Sport: Armstrong v. Jenkins

At millions of U. S. radios, one night last week, fight fans fidgeted. Scheduled for 9:45 was the Manhattan set-to between Welterweight Champion Henry Armstrong, Negro buzz saw, and Light weight Champion Lew Jenkins, self-styled “kind of crazy-punching guy.” A nontitle fight, it had nevertheless been ballyhooed as the most exciting little-men’s match since the days of Lew Tendler and Benny Leonard.

Instead of this battle, the Democratic Convention was being broadcast from the Chicago Stadium. At 10 o’clock, at 10:15, at 10:30, Senator Wagner was still reading the Democratic platform. Irate fans bombarded the National Broadcasting Co. with phone calls, demanded that it take the Convention off the air, give them the fight they wanted to hear. At 10:34, when Senator Wagner finally stopped that talking, the an fight was NBC over —a spokesman technical knock announced out for Armstrong in the sixth round.

What the radio audience missed were six rounds of punishing punching. For the first three rounds, Jenkins had the better of Armstrong. Then the skinny Texan — who had come out of the sticks two months ago to blast the lightweight crown off Lou Ambers’ head— suddenly lost his sting. From then on, it was Armstrong’s show. Putting on the famed hammering act that once won three world’s titles (featherweight, lightweight, welterweight) within eleven months, he plopped Jenkins to the floor once in the fourth round, twice in the fifth, three times in the sixth. Just before the bell rang for the beginning of the seventh round, the “best lightweight since Benny Leonard” collapsed, toppled off his stool.

Commented Sportswriter Wilbur Wood in the New York Sun: “Henry Arm strong isn’t half the fighter he used to be and Lew Jenkins isn’t half the fighter he was supposed to be.” Yet Promoter Mike Jacobs promptly arranged a return match for September.