Arizona republican., 1913-01-26
PRESENT WHITE HEAVYWEIGHTS
 LACK CLASS
By TOMMY CLARK.

on the exciting but dangerous plan or rushing an opponent and taking punch In order to land one Paizer, McCarty, WiIlard-all of the ambitious "hopes'-are built along these lines None of them give promise of lasting long as active participants in the mod ern arena. A glance over the pugills- itce annals shows that fighter never existed who depended almost entirely on his ability to stand punis and retired without having reached the stage where incessant heatings had worn away his stamina. Tom Sharkey was case in point.
 Everybody knows what a tough piece of scrapping material the hardy tar was when he began to shine as a-cham- pionship possibility. He could assimi- late punishment as a sponge sucks in water, smile and keep coming in for more. Men broke their hands upon him, passed out the best and fiercest Wallops they possessed and when they had exhausted all the ammunition they hGd in stock the Sharkey battleship rammed them viciously, and the trou-9 ble was at an end
 Eitzsimmons put 8 crimp in the sailor during the early part of the latterS career by punching him i'll the stomach and sending him down for the count. Bob was declared loser on q foul by Referee Wyatt Earp. but subsequent developments made it clear that FitZ had been the victim of 8 job on that occasion. But with this single excep tion Sharkey proved himself worthy of the name of iron man," as Joe Choyn- ski and many others found to their cost His armor plates were frequent ly dented. but never cracked until Jim Jeffries threw his tremendous weight into the scale and buckled up two of Toms ribs, besides mauling him in savage fashion generally. From the eff fects of the Jeffries fight Sharkey never recovered. The ability to absorb vital punches and storm his way to victory had departed forever, and he proved easy for Gus Ruhlin and pie for FTtz- simmons in a second meeting, when the lanky Cornishman slowed him away in a couple of rounds.
 Kid Carter will be remembered as another determined slugger who won all of his victories by dint of bull rush ing tactics and taking an awful grlIel- ing. Time and again Carter was ap- parently whipped to a standstili, but st the crucial moment, when. groggy, blee ding and almost out. he would come through with one terrific bash to an opponents jaw. and the other chap sat down for the full count instead Of the battered Kid But a day finally came when Carter's vigorous frame weakened under the strain of repeated hammerings, and he developed symp- toms of locomotor ataxia, which neces- sitated his retirement from active service.
 Kid Lavigne, who fought on much the same lines as Battling Nelson. al- though having perhaps shade more science than the Dane, also succumbed to the effect of oft repeated beatings, the evils of which were augmented by his conyival habits. Like Bat, La vigne was usually outpointed by the men he fought, but until dissipation and hard punching had robbed him of his marvellous vitality the Kid remain ed monarch of the lightweight division.
 It was due solely to his good habits and cleanly mode of living that Nelson occupied the top notch of the light weight roost for such an extended pe- riod of time. The Danes name will go down to posterity as that of a man who always boxed on the level and fought the good fight to the last gasp. Also hes accomplished the miracle of coming back" when defeated by Jim- my Britt, by afterward knocking out the pride of the coast in eighteen rounds, lost to Joe Cans and demon strated his superiority over the "old master by putting him to sleep in two later encounters. Truly a record to be proud Of.
 There are quite few middleweights now performing in the ring who cry continually for a revision of weights for the middle grade, claiming that 15S pounds ringside is too much of strain, and suggest as a substitute that scal ing at o'clock in the afternoon be made official. That would mean prac- tically 1e2 or 163 ringside, something of wide stretch from the old original figure for the class, which used to be set at 1S4 pounds ringside.
 Bob F'itzsimmons was the first of the glove men to raise the weight of the middleweight division. Finding the 164 pound mark, at which he won the championship from Jack Dempsey, too light for his liking, he calmly tackled on four pounds to the scaling figures and announced 15S as the lowest notch at which he would condescend to scrap in future. He got away with 1t, too, for an obliging public accepted his rul- ing and hailed him as the undisputed | king of the middle brigade
 Thereby was much trouble lined out for one Tommy Ryan, who, when Fitz had passed into the ranks of the heavies, cast covetous eyes upon the middleweight title, which suited him nicely at the old figures of 154 pounds. Kid Mccoy. another claimant, wanted the weight kept at the F'itzsimmons figure, and the squabbling that ensued between the Indianian and the Syra- cuse crack on this particular point helped to increase the bitterness they always felt toward each other Tech nically, of course, Ryan was in the right. for there was no earthly reason why Fitzsimmons should have been permitted to play lawn tennis with clearly established rules just to suit his own convenience.