouching.
knowing nothing. Then came the black
man, not knowing that his antagonist
was counted out.
He came lightly. stepping swiftly
like cat stalking. He jumped up to
the side of the bloodied, half conscious
man, and with his arms jerking back
and forth with the thrust of an en-
gine's piston he pounded and pounded
the dropping head of the former cham
pion.
UppercutS, each one of them. First
with the right, then with the left,
Johnson swung back the lolling head.
Again the tremendous bulk of the
white man .ottered.
Sam Berger, Jeffries' manager, now
jumped into the ring and rushed to
Jeffries' side. Rickard understood and
he waved the tigerish Johnson back
to his corner. AT the same time he
held up his hand and motioned toward
the black, retreating. That was the
end. The fight was won. man un-
beaten and thought to be unbeatable
had been pounded into defeat The
championship remains with the negro
and $7O6 800, 60 per cent of the purse,
Of $101 900, had been won.
Was a Clean Knockout.
1t was what the followers of pugil-
ism call clean Knockout The blow
that the black man sent up from his
waist to the point of Jeffries chin in
that quarter minute of the finish round
wa sthe blow that finished the battle.
Jeffries was outclassed, outpointed.
He didn't lose because of lucky
blow. He lost because he was an older
man than when he last fought, because
he had not come back" from his years
of physical and nervous fiabbiness.
A surprise they call this sort Of
thing in the sporting world, surprise
because the results were not forecast
ed by the weightiest opinion of ex-
an expert in pugilism might have seen
in the ring: A white man whose every
nerve was tensed to fiddle string taut-
ness. who kept his power of co-ordina-
tion between mind and muscle at such
working pitch that mental fatigue
threatened each instant. Opposed to
him was a negro who was not afraid,
who was vain in his skill Of self-pro-
lection, but not to the point of reck-
lessness. who approached the task of
stunning an antagonist with an easy
and battling confidence.
No such spectacle as the one inside
the graded tiers Of humanity has ever