The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-07-26
Bill Poole a Forgotten
 Star of American Ring

Tomorrow will be the sixty-first an
 niversary of the battle pulled off in
 New York between Bill Poole and
 John Morrissey-a rough and tumble
 affair in which Poole triumphed, al-
 though his opponent was the heavy
 weight champion of America. The
 name of Bill Poole has almost van ished from the memory of the fight fans, although in the savage game
 which passed for pugilism at that time he was the boss of the bunch. In those days Morrissey, Tom Hyer, Country McCloskey, Yankee Sullivan,
 John c. Heenan and a few others were the recognized stars of Aner1- can pUgilisn1, while Bill Poole stood as the champion fighter, representa- tive of a class of bruisers who insisted upon fighting regardless of all rules and with the sole object of beating their opponents, by fair means of foul. i If the game of Morrissey and -Heenan would be considered intolerably brutal | by the fight fans of today, it at least 1 had, the merit oN supplanting a form i of combat much more terrible and vicious. The rough and tumble fight
 CTS, of whom there were many besides Poole, practiced a combination of wrestling and boxing, but without re- gard for the regulations governing | either, sport. The men who took part in the game of mo holds barred had to be able to stand a tremendous amount of punishment, to practice every possible cruelty, and to do vio- 1ence to all the rules of fair play. Most of the boxers were afraid of these savage warriors, and the defeat of Morrissey by Poole on July 27, 1854, was but one of many instances in which men of recognized standing as pugilists went down to defeat when they mixed things with the rough and tumble boys.
 Morrissey was careful to steer. clear
 of Poole after that contest, and sev- era1 of his successors a1sot lost their
 goats to men of the poole type. Joe Coburn, Morrissey's successor as American champion, although a giant 1 in stature had a dread of Jim Hughes, a New Yorker who belonged to the
 class of men who fought for the fun of fighting. Hughes never fought in l the ring, but he took part in innumer-
 able bar-r6om brawls. He was always willing to tackle a man twice his size, 1 but just as apt to pick on a much | smaller man. On one occasion he a1- most killed 8, little Jewish boxer,
 weighing only 115 pounds, for no oth- l CT reason than that he was a Hebrew. | Another piug-ugiy who demonstrated 1 that the rough-and-tunb1e game was l superior to the manly art was Red 1 Leary, a Cincinnati bruiser. Leary
 met Coburn on the street one day and 1 imme mediately tackled him. with the re- suit that he beat Joe almost into in
 sens1bility. Red came to an end be-
 fitting the sort of life he had led. One
 night he was out painting the town I with a. gang of congeniaI friends. One 1 of them threw a brick into the air,
 warning the others to dodge it as it 1 came down. Leary caught 1Ehe brick l on his head and it cracked his skull
 causing his death within a, few days. | There were many instances how
 ever, in which the ough-and-tumble
 fighters got the worst of it when they
 tackled men who had some science at their command. With the develop
 ment of boxing science, the old style 1 of fighting has ceased to exist as a ! sport" and those who engage in such
 combats have no standing among the
 fight fans. There is still room for doubt, however, as to whether mod ] ern boxer would be able to withstand the furious onslaughts- of a fighter of l the old school in a rough-and- tumble rookus