The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1923-05-08
EDDLING IN RING
GAME A FREQUENT
HANDICAP-COULON
Former Bantam Champ Is
SkepticaI OF Natural
Ability" Of Kids

NEW 40RN, May If Johnny
Coulon had kid he'd get him on a
mattress out in the back yard and
teach him enough boxing in two
weeks to put him on top in every
| school-yard scrap and you're an
| other?h ruckus that kid might
ever get into.
Given fairly strong mind with
half heart Johnny believes it
would be very easy indeed to do this,
because the general notion that all
Americans and all Eaglshmen are
handy with their hands, is almost en-
tirely four-flush.
Johnny, who used to be the ban
tamweight champion, had just beheld
Jess Willard, despite his bulk, fid-
die and fiddle and fiddle with a spar
ring partner. This reminded him
that he had also seen SO quick a lit
tie boxer as Joe Lynch, heir 10 his
own title, fiddle. fiddle, and it crys-
tallized in his little, nude noodle the
question: why do they fiddler"
BY Kidding" the hairless Lilipu-
tan, whose forehead extends to the
Lack of his neck, cleaning and
naked as the palm of your hand
means "feinting," which is false
gesture by one hand to draw the
enemy's defense away from the point
where the other hand sincerely in
tends to bang him proper.
o O O
"Elbows" Taught Him.
when johnny was a schoolboy
around Logan Square in Chicago, he
took lessons from his cousin George
McFadden, better known as FL
bows" an important lightweight in
his day who had a strange knack of
lighting with his elbows rugged close
to his body. This enabled him to In
ferpose barbed elbows before all at
tacks and many knuckles and not a
few forearms We're broken or bruised
on the same Some people alleged
that you couldn't hear anything in
McFadden's quarters but az sound
like the whicker of a milestone on
scythe. as George honed his elbows
to cruel sharpness. This probably
is not true. however, as Johnny Cou-
Ion says Cousin George never used
ANYTHING but an old-fas hioned farm
yard grindstone with a bicycle sad
die and pedals.
Anyway, Elbows McFadden, Jim
Corbett and knobby Clarke, this last
then in his seventies, had a s their
teachings: know what you want to
do before you start to do it,
Jes. Can't Stop.
Now" said Johnny, you look at
willard. I suppose there never was
as fast a man of his size or as good
a boxer. but he stands up there and
fiddles. That opens up his man,
Then, instead of corking him cold, he
starts flddling all over again. I've
seen lots of them do it, I've seen
champions do it. They seem to think
that fiddling-feinting man into
knots-will hurt him. Johnny went
so far as to say that he'd let Willard
fiddle at him all through lunch and
would get no gravy on his weskit,
If he could be sure that Jess wasn't
going to let fly.
The school-yard bully who grows
up to be a street-corner tough boy
has nothing but monologue and
a right hand swing. but he gets
reputation as good fighter because
80 out of 100 American and English
kids, who are supposed to Inherit the
science of boxing, in reality don't
know the first principle of making
their mitts defend them. There were
such in Johnny's school. but after he.
was taught to box--to lead. duck
feint and counter-he became a
neighborhood champion at all
weights. Boxing to him was an or
derby process; to the tthers a slam
bang, hit or miss adventure. in which
he made them miss and then knew
exactly what to do while they were
off keel.
Now. if had kid" he hypothe-
sized. I'D take him out in the yard"