BIG GUN BOXERS

Hokitika Guardian, 13 September 1937, Page 7

BIG GUN BOXERS

HEROES OF YESTERDAY TAKE THEIR EASE. Louis is the sixteenth in the hue of heavyweight champions under t..e Marquis of yueensberry rules. 'these began to control the world's ehampionsnip ring in 18u2, wnen James J. Corbett knocked out John L. Sullivan in 2l rounds. Where are those giants of the past? And what has become of the tat purses they won and the £2,800,1)00 code, ted in gate-takings at their championship lights ? Jimmy Lorbett won his championship before they started giving away the big money. W non he left the ring he bought himself a little place in the Tenderloin, but found that there was better money in vaudeville. As a music-hall story-tel-ler he made more than he did in the ring, and when lie died at Long Island, in 1933, he was not badly off. Lob Fitzsimmons, champion of 1897, is dead, too, but James J. Jeffries, of 1899, is still alive in California, where lie has a small farm. He wears a 16 gallon cowboy hat to town, promotes amateur tournaments in Burbank, goes to the fights in Hollywood every Friday night, and still looks pretty fit. He is 62 years old now.

Eleven years after he had left the game he let people kid him he was “the White Hope,” and went into the ling at Reno with Jack Johnson on July 4. 1910.

lie looked like a man walking in i.i ; sleep. When lie woke up he was £20,000 richer and a lot sorer. John son gave him a classic hiding.

Tommy Burns followed Jeffries. Burns made heavyweight championship fights a deal in high finance. He uomanded £01)00, win, lose, or draw, to defend his title against Jack Johnson in Sydney, December 26, 1908. This fight, promoted by Hugh D. McIntosh, drew only £19,000, the legends about fantastic gale money wli'ch have grown up since notwithstanding. It paved the. way to the “milli m dollar” fights promoted by the late Tex Hickaril. Tommy Burns, aged oil years, is still jiving. He promotes fights at Vancouver, and has an interest in a promising light-heavyweight named Jack Kilbane. Then comes Jack Johnson, the greatest defensive boxer of all time, and “stonny petrel” of the game. Johnson got £IOOO when he defeated Burns in Sydney, but made a fortune afterwards. He got £2.1.000 for his light with Jeffries, £OOOO against Willard, anil enough subsequently to leave a trail of diamonds behind him in Baris and London. To-day he is living in Xew York. He still wears his “golden smile,” hut he is pretty broke. He changes his job often. A few months ago lie was in vaudeville. Now lie is selling wine. He still wears the famous beret. He says Joe Louis is not much of a lighter. Jess Willard knocked Johnson out at Havana, Cuba, in 20 rounds. Willard went through nearly everything he earned, but saved just enough to buy a farm in the Middle West, and is doing well. He has a son at college. He says young Willard is “another White. Hope.” Willard occasionally acts as referee at boxing and wrestling matches.

Oil July 4, 1919, Jack Dempsey lain Willard out in the iourth round ac Toledo.

Dempsey has been the most popular of heavyweight champions and is more popu.ar. stiangelv, as ex-c.ianip.on than in his bloom.

Dempsey made around £300,00 ). H t , fought before the biggest gate in history—in his second fight with Genu Tunney. at Chicago in 1927, when t.ie box Oifice took £531,000. His tw o fights with Tunney drew nearly £l,000,000.

lie invested his earnings in oil ana real estate. When the depression hit America it hit Dempsey harder than Tunney had done. But he made a spectacular come-back, and to-d y is as well off as he ever was.

lie gets £12,500 a year for the use of his name on L.e lushi. liable rcs.au junt opposite to Madison Square Gulden, New York. He is married again—this time to Hannah Miniums, a star from the Ziegleld Follies. Wlumve, lie appears eiowds.gather around h m. Gene Tunney, “Gentleman Gene,” studied Shakespeare, bent Dempsey, and married a l ich hei.css. Now he is interested ill poli'.ics, and will be a candidate for the Senate lor the State of Connecticut at the next elections. II s money is sale. After Tunney. Max S-hmoling and Jack Sharkey fought for the champion ship. Schmehng won on a foul, and Shu; key beat him in the return light two years later. Slmrkev lives at Chestnut Hill. Bos-

ton. in a palatial home. With his former man iger, Johnny Binkley he runs a large hotel opposite to the Boston

Madison Square Garden. He has kept, a nickel or two out of the wreck. Prime Camera, the Amhl'ng Alp. who knocked out Slmrkev in ' I 32, is hack ti where he came from—the circus. He sold so many shares in his earning; and gathered so many hangers-on tint his own dividends did not hmt when Tonis knocked him out of the light ga-ee. Now he has nothing. Max Fuel 1 is wea'thv, and can ; fiord to down both in the ring and in the studio. . James Draddo k. who was Likmi from the hread-li 'e on the wlm ve, two ye r ag". has opened up a real estate office

in. Jersey City, his home town, and lives in luxury, And now Joe Louis. Me is said to have made over £IOO,000, and he is not 23 years old. He worked at the Ford Motor V orks in Detroit when the call came to him. His promoters think he Ims just begun to earn. That is a debatable point. Last year Max Selimehiiig knocked him out, and knocked the bottom out ol the myth that ho was unkno liable. Louis is not a full-blooded negro. He is a half-caste, with Cherokee Indian blood.

There is one ornimus shadow ovr his future. Negro lighters generally «'i ! young. Molineaux. Deter Jackson, Joe Cans, George Dixon, and Young Peter Jackson all died under JO. They generally die of lung trouble, and they generally die peniless.