The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-01-24
JIM C0RBETT SAYS WILLIE
 RITCHlE UNJUSTLY CRITICISED
Mike Gibbons Logical Candidate For Middleweight Title Since. .McGoortys
 Passed Out
fBy James J. Corbett, Former Heavy. weight Champion of the World

(By James J. Corbett, Former Heavy
 weight Champion of the WorId1
 Especial to The Farmer
 New York, Jan. 24.--WfI1fe Rftchie | is getting a lot of undeseTyea. pannlLllg | from the knockers clubs of the cosn- | try For what reason Simply sDe- ] cause illness has twice compel eds nm to call off matches with F1arlen
 Tommy Murphy. If Willie wasn't champion the pa lpers wouldn't have given Willie and his troubles d turnble. Sailor e.
 troskey was forced to cancel the match Tom McCarey had scheduled for him with Jimmy Clapby last week,
 but T. haven seer thing in the sporting pages fnsinuatidg that the tar had coId feet, or fnpugning his courage.
 But with Ritchie it is different-flc | is the champion of his class and as such is the target for all the shots the scribes feel like aiming in his dfrec- | ltfon. It helps fill the sporting col umns and, after all, really does not do the champion any great harm. Still it is not the fair thing to roast l a fighter ofAthe Ritchiei type for doing what any sane person would have done under ike conditions. Suppose Ritchie had gone into the ring with Murphy in; poor physical condition, and an accident occurred. what a swell chance for the enemies of the sport to get in their deadly work. Probably the same critics who are now taking the champion to task for, ..dodginE'' Murphy, without knowing the why or wherefore, yvould then be
 among the first tosroastsgthe club of
 ficiaIs, fighters, managers and every
 one connected with the mill for per
 uitting the champion to enter the --s-- -HT |
 The fact of the matter is that Will lie has accomplished more in< the
 short time he has been champion
 than any of his immediate predeces=
 sors. True Wo1gast fought half a
 months following his sdefeat of Bat
 ting Nelson, but there was not a clas- sy man in the bunch. Nelson gsNe
 Joe Cans a return match two months
 after he had beaten the negro for the but that match was a
 mistake. It should never have been
 allowed Cans was then on his lastts legs and lasted 21 rounds because he
 was a wonderful ring general and ft
 was his brain and not his strength
 that kept him on his feet for that length of time. before one of % the toughest lfght-Weights the same has
 ever known.
 Now look at Ritcfie's record for
 the first year of his reign as cham
 pfon. Seven months after winning
 the title he fought what was to have
 been a twenty round bout with Joe
 Rivers, recognized by press and pub
 lie as his most dangerous rival, and knocked him out in ten or eleven
 rounds, I forget which. Four months later he took on Leach Cross. by many considered a greater fighter than Rivers, and gave him a beating or q q n 7af f 1ovs, was not a dissenting voice to the newspaper verdicts, which is an un- usual thing in New York where the friends and supporters of a 1osing scrapper in so Important contest put
 up a howl that can be heard from Harlem to the Battery if there is a
 possible chance of getting away with That's what call going some for a champions first year at the top of his
 class And Willie didn't pick out easy marks, it will be noticed. On the contrary he let the matchmakers do the picking and boxed the two hard est propositions in the lightweight di- vision.
 Now because he has been unfortun- ate enough to meet with an accident forcing him to call off the Murphy bout for the second time a number of
 knockers are filling their columns with insinuations and inuendos con- cern1ng his courage. Why, Ritchie is entitled to sympathy instead of knocks any, way one looks at it. Tn
 the first place it isn't very nice to spring a bum heel, an accident that would put him out of the game altogether if not properl. attended to, and in the second place, $15, 1000 is not to be picked up every day-eyen these times when the purses are prod | igal.
 l And the Murphy match looked like easy money for the champion from 1 any angle one sized it up.
 Truly the path of champion is not always strewn with roses.
 s--
 With Eddie McGoorty out of the running and an avowed candidate for the heavy-weights title (according to Australian advices}, the middle weight championship problem is just that much closer to a solution.
 Mike Gibbons proved in the recent bout with Bob McAllister that he must be reckoned with as a worthy candf- date for the long vacated thronesf And by the way, I believe was one ofsthe original Gibbons boosters. 4 The drst time ever saw Mike in action he lfl- pressed me as the neatest workman of his size had glimpsed in many
 years After watching him polish off several second raters I advised him to go out after the middlesweight ti- tie, and suggested Eddie McGoorty as the fellow in particular to shoot at. The result of the McGoorty- Gibbons conflict was a disappointment to me. At the weights I really thought Gib- bons would prove the winner. Mind you, have considerable respect for EcGoortyss prowess at an times, but Eddie had to make 158 ringside fos. the bout, several pounds below any thing he should have attempted, and
 as big forfeit was up he overdid the training in his anxiety to reduce, with the result that he was several poun ds below the mark called forR
 Gibbons also was too ligat.A A In Mikes case, however, it appeared to
 me more nervousness than anything