Sharkey v. Schmeling

After two years of talk, delay, and a series of bouts that eliminated such contenders as Johnny Risko (tough Cleveland baker boy), Jack Delaney (gay Canadian), Tommy Loughran (a light heavyweight champion grown fat) and Phil Scott (English sailor famed for claiming fouls), a match was arranged to decide the heavyweight championship of the world. Jack Sharkey, garrulous descendant of Lithuanian immigrants to Binghamton, N. Y., onetime U. S. sailor, climbed into a ring at the Yankee Stadium, Manhattan, wearing a U. S. flag over his shoulders. He was roundly booed, bit his glove in irritation. From the opposite corner, crouching awkwardly, came Max Siegfried Adolf Otto Schmeling, cool, Dempseyesque but inexperienced German.

Schmeling hit Sharkey in the mouth, mashed his lip against a tooth so that it bled. Sharkey spat the blood out contemptuously, stabbed Schmeling with long lefts, shook him with short rights. In the next round Schmeling, clearly outboxed and looking much smaller than Sharkey (he was 9 Ib. lighter) landed less often. Sharkey hit him hard, punching from every angle. Repeatedly Schmeling set himself to throw his only effective punch, a short, straight right to the jaw. Repeatedly Sharkey threw him off balance, mixed him up, hurt him. In the third round Sharkey hit him hard four times on the jaw. Schmeling wobbled to the ropes, covered his face with his elbows, weathered the round. In the fourth he rushed at Sharkey as the latter led a hard uppercut at his body. As the punch landed. Schmeling fell forward, writhing, gripping his groin. Handlers and managers jumped into the ring. Referee Jim Crowley, thin, baldheaded, hatchet-faced, ran from corner to corner, asking the two ring judges what they thought. One judge had not seen the punch. The other, an optometrist named Harold Reade Barnes, insisted it was foul. Accordingly Referee Crowley pushed Sharkey, crestfallen and dismayed, into his corner, declared Schmeling, still unable to stand, the winner.

Said Retired Champion Gene Tunney, a ringside spectator: "It was low ... a dangerous punch. Once I tried an uppercut like that against Chuck Wiggins. I fouled him twice and the referee warned me. The third time I landed low the referee became quite peeved. Then Chuck Wiggins spoke for the first time. 'Gee whiz, Mr. Referee, that punch was low. . . .'"

Said Phil Scott of England who was disqualified in his fight with Sharkey in Miami in February although Sharkey had hit him low: "The whole thing was a farce. I'm glad Schmeling won. I will fight him after I have beaten Stribling. Then we will have a real world's champion. . . ."

Said William Muldoon, venerable New York State Athletic Commissioner: "I don't like to disagree, but I saw the punch. ... It was fair. . . . Sharkey really won in my opinion. ..." Mr. Muldoon also said, as one of the trustees of the Tunney-Muldoon trophy symbolical of the world's championship, that Schmeling's name would never be inscribed thereon for a victory won on a foul.

Said Schmeling: "Once before (in an early round) he hit me low and I tell him 'Be careful, Jack' but he don't answer me. He could not hurt me in the early rounds which I knew were his best. ... I fight my fight just as I want it and when my chance is coming I am fouled. ... I am disgusted to win like that. . . ."

Said Sharkey: "He came in too high. Why didn't they disqualify Dempsey when he fouled me? . . ."

From Manhattan, pictures of the fight were cabled to continental newspapers. At the ringside one George Abraham, 55, a stationer, sat so still while people cheered and screamed that the man in the next seat shook him, then signaled ushers. Dead of heart failure, Stationer Abraham was carried out by two policemen.

To Sharkey and Schmeling went $177,917 each from gross receipts of $749,934; to the Free Milk Fund for Babies, Inc. (chairman, Mrs. William Randolph Hearst) went $150,000. The balance when expenses had been deducted, went to Madison Square Garden Corp.

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