MOST FRUSTRATED BOXER

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 63, 11 September 1937, Page 22

MOST FRUSTRATED BOXER

KILRAIN BATTLING DEATH

FAMOUS SULLIVAN FIGHT RECALLED

The muet iiustratcrl Roman.of them alii ths gladiator your grand-daddies knew as Jake Kilrain, today is battling an incurable ■ailment thaL physicians say sooir will dash his last earthly hope, his desire to live until lie is 80, wrote W. King in an American paper. He has only two years to go, but his opponent is fiar more deadly than any of the 150 pugilists he faced during his sixteen years in the rings of preQueensberry days. Born in Greenport, N.Y., in 1859, as John Joseph Killion, he has entertained^ many hopes during his long life and realised few of them, His last one appears to be as fleeting as ' was his first, his overwhelming ambition to de feat the great John L. Sullivan

The records say Sullivan ; defeated Kilrain, as he oecame known'when he reached manhood, in a 75-round bout fought under London prize ring rules and a 100-degree July sun at Richburg, Miss., in 1889. Kilrain has always denied that.

"Until I became old and lenient," he explained, "I was always very bitter about the outcome of my Sullivan fight. I resented the fact that the world remembered me as th,e man ; who was licked by John L. and forgot that I won most of my 150 matches. INSISTED HE WON. "I always nave, and always will, insist that I licked Sullivan that frightfully hot day. When we reached the 75th- round, both of us were exhausted, but he was by far the weaker. I was determined to end matters in that round, and I hastened out to do so. John L. was slow coming out from his corner and just as I was getting set for my final blow, some one in my corner tossed in a sponge. That ended the fight and that unauthorised act disqualified me. I never learned whether the second who did the tossing was over-excited or in Sullivan's pay. ;

"For years after I pestered, insulted, and tried to shame Sullivan into accepting another match, but he never would. He knew I licked him that day and would do it again. Six years after Richburg I almost had him.

"There were much better purses available then, and I tried to prevail

But they couldn't catch up with John and they had no trouble catching me. PRISON SENTENCE. "I was taken back to Mississippi, fined 200 dollars, and sentenced to two months in gaol for breaking the law by fighting. In those days prisoners were farmed out, and before I even reached the gaol my friends bought me from the county for about 30 cents a day and back I went to New Orleans. I was still a 'prisoner' when I fought in New Orleans for 1500 dollars and licked some one whom. I can't recall."

Since Kilrain fought for small purses and often, because of, draws, for nothing, he made but little money in the ring; As a result, he had to keep fighting until he was.37, but he retired after he lost a six-round decision to Jim Corbett and was knocked out by Frank Slavin, whom he had previously defeated, in a bout at Coney Island. '

He invested'his savings in a small hotel in Baltimore, and all was ,lost when it was destroyed by fire < several years later. . . ~- . . ;

Despite his; ailments. Old Jake is as straight today as he was in his prime. He stands five feet 10£ inches, and weighs about 2001b, just a bit more than he did for the great John L. Time has whitened his crisp hair,' and his handlebar moustache, but the onlymarks of his ancient profession are his knobby, ears and his hard, gnarled fists. ■ ■ f ' ,•

He has but little respect for modern boxers, and when you ask him to compare himself with Joe Louis, his answer is, the same as the ones he gave.for Tunney, Dempsey, and Jack Johnson: "He's nothing but a man, ain't he? Of course I could have licked him when I was in my prime. They're a different breed of cats, much too weak; for the bare-knuckle boys of my day."

"The race is getting Weaker," ha claims. "I can see that especially in the way the present-day fights are conducted. We had no p.ity in my day.

on John to get one of them by fighting me again.' He needed the money badly, and I thought I had him when I promised, 'John, let us get some of that big money. We'll just spar and neither of us will get hurt. I won't double cross you.*' "But I didn't mean that and Sullivan .suspected it. If I ever got him back in a ring I would have beaten him to a pulp, and he knew it." John, L. and Kilrain were, matched several times before they, clashed at Richburg, but something always happened to prevent their meeting until then. The year before that, patron of the American prize ring, Richard K. Fox. became so exasperated with Sullivan's refusals that he awarded his diamond belt to Kilrain. thereby stripping the Boston strong boy of much of his glamour. ..■'■■ '.;■,.' Jake, if-he had been patient, might have become the accepted heavywei^a champion by popular acclaim, but he

took the belt to Europe and it. became a bit tarnished when the best he could do with Jem Smith, the British titlist of that day, was a 105-round draw on a snowy December day in 1887, on an island in the Seine known as Isle de Souverains.

They fought for 5000 dollars a side and the world championship, but Jake got neither when darkness forced them to stop their bare-fisted battling. Disappointed, he returned to his home tin Baltimore. :.'

No sooner had he reached that city when Sullivan, misled by the: reports of his Smith battle, agreed to meet him. Jake trained at a'roadhouse outside of the city until the summer and then headed for New Orleans, where he and Sullivan finally came to. terms;

Police tried vainly to halt their bout, and they were forced to go to Richburg. After the battle, police set after them again and Kilrain dodged back to New Orleans.

"They were really after Sullivan," Kilrain said, "because he always carried a big roll of bills, and they could get much more out of him than me.

but now, it seems they make the rule* of the ring to protect' the weaker man. "In the , days of the bare-knuckle fighting under London prize rules, we believed that no quarter should ba given or accepted, that a fight was a contest to determine which 'was the better man. It may be that today's fights are .as good as the older ones, as1 far as science is, concerned, but the fighters' stamina seems to be missing. .. • ■ ,■';.■ ;, ■■-■ ')' '

"Very few of the glove boys have ever been really; angry with his opponent. In my day we hated each other when we fought, for we were whipped into a frenzy by the taunts and jeers of the spectators, many of whom paid as high as 500 dollars to see a championship fight, and we went at each other like wounded gamecocks. Everything was offence in those days. Seldom did a bare-knuckler try to defend himself, and as a result, there were many openings that the careful fighters of today would guard against."