The Washington herald., 1916-02-13

No matter how hard we may try to
forget about a lightweight champion
ship match between Welsh and White.
the affair keeps bobbing up unexpect-
edly and horns into the public print.
It has been nearly a month now
since any serious discussion was heard
concerning this battle, and boxing fol-
lowers were beginning to believe that
the matter had died a natural death
and they were willing to let it die
but within the past week the match
Promoter Dominica Tortorich to stage
the contest at his arena in the Cres-
cent City during March. According to
the latest terms proposed by Tortor-
ich. he is willing to give IS per cent
of the gross receipts, the lions share
OF the advertising rights, and pay lib
eral training expenses to both Welsh
and White if they will oily agree to
get together and settle their dispute
over the twenty-round route.
The question of a $4,000 guarantee,
which Welsh and Manager Pollok have
been holding out for, will not be con-
'sidered by Tortorich. He holds firmly
to the view that the fighters are worth
only what they can draw. and he does
in order to make good on their extrav-
agant demands.
Whether any definite developments
toward arranging the championship
contest will materialize from Torto-
rich's latest proposition is a question,
but to the average fan standing on the
side lines it does not seem likely that
Welsh or Pollok will agree to the con-
ditions. Some time ago Pollok flood
ed the newspapers with statements to
the effect that Welsh had decided to
-. 20
1915 and would not haggle too strenu-
ously over terms, but Pollok evidently
was just kidding the folks when he
made this declaration. If there ever
was a more grasping, avaricious
manager than Pollok he has not come
to public notice as yet. In all negotta-
tions for the services of Welsh, Pollok
has held up and whipsawed the pro-
moters to a point where few of them
are daring enough to take a chance on
using the champion. AS a result 1t is
difficult to arrange a match between
Welsh and an opponent of his own
class because the financial terms in
volved in a battle of this kind usually
forecast bankruptcy in advance for the
matchmaker.
case in point recently involved Q
contest between Welsh and Richie Mitch
ell. the country's newest lightweight sen.
sation. When this match was proposed
to Pollok he Immediately asked for big
guarantee, with the privilege of a large
percentage, and when the ambitious pro-
moter began to figure up the cost of
staging the contest he discovered that
Il would take in the neighborhood of an
IS 900 house in order to break even. Nat
urally the negotiations were dropped.
Perhaps the same result will follow the
latest bid from Tortorich for the serv-
ices OF Welsh. Pollok may loudly declare
Welsh's willingness and eagerness to
fight, yet when 1t comes down to a point
of actually signing articles the money
mad lust of the champion and his mentor
block all overtures. Undoubtedly that
will be the outcome of the negotiations
for a Welsh-White contest
When Tex Rickard hung up a guar
anteed purse of 1000 for a ten-round box
ing contest between Jess Willard and
Frank Moran. the. speculative gent from
the West started something that he will
have trouble going through with success
fully. or every barroom statistician in CAV
, N'yawk is badly mistaken in his reckon
ing
The ale hound accountants have the
thing figured down almost to the PEN
ny, right now, and the date of the pro-
spective battle is still FIVE weeks dis
tant. On the basis of 50 to $50 for seats.
Madison Square harden, where the battle
undoubtedly will be staged, will accom-
modate approximately Sl30, ,o0u, and IL this
estimate Is borne out It Is probable that