BOXING

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 80, 30 June 1928, Page 2

BOXING

OUT OF THE GAME. DEMPSHy INTERV(ISWJ.;i). Jack Dempsey notes with amusement that there is great curiosity as to whether lie will do any more prize fighting (writes Westbrook rcglar, m the ‘Chicago Tribute’). This curiosity amuses him because tli© persons, who are most eager that lie' fight some more are people who could have obtained a few fights for him about twelve years ago when lie was a much better prize fighter Than he is to-day and pining for work. Prize fighters, speak of prize fights a s work, and it should be understood that prize fights were what lie was pining fen*, not common toil. In those days, twelve years ago, Dempesy would have fought anybody for the modest remuneration of £2 a round. Just now he could command a price of from £3,000 to £4,fioo a round with' full pay guaranteed for ten rounds of fifteen, even if ho shouldn’t last through the first round, and he would be allowed to pick almost any opponent he might prefer above the crude of King Solomon or Romero Rojas. OLD DAYS.

11l those clays he slept in a technically furnished room on a sway-back-ed cot, and the only person, who called on him was the landlady, after the rent. At the present time ho is 6topping at the Ambassador 1 Hotel on Park Avenue, and he needs a large parlouh to hold the people who want him to fight somebody for £3,000 or £4,ooo'a round. It is fascinating to observe James J. Johnson and Leo. P. Flynn two gentlemen who could have sTTbmlated business vm v nicely for Jack Dempsey twelve years ago, gliding in and out of Dempsey’s suite now, and treating one another with nice politeness because Johnston thinks Dempsey will fif£rb again. tuTd wants tot put the halter on hint and take himi away from Flynn. Flynn also thinks Dempsey will fight again, and inasmuch as he was Jack’s last manager he naturally hopes to manage him) again- Of course, it amuses Dempsey very much to see two such masters working out on one another, because it is something like catching pickpockets frisking each other ho a draw.

Dempsey has convinced himself that lie won’t fight again, but he seems to lie afraid that he will change his mind, so he is trying! to destroy his drawing powers, ‘flint is why ho says “I am on the decline,” and U I was'all through the first time Tunncy beat me” and “there is a lot of young fellows - who can lick me—let them get the money. Pv© got enough.” Ho says he would rather the public with that last remembrance of him smashing Tunney to the floor or beckoning Tunncy to com© and fight than make a quarter of a million dollars and give the public a last picture of Jack Dempsey stretched out on the ring floor with some second-rater staivLng over him. He l has his pride and enough money to humour it, £50,000 worth. Moreover he can make about £I,OOO a week clear in stretches of ten weeks or so in vaudeville whenever lie needs more cash than his investments bring him.

DOCTORS AND OPDIIA'TIONS. Dempsey shudders at the thought of doctors, organic sickness and operations, and he is constantly reminding Himself that he feels fine now, but might come out of one more light with an abscess in a kidney, a clot on the brain, or that peculiar type of locomotor ataxia known to boxing profession as the stumbles or fighter’s dance. lie has a special horror of fighter’s dance, which is brought on by the hammering on the head that a fighter receives in training.

“When a fellow gets married, yon know, and you’ve got a home and all such as that, you don't want to go l tearing around with the mol> at, night any more,’’ he explained. “Lot of the mob thought 1 was passing them up and some of them got scire. “I don’t hold any enemies,” ho says. “I don’t do anybody any harm, and I don’t hold any grudges. Tnnney licked me' twice, i was all m, hut he’s a pretty fair fighter, anyway, and the one that licks him will have to make the fight, because he’s running all the time. I wish him inch. “Just one other thing. The papers have called me a tramp. I never vas a, tramp in my life- I never camped by a railroad track or warmed nu coffee in a tomato can. But 1 was a labourer, not a loafer, and I never beggeft a piece at a kitchen door in all my days.”