Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 300, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1910 — ATTELL IS GETTING STALE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ATTELL IS GETTING STALE

New Orleans Critic Who Witnessed Recent Fight Says Little Champion Is Going Back. That Abe Attell boxed honestly enough the other day against Frankie Conley in New Orleans, and that he is getting stale and beginning to go back seriously, is the statement made here by witnesses of the scrap. One of these is Will R. Hamilton, a prominent .sport writer and promoter of boxing bouts in the southern city. Hamilton was careful student at the ringside when the featherweight champion and the Kenosha boy clashed, and as he is figuring on using both of them in other bouts within the next three months, he wanted to get a good line on them. “The plain truth of the whole thing is that Attell is traveling around too

much and paying too little attention to rest and recuperation,” the critic said in telling about Attell's showing. “It is true that Abe did not fight the battle he is capable of, but I believe that he did his best. He stalled along for eight or nine rounds, with the evident intention of making a hurricane finish and sweeping Conley off his feet. That part of it was all right, as for as it went, but when Attell started to make his bid for the verdict he found he wasn't there and that he would have all he could do to hold the Wisconsin man even. “Attell has been fighting too much,

and this, coupled with the long jumps to different parts of the country that he has been making, is making him stale. He showed this plainly against the strong and fresh Conley, who had been trained to the very minute for this engagement. There was no snap or dash to Attell’s work, and, even if he had had the brakes on and was under a pull, he would have shown flashes of brilliancy at times. “But he didn’t, and I came to the conclusion at once that he had better lay off for a time and rest up/ Unless he does this he is in imminent danger of defeat and decisive defeat at the hands of some of the fresh men that he on constantly. “In addition to this Attell’s hands are not of the best and the little fellow is beginning to look a bit pinched and drawn.” Good judges of the fighting game were marveling about Attell’s wonderful endurance and stamina when the featherweight champion was fighting two and three times a week with long railroad jumps and imperfect rests in between the battles. The predictions were made then that Attell would be brought up with a sharp jerk before long and be forced to take a long rest Attell was spoken to about this and merely laughed at the fears of his friends. He countered with the remark that none of the men he wan, boxing with could hurt him in the least with their punches and that his case was vastly different from that of the fighter, who was getting some punishment in his battles. “These bouts are little more than good, stiff gymnasium tryouts for me,” he remarked. “It is simply like training to work against the class of men I meet. One bout serves only to keep me in shape for the next.”

Abe Attell.