The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-02-06
(By James J. Corbett, Former Heavy
 weight Champion of thesW WorId.J
Especial to The Farmer;0s

We1ghts Champ1On or the w ortd.) Especial to The Farmer.)s | Mike Gibbons is to tackle the heavyweights. The announcements ! made by Jimmy Johnston, match | maker for the Madison Square Garden club, that Mike has agreed to box l Gunboat Smith has created quite 8, stir in boxing circles. And there is very good reason for it at that. Not since the days of Kid Mccoy and Joe Wo1cott has a naiddleweight tackled l the job successfully. Mccoy while hardly mores than middleweight, fought heavies, and Wo1cott, the 1"Barbadoes Demon also took on some of the big fellows. The latter,s most noted victory was over Joe 1 club of this city in 1899, if memory serves me right.
 l F'itzsimmons has also been given credit for going out of his class, but | I doubt if Fitz ever fought at the l middleweight limit, or near it.. after beating Jack Dempsey for. the title l in 1891.
 Kid Mccoy was in the middleweight class and defeated men much heavier than himself. Although the Kid had graduated into a light heavyweight l before deciding to go after the good big men, a number of his battles pre- vious had been with heaVies, albeit few possessed any great class. The Kids record as heavyweight killer didn't last when he got mixing it with big fellows who knew the game thor ough1y.
 1 And there is the answer to the ques- l ton regarding Gibbons ability to ming1e successfully with the heavies. A good big man can generally lick a good little one, but the classy big men are few and far between at pres ent. None among the whites that we know of, and Gibbons, though only. a light naidd1eweigft, has more real class, to my mind. than any middle weight seen in the ring in the last decade. If Mike confines his atten- ton to such fellows as Gunboat Smith and Battling, Levinsky I think
 he will make good. He may not
 stop any of the heavy fellows, all I though it looks like sure thing he l can outpoint most of them. If he l valves the color line and tackles l lLangford, Jeannette and Co.,, he may
 find it an altogether different propo- sition.
 I Jess Willard is another gent who l would be pretty. tough turkey for the
 St. Paul shadow imagine, too that Gibbons has no desire to mingEe with him. Willard is entirely too big for Mike to hurt, and in a. battle
 of any length the former cowboy s
 weight and great strength would
 more than balance his smaller rivals
  fellows as Smith and Levinsky be- lieve Gibbons would not have a very difficult time over any distance of ground
 Joe woIcott was a great fighter for
 his inches and weight. His freak
 build had considerable to do with his
 success, added to his swattfng ability
 which was very heavy for a welter. 7 Joe, however. was beaten number
 of times by men of his own avor-
 dupois, and probably the worst lick
 ing he ever took in his career was
 given him by George tKid'' Lavigne, the lightweight champion. Of course, ? Wo1cott had an alibi for that-that he weakened himself by reducing to meet the weight conditions. No doubt that did not help him any, a1- . are of the opinion that the Saginaw Kids gameness under fire was really what defeated the negro.
 Another thing not evidently known | by those who prate about WoIcott. and especially of his defeat of Choynsl1i, is that the latter was a sick
 man when he entered the ring with the coon. Joe should never have [ been permitted to box that night al , all as it was only a question of how . long he could stand on his feet. His pride, though, was too much for him : l-he didn't want 1t said he was afraid : of a man 25 or 30 pounds lighter. . was one of the few who advised him
 to call the bout off, but other pres
 sure brought to bear in addition tc : the confidence he had that no small man could beat him overru1ed me
 and Choynslkf went down to a quick defeat.
 Word comes from Ell Paso where
 Jess Willard is training for the com TNuf To% n21
 the big boy is very confident he car n | defeat the champion. Of course
 much of the Stuff sent out from that \ quarter from now will be of the
 unreliable sort, largely edited by the | boosters for the big mill, and those who contemplate wagering on the re | suit should not permit the training camp news to influence them on' . way or the dther.
 However. hope the big fellow doe
 feel that way about the job he hal
 undertaken. Confidence is a won
 derful asset in a fight and if Jess. wa!
 down deep, thinks he can defea.
 Johnson that confidence is not going
 to hurt his chances any.
 There is also the chance that Vii
 Ilard's great size will help him in tn match with Johnson. Jack ha
 naver shown much against a big op
 ponent, barring the Jeffrfes fight, ant
 Jeff was a shadow of himself then
 Johnson's best work in the past Ina. . been done at close range. He is flat
 footed and never chases his opponen z about the ring in an attemtp to d
 damage. But in c1incnes his grea m strength has enabled him to piniol
 an opponents arms until he maneuv 'e red into a position where he could us his celebrated upper-cut as they wer W breaking away. He tried this on lief Il fries, and eound it worked, and that X the way he wore the big fellow dowr T He may discover that Willard
 strength is quite as great as his owl T and, not only that, upper cutting al a opponent who stands three or fou II inches higher than himself will not b