The Boxing Biographies Newsletter Volume 9 – No 1 18 April , 2013 www.boxingbiographies.com If you wish to sign up for the newsletters ( which includes the images ) please email the message “NEWS LETTER” [email protected] Moorhead Daily News 23 August 1930 ENGLISH LIGHTWEIGHT LOOMS AS TOUGH BOXER TO TROUNCE By ROBERT EDGREN Jack Berg, the sensational English lightweight who gave Kid Chocolate of Cuba his first ring trimming, should be a dangerous opponent for Al Singer, new lightweight champion. There isn't any doubt in the world that Berg will give Singer a fight, and it's no secret that Singer isn't at his best against a fast man who never stops hitting. Singer lost to Kid Chocolate in 12 rounds last August. And Ignacio Fernandez, who crowded the present king of all the lightweights, viciously enraged by being struck low, knocked Singer out in three rounds three months before that. No doubt Singer has improved a lot in the past year, and has the confidence that comes to any man who knocks out a champion, but that doesn't prove he can beat the British whirlwind. Singer looked like Terry McGovern in the quick knockout of Mandell, but he isn’t always such a punching wonder. Eight of his fights last year, aside from the one he lost to Kid Chocolate, went 10 rounds to a decision. Jack Berg was a sensation in his first fight in a New York ring. On May 10, last year, he met the clever and hard hitting Bruce Flowers at the garden. Everyone thought the little English boxer would be just a set-up for Flowers. If Bruce had any such notion it was quickly knocked out of him. Berg swarmed over Flowers with the first rush, and kept up a rushing, slam-bang attack that kept Flowers on his heels. Flowers tried to use his boxing skill to stand Berg up for a knockout punch, but finally gave it up and stood toe to toe slugging with the smaller white-skinned fellow who was buzzing around him stinging like a hornet. I remember, sitting at the ringside, round after round I said to myself: "This can't go on — nobody can stand such a pace. There's never been anything like this since Bat Nelson, and Bat wasn't half as fast," But it did keep on. Berg finally forced Flowers to give up trying to slug with him, hammered Flowers wobbly, and had the crowd standing on the chairs and war whooping like twenty thousand bughouse Indians before it was over. Popular with Fans That fight made Berg. Everyone who saw him wanted, to see him again. He had put on a fight that WAS a fight — a whale of a fight. The two went on again — had to — there wasn't another fight in New York that created any interest until they did. In fact, they fought again in 13 days. This time Flowers knew what was coming, and while he stayed the 10 rounds and only lost another decision he did very little monkeying with the human buzz saw. Jack Berg has gone right on winning fights. They can't stop him. Can't even hinder him. He doesn't look like a fighter — looks more like a poet — but how he can fight!. He hasn't a wicked kayo wallop, but he hits hard enough, and plenty often. He can take the hardest punches, lean in against them and keep on coming. He took scores of Chocolate's best on the chin, and nobody ever said Chocolate couldn't hit. He was every bit as fast as the Cuban flash, and as clever, in a different way. Battling Nelson used to boast he was the only fighter who could fight at top speed and never grow arm weary. Bat said: "I'm not human. I don't tire and punches don't daze me." Berg could say that, and he might add that he doesn't have to keep up a doggedly aggressive pace to go through a fight without tiring. He can fight at top speed and turn on a little more juice for the last round. As for feeling punches — he hasn't shown any sign of feeling them yet. It may possibly be different if he feels the kind of a punch that Al Singer laid on Mandell's chin. But that remains to be proved, and it is one of the things that makes a possible Singer- Berg match an attraction. In any case Singer won't have 'to fight the Cuban Flash again to prove it. He has a man of his own weight who can give him a fight. Stanley Ketchel, one of the greatest middleweight champion, had the ability to fight at top speed even when fights went over 20 and over 30 rounds, like his fights with Joe Thomas. But Ketchel had something else — a terrific punch. He didn't often have to go through a long fight. It took Thomas to make him do that, and he ruined Thomas. Jim Jeffries, in his prime, never showed a sign of slowing up or growing weary in a fight. But he cut out a deliberate pace. There was the old Iron Man, Austin Rice, of Terry McGovern's day — absolutely tireless and punch proof. And Joe Bernstein, pride of the Ghetto, and Elbows McFadden, who wore out Joe Gans. In New York a few years ago we had another of those iron men — who would have been a good match for Berg. He was Battling Hurley. How that kid could tear in and never stop throwing punches! He didn't care what happened to his face. He didn't feel a sock on the chin. But in a year or so he got the most bedecorated map I ever saw in a ring. He was hammered lopsided by walking into punchen, even if he did go and knock the punchers out. In another year they had Hurley slowed up and feeling punches—plenty, and then he faded from the picture. I always was sorry for that kid. His handlers didn't care what happened to him, as long as they got the money, and it wasn't big money in those days, either. Moorhead Daily News 11 April 1931 Jack Dempsey said he'd never fight again, and a few days later stood right up in a Chicago court and offered to fight Harry Wills "any time the promoters put up that million dollars they offered." Well, you couldn't blame Dempsey for changing his mind if there's that much profit in it. Jack Dempsey never could be the iron fisted ring tiger he was when he battered the gigantic Willard into a helpless hulk. But he could be a very good fighter if he wanted to come back, even now. Dempsey is only a year older than Bob Fitzsimmons was when Bob knocked out Jim Corbett for the world's championship. He is four years younger than Fitzsimmons was when he put up the greatest fight of his life, battering the greatest heavyweight champion of them all, , Jim Jeffries, to a bleeding pulp in that San Francisco ring, smashing both hands in the vain effort to crush big' Jeff down, and being knocked out himself only when both hands were gone. Dempsey is only a year older than Jim Corbett was when Jim startled the world by fighting 23 fast rounds against champion Jeffries at Coney Island, before Jeff caught him and knocked him out. There isn't any reason why Dempsey couldn't get into shape to fight one of the short bouts of today, 10 or 15 rounds, against any heavyweight now in sight. He'd have a lot of trouble with a clever youngster like Stribling, and Schmeling, with his combination of rugged endurance and good fighting judgment, would not be an easy mark. I'd place a come-back Dempsey, if he was well handled in his training, a 50-50 chance with either of these two, even today. He'd beat Camera because be could easily beat Camera to the punch. He'd beat a lot of them if he wanted to try. Wills Washed Up As for Dempsey's fighting old Harry Wills, that would be just a joke. It wouldn't have made a fight five years ago, when the match was on and the promoters couldn't find a state that would stand for it. Wills was washed up when Sharkey whipped him, and long before that —but nobody knew it. He had to hold and wrestle through bouts and he couldn't take a punch or land one without holding his target motionless with the other hand—his favorite trick. Paolino finished Wills in four rounds just four years ago, and that knockout proved Wills was entirely through. The big colored fighter went groggy as soon as Paolino tapped him on the chin, and when he reeled around after a first knockdown the Spaniard socked him on the jaw again and he went down as if he'd been hit with a hammer. Four years ago Wills couldn't take a punch. Oh, yes a crowd might turn out to see Dempsey and Wills fight in Chicago, just out of curiosity and a desire to see Dempsey in action again—but not at seat prices in proportion to a million dollar purse. Might have done it five years ago, but not now. Last time I saw Dempsey, a few months ago he was in fine condition for a man not in training to fight.