1919 news report
Benny Leonard. would's lightweight champion, is cleaning: up a bank roll a
hound dog couldn't jump over with a springboard and a running start.
About every other week Benny hikes to Philadelphia. That's the town where,any one who pays more than 7 cents for a cigar is rated as either a reckless spendthrift or a lunatic. In Philadelphia any promoter who charges half a dollar to see eighteen six-round bouts in a single evening, all guaranteed knockouts, Is and always has been denounced as a hideous profiteer. Yet a couple of times a month Benny Leonard visits Benny Franklin's village and steps6 rounds or less with some near-contender and brings about $14,000 back tothe Bronx Soft? yes, Bo! .
And now they want to pay Benny $20,000 to go Out to Denver and step
twenty rounds—OR LESS—with ol' Charlie White, Said White will be rememberedby old timers as the gentleman who had several times Benny’s chance to take the lightweight title away from, Freddy Welsh, when Freddy was already slipping down the toboggan with yelps of distress, and who couldn't do it .
White fought Freddy twenty rounds in Colorado Springs, and made such a
poor showing, when every one present knew only a tap was needed to tip
Freddy over, that the collection of seat cushions, pop bottles and hip pocket flasks shovelled from the ring by the janitor next morning was said to beat anything on record sinc Tommy Ryan and Jack Root frascoed at Jack McGuigan's place In Philadelphia White also boxed Welsh in Brooklyn, which is about all we can say of the affair, and twice boxed him ten rounds in Milwaukee.
Benny Leonard never had a 20-round chance at Welsh, He boxed him two
10-round goes, and next time, knowing all about what Freddy had and hadn't,went after him like Dempsey after Willard, and hung him on the ropes, out,in nine rounds.
That's the difference between Charley White and Benny Leonard—except
that it's more so White has gone away back in the past two years and Leonard has become even a better boxer, He is bigger, stronger, far more seasoned and experienced, and has a champion's confidence On paper it looks as If this would be an easy match for Leonaid, and just about as soft a $20,000 as he ever put in his bank.
Leonard hasn't fallen over his own Feet rushing: to accept "White's challenge,at that. While he is a slow boxer and never will be arrested for exceeding the speed limit in thinking,White has an awful kick, and sometimes lands It There isn't a chance in a hundred that he'd land It on Leonard but If he did—well, $20,000 would be small comfort to Benjamin for the loss of what he can gather in the coming year by boxing here and there In the 10-round game.
However, if Benny ever gets the Idea that any one thinks he is side-steppingMr White the Leonard-White match Will be on at once One thing Bennyhasn't learned yet is the side-stepping idea He may love that title, but as hesays himself, when a fellow who can take it away comes along he can have it and welcome.
Benny's Limit An Unknown Quantity. Just how good is Benny Leonard?
It's fashionable to compare him with Joe Gans.
Benny may be a Joe Gans, but he hasn't had anything like Gan's list of
rivals to wade through. So We don't know what his limit is. He may be
better It's sure that Leonard has done everything asked of him. And it Isn't
-his fault if the competition isn't whatit used to be In his class. He wins his
fights as quickly as he can. He doesn't stall He doesn't content himself with winning on "points" by a small but safe margin, although he's clever enough to do it.
One thing about Leonard—which Is a. quality seen In all first-class champions—is his knack of winning whenever he meets a man for the second time, He took a hard hammering from Willie Ritchie in the San Fransisco Four round bout, but when they met again, a little later, he disposed of Willie before the end of the eighth session He knew all about how to beat Welsh the third time they met He boxed ten rounds with Johnny Kllbane in 1915 When he was champion he met Kilbane again In a Philadelphia six-round bout,This time he knew all about clever Kllbane's style, and walking straight Into him beat him to his favorite punches and knocked him out in three rounds.
Leonard can win in a hurry when he feels like hurrying. He fought Leo
Johnson, a very clever darkey lightweight,-who was regarded as extremely dangerous, When the two stripped in the ring, and stepped out to face each other, the spectators gasped' Johnson seemed to have every advantage in the world He was a perfect picture of a smooth-moving, lithe, hard-hitting fighter,Benny went Into him like a whirlwind and stopped him In the first round We never have seen Leonard in any real distress, except in the four-round bout with Ritchie, where Benny's left eye was closed tight and he was rocking from the right hand punches he couldn't see In time to block. That time no fought back magnificently in the last round, recovering and holding Kitchie even in the last two minutes of hard mixing.
But Benny hasn't been hit by any one like Dal Hawkins. Nobody knows what would happen in that case.
Few of These Hitters Now.
In Joe Gans's time the world was full of hard hitters, Dal Hawkins had a
left hand punch, delivered slowly at full arm's length, with a sudden twist
of the wrist, that was like a blow with a hammer He landed that on Gans in
the first round of each of their two famous fights, and each time knocked
Gans fiat and nearly out Yet Gans each time came up stalled, recovered fought furiously and knocked out Hawkins. When Gans had been fighting only 'as long as Benny Leonard has been fighting now he had nothing like Leonard's knockout record But be was fighting men like Kid McPartland, Jack Daly, Young Griffo, Spider Kelly, George McFadden, Frank Erne, Willie Fitzgerald, and scores of others who were great because they were brought up on long fights, from 20 to 45 rounds, instead of the six and ten-round no-decision bouts of today.
Joe Gans lost to Sam Langford, 1903, in fifteen rounds Langford was a little heavier than Gans at that time, but a terror Again, while lightweight champion, Gans-fought welter champion Joe Walcott—famous all over the world then as the "Barbadoes Demon" and the "Giant Killer." Walcott had knocked out Joe Choynski and had beaten Jimmy Handler, Kid Carter, Jack Bonner, George Gardiner and a stack of other heavyweights That's the kind of a scrapper he was, Benny Leonard hasn't met his kind yet. Gans handled Walcott well enough to get a 20-round "draw," and according to reports he might have been given the decision and the welter title without any Injustice
to Walcott,
:
We don't know just how Benny would get along with a Battling Nelson. He
would punch the Dane's head off, just as Gans did at Goldfield for a while But if Gans couldn't knock Nelson out Benny couldn't, and would Benny last? Under the present day short bouts that make up all of Benny's records, there's no way of judging whether he's a. champion through and through or not. He wins fights with splendid speed, courage and hitting power. But It takes more than a 30-round gallop to show what's really in a fighter Until Leonard goes through two or three 20-round bouts with the best of his rivals there will be no wav to compare him with the oldtime champions.
In the meantime Benny can laugh at all of them With boxing and business
combined he is making more money, and making it faster, than half a dozen of the best of the old-timers in a bunch.
