The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1920-01-14
BY ROBERT EoeRgN.

NEW YORK Jan. lA.-YeFrs ago thew
called him The Amazing CARPENTER
More recently he is The wildcat OF
II would be hard TO imagine anything
In connection with the ring more amaz-
ing than Carpenters ring career. unless
u y the career OF worlds champion,
Jack Dempsey.
OF all the fighting men in recent his
tory there are no two more alike than
Carpenter and Dempsey. Each is re-
markable for quick thinking and quick
action, and the kind OF fighting that
brings victory in a single round,
Americans visiting France have de-
scrloed carpenter over and over again
as "a big Terry McGovern." Those OF
us among old timers who had the pleas
ure OF seeing Terry in his greatest
fights remember him as the most ter
rifle little whirlwind fighting man ever
known In his class. Dempsey has
much OF the McGovern about him, but
added TO Terry's fury he has a truly re-
markable fighting brain-a brain that
enables him to map out a different at
tack for every big man he meets.
The fighting Frenchman upset all
dope when he knocked out Beckett, the
iron-Rwed English heavyweight cham
plon, with a single punch that brought
y seconds OF fighting TO an abrupt
conclusion.
The dope has been upset many times
this year,
Willard was thought by thousands of
good judges-men like Tommy Ryan,
George Engel and Kid McCoy-to be in
vulnerable to any blow that could be
struck by n mar 60 pounds lighter, as
Dempsey was when the two met at To-
ledo. Yet Dempsey knocked him out as
easily as he knocked out Fulton and
Morris, the other giants in his class.
Picked to Flop.
Carpenter was picked by scores of
American boxers with our armies in
France as an easy victim for the first
good man he fought. Carpenter, heroic
given a world Of Sympathy before he
weights in France thought it
would be Easy to get a reputation" il
Carpenter would only give them a
match. No other instance has ever been
known OF a mans leaving the ring at
the height Of his fighting powers, TAX
ing a four-year layoff, and coming back
with the old spirit, speed and endur-
ance. Moreover, as many American SOL
diers reported, the Frenchman was hurt
in a fall while flying a few months
supposed to have been injured severely
enough to put him GU Of boxing among
the champions again.
He was said to be rather soft and
fat, rather slow, somewhat lacking in
boxing skill through not having been
in any real contests for four years, and
suffering from the nerve strain of much
flying over the battle lines, He had
been decorated several times for re-
markable air exploits during the fight
ing at Verdun, where he flew owe Ger
man batteries at a height Of so meters,
indicated their position for the French
gunners and returned with his plane
almost shot to pieces.
A man who does things, said expert
enced airmen. was likely to have aged
much in four years. And then 1t was
argued that Carpenter, after all this
heroic fighting, could hardly come back
to the ring with the same enthusiasm
he had in the old days. After the life
of a bird man on the battle lines mere
boxing would be tame sport. His first
bout against a,second-rate English mid
dleweight didn't promise much. 1T
wasn't the old Carpenter in action.