Evening star., 1936-12-07
FINN HARD HITTER
WHETHER HAND
Louis Is Only Heavyweight
Greatly Respected by
Gunnar's Handlers.
BY JOHN LARDNER.

would be q good thing to make his
acquaintance now.
No tight observer likes to feel that
he is going overheard on foreign
menace, foreign menaces having been
two pesos . bushel since the day Bonn
bardier Billy Wells came over here
from England with q glorious repu-
tation and an Athenian torso, and
promptly became very horizontal,
striking q style note for British pugil-
ism that still holds force from Ran
COON to Piccadilly.
can remember only three foreign
heavyweight menaces who ever
amounted to shucks. They were Max
6chmeling, Luis Angel Firpo and
Pauline Uzcudun. I slip Pauline in
merely because he was a tough man
to beat. He never accomplished much
ON the credit side Of the ledger.
Schmeling and Firpo each had some
Understanding strong body and
. cool fighting head, Firpo a charge
Of homicide in his mighty right arm.
Calling the Roquefort Roll.
THE rest of them-well. shed .
tear for Jack Doyle, the Irish
Oriole; Harry Person, the convertible
Dane; Vittorio Campolo, the tall
tower Of Andean Roquefort; Leon
Ketchell, the Polish mastodon: Phil
Scott, the swoong swan of Soho; Rob-
erto Roberti, the Roman decliner and
faller, and as many others as you
can think Of. Primo Carnera did get
TO be worlds champion and a pretty
fair sort Of boxer for his size, but
Primo had no business in the ring.
Or out Of it. for that matter.
This forward Finn, Gunnar Bar
Mnd, may be different, and he may
not be. would hate to be caught
calling him coming champion. But
he does look good, and until events
prove otherwise think you can des-
ignate the Gunnar as the best of the
recent foreign menaces and a gen.
tleman who might some day give Joe
Louis some trouble.
The Finn Is always moving forward.
He shufdes toward you on feet as fiat
Is the great mesa, his prominent ears
tapping gently in the breeze. His
eyes, blue as fish's chest. do not seem
10 be looking at anything in particu-
lar. His torso is knobbly and his
cropped head Is built along the lines
Of q dum-dum bullet.
LIE GETS inside and fails your
body. protecting himself so well
that he seldom takes punch in re-
turn. Then perhaps he plays your
chin for b while, until your body is
open again. He has a high right
guard and hooking left. Once in
. while he seems to uncover and in
vite q blow TO the head, but while
you are getting set to throw 1t the
Gunnar has shot a hard right to your
own Uranium and is all bundled up
again, like a kid playing in the snow
The Gunnar, being a methodical
fighter, seldom cuts loose until the
closing rounds Of the fight. unless he
sees q sure-fire opening. But when he
thinks he has his man taped and
measured, he discards caution and be-
gins hooking rapidly with both hands.
HIS left hurts and his right appears
TO be anaesthetic frankie Connolly,
the big and game Bostonian whom the
Finn stopped in the ninth round at
Uncle Mike Jacobs Hippodrone the
other night, really went out like a
taper when he caught one of those
rights. He threshed around on the
moor like decapitated fowl until the
boys in his corner dragged him away.
A Rugged, Arctic Fellow.
RARLUND is Spartan soul. They
- feed him simple fodder and nour-
3sh his brain with a movie now and
then. In Finland he was first farmer
and then factory hand. He looks to
Be cold, rugged, Arctic sort of fel-
low. You can picture him trudging
with great nonchalance through the
Scandinavian snow and washing his
face and hands with ice-cold ford
water.
He is managed by Mr.. James Bron-
son, the celebrated wholesale importer
Of beef on the hoof, and Mr.. Honest
Paul Damski, the German expatriate,
who also handles Walter Neusel and
Erich Seelig. Pickings have been a
trifie lean for Mr.. Bronson and Mr..
Damski Of late, and the Gunnar looks
TO them to be money in the bank.
Mr.. Damski, as I've said before, is
. passionate student of the English
language, which he now has adopted
for his own. He likes to take pains
with development of his fighters vo-
cabularies. He teaches them English
from the sports pages of American
newspapers, which is something like
teaching mathematics from a stock
brokers' report. But he seems to get
results. In no time at all he had
Walter Neusel saying "Yanks cop
nag" and "Bierman fears Purdue" with
the best of them, though I am not
positive that Herr Neusel knew what
be was talking about.