Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-09-20
BETTER THAN A YEAR AGO
BOTH In MIND AND BODY
Knockout of Sharkey Restored Old Con-; 'cnce,
Clean Has Returned to Eye and Former Play
fulness Again Is in Evidence.

left hooks, often called the creates.
in heavyweight history. found their
mark as accurately as ever.
The talked-about efforts to trans
form Dempsey's ring style-if there
ever were any such efforts-have
seemingly gone for naught. The
Dempsey who fights Tunnet this week
will he the same aggressive, tearing
sluEGer that nailed Willard at Toledo,
Miske ut Benton Harbor. and later
Carpenter and F'irpo in the East.
His punchtiming has been accurate.
| He still is using with a devastation
to which his sparmates attest that
short right. which travels a few inches,
| yet sinks with crushing force to the
| body.
Wife Is Close at Hand.
In contrast to a year ago. Dempsey
had the almost daily companionship of
his wife. Estelle Taylor, although she
lives in a northside Chicago hotel so
miles from the training camp. She
never had seen him in the ring be-
| fore, until she came to the track here.
soon after his training began, and she
came often to lunch with him and
cheer him on.
Last year she was speeding West.
away from the fight. and in the light
of what happened in the Sesqui circle,
| there was an outward lack of con-
| fidence and enthusiasm which has
marked her actions here.
The former world heavyweight
champion, in his training campaign.
| furnished one of the greatest surprises
ever turned on the boxing world when
| he decided that secret workouts at
night under the glare of flood lights
was his best plan.
| He thought of the idea Of boxing
at night when the heat wave first
struck Chicago fortnight ago. He
wanted to produce as nearly as pos
sible the same situation that would
confront him when he crawls into the
ring to face Tunney. He wanted his
eyes to become accustomed to the
glare of lights, and. moreover, wanted
the strict privacy so he could practice
blows without any comments from
spectators, either uttered or printed.
| Dempsey succeeded because he boxed
| for a week at time with the public
excluded and the gates even closed
to newspaper correspondents. His rea-
son for excluding the public, and later
| the correspondents, was because he
| objected to whispered comment about
him unnecessarily furnishing sparring
partners, and when he permitted his
sparmates to whale away at him with.
out a return because he was practic.
| ing defense.
Crowds Continue to End.
| When the gates were closed to the
| public and open only to the CORE
! spondents, Dempsey discovered that
the crowds were almost as large as
when he was getting $1.10 from each
| spectator. He found that the news
| paper correspondents were bringing
| not only their friends, but their ward
committeeman, uncles and aunts and
neighbors across the hall. He de-
| cided then and there TO close the
| camp even to the newspaper writer's.
After all these surprises. Dempsey
Launched one even more startling
when he wrote his "open letter" to
| Tunney. asking the champion to ex-
| plain the contract signed with Max
| (Boo Boo) Hoff of Philadelphia and
other things which he regarded as
| peculiar just before that battle in the
Sesquicentennial Stadium. When Tun-
ney had replied to this ''evident
| trash" Promoter Tex Richard Is re-
ported to have stepped in and choked
off the battle of the fountain pens.