FAMOUS BOXER'S PLIGHT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22344, 15 February 1936, Page 3 (Supplement)

FAMOUS BOXER'S PLIGHT

Many boxing enthusiasts will remember Battling Nelson, states a special correspondent of the Daily Express, London. He is a Danish-American, and was light-weight champion of the world in those days before the war when we spoke in bated breath of Joe Gans and Jimmy Britt, great masters of scientific boxing. , , _ . . Oscar Nelson bent them both. And people said it was impossible to beat Cans, who had reigned as undisputed mnster of the light-weights and as the most scientific boxer of his time. Nelson retired from the game with £'60,000 .... a. recent message from Chicago said that he is now penniless. The last thing he possessed, a wooden house, was seized to satisfy a Couit order for £640. Ho lest his money in real estate. Battling Nelson was one or the gamest and cleanest of fighters that ever entered the ring. Ho holds tho iecord for the quickest knock-out ever made. On April 15, 1902, he knocked out William Bossier at Harvey, Illinois, in two seconds. In London nearly thirty years ago he was a tremendous success, and he was engaged to appear at music halls tor twelve weeks at £2OO a week. Jack London called him a " fine fighting animal," but ho was a good citizen, too. When he »mve#iD boxinrr ho became Mayor of the Illinois town of Hegewiseh. He is now fifty-four—and broke. But you can't keep a good man down.