Carp vs. Gibbons

At Michigan City, Ind., Tom Gibbons, St. Paul heavyweight, won a popular decision from Georges Carpentier, French "orchid man," in a ten-round no-decision boxing bout. Carpentier, at 173 1/2, was 5 1/2 pounds heavier than when he lost to Dempsey three years ago. "I'm ready," said he before the fight. "Ready and confident. You say to me, 'Can I win?' I say to you, 'How can I lose ?'" Franc,ois Descamps. Carpentier's manager, corroborated this. "After 16 years he looks better than he ever looked before. And I mean that from my heart." Gibbons also felt satisfied with his training. "That I shall remove Georges Carpentier, the French heavyweight, from my path to another meeting with Dempsey, is my firm belief." When the boxers entered the ring they were all smiles. Carp smiled his customary gracious smile; and Gibbons smiled his good-natured smile. At the end of the bout Gibbons was still smiling his good-natured smile. Carp however, was not smiling. Gibbons wore a dark heavy sweater under a dark brown dressing-gown. Carp was clad in a light gray robe with black fringes. As the two fighters shook hands, Carp was heard to exclaim in English : "Good luck to you !" The Fight. Carpentier, though managing to remain vertical until the end, was converted into a pulp of bruised and bloody flesh by the slashing head and body blows of Gibbons. It was against the Frenchman's body that Gibbons directed his main attack, and as the final bell sounded, Carp's torso was seen to be a red, raw mass. Georges' face, also, was smeared with blood from a cut over his eye, and his nose and lips had been sadly battered. Carp attempted something like an offensive in the first four rounds, especially in the fourth, when his famed right landed on Gibbons' jaw and rocked him for a moment. Gibbons, stung, concealed his trouble and soon counterattacked. From that point until the end the bout was more like a race than a fight. Carpentier, in full retreat, was near a knock-out in the ninth and tenth rounds. In the ninth he fell without being hit and claimed an injured leg. At this point, Gibbons noticeably let up in his attack when Carp seemed pleading verbally with him in the last two rounds. Unsportsmanlike. Gibbons was decidedly the favorite of the crowd. In the ninth, when Georges fell and claimed an injured leg, there was an unsportsmanlike round of booes and hisses. These were repeated when the Frenchman left the ring. The booing of the crowd was caused by the remembrance of Carp's excuses three years ago, when he broke his hand against Champion Dempsey's jaw. Carpentier, the crowd realized, injured his leg against Gibbons when he was in the midst of his strategic retreat. At this point, one of the ringside sitters yelled out: "The Frog wants to quit!" Rewards. There was no title at stake, and the fight will not go down in the official records, because Indiana laws do not permit decision bouts. The only reward of the boxers was the fun of the thing--and the money. Of the latter, Carp received $70,000, and Gibbons, $61,781. Cheese Factory. Descamps and Carpentier expect to take their $70,000 and put it into the manufacture of small round wooden cheese boxes. They already have a profitable business in cheese boxes, the demand for which is on the increase. Flyweight

In Brooklyn, a Filipino (Pancho Villa) won a decision from a Welshman (Frankie Ash) and retained the flyweight (116 pound) boxing championship of the world. The brute strength of Villa failed to crush utterly the clever Ash, frail, skinny, anemic "with arms like pipe-stems and legs like reeds." Though Villa got the decision, Ash got the glory. Villa hewed and hacked, charged, struck blindly. In the second round he opened a cut on Ash's lip; later the blood flowed from the same wound. But Ash, with faultless foot work, danced lightly out of Villa's reach. Only once did Ash fall; in the second round one of Villa's wild blows caught the back of his head, knocked him through the ropes. Villa won by his aggressiveness. He wore Ash down with his continual rain of blows. At the end of the bout the faultless toe-dancing was no more. Weary Ash was dancing flatfooted.