The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-18
Tex Rickard
 Depicts Big
 Dempsey Go
Promoter Was Nervous As Weather Changed On
 Day Of Big Battle

Lay Of big Battle
 ,.s s,.s % .,.: 1:: Great .., s.: sss: M.xspa1sr Alliance for Ass-HsraId. All risht
 By TEX RICHARD.
 On the morning of the great Carpen- like a prominent stock pounded one minute by the bears and then by the bulls. was never what might be called an emotional person. Believe me, though, might have qualified that eventful morning with the weather changing every few minutes, and me with nearly a million dollars at stake.
 The weather bureau of New York has no more accurate record of the occasion than my memory has to this day. Early in the morning. up to 10 o'clock. 1t was cloudy and breezeless. At II o'clock I got a big thrill. The sun peeked through. The heat was strong went the market of thrills. At noon it started to rain; not much, but enough lowell, imagine yourself in the same situation.
 | Big Crowd.
 At this time mind you, the crowd was trickling into Boyle's Thirty Acres. By Il o'clock we knew it would be a sell out. At that hour the arena was nearly half filled. I began to worry about what might happen if we had a big downpour of rain. It was too late to call the fight off
 The rain lasted but a few minutes. When the place was about filled the stayed away for good. A breeze sprang up out of the west. For me that was a million dollar breeze.
 When the first preliminary went on shortly after 12:30 o'clocE. the weather was steady enough to bet on--but no cinch, at that.
 Very few people in the United States who were not present at the battle of the century have ever seen 91 900 peo- pie in one gathering. I doubt if they ever will again for many years to come. Most of them need only to recall the population of your city and you will get an idea of what 91, 900 people means. Anyway, we had that number in the huge bowl at Boyle's Thirty Acres.
 Fight Draws on Whole World.
 All of my predictions and calculations | had come true.
 There were men in that arena from China, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Europe and the fathermost points of South America. Just to live that IS minutes of thrill these men had trav- eled thousands of miles and had spent thousands of dollars. I have yet to find a person who expressed dissatts- faction. To be in that crowd was worth it, to say nothing of the fight itself.
 It was not a fight crowd, in the technical meaning of the term. They were there to witness a spectacle. I venture to say that a majority of those people never saw a big fight before. A big percentage of them had never seen men box. There were 1000 women ernors and statesmen were too numer- ous to be pointed out. It was an odd picture, difficult to visualize by one not present.
 Great Bowl Just try and imagine that huge bowl, or deep saucer, with turned-up edges. This nestled in the heart of a factory district. In the bottom of the bowl was 1 squared ring. Looking around and upward from there the huge bowl ap- peared marked with narrow black lines starting at the top and converging at the ring. These were the aisles and en- frances. Now, if you have that pie ture in your mind, place wooden chairs | in the center and up the sides; fill these with people and you can imagine what it looked like. A man walking around the upper edge appeared from the bottom like a fly crawling around the edge of a milk bowl. A haze of tobacco smoke, continually waited one way and the other, seemed to blend all the faces and forms together. It actually looked like a sea-a great, | restless sea.
 Crowd Cheers Contender.
 The big moment came when Referee Ertle called Dempsey and Carpenter to the center of the ring for final in- 1 ,ryfH !. the prelimiparies.
 Carpenter was given a tremendous ovation, even greater than that of Dempsey, the American champion. He scowled and calmly set about his busi- ness.
 As the gong sounded Carpenter l walked straight into the champion and shot left into his body, then went into clinch. There was a quick furry of fighting, neither being able to land hard. They went into a clinch again.
 Suddenly there was a great roar for the Frenchman. He uppercut to Demp- sey's chin with his left and jabbed pentier was doing the leading. He feihted Dempsey into another clinch.
 "Stop that rabbit punch!" came in yell from the crowd.
 Dempsey was seeking Carpentier on the back of the neck, much in the same way he had knocked out Bill Brennan. But Referee Ertle paid no attention. Dempsey was clearly within his rights. Dempsey Lands. | Finally Dempsey opened up and stag gered Carpenter with right to the i head. A second punch cut the French mans nose. Carpenter retaliated with terrific smash under Dempsey's eye.
 Carpenter, at the end of the round, staggered Dempsey with a right.
 The first round. though, was Demp- sey's.
 It was in the second round that Car pentier made his one big spurt. Com 1 ing out of a clinch he hooked to the head and then rocked Dempsey with left uppercut The Frenchman then sprang like a tiger, rushing into the champion, landing rights and lefts to the head. The great crowd was in an uproar. Little Descamps pounded the floor and jumped up and down in his excitement.
 Hope Beaten From Carpentier.
 Dempsey, proving himself a real champion, weathered this storm and from then on the fight was his. Car pentier had evidently shot his bolt.
 In the next round Carpentier, though leading brilliantly, plainly got the worst of the mitigating and went to his cor ner stopped over and obviously with out hope.
 During all this neither of the fighters said a word to each other. They real ized that neither could understand the other. French kidding or roasting would have been lost on Dempsey, and AmeEican razzing would have been a waste on Carpenter. They kept silent.