Finkelstein v. Giordano

The principals in San Francisco's first important title prizefight for 19 years, held last week, were Young Corbett (Raffaele Giordano of Fresno, Calif.) and Jackie Fields (Jacob Finkelstein of Chicago) who won the welterweight championship three years ago, lost it to young Jack Thompson, won it back last year from Lou Brouillard. Corbett, flat-nosed, dark-haired, stocky, confident because he had beaten Fields once when the championship was not at stake, started the fight with a left to the chin that backed Fields against the ropes. Then for five rounds he executed a strategic retreat, peppering Fields with a right jab and a left cross when the champion, forcing the fight as a champion should, charged in with his head low, swinging both hands. The referee, Lieutenant Jack Kennedy, U. S. N., gave Corbett every round up to the sixth when Corbett failed to back away from a right to the jaw just before the bell. Corbett won the seventh but the eighth was even; Fields came on again in the ninth and had a chance to keep his title by a strong finish. There was one exchange in which both men stood still in the centre of the ring, trading punches with mathematical fairness; the round ended in the pattern of the fight, Fields charging in, Corbett punching. When the bell rang, Referee Kennedy took the title to Corbett's corner.

Fourth "Corbett" to win a boxing championship,* Raffaele Giordano chose his pseudonym 13 years ago when, a newsboy who learned boxing in street fights, he was matched against a newsboy named Jeffries. James J. Corbett's brother ran a pool room; Raffaele Giordano bought his father a pool room out of his ring earnings, bought himself a service station when, after beating Young Jack Thompson in an overweight match, it began to seem likely that no welterweight champion would dare share a ring with him.

*First was the late James John ("Gentleman Jim") Corbett, son of a San Francisco livery-stable owner. First "Young Corbett" was George Green of San Francisco who thrashed Mysterious Billy Smith for the welterweight championship in 1897. "Terrible Terry" McGovern lost his featherweight championship to the second "Young Corbett" (William Rothwell) in 1901.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.