The Hero from Hartford

Success had had its bitter side for little Willie Pep. As fancy a featherweight as ever tied on gloves, he won so many fights (134 against one defeat) that home-town Hartford, Conn, took him for granted. Willie grew cocky and careless. Result: last October he was knocked out cold by Challenger Sandy Saddler. Willie lost his featherweight crown, but in defeat Hartford began to rally round him and he became a town hero on a comeback trail. The home folks bellowed for a return engagement.

For weeks, Willie trained in a Hartford gym, while his neighbors piled in to watch. Last week, some 6,500 Connecticut fans followed him to Manhattan by auto and special trains, helped fill Madison Square Garden for a prizefight for the first time in three years.

Willie fought cautiously for three rounds, peppering Champion Sandy Saddler with rapierlike left jabs and occasionally plastering him with solid rights. The champion, a willowy 22-year-old Negro from Manhattan, had a longer reach and harder punch, but he had a hard time hitting shifty Willie. The Hartfordites roared with partisan joy as Willie built up a lead on points. Then the fight became a slugging match as the 126-pounders threw everything they had. Saddler had Pep reeling drunkenly in the tenth round; another good punch would have been the end of Willie. But wily Willie, a shrewd hand and a good boxer, hung on, dodged, shook loose the cobwebs between rounds. Just before the bell ended the 15th, Pep was in trouble again; as he ducked a punch he sagged, momentarily helpless, against the ropes. Saddler swayed toward him--trying to find strength for just one more swing. He couldn't, and the bell ended one of the most rousing scraps in Garden history.

Twenty-six-year-old Willie Pep, decided the judges, had won his return engagement, become the first featherweight in history to win back his crown undisputedly after losing it. Hartford folks who bet their shirts on him won a small fortune from the big-city slickers. Mumbled battered Willie, who had been worried lest somebody might have thought he gave up too quickly last October: "I had to prove the last one was no phony."

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