The Washington herald., 1921-04-04
By ROBERT EDGREN.


Middle weight Champion Johnny
Wilson attributes his recent ring
success to science! According to
Wilson, he has been deyoting much
time to study with q doctor at
Tufts College. '.. ..s-
I've been studying 'natomy SO l
would know where to hit 'em to
knock 'em for a goal" Wilson ex-
planned. The fellow who wants to
be champion now has to be up on
science or some other guy will come
along and Mop him These old
timers didn't know anything about
'natomy. That's why they used to
feht about 100 rounds. Up at
Tufts | learned all about liver,
heart, nerve centers and that sort
of thing.
The doc taught me a lot and had
me studying hard between fights.
He always said l could win fights
IL i followed the book. l tried II
out on Mike O'Dowd in Boston and
won. Then studied some more and
got. some new ideas. Tried them
out on Mike at the Garden, hitting
scientific punches that weakened
him and took the sting out of any
punch he could hit long before the
end of the fifteenth.
"If Mike hadn't been one tough
bird he wouldn't have gone near
that far. l was interested seeing
how the punches worked on Mike.
That was one reason why ] didn't
go in and slam with him. wanted
to put the punches in clean and see
the effect. Toward the end I said
to myself:
The doc was right-the body Is
the place to hit en-
.sesenee7 Ii Not New.
Johnny Wilson is all wrong about
those old-timers- Johnny has SIM
ply picked up a forgotten art that
hasn't been practiced since Bob
Fitzsimmons, Kid Mccoy and Tom
my Ryan were lighting in the mid
dle-weight class. It's interesting to
see how we'll Wilson has done with
a little knowledge. / could tell him
a few things the old-timers knew.
For instance. Bob Fitzsimmons
said to me one day:
There are three knockout points
on the head and IL you don't land
right you waste a punch. The best
10 over the root of the ,eye-tooth. on
either side. The next is on the
point of the jaw, never straight on
the point, but hitting from the side.
The third Is back of the ear, but
that's too dangerous for me to use.
The nerves near the surface
above the eye-tooth carry a shock
directly. to the brain and the eyes.
The reason a chin punch must be
from the side Is that a straight blow
pushes back against both sides of
the jaw and they take up most of
the shock, and a blow on either side
on the chin carries a heavier jar
and q sharp twist that shocks the
brain. The nearer the point, the
more leverage for the twist"
About body blows-which >Fitz-
simmons favored because they were
less "mussy" than head blows, Bob
said:
The best punch is In the pit. of
the stomach. watch mans
breathing and try to land the punch
when his breath, Is out. Then there's
no air cushion to relieve the up
ward pressure against the heart
The solar plexus, punch shocks the
nerve center and drives everything
up against the heart, and the effect
lasts long enough to put a man
down for the count. and is over a
few seconds later. I use IL because
it's the safest blow to use for a
knockout. The effect Is all gone
in a few minutes"
Kid Mccoy has been a great stu
dent of the effect Of blows. re-
member when Mccoy was training
to, night an unknown giant named
Herr Henri John Joseph Plaacke.
whom Clark Ball dug up as an op
pcnent for .Jeffries and tried out In
q match with Mccoy. who was lfttfs
more than a nfiddle-weight: Mccoy
stopped Plaacke's rushes with q
wicked Hitting body punch and
knocked him out n little later with
. crack on the chin. Next day the
Kid was explaining: his theory, of
body prpching.
Ribs snd PsyehsJegy. ~
Il use . lifting punch just below
the edge OF thu ribs - =. n = nnfa.