Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1912 — BOXERS LACK ONE ESSENTIAL [ARTICLE]

BOXERS LACK ONE ESSENTIAL

Some Are Bhy of Intelligence, While Others Are Deficient in Game'Aeee In Ring. - - ** —r “To my way of thinking a fighter who is deficient in the brain department is just as badly handicapped as the fellow, who lacks heart,” said Bug Slattery at a little session of fistic celebrities in Jimmy Dunn’s gymnasium yesterday afternoon. N “Who are you driving at now, Mr; Slattery?” asked Tommy McGinity, the clever lightweight boxer, who la Dunn’s principal instructor at the gym. “I have no jiarticular pugilist ~ in mind,” replied the sport philosopher. “I am speaking in a general way. You know we have in the Sighting game boys who are naturally timid and who could never learn to be game. Such fellows sometimes get to be topnotchers because they have everything else. They may have speed, skill and the punch and lack gameness and still get along all right. Such fellows, as a rule, are seldom called upon to stand. a severe test as to gamenesß, for they are so clever, and so fast that other fighters can’t hurt thep. “But usually such boxers are much better in a gymnasium than in a real ring contest. Steve O’Donnell, the Australian heavyweight, and Bob Armstrong, were good illustrations of this type. They were two of the fastest and most skillful big fellows in the history of pugilism, but outside of a gymnasium they were absolutely no good. I have seen Bob Armstrong make Fitzsimmons look like a fool In gymnasium workouts, while in the real battle Fltz would lick him in a round. • “O’Donnell was the same way. He. used to make them all look cheap at the training camps, hut in the ring he could hardly ever get started. Peter Maher knocked him out twice in less than two or three minutes, for no other reason than that Steve’s heart failed him before entering the ring. He was good enough to beat fellows like Maher with the greatest of ease. If O’Donnell had been a game man Peter Maher could never have placed a glove on him. I have known many of the same sort.” “Your dope is dead right on that score, Bug,” said big A 1 Williams. Dunn’s white hope, “for I have met men who boxed both O'Donnell and Armstrong.”