Fisticuffs

These champions--they fight and then they don't fight--and then sooner or later they have to fight again. And sometimes they come as good or better than before, and sometimes not so good. Then there is another champion.

That is how some people thought it would be when it was announced that Mickey Walker, world's welterweight champion, was to fight Dave Shade, the Californian who had been three years trying to pick just this scrap, before Tex Rickard accommodated him and fixed the place of the bout in the Yankee Stadium in New York City.

Some feared that Walker would be weakened in making the weight of 147 pounds, and some thought Shade's weaving, twisting, doubled-up way of fighting, with his stiff punch and swift attack, would be too much for the Champion.

It was not so. Walker stepped into the ring in the best of health and outfought his opponent. He fought as he has not fought since three years ago when he whipped Jack Britton in Madison Square Garden. He battered Shade and weakened him. He punched the elasticity out of Shade's body, and he ripped open his face. In the last round of the 15 allotted he all but knocked Shade out.

It was brawny and bloody, and decisive.