Evening star., 1924-02-07

Lightweight-Joe Cans.
Featherweight-Abe Attel
| never could keep up with the
bantamweights and paperweight:
and so on long enough to have any
personal judgment, on them.
1t is very difficult to select a erouu
OF the greatest fighters in their re.
spective classes, because many OF
them fought in severel classes. Take
fitzsimmons. for example. He was a
great middleweight, great light
heavywelght and great heavy.
the same in all these classes, but that
appeared to be no handicap to him
He was a master in them all.
No greater fighter than Bob Fitz-
simmons ever lived. At the same
time L don't believe he could have
their prime.
| have purposely left Benny Leo
nard out of my calculations. He Is
still a great fighter and may even
greater than We now suspect. No
man ever held the lightweight crown
with more honor and pride than Leo
nard. He is a wonderful fellow per-
sonally. l will have to leave it to the
tight fans to decide whether they
think Leonard could have licked
Cans when both were in their prime.
All of these men were great money
makers in their day, but with the
exceptions 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 | cannot discuss them because /
never saw them enough to be able to
form any opinion. l mention only
those that i have seen fight
l have said that the champions ]
have mentioned were not all good
business men. i often wonder If un-
der the present rate of pay they
would have been better. Dempsey will
make a million dollars where Jeffries.
and especially Fitzsimmons. would
not have made a quarter OF million.
Jim Corbett was one of the wise
boxers 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.
In this connection it might be in
teresting to note from what sphere OF
life most of the fighters came. In the
old days they came mostly from the
York, New Orleans and San Francisco.
Beginning twenty years ago the U.
s. Navy took big hand in boxing. !
believe the battleships, gunboats and
so on have turned out greater num-
ber of fighters than any other source.
oddly though. the Navy has not turn
ed out real champions. Nearly
every one of them was just short OF
title caliber.
The first great fighter to graduate
C1o IL
who met suth men as Corbett, Kid
Mccoy and Jeffries. Tom made a lot
The next was George LIE Blanche,
who knocked out the famous old Jaci.
Dempsey, the Nonpareil. with his
who, by the way, was the first to
knock out. Joe Grim. The name Grim
is still used among fighters TO- denote
a man who could take a. lot OF pun
ishment. '.,. e-.'...
What "Joe GRIM Means.
The Navy also turned out two real
" good lightweights in Paddy Ryan
and Tommy Downs. Then there were
Larry Prendergast and Billy shevlln
day Navy fighters were Frank Moran
and Gunboat Smith. Moran was on
the Presidents yacht Mayfiower. from
which he was discharged to become
a dozen more mediocre Navy fighters
Yes, 1 guess Uncle Sans boats turned
out more fighters than any one source
of supply.
I have just mentioned Joe Grim
There is good illustration of the
point 1 made early in this series OF
articles that it is more important tc
select a fighter whom the public
wants to see than to match them sc
that the scrap will be even up. Joe
Grim never could fight much, but he
could stand more fighting than any
man in the world.
The very best of the fighters went
after Grim and hammered him all
around the ring, but they could moi