Cap's New and Improved Alternate Universe

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From The Toronto Telegram May 13, 1905...James Ian Burke of Halifax, ring moniker "Sailor Burke", defeated Charlie Robinson of Winnipeg by decision for the latter's claim on the heavyweight championship of Canada last night...Robinson (189 1-2 lbs) had a record of 28-7-3 with 16 knockouts going into the fight and had not lost since December 20, 1902 when he was stopped in ten by Burke at Coaltown, Nova Scotia...Burke (190 3-4 lbs) was considered the number one challenger for the title having compiled a respectable 25-10-3 record over six years...The gate receipts at the Winnipeg City Rink amounted to $7,145; fourty percent of which was divided between the combatants, while a purse of $450 was paid to Robinson...After expenses, promoter Lou Silverman saw a profit of roughly $3,500...Referee Ed Palmer scored the bout 6 rounds for Burke 4 for Robinson and 2 even, agreeing with The Winnipeg Tribune, while the Daily Herald called it a draw...The standing room only crowd will probably guarantee a repeat performance...Here at home young Frank O'Malley, one time Canadian amateur champ, trounced a poorly conditioned Frank Osborne, stopping him on a technical knockout in the waning moments of the eighth round...Osborne tried but he clearly ran out of petrol by the fifth canto...Maple Leaf Stadium will finally open for business this month providing a home for the Toronto Clippers baseball club of the International League...Boxing promoter Tom Flanagan hopes to bring off a fistic extravaganza there this summer when the Clippers are playing out of town...The IBU looks like they will turn a blind eye to the establishment of Western and Eastern Canadian boxing championships, only recognizing the national title promoted by the CPBF...Arthur Pelkey wires this office to inform us he was not stopped by Jess Willard at Philadelphia the other day...His story is that after the Kansas giant put him down twice in the last round, Willard stepped on his foot and shoved him to the canvas when the referee was looking elsewhere and stopped the fight based on the three knockdown rule...Fighting across town at Philadelphia's Turner Hall, Canada's Bill Mackinnon narrowly outpointed slugger Frank Moran over ten rounds...Former provincial amateur boxing star Charlie Gage looked in great form in taking the decision from Montreal import Jean Lapointe on the undercard of the O'Malley-Osborne scrap...He was a bit wild but landed the harder punches and nearly had Lapointe down in the third but for the ropes holding him up...

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From the afternoon edition of The Detroit Tribune May 16, 1905...The aspirations of another "American Hope" were shattered here last night when Carl Morris the Tulsa giant was stopped in the seventh round of a 12 round bout by Luther McCarty of Springfield, Missouri...McCarty, the reigning Pacific Northwest boxing champion, took charge in the first round and retained control throughout the fight before a thunderous blow put Morris down for a count of nine in round seven...The hulking Oklahoman rose on shaky pins, dazed and unable to ward off the swift punching McCarty, at which point referee Charlie Eyton stepped between to halt the action and award the win to the former cowboy...McCarty came in at 205 while Morris was a bulky 238..."I can knock McCarty out in four or five rounds," opined Gunboat Smith, who watched the fight from ringside in the crowded Mission Street Arena, "I am willing to bet something that I could put either of them to sleep in less than ten rounds. I watched the fight closely and all I got was encouragement. Morris was out of shape or he would have put up a much better showing against this fellow McCarty."...Fighting at the venerable Hippodrome in New York, Tom Kennedy gave a boxing lesson to the bull-like Al Palzer yesterday despite taking a degree of punishment in the early rounds...Palzer's face was a mangled mess from the repeated left jabs that snapped his head back from the third round on...A right cross buckled his knees in round eight but he recovered and rushed at the curly-haired New Yorker til the end, enduring a rain of stiff punches that had spectators flinching...In Minneapolis lanky Fred Fulton continued his sweep through the lesser ranks of the heavyweight division with a first round technical knockout of New Jersey's Joe Costello...Fulton, in his second year as a professional, followed his dynamite left hook with a short chopping right that sprawled his smaller opponent on the boards where he lay as his corner threw in the towel...Jeff Clarke won his second South American bout with a knockout of Eduardo Herrera, but will have his next delayed as his expected opponent Angel Rodriguez lost his Latin American championship to fellow Uruguayan Valerio Ruelas in the main event...Joe Jeannette has signed to defend his US championship against sixth ranked challenger Jess Willard of Kansas at Trenton A.C. in New Jersey next month...

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Excerpt from the afternoon edition of The Barnsley Earwigger June 1905...Rather than accept a rematch with Georges Carpentier, EBU champion Tom Cowler has decided to take up offers from promoters in the rest of the Empire to engage in contests with their regional champions before touring the United States...Empire champion Bombardier Billy Wells appears about to sign articles to defend his title against South Afrika's George Boer Rodel in July...One of the most important contests in Glasgow for some time was decided in the Scottish National A.C. last night when Derek Beattie (13.9) of Perth met Colin Morrison (13.12) of Kilmarnock. The men were scheduled to go 10 three minute rounds with the Scots heavyweight title at stake, Beattie defending...Determined to prove that his win over Morrison last January was legitimate, Beattie forced the pace from the start, in the opening rounds particularly doing all the leading...Stunned by the force of the assault Morrison was placed on the retreat and took a heavy lathering with blows to the body and head...Beattie pressed the attack and soon had Morrison on wobbly legs barely able to protect himself...In the fourth round the one-sided shellacking ended with Morrison on his back taking a count, but he was up at four and the target of Beattie's renewed barrage of hooks and uppercuts as the crowd shouted to referee Dalgliesh to halt the slaughter...At 2:12 of round 4 the referee stepped in and the fight was over...At Eindhoven Jan De Groot (17-2-1) thrilled his countrymen with a fourth round knockout of Deutschland's heavily favoured Ernst Rosemann (18-4-2) and set himself on the path for a return go with Scotland's Battling Beattie...Eire's newest heavyweight sensations Bartley Madden and Jim Coffey are considering a permanent move to America on the advice of their trainer/manager Bill Gibson...The champion of that country, world-ranked Joe Jeannette, having recently retained his title with a win over the giant Jess Willard, is planning a tour of Europe this summer with an eye on a financially attractive rematch with the Frenchman Carpentier...

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From The Melbourne Age June 1905...Charlie Campbell, matchmaker for the Sydney Athletic Club, won the bid to promote Jack Howard's next title defence but postponed the event thanks to the elimination of the two top marquee names in Ern Waddy and Colin Bell...Bill Turner, who had just knocked out Bell at Sydney Stadium had made a poor showing against Howard two years ago and had had his stock further devalued thanks to a pair of knockout losses in recent memory...As for Archie Greaves, his victory over Waddy, while spectacular, had come out of nowhere and he is unknown outside of Victoria, despite his stoppage of George Stirling the previous Thursday...After surveying the fistic landscape, Campbell and Howard decide to make plans for the arrival of British and European heavyweight champion Tom Cowler, a matchup with whom would easily pack Sydney Stadium...At the Crystal Palace in Melbourne, Pat Doran takes a razor thin points victory over Jerry Jerome...Jerome lands more often but Doran's punches have more explosive force...At the Golden Gate Club Bill Walsh (13.9) takes on the visiting American giant Dan Daly (15.2) and though giving away height, weight and reach manages to outbox him before opening a bloody gash over his eye that forces a stoppage in the fifth round...On the same bill Boston's Morris Harris finally pulls off a win, dropping local favourite Jack Whittaker three times in round eight to force a technical knockout...At Wollongong Arena Albert Cripps decisions Yank Charlie Horn over eight innings and Kelly Mansfield gets the verdict over the shopworn veteran Des Quinlan...In Gisborne, New Zealand, Alec Pooley takes a decision in a slow fight with Colin Cameron and former New Zealand champion Jim Griffin suffers a knockout at the hands of young Wally Evans of Wellington...

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Advert first appears June 3rd on the sports pages of The Toronto Telegram, The Daily Star and The Globe and Mail with ringside tickets already on sale...Wire orders come into the Stadium box office from all over the Great Lakes region and as far away as Halifax and Boston, Philadelphia and Calgary...Promoter Tom Flanagan tells reporters he expects attendance of at least twenty five or thirty thousand but secretly plans for much more...The two participants have already set up training camps just outside the city and have hired spar-mates from locals as well as from Detroit and New York...

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Two articles run days before the Langford-Smith title fight, one from the New York Evening World and the other from The San Francisco Call...The odds favour the champion but a few big time gamblers on the west coast place heavy bets on Smith, triggering rumours of a fix...

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From the notebook of Frank Allnutt, senior sports reporter for The Toronto Daily Star...Round one was slow with neither man ready to commence real hostilities, and drew a few catcalls from the uneducated...Sam Langford stepped it up in round two, slinging punches from all angles with Gunboat Smith fending them off with shoulders and elbows and sending in a straight left or two...A few of Sam's punches got through and Smith was staggered just before the bell...In round three, full of confidence, Langford advanced smiling and ready to end it, and walked right into a crushing roundhouse right that dropped his hands...In that split second Smith stepped in and drove home a short left hook and a right uppercut, both to the head...Langford stumbled and caught a wide right swing just behind his left ear, causing him to fall forward into another left hook and drop to his knees...Glassy eyed Sam rose at eight, only to get nailed by another right hook on the side of his head...This time he fell his length on the boards and took another eight count before dragging himself up by the ropes...Smith readied another deadly volley, but the imported Boston referee Flemming waved him to his corner and signaled the fight over...Sam, not in top form, had weighed in at 195 1-2 and Smith 183 3-4...On the table in his dressing room, Sam told the two reporters and his seconds he could have continued and the referee was too quick by half to give the win to Smith...The Gunboat was swarmed in his room, congratulated by his new friends and laughing members of the press looking for a quote..."Langford was expecting me to wade in again like I did the first time, but Joe Jeannette advised me to box cautiously and wait for an opening. It came sooner than I expected. The odds were against me but I knew if I could just land my right hand square enough, he would go down. Now I'm champ and I call the shots so no rematch until I'm good and ready if ever."...Smith told one reporter, "I can safely say I made about $10,000 today. This amount includes my share of the gate receipts, bets I made on myself, $1200 in tips from gamblers who won money on my victory, and a share of the money my manager gave me out of the $8,100 which he won by betting on me."

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From the sporting section of The Pittsburgh Messenger July 1905...Luther McCarty advances in the march to the now vacant North American Boxing Federation title with the abdication of said championship by Gunboat Smith following Smith's sensational win over Sam Langford...Victories over Fireman Jim Flynn, Carl Morris, Al Palzer and Tom Kennedy have vaulted McCarty to the status of leading contender for the NABF title in the absence of Joe Jeannette who is on a steamer bound for Europe...Jeff Clarke has completed his contract in Argentina and may return stateside unless other offers present themselves...Jim Stewart is sailing for home along with his stablemates Alf Langford and Soldier Kearns and has cabled McCarty's manager his willingness to fight if the NABF is agreeable provided the title is on the line...Fred Fulton the giant Minnesotan is making a name for himself in the Chicago area and aims to take on stiffer competition after bowling over Walter Schulken inside two rounds on the undercard of the McCarty-Kennedy fight...Chuck Wiggins, Dave Mills and Tony Ross are some of the names tossed around by Fulton's manager Mike Collins as likely opponents...Frank Moran "The Fighting Dentist" took a clear decision over Nebraska's Jack Taylor before a hometown crowd at Victoria Hall in Pittsburgh and is reported to have signed to meet Big Bill Tate and Cleve Hawkins next month...Bill Brennan appears back on track after a first round demolition of big Al Kubiak last week and may take on either John Lester Johnson or Porky Dan Flynn if they prove willing to sign articles...

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From The Toronto Daily Star July 1905...James "Sailor" Burke retained his title with a shocking first round crushing of ex-champ Charlie Robinson at Winnipeg...The Canadian Professional Boxing Federation has released its quarterly rankings with Burke as heavyweight champion and Sam Langford* as number one challenger...Number 3 ranked contender Bill Mackinnon met Number 4 ranked Roddie MacDonald in a ten round contest at the old Halifax Forum and endured an early whipping before coming on to turn the tide in round seven...with barely a minute remaining and MacDonald hardly able to so much as raise his hands, Mackinnon delivered three sharp blows to the head and heart that put the Glace Bay Boy down for the count...At Hanlon's Point Pavilion Frank Laura (201 1-2) was given a gift decision over Arthur Pelkey (204 1-4) after ten rounds, the verdict seemingly based on a brief knockdown of Pelkey just before the final bell...Even Laura backers admitted the worst Pelkey should have received was a draw...On the undercard of the Burke-Robinson fight Danny Whitebear outpointed big Fred McKay despite disadvantages in height, reach and weight but had to be helped from the ring by his seconds...In the only other prelim George Stanley, the Vancouver pugilist and locally recognized West Coast boxing champion, took a clean decision over favoured Frank Osborne in eight tough innings...The win marks Stanley as the leading western-based heavyweight in Canada and should put him in line for good paydays going forward...One-time national amateur champion Frank O'Malley (190 3-4) ran up another score with a technical knockout of Montreal's Silas Green (183) improving his record to 12-2-1 with 9 KOs...O'Malley's crosstown rival Bill Doleman eked out an eight round nod over the Montreal veteran Phil Miller and has signed to fight the Montana Cowboy Tom McCarty who decisioned Charlie Fraser at Hamilton last week...Jim Barry the Chicago heavyweight was the headliner at Hamilton's Arena last night and slugged his way to an ugly decision over lightly regarded George DeBray of that city...(*Langford informed local press that his goal was fixed solely on regaining the World title.)

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From the August 1905 issue of Mitt Slingers Magazine...Gunboat Smith is handed the world championship belt in a ceremony and banquet at the Statler Hotel in New York by an official of the IBU...As Smith has vacated the NABF title, that body has opened the bidding process to promoters to arrange a match to find a new champion with one of the leading available challengers being Luther McCarty...With Joe Jeannette and Jeff Clarke out of the country, the next attractive opponents from a financial consideration are the Canadian title holder James "Sailor" Burke, New York's Bill "KO" Brennan and the Pittsburgh slugger Frank Moran...Jim Kennedy matchmaker of the 20th Century Club in New York is first off the mark with a purse of $7,000 split 55-45 and sixty percent of the gate receipts split 65% to the winner and 35% to the loser provided the principals are McCarty and Brennan...The Pennsylvania Athletic Club offers the 12,000 seat Duquesne Garden in Pittsburgh provided McCarty fights their boy Moran and sweetens the offer with seventy percent of the gate split fifty-fifty between the two men and a purse of $3,500 to the winner...Several smaller proposals come from Toronto, Montreal, Chicago and Detroit and a Halifax club suggests staging an open air contest at Wanderers Pitch just outside town provided their lad Burke is one of the opponents and pointing to the 25,000 fans who had shown up there for the Canada-US rugby match two weeks before...Bombardier Billy Wells is set to defend the Empire title against South Afrika's Boer Rodel at White City Stadium...British and European champion Tom Cowler has disembarked at Cape Town and is scheduled to box Mattius Obopu or Harry Smith before travelling on to Australia and has told reporters travelling with him he plans on touring America this year or next...Tommy Burns has officially joined the staff of the Dominion Boxing Foundation's academy in Vancouver as chief trainer working with aspiring champions like George Stanley and Tom Boden...

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Clipped from the weekly British Boxing News August 1905...British and European heavyweight champion Tom Cowler is on tour of the colonies much to the frustration of Georges Carpentier and his manager who petition the EBU to force a rematch for the title or strip Cowler of the belt...The Frenchman is still smarting over the draw decision he received after his fight with the American Joe Jeannette, a fight he and his backers felt sure he had won...Jeannette, feeling his years, for his part is content with the result and the 25,000 francs he was paid for his effort...The next day he boards a channel ferry at Calais with a contract to box ten rounds at Blackfriars's Ring, the opponent unnamed...In a match sponsored by the National Sporting Club at White City Stadium, Bombardier Billy Wells wins a technical knockout over the South Afrikan George 'Boer' Rodel putting him down three times in the ninth round after being staggered several times himself...Glasgow boxing fans are stunned into silence when their champion Derek Beattie (13.9) is knocked out cold at 2:40 of the tenth round by the 6'3" Dutchman Jan De Groot (14.12)...Referee Dalgleish's card had the foreigner ahead 6 rounds to 3 after nine rounds...At Hamburg's Sportsplatz Otto Flint thrills the home crowd with a decisive points victory over Georges Neret of France but is almost overshadowed by his countryman Ernst Rosemann's blitzkrieg kayo of Scotland's Colin Morrison less than a minute into round one...Eire's Bartley Madden and Jim Coffey sail for America following their manager Bill Gibson who prepares the way for permanent citizenship and profitable ring careers, Madden in Boston and Coffey in New York...Norway's perrenial contender Bjarni Thorsen announces his retirement after suffering an eighth round technical knockout to Hungary's young Charlie Weinert...

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Excerpt from The Australian Star Sept 13, 1905...News reaches Australasian champion Jack Howard that Tom Cowler has duplicated his feat of outpointing South Afrikan champion Mattius Obopu but in more decisive manner, putting him down five times, so Howard leaves his farm and begins light training in a Sydney gym to prepare for Cowler's arrival...In a bout widely promoted as an eliminator for a crack at the Australasian titleholder, Archie Greaves gives a bloody scragging to an over-confident Bill Turner who had been doing his workouts at Hobart's public houses...Greaves and his manager issue a challenge to Howard and petition the ANZBF to mandate an immediate title defence now that the only other real contenders have been disposed of by the Victorian...At Adelaide Arena the previous day Ern Waddy had eked out a ten round decision over Melbourne's other star pugilist Pat Doran, Referee Harry Dawson scoring five rounds to Waddy, four to Doran and one even...Out of town newspapers had felt Doran had done more than enough to claim the win...Two days earlier Colin Bell knocked out Cobar's George Stirling in front of a sparse crowd at Sydney Stadium, setting up a third match with Waddy that promised a much larger turnout...Overseas papers report yet another loss for former Empire champion Bill Lang, this time a technical knockout at 2:43 of the ninth round at Gaumont Palace, Paris at the hands of France's Marc Gaucher...Details are few but it is clear Lang had taken a bad beating and would likely be returning home..."..Dick Rafferty promoter at Melbourne's Crystal Palace has unearthed a probable champion in the person of Albert Lloyd who beat Bill Heckenberg recently. Taking Lloyd as he stands 12 months under a competent instructor at the Griffo Academy would make him a very hard man to beat."..."Young Lloyd is as fast as fire and showed it against middleweight Mick King in sparring the other day. A two-handed boxer very much like the South Australian Waddy, more than once it appeared as if he actually checked the lightning right cross that shot inside Mick's left lead, lest it should reach the chin too hard."...

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From the evening edition of The Calgary Daily Herald September 1905...At Sydney, Cape Breton an open-air ring in Colliers Field baseball park draws close to 12,000 spectators to a rain-delayed Labour Day benefit boxing card featuring Canadian champion Sailor Burke (186 1-2) and Prince Edward Island's Bill Mackinnon (181 3-4)...Some three years earlier a relatively inexperienced Burke had suffered a 10th round knockout at the hands of Mackinnon and here was his chance to get even...Showing much improved footwork and a savage aggression Burke tore into Mackinnon at the opening bell and delivered a ferocious body assault driving the older fighter around the ring, putting him down less than a minute later...From that point on Mackinnon was always on the back foot desperately evading the whirlwind of punches, trying hard to keep Burke at bay, but taking punishment in close...In the fourth round Burke drove home short sharp left hooks to the body and Mackinnon collapsed to his knees and told Referee MacNeil he could not continue, saying he had broken ribs...In the only preliminary Toronto's Frank O'Malley (192) throttled local lad Roddie MacDonald (178) in three bristling rounds, putting him on the canvas 4 times before MacDonald's corner reluctantly skied the towel...His chief second later explained his boy had broken his right hand in the first round and the thumb of his left hand in the second...At Montreal's jam packed Mount Royal Arena Charlie Robinson "The Winnipeg Cyclone" needed just inside two minutes to render Art Beaudoin "hors de combat" in their scheduled ten rounder...A lightning right hook over a slow left jab caught Beaudoin on the side of the head and it was all over...In the semi windup Wilfrid Gagne took a loss on points to New Brunswick's Al Lambert thanks to a pair of knockdowns in the seventh stanza...Promoter Armand Bibaud has thus seemingly lost his two best local attractions with no one else in the immediate picture, unless he can convince Gaspe's Horace "Soldier" Jones to turn pro...At Hanlon's Point, Toronto, on the undercard to the Arthur Pelkey-Laurie Mackenzie donnybrook, young prospect Charlie Gage took every round before knocking out veteran Ray Mullins in the sixth...Gage, a tricky southpaw, tipped the Fairbanks at a solid 186 1-2 and impressed ringsiders with his punch and his ring craft, and could be one to watch in the ring unless he decides to try his luck with the Argonauts football club...

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From The Buffalo Evening Courier September 1905...In a clash for the vacant North American Boxing Federation heavyweight championship Luther McCarty the former cowpuncher was awarded a technical knockout over Pittsburgh's Frank Moran in the eleventh round at Duquesne Garden in the latter's hometown...McCarty clearly dominated the combat, Moran winning only two rounds, but the action was slow and in some innings few effective blows were landed...The end came with Moran trapped in a neutral corner taking several hard punches to the body and head without reply and seemingly on the verge of slipping to the boards when Referee Haley stepped in and called a halt...Moran's corner protested the stoppage but their fighter did not...Some members of the assembled press were not overly enthusiastic about the new champion's performance against what they called a "second-rater" pointing to McCarty's inability to hurt his opponent when he had him at his mercy several times in the early rounds...At Tulsa, Oklahoma big Carl Morris took apart the Iowa farmboy Al Palzer sending him to the canvas three times and taking the referee's decision after ten rounds of hard slogging...Morris is determined to get another run at McCarty to prove his earlier loss was a fluke...In a grand double-header in Brooklyn Tom Kennedy derailed the Pottawatomie Giant Jess Willard, outpointing him over eight sleep-inducing rounds, and Bill "KO" Brennan managed a clean knockout of the shopworn Jim Stewart after putting him on the floor numerous times prior to the fatal eighth canto...Jim Kennedy, matchmaker at Madison Square Garden, had promised to put the winners on there this fall...At Brown's Arena, New York, up-and-comer Al Reich improved his record to 8-1-0 with a first round kayo of Joe Vidas of Philadelphia...Fred Fulton has sent Al Kubiak into retirement with a fifth round technical knockout at Minneapolis...The lanky Minnesotan sporting a 15-0-1 record with 12 wins via KO looms as a real threat in the dreadnought class...Another climbing the rungs of the heavyweight ladder is John Lester Johnson who recently won a one-sided decision over the Newcastle Colossus Dan Daly at Chicago's Marathon Arena...The undercard featured a young westerner calling himself Kid Blackie who put away Ted Gilmore the New Jersey fighter in under a minute of round one...There are persistent rumours that Gunboat Smith will be defending his title against England's Bombardier Wells sometime before December...

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From The Glasgow Herald November 1905...Promoter Honoré Dorval petitions the governing bodies to allow his headliner at the Cirque de Paris between Georges Carpentier and Jan De Groot to be publicized as an interim championship while the lineal title-holder, Tom Cowler is away...The championship committee votes to give Cowler six months to return and defend the EBU title or vacate...Carpentier needs six rounds to get to the tall Hollander and finishes him with a hard swing to the temple that lays him out for ten...At Glasgow fair-minded sports are critical of referee Reid's verdict for Derek Beattie over the German Otto Flint but most who have shelled out feel the fecht was naur enough that it could have gone either way...The Victoria A.C. offers to put the two men on again with a purse of £50 and a percentage of the gate receipts...At the Berlin Sportpalast Hungary's young Charlie Weinert makes a second attempt to get one over on Ernst Rosemann but it ends in exactly the same manner with three knockdowns in round one resulting in a technical knockout of Weinert...So it's back to the drawing board and a new trainer for the Hungarian...The crowd at London's Olympia Hall saw American Joe Jeannette dismantle PO Matty Curran inside five rounds his last contest before returning to the States...In the six round preliminary Clapham's "Fighting Farmer" Frank Goddard gives such a savage beating to Gunner Moir that the referee is forced to intercede to save Moir with seconds left in the first round...That same evening in Edinburgh, beefy German plodder Horst Breitung (15st) brawls to an eight round decision over Colin Morrison (14st 3lb) of Kilmarnock...Citing his perceived lack of effort, the club bars Morrison from any future events and fines him fifteen shillings...Glasgow fight fans will have to look elsewhere for a future heavyweight champion...Empire champion Bombardier Billy Wells is over the pond to test his mettle against world champion Gunboat Smith...

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From The Kalgoorlie Sun November 1905...Three major boxing contests took place recently...Sydney Stadium saw the important international battle between England's Tom Cowler and our Jack Howard for a substantial purse that drew a large and enthusiastic crowd...Sadly it ended with the local lad declared the loser on points seven rounds to three...In Adelaide Ern Waddy once again defeated Colin Bell on points over a ten round course in a very close struggle, there were no knockdowns..."..The boxing contest between Archie Greaves and Bill Lang took place last week at Melbourne Stadium. The fight lasted a round and a half, and even then it was a fiasco. Lang made no decent showing at all, and mainly through clean rights to the jaw and uppercuts, Greaves floored the former Australasian champ at which point referee Wally Weekes stepped in and awarded a technical knockout to Greaves..."...In a ripper of a stoush at Wellington Hall two New Zealand boys gave the fans their money's worth over eight lightning fast rounds...Referee J. Nash scored it six rounds to two for Alec Pooley over Wally Evans, but the Wellington Daily Mail's correspondent had it 3-3-2 a draw...The Adelaide Times agreed with the referee's verdict...At Melbourne's Crystal Palace Pat Doran (13.10) and Bill Turner (14.1) battled to a draw over ten innings, with Doran taking the first half and Turner the second...On the undercard Albert Kid Lloyd (12.13) needed just two minutes to settle the hash of Newtown's Digger Ed Williams (13.8) improving his record to 6-0 with 4 KOs, while Williams fell to 16-25-6...

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Mitt Slingers Magazine has received an advance copy of the official programme for the Gunboat Smith-Bombardier Wells world heavyweight championship fight and presents it here along with snippets of the pre-fight press from three major newspapers...

Washington Star - Bombardier Wells, the English heavyweight, who meets Gunboat Smith in a fifteen-round bout at Madison Square Garden Friday night, showed wonderful form during an exhibition staged in his New York training quarters to-day, and feels confident of scoring a knockout.

Toronto Telegram - According to his manager and trainer Jim Maloney, Bombardier Wells, the English heavyweight, has been studying the film of Gunboat Smith's first fight with Sam Langford. Wells and Smith are matched to box fifteen rounds at Madison Square Garden Friday night and the Englishman is asking questions of any local fighters who have previously fought Smith.

Newark Courier - Following some light exercise at Sharkey's A.C. world heavyweight champion Gunboat Smith who is to box Bombardier Wells, the British Empire champion, Friday night, has finished his training. His manager Jimmy Buckley declared that Smith was in the best condition of his entire career. At the conclusion of his workout yesterday with Denver Ed Martin and Fred McKay, Smith weighed slightly under 185 pounds. Wells, who completed his training at a Bronx roadhouse said he felt in tip-top condition and expects to enter the ring at 195 pounds.

Smith was quoted, "Wells' punches and cleverness may be wonderful but I can hit as hard as he can and if he mixes with me he'll take the full count. The title will be staying put in America."

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Headlines from North American newspapers Saturday, November 25th, 1905...Bombardier Wells easily outboxes Gunboat Smith in round one and even puts Smith briefly on the canvas...In round two, still following his corner's directions, Wells keeps Smith at the end of his jab and occasionally shoots over a stiff right cross...Two minutes in, encouraged by the mob, Wells decides to open up and try to knock Smith out and walks into a looping right that sends him tumbling on his back...Wells recovers and survives the round but takes a battering...Seconds into the third round Smith drives home a short left hook to the body of the lanky Englishman folding him in half at which point the ex sailor shifts to his right and hooks over an explosive right to the back of Wells' head...Wells goes down on his face, rolls over on his back and there he stays out clean and cold...Smith received $4,525.32 which was 30 per cent of the gross receipts. Wells drew down $3,637.22 or 25 per cent of the gate...

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Culled from the pages of the December issue of Mitt Slingers Magazine...Contests scheduled for late November and December include 12 rounds for the American Boxing Association's heavyweight title between champion Joe Jeannette of New Jersey and the Oklahoma Brakeman Carl Morris; Fred Fulton Vs Charlie Robinson of Canada; Jim Coffey Vs Tom Kennedy; Alf Langford Vs Bartley Madden; Bill Brennan (NYC) Vs Frank O'Malley (Toronto) and Jess Willard the Pottawatomie Giant Vs big Al Palzer...

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The cover of the December 1905 Mitt Slingers Magazine...After the issue's publication and its hitting the newsstands Luther McCarty (208) retained his NABF title belt with a 12th round technical knockout of Canada's Sailor Burke (192 3-4) at Chicago's Coliseum...December 5th, at Philadelphia's Olympia Arena Tony Ross (202 1-4) won a technical decision after six rounds over Dave Sawyer (188) after an accidental head butt opened a gash in Ross' forehead...December 6th, at Clermont Avenue Rink in Brooklyn John Lester Johnson (182) and Jim Savage (197) boxed to an eight round draw...Canton Municipal Auditorium saw Jim Barry (198) knock out Dave Mills (193 1-2) in six innings...December 8th, at Brown's Arena in New York Sailor White (192) outpointed Cleve Hawkins (189 1-2)...Dan Daly (218) KO'd Battling Jim Johnson (200 1-4) in six rounds at Tattersall's Arena, Chicago...December 9th, at New York's Hippodrome Jim Stewart (206) lost three rounds to Porky Flynn (197 1-2) before putting over a knockout in the 4th...Headline bout at Toronto's Mutual Street Arena will see Bill Mackinnon (28-11-4) meet Arthur Pelkey (18-9-2) in ten rounds...