The Tragedy Of Ad Wolgast, Once A Champion Of The World

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7031, 15 December 1932, Page 10

The Tragedy Of Ad Wolgast, Once A Champion Of The World

HE FIGHTS A DAILY BATTLE WITH AN INVISIBLE OPPONENT

ai BIG house, shuttered | from the curious gaze by grim grey walls. In a room roughly fitted as a gymnasium a stocky little man, clad in orthodox ring costume, nimbly shadow sparring. The meticulous routine of a pugilist conscientiously fitting himself for the battle of his career. The conventional setting. of a boxing arena. Everything as it should be (writes Jim Donald, in “Smith’s Weekly.”) Solicitous henchmen wiping the perspiration from their hero’s brow. A watch-holder calling the time. Gym. lizards lounging around, their droning inertness in queer contrast to the wasplike activity of the man in the ring. So at first glance it would seem to be. But there is a bizarre, unreal something, a subtle alien atmosphere stifling in its intensity. One senses tragedy. A malign, invisible presence stalks that room. It is reflected in the fanatical light gleaming like a sword blade in the eyes of the pugilist. There is something uncanny in the brooding silence of the onlookers. Their glassy stare, the blank setness of each countenance — the sprawling slackness of posture. One senses decay—a dry rot in the air. The splendid physical fitness of the man in training, snapping vicious punches at an invisible opponent, seems to mock the foul miasma of mental dilapidation clouding the room. The body, the soul, is present, but in the brain of every individual within those four walls the light of reason has been extinguished. Each is linked in an endless chain of mental decay. Their minds are but dead lagoons mirroring a phantom past. Each poor warped brain is a barren field. Nothing can rcpopulate its once busy hive of thought. Here are the living dead. The big house is “Patton Mental Home” in Southern California. The man so grimly exercising is Ad Wolgast, once lightweight champion of the world, conqueror of the mighty “Battling” Nelson, and one of the fiercest fighters that ever wore a Quecnsbcrry

crown. Wolgast is mad. To hint the room, transformed into a _ training camp by the asylum authorities, is a vast boxing arena. The tragic group of witless folk beyond the ropes he visualises as a huge crowd of fight fans packed row after row’, tier upon tier. Their gibberings are the stormy plaudits of a legion of admirers. To-day Wolgast is physically the fittest man of his age (over 40) in the world. He walks miles within the spacious “Patton” grounds. Every waking hour is devoted to conditioning himself for the battle of a century. At a certain hour every day he enters the ring, complete with seconds, sponge, and bucket. He bows to the audience, sheds his dressing gown, dons gloves, shakes hand with an invisible ■‘Battling” Nelson, and crouches in his corner awaiting the bell. It shrills and he is off on that savage 41-round fight wherein he won the world’s lightweight crown. Picture it, reader, and weep. The crunch of the lunatic’s feet on the resined boards. The sharp hiss_ of his breath as he smashes the non-resist-ant air. His snarling defiance and baiting of his opponent in the make-believe clinches. The call of time and the warrior, relaxed on his stool, being sponged by his crazy henchmen, and harkening to their idiotic advice and aimless chatter. The bell and the fresh springing to the fray. Alas, poor Wolgast’s fight is never finished. Until the grave conquers and the Great Referee calls the final count, Wolgast’s battc with “Battling” Nelson will continue. Living entirely in the past, he fights on, fights on—the pity of it. Out in the world Oscar “Battling Nelson goes his humdrum way. A battered relic of older, more glorious Qucensbcrry days, he bobs up now and again at the ringside. I wonder if he feels the invisible blows showered on him by the poor mad pugilist confined in “Patton” Asylum. . Nelson walks abroad and mingles with his fellow-men—Nelson, the man who lost. Wolgast, the victor, was tinloser in the long run—but be has this on Nelson—he is still in the game.