MATTY AT OBSERVER RING-
SIDE OBSERVES THINGS
Referee Shaw Counts Big Jess
Out to Delight of Crowd. Com-
ment Before and After
BY W. E. MATTHEWS
_ "Aw,
close up your trap, kid. Wil-
lard's gonna wallop him all over the
rope."
_ "That
Dempsey lad is game - and
quick! Holy Mackerel!"
_ "What
if he is, speed ain't got a
chance against brawn and muscle."
Heard at the ringside.
_ Ringside!
The expectant crowd
seethed under the broiling July sun.
Up at the top of the arena hot rosin
slowly oozed out into the rays of the
still hotter sun; down at the ropes it
oozed into the palm-beached and
straw-hatted multitudes who clamored,
jibed and wiped perspiration from
their faces with sweat-soaked ker-
chiefs.
_ A
lonely dope vender essayed the
fight of seats, but was mobbed by the
spectators on the first row.
_ A
hush swept along the arena. Ref-
eree David Shaw steps out into the
ring, megaphone in hand, and an-
nounces the conditions of the fight.
Suddenly the crowd rises in a body
to yell lustily as the wiry Dempsey
springs over the ropes and into the
ring. In a second, Willard, the invin-
cible, the incomparable, the man of
brawn and muscle, Willard, the un-
conquerable, steps into the ring in full
view of thousands who yell and throw
hats into the air.
_ Referee
Shaw calls time! The fight
is on!
_ Dempsey
rushes like a locomotive
and hits like lightning. Willard is
down, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Pande-
monium breaks loose. The feminine
spectators are completely snowed un-
der by the "grim brutality," as one
characterized it, of the fight, the mob,
and by the confusion of terms for-
eign to their delicate ears. Gong! Wil-
lard is saved and Dempsey is called
back into the ring.
_ Round
2. For the benefit of those
spectators whose seats are not in
sight of the ring. Referee Shaw
shouts results, "Dempsey gets in a
right to the eye!" "Willard staggers
with blood gushing from his mouth!"
_ Round
3. Dempsey starts his pile-
driving blows and Willard is forced to
the ropes. A smashing right. "Wil-
lard throws up the sponge," shouts
Referee Shaw. The fight is over and
a new champion will be worried to
distraction by the bulldog tactics of
thousands of newspaper reporters.
The excitement is about over - but, no
an excited individual whose name was
later learned to be "Palm Beach Har-
ry," climbed into the ring and de-
nounced Willard as a coward, lazy,
crooked and other names not wel
calculated to be condusive to the con-
tinuance of any sort of friendship be-
tween the Kansan and his verbal an-
tagonist.
_ Slowly
the crowd dispersed from
their hot seats at the big arena in
front of The Observer building and
betook themselves to their various
pleasures. The biggest fight in years
was over!!
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