Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/347

 heavyweight champion is whiling away his idle hours in vaudeville at heavy wages and he don't seem anxious to defend his title against me or nobody else. However, when the old applause at the end of his turn begins to fall off as the result of his stalling tactics, why, he begins to realize he has got to make some warlike move if he wants to keep his popularity. So he suddenly agrees to fight me, out of a clear sky. This gets me, Nate and the promoters all excited, till we hear the amount Ryan demands for his guarantee. Then we are fit to be tied. All Hurricane Ryan wants for risking his crown in a tussle with me is a scant $200,000 and he might as well of asked for $200,000,000 and be done with it! The promoters' interest in the bout flickers out like a candle, even the biggest gamblers amongst them turning it down cold. They figure that with the fifty or sixty thousand they would have to give me, the purse would break the man who put the fight on, as the vast difference in size between me and Ryan would kill all chance of drawing the record crowd which would be necessary to make it pay. In desperation I agreed to take a percentage of the gate receipts, but Ryan wouldn't and matters come to a standstill once again. Then when I have give up all hope of ever meeting Hurricane Ryan in a ring or even at a dance, I get my chance. It was Spence Brock's father which come to the rescue like he often has before.

A few days after the newspapers has printed the ridiculous terms on which Hurricane Ryan will accept my challenge, Spence picks me up downtown in his car and asks me to run out to his house, as his father