The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-07

tC0pvrtght. lH2i. m OnNed states ana Urea. Britain, Cuba Japan and South America by Norta American Newspaper Alliance for The Age-Herald
 >' ''' By TEX RICHARD to, but not including those oftoday-l would select them for the greatest in their class like this:
 Heavyweight-Jim Jeffries. Light-heavyweight Bob Fitzsim- mons.
 iddleweight-Ketchel.
 Lightweight-Joe Cans.
 Featherweight-AbeA Attell.
 I never could keep up with the ban tamweights and paperweights and so on long enough to have any personal judgment on them.
 It Is very difficult to select group of the greatest fighters in their respec- tive classes, because many of them fought in several classes. Take Fitz- simmons. for example. He was great middleweight, great light heavy weight and a great heavyweight. His weight was practically the same in all these classes, but that appeared to be no handicap to him. He was a master In them all.
 Fitz Great Fighter
 No greater fighter than Bob Fitzsim- mons ever lived. At the same time l don't believe he could have licked Jef- fries when both were in their prime.
 I have purposely left Benny Leonard out of my calculations. He is still great fighter and may be even greater than we now suspect. No man ever held the lightweight crown with more honor and pride than Leonard. He is won derful fellow personally. I will have to leave it to the fight fans to decide whether they think Leonard could have licked Cans when both were ih their prime.
 All of these men were great money makers in their day, but with the eX- captions of Jeffries, few were good business men.
 More Money in 1t Now
 Let me explain that there were other great fighters of the old school, but I cannot discuss them because I never saw them enough to be able to form any opinion. I mention only those that have seen fight.
 I have said that the champions have mentioned were not all good busi- ness men. I often wonder if under the present rate of pay they would have been better. Dempsey will make a mil lion dollars, where Jeffries, and es- pecially Fitzsimmons, would not have made quarter of a million.
 Jim Corbett was one of the wise box CTS as to finances. Corbett was very quick to grasp the idea that a fighters money usually lasted but a short while. He; therefore. invested wisely and in addition, drifted into the theatrical business, where he has done well.
 Where They're From
 In this connection it might be inter esting to note from what sphere of life most of the fighters came. In the old days they came mostly from the ath- ietic clubs around Boston. New York, New Orleans and San Francisco
 ba united states navy took big hand in boxing. l believe the battleships, gun goats and so on have turned out a greater number of fighters than any other source. Oddly. though, the navy has not turned out real champions. short of title caliber.
 The first great fighter to graduate rem the navy was Tom Sharkey, who met such men as Corbett Kid Mccoy ana Jeffries. Tom made lot Of money.
 The next was George La Blanche, who knocked out the famous old Jack Dempsey, the Nonpareil with his pivot blow. Then came Sailor Burke, who, by the way, was the first to knock out Joe Grim. The name Grim is still used among fighters to denote a man wno could take a lot of punishment.
 What "JOe Grim" Means and Why
 The navy also turned out two really good lightweights in Paddy Ryan and Tommy Downs. Then there were Larry Prendergast and Billy Shevlin.
 Probably the most famous of latter day navy fighters were Frank Moran and Gunboat Smith. Moran was on the Presidents yacht Mayflower from which he. was discharged 10 become a real professional. One could name dozen more mediocre navy 1,gnters. Yes. l guess Uncle Sam's boats turned of supply.
 I have just mentioned Joe Grim. There is good illustration of the point I made early in this series of articles that at is more important to select fighter whom the public wants to see than to match them so that the scrap will be even up. Joe Grim never could fight much, but he could stand