Sport: New Champion

Since Hartford’s battered Bat Battalino abdicated his title in 1932, there has been no undisputed world’s featherweight (126 Ib.) champion. Last week Promoter Mike Jacobs, who has had a hand in settling the championship of practically every other division of boxing, inaugurated his tenure of the boxing rights at Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden by matching the two ranking featherweight contenders in an effort to produce one acknowledged champion.

Petey Sarron, a homely, 29-year-old Alabaman of Syrian descent, has been the National Boxing Association’s champion since he outpointed Freddie Miller in Washington last year. Negro Henry Armstrong, 24, has been recognized as champion in California since he knocked out the New York State Athletic Commission’s Champion Mike Belloise, although the Commission still recognized Belloise because his bout with Armstrong was scheduled for ten rather than 15 rounds. Thus when Boxer Belloise, ill in The Bronx, was persuaded to exchange his championship claim for the promise of a return match, all Henry Armstrong had to do to become featherweight champion was to beat Petey Sarron.

With a championship thus placed in his grasp, Boxer Armstrong, whose deadly knockout record has already convinced most sportswriters that he is a miniature Joe Louis, last week proceeded to perform that chore. Armstrong and Sarron larruped each other fiercely, if without notable boxing skill, for five rounds. Then Sarron’s legs began to buckle. In the sixth, as Sarron folded his arms helplessly over his hairy chest, Armstrong pummeled him harder than ever. Near the end of the round, Armstrong suddenly let loose a long, looping right to the jaw, and Sarron, for the first time in his twelve-year career, crumpled to the canvas to stay. Most notable fact about Champion Armstrong, who was able to finish high school by setting up pins in a St. Louis bowling alley and developed his sturdy legs by training for one of C. C. Pyle’s “bunion derbies,” is that he belongs to Blackface Singer Al Jolson. Singer Jolson whose great heart is a Broadway legend, bought his contract last year for $6,000 from a gun-toting promoter named Wirt (“One Shot”) Ross, turned him over to be managed by his friend Eddie Meade.

Champion Armstrong is by no means Hollywood’s sole venture into sporting promotion. Middleweight Champion Freddy Steele is partly owned by Bing Crosby, who also supports a girls’ baseball team called the Croonerettes, promotes a $3,000 golf tournament, and is the principal stockholder in the Del Mar racetrack near San Diego. Producers Hal Roach and Jack Warner are No. 1 and No. 2 stockholders in the Santa Anita racetrack. Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Spencer Tracy, Barbara Stanwyck, Mrs. Zeppo Marx and many another own horses. Clark Gable used to own one named Beverly Hills. Victor McLaglen (see p. 40) is Colonel of the Victor McLaglen Light Horse Troop, whose 750 members finance their maneuvers partly by promoting rodeos and midget auto races. Ralph Bellamy and Charles Farrell own the Racquet Club at Palm Springs. Minor promoters include Johnny Weissmuller (the paddle-board concession at Catalina Island) and Errol Flynn (six day bicycle races).