The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-05-30
ANCIENT HISTORY TO BE REVIEWED IN KILBANE BOUT
KiIbane Ventures Forth For First Time In Four
 Years

NEW YORK, May 2s.AThe feath- erweisht championship, almost for fotten in the four years of Johnny .exposed to the rather wild risks of
 Eugene Criqui's attack Saturday
 afternoon with the New York fighs clientele evenly divided in senti- ment.
 For every man in the crowd who prays for the defeat of Kilbane be- cause of his conduct as champion, there will be another to indict him
 as a foreigner anu therefore yell against him. In all probability, the l thusiasm against both fighters than | friendly spirit for either.
 | Kilbane, one of the cleverest and
 wittiest boxers in the trade, has
 trained as long and as arduously for the fight as most heaNyweights do for theirs, because he has been put out of the ring for four years with the exception of few easy bouts. He began his work weeks ago on a suburban farm near CleVe- land and has put in most of the last two weeks training on the roof Of Jack O,Brien's sym on Broadway' above the theatres and carabets.
 k,nb,ne Not shoDrt-Winded. F
 kinbanes wind and punch seem to have been affected little if at all by his long retirement, but his gray hair and deeplylined face give hlm the appearance of an old man, al though he is but 34.
 Criuui is 30, but spent three years in hospitals and endured ten opera tions on his jaw, which was car ried away on one side by a German bullet in the war. He is prepos- sessing young Frenchman but In build he differs from Kilbane no more than one dime from another. The list of their measurements shows only half-inches and quarters of variation between the couple or them except that Johnny's pantry, where the years had laid girdle or | blubber, Is 29 inches around, com pared with Criquis circumference or 2612. s ,o l contours in the ring but their tal- ents will be lost on one another, TOT ball the French that Kilbane can sneak could be etched with a rail- road spike on the head of pm. whereas Crioui's English sounds like the gagged cries of man in den- 1 tist chair.
 To Give Special Instructions.
 Kilbane will be given special in structions in the New York rules which forbid kicking an opponent. squirting water in his eye or luncn = inc off his best shoulder cuts, all ot which indignities were suffered Dy Danny Frush, the Joe Beckett or the fcatherw eights, in his bout with kil- bane in Cleveland. two summers ago KiIbane finally drop-kicked Frush for a perfect goal from the So.yard line He said afterward that he was very sorry for this error as ne had merely intended to punt out oi danger. knocked out since the war sounds like voting list from polygiot ward of the lower East Sioe. put
 most of the fallen featherweights
 were persons of meagre threat anu great possibility recruited rom the
 vovitiate slam-centers of Belgium Holland. France and Italy, or rickety dotards from England who were ighting when Gladstone was schoojboy. Twice since the war Crio,ii himself has put on a pear movement. once with Tommy Noble of England and again with Pal Moore of Memphis. a bantamweight. who couldn't break nickei Ill ' penny arcade. .,, The only hope of the public is the fantastic possibility tha. potn "nii hn lose. because if CriQui should win ne would stamper back to Europe anu I<ilbane, if victorious, would retlre for another decade. Kilbane mas fought few men, and those enoer the most intricate conditions 10 pre- vent defeat, since winning the title lo years ago from Abe AtteH.