The Old Willard?

Reports of last week to the contrary, despatches from Excelsior Springs, Mo., indicate that Jess Willard has broken under the strain of training for his fight with Floyd

Johnson. " Three years of inactivity have made Willard a lumbering old man. He cannot reduce without road work and his legs will not sustain protracted running."

Jess has some weeks ahead in which to solve the problem. If he fails to fit his ancient frame for a respectable showing, Luis Angel Firpo has been signed to substitute at short notice.

Eugene Criqui, French featherweight and champion of Europe, will train at Manhasset, L. I., for his impending battle with Johnny Kilbane. He has leased the house where Georges Carpentier conditioned himself to fight Dempsey.

" I was robbed," asserted Battling Siki, interviewed in the Rat Mort, a Paris cafe. The Sengalese fighter referred to the decision which relieved him of his crown of light-heavyweight champion of the world after his St. Patrick's Day fight with Mike Mc-Tigue in Dublin. As the evening wore on Siki's spirits rose. He knocked out a diner who laughed at him. The next morning the conquered convive had him haled to court for assault and battery.