Sport: Boxers’ Rebellion

As prize fighters grow old, they become decrepit; young bruisers whom they could once have walloped, beat their battered noses and knock their false teeth out of mouth. Yet, rebels against time, because they love the sound of invisible watchers in the dark or because they know that they will be unable to earn a living in some other profession, they continue to fight, in little arenas and smelly, half filled armories.

One old fighter, famed Jack Britton, 43, onetime welterweight champion of the world, last week, in Boston, clambered through the ropes and was attacked by young and clumsy Larry Brignola. As canny as an aged monkey, Britton stepped around the ring, warding the wild, drastic punches of his adversary. In the third round, Brignola knocked a false tooth from Britton’s mouth. Therefore Jack Britton drove Brignola to the ropes and kept him there with feints and clinches, ordering the referee to find his tooth and keep it. When the referee had found his tooth, Jack Britton laughed and the fight went on until he had won it.

Another old fighter, Johnny Dundee, set out to make a comeback. His real name is Joseph Carrora; he is 35; a year ago he was smashed by Tony Canzoneri. In Brooklyn last week he hooked and dodged, bounced in from the ropes, stepped away from Gaston Charles; in the last three rounds, he punched the surprised French man. The crowd cheered when Dundee was awarded the victory which would have been even more romantic had it been better deserved.

The greatest of all the old still active fighters went last week to Lou Stillman’s gymnasium in Manhattan to have a work out. Lou Stillman’s gym is an attic, stuffed with smoke and people ; the people, when this fighter entered, looked with awe on his fat stomach and his burly arms.

“Are you going to fight again, Jack?” reporters asked him. “No,” said Dempsey, as usual. Later he admitted that he might fight famed Paulino Uzcudun next June, for a guarantee of $500,000.