The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-11-26
RECOLLECTIONS OF JOE GODDARD, ONCE FAMOUS l.
 AS A HEAVYWEIGHT

This IS the sf1fty-fOurth anniversary of the birth of Joe Goddard, the Aus tralian fighter, who was a top-notcher among the heavyweights twenty or twenty five years ago. Like so many of the men from thei Antipodes9 who found fame and fortune. in the Ameri- can ring, Goddard got into bad com pany and squandered his strength and money in dissi ipaton. At that, God dard would still be among those pre- sent, for he was Nabout as tough as they make 'em, except that he got in- to an argument with a Philadelphia cop and said defender of the Quaker i, City's peace bumped him off.
 Goddard's career was as wild and < kpicturesque as his taking off. A boxer he wasn't, but when he was right he could have withstood the. punch of the hoof of a Missouri mule.
 Joe's first important fight was stag ed-fn Sydney back in 1889. Jim Hall was his opponent, and Hall got the decision >< Jim, like Joe, afterwards >came to America, made a fortune, spent it and died in poverty after a checkered career which at times land ed i'm pretty low in the depths. Later in the same year Goddard fought two battles with Owen Sullivan, winning the first and getting a draw in the second. Owen afterward went to South America, were he figured in the famous fake with ,JacEBurke, the
 
 sport, wagered about 5O,0O0 on Burke and the latter. sold out and shared in the swag. After the fight Burke de- c1ared that he had lost by accident, and he induced Lees to arrange an other flight with Owen This time he told his packer that he would quit, and on the strength of this Lees p1ung- ed again. this time backing Sullivan. The latter was Knocked cold in the fourth round and Lees, the easy mark. was stripped of about 100000. It is said that Burke had the gall after that to try to persuade Lees to back him in another fight with Sullivan, asserting that he lost his head when he saw opening and had put over the K. O. without thinking of his bar gaini
 To return to Goddard. He scrapped with some of the best men in Aus tralia, and even got a Sdraw with Peter Jackson. When Joe Choynski invaded Australia in 1891 he was matched with Goddard, and Joe twice knocked out the San Francisco Jew. In 1892 Joe came to America and knocked out Joe McAuliffe, at San Fransico. He then went east and put away Peter Maher in three rounds at Coney Island. In 1893 Joe was knocked out by Denver Ed Smith in ei ghteen rounds at New Orleans, and soon afterwards returned to Australia afterward visiting South Africa, where the fight fever was raging violently. There he was matched with Denver Ed Smith, and following the dubious precedent set by Jack Burke and ] Owen Sullivan, it is[be1ieved that the Australian and the Denverite arrang- ed a fake. In any event, Smith was knocked out. ine the fourth round, and the wisenheinners cleaned up a lot of coin. That the affair was a prearrang- 1 ed one soon developed, at least to the | iSfo tn | their coin, and the boxing game was killed in South Africa for years to come.
 In Australia Goddard fought two draws with Tut Ryan, a heavyweight who had fought Gus Ruhlin in .Ameri- l ca and defeated Owen Sullivan, the l sfhero'' of the South African episode. In 1897 Joe. returned to America and was knocked out by Tom Sharkey in San Francisco. Joe then stopped Peter Maher in one round He fought three more battles with Kid Mccoy, Gus Ruhlin and Tom Sharkey, and lost 1 all Of them, retiring from the ring in i 1900 after his final defeat by the Irish sailor.