Berlenbach v. Delaney

Those who saw Paul Berlenbach win the world's lightheavyweight championship last year from that sly old Irish Reynard, Michael McTigue, were confident that he would not long retain it. He was no boxer, that was plain; his one weapon was a left hook that crippled metaphor, but looked as easy to dodge as a freight train. He was not pretty to look at either, being a somewhat scarred ex-taxi-driver with a thick nose, thick jaw, thick mouth and a pair of cold, slow, brutal eyes. He seemed a fighter without imagination, he ever comes up against a fast man who can hit, he'll be done for," critics said.

Paul Berlenbach showed that he was not afraid to fight. He fought boxers and took what they had to give and tired them out; he boxed fighters and hit harder than they did. In December he beat young Jack Delaney, a French-Canadian who could both dance and hit. Critics began to think better of Paul Berlenbach.

Last week in Brooklyn he gave Jack Delaney a return match--15 rounds to a decision. The cold eyes glinted slow malice; the pale, hairy body moved forward, paused, swayed, moved forward. In the fifth round one of Delaney's whizzing fists dropped Berlenbach to one knee. Berlenbach arose and moved forward with Delaney dancing in and out and more fists whizzing, now to Berlenbach's crushed nose, now to his gloomy mouth, now to his heaving midriff. None of Berlenbach's long, stiff blows were steered anywhere near dancing Delaney. At the end, the referee's course was plain before him and he took it. The ladies of Bridgeport, Conn., where amiable young Delaney trains and where he is often called "Gentleman Jack," can now enlist, for their teas and charity sociables, not merely an obliging and handsome young exhibition boxer but the world's champion lightheavyweight.