Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/73



it comes to takin' punishment I am forced to award the brown derby to the modern prize-fight fan. Next to the wrestlin' addict, the gent which digs into the rent money for a ringside seat at the average one of these "return engagements" between the present crop of professional sluggers stands alone as the Crown Prince of dumb-bells. For the example, one of our present champs has "fought" the nearest contender for his crown a even thirteen times, with first one and vhen the other winnin' the newspaper decision, mixin' in a occasional "draw" to keep up the interest. Another title holder has met the ex-champ in his class eight times in them brief, chummy, "no decision" things, and as for the secondand third-rate heavies—Sweet Mamma! Them guys has a regular route mapped out for their act, with a season which would make a standard vaudeville team sob with envy. Why, girls, it's nothin' at all for a pair of 'em to box each other a coupla times a week on a trip around a circuit that extends from Maine to California, takin' turns in winnin' by a "shade."

A sparrin' partner which has got anything at all conuected with his head outside of a tin ear, soon learns to