Evening star., 1924-02-08

Frank Moran had gained a lot Of
prominence, and many believed that
he would eventually win the heavy
weight championship from willard
/ saw the drift of public interest. /
decided to try my hand again.
My leasing Of Madison Square Car
den for this affair may give you a
fair Idea of what 1t cost to put on
fight. or course, / was saved the ex-
pense Of building an arena---the fight
did not justify it-but the Garden for
that one night cost me SIS 900. That
gave me the idea OF eventually get
ting the Garden for my own use. That
vas q long time ahead, though.
had little difficulty In getting Will
lard and Moran to sign for the fight.
My experience in Goldfeld and Reno
had gained me a certain amount of
good standing In the minds of the
fight people: They knew. anyway.
that I would make good anything l
promised.
A Gate Of $4,000 . Round.
The fight itself went ten rounds
without a decision. 1t was not won
derful scrap. The fans knew that no
championship was to be decided, un-
less by chance one should knock the
other out in the ten rounds.
Just the same, the WillardMoran
fight drew a house that paid s1s2: 900;
OF this amount l paid willard SAT 800
and Moran $2S.750-a total Of s7l.250.
On top OF this was the expense OF
running the shok. such as prelimi-
naries. officials. attendants and so on,
al. made some money, but not a
great deal.
Anyway. had made my first
srlurge in New York-everybody
seemed to be satisfied and I WAS de-
lighted. Still. had no ambition to
be a great promoter. I was not
gradually working upward with a
definite goal for my aim. As have
said, the promoting Of fights to me
was always a sort OF sport or game
/ liked to get in it occasionally just
for the fun Of things.
Jess Willard. incidentally. was al
ways an interesting study to me
He was the most powerful-looking
man that i ever saw. He was honest
and straightforward, and there was
no question about his being game
Just the same. you always felt that
his whole heart was not in the game
He did it purely as matter Of busi-
ness, Jess had a high sense Of honor
and pride. but there was no senti.
ment in him about the prize ring.
He describes that best in a letter
to a friend which 1 think worth
quoting:
for the boxing game" he wrote
This, by the way. was after he had
lost his title. II always felt that
wasn't built for a fighter. despite my
weight. my reach and my height.
God made me giant. I never re-
ceived an education, never had
money, and my folks. God bless them
never had any money. I knew tha,
was a big fellow and powerfully
strong. I just sat down and figured
that a man as big as me ought to
be able to cash in on his size Tha,
Is what started me on the road tc
BOXING.
Never Wanted to Hurt Foes.
$50 l got this boxing game into
my head. never liked II; In fact,
hated 1t as / never hated 8 thing
previously. but there was money in
1t. needed the money and decided
to go after it.
IL never really knew how to. fight.
In the fights ! engaged In I never
could do anything to the other fellow
in the way Of real damage. ! simply
couldn't do 1t. Harming the other fell
long as the other fellow didn't harm
me much I couldn't see any reason
why I should hurt him.
II never hurt any of my opponents
before the eighth round, because not
one of them was able to hurt me
much before the eighth round. and
when they did hurt me got real mad
and just swung on them and settled
matters as quickly as I could. But
even then I didn't like this boxing
business. 1t was the dough I liked