Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-10-09
ABE ATTELL'S
BRAIN IN RING
LIKE A STREAK
COrbett Laments Connection
With 1920 Series
Scandal.
By JAMES j.

NOH9IlEH ~ W Aihb FThhAAN NafA'
It's really pathetic that the ring
greatness of Abe Attell should be
obscured by his later-day connection
With gambling scandals.
The present generation of boxing
lovers knows only a little about At
tell as a boxer-and much about him
connection in one way or another
with the world series "sell out" of
1920. They know him only as an al
legged tool of gamblers-not as one of
the real ring marvels.
Attell wasn't merely a master ring
mamie was a sup~erfighter. There
was nothing that any great fighter
did that he couldn't do just as well.
And there were many, many things
which he did better than any little
man that ever lived.
Abe had a ring brain as cunning and
IS lightning swift as any the sport ha )
ever known; he had cleverness devel-
oped to the nth degree. He could
take punishment, he could deal it out,
and like Joe Cans. never wasted an
ounce of energy in any fight in the
days of his real greatness.
Phantom in Action
He was a human streak in action
in his earliest years-a phantom
an object that shifted so fast that he
was almost unhittable. And, on at
tack, his speed was the same. At
tell in action-flashing in, hitting.
dancing away, unhit and then repeat
Observation-Disclosures one of the pref
tiest sights ringsiders ever watched?
Fundamentally. he was a boxer. But
whenever occasion demanded ~sluggery,
| Abe Attcll sluggcd-and how he could
| slug. Again and again. through the
years. he met famous hitters toe-to-
toe-and either knocked them out or
battered them to a pulp.
Attell won the feather weight
| championship of the world i n1904-
and held it through nearly nine years.
| Then be lost it on points-a much
disputed decision-to JOHNNY Kilbane,
who never afterward would give him
a return match.
From 1900, when he began his
| career, until 1912, which marked the
beginning of the end for him, Attell
| lodged no foemen-rather, he sought
them. And in that stretch of time he
mixed it with men who have become
ring immertals-men who. il active in
| hat class at any time during the past
six wears would have been "sure
things to whip the present day king
of feathers.
Beat Many Good Ones
Attell beat Eddie Hanlon. Jim
Barry. Kid Bread, Harry Forbes, Kid
Herman, Patsy Haley, Buddy Ryan,
Tommy Mowatt. Eddie Kelly, Brook
lyn Tommy Sullivan, Matty Baldwin,
lem Driscoll, Patsy Kline, Harry
Stone, Charlie White, Spike Robson
Tommy Murphy, Biz M~ackay-and
hole hI,ndred others.
He mixed it TO a draw with Bat,
fling Nelson. giving away tons OF
weight to the "Rurable Dane" He
went to a draw with Owen Moran. He
whipped Kilbane two years before the
1912 melee. He outpointed the fierce
rushing Ad Walgast. He twice took
on Aurelia Herrara. super-slugger OF
his time. spotted Herrara about IL
points, slugged it with him-and wor
by n mile.
He knew every trick of the game
he never had a peer as a ring general
His fights were full of action and fire
he usually gave the crowd a run fol
it's money-and then a whole lot more
TIN be many a year before there
be another fighter such as was ADJ
Attell.' And it's too bad that what h
has done-or what has been charge
against him-has caused the world Il
remember him only as he is, and no
as N of the wonders of the priz'
ring.