Guaranteed Ferocious

In his training camp, Senor Victorio Maria Campolo, towering Argentine heavyweight fighter (TIME, June 24) tried desperately, ineffectually, to scowl, to glower, to crook his smile into a sneer, jibing onlookers, unconvinced of his ferocity, were told: "You should see him bulldog, skin and dress a steer for barbecue in nine minutes."

Without the scowl but with butchery in heart, Meat-Dresser Campolo last week met in a Brooklyn fight ring the recurrent Thomas Heeney of Australia, who since his battle with onetime Champion Tunney has been married, grown fat, taken maulings in two of his three fights. The prodigious Campolo, dominating Heeney half a foot in height, 20 pounds in weight, many inches in reach,* needed no glower to terrorize. Undaunted, Heeney charged the massive Argentine, belted him soundingly, won several early rounds. Frequently Campolo turned his head, spat nervously, was biffed. Then in round eight, Campolo unloosed a right uppercut which hoisted Heeney clean off the canvas. At the ringside, Heeney's wife tore her handkerchief, moaned into it. In the ninth Heeney was twice bumped to the floor, twice wambled up again. The referee, humane, stopped the bout but neglected the ceremony of lifting high the victor's right hand. Campolo, a ceremonious Latin, raised it himself, promenaded about the ring, threw kisses to the audience.

Gratifying to Promoter Humbert J. Fugazy was this demonstration of his South American hopeful's ferocity. In that ghostly company of world's heavyweight championship contenders Campolo takes a place not more than two removes from Germany's potent Max Schmeling. About 20,000 saw the fight in Brooklyn. In Buenos Aires 50,000 volatile Latins lined the Avenida de Mayo reading round by round results flashed on bulletin boards in front of the newspapers La Prensa and La Critica. Afterward, ecstatic, they sang, cheered, paraded the streets until midnight. One man who did not parade: a pudgy auto salesman named Luis Angel Firpo, onetime "wild bull of the Pampas," who has boasted he could whip Campolo with one hand. In Campolo's little hometown, Quilmes, the populace surrounded his home, wildly cheered his aged parents.

*Giant Campolo's reach is 82 in., 8 in. longer than that of William Harrison ("Jack") Dempsey.