Phantom Fight

When, to the amazement of the boxing world, German Pugilist Max Schmeling knocked out Negro Pugilist Joe Louis a year ago, his just reward was obviously a bout with Heavyweight Champion James J. Braddock. Contracts were signed last winter. The bout was scheduled for last week.

But after his defeat by Schmeling, Pugilist Louis regained prestige. Champion Braddock and his manager presently decided a bout with Louis might be more profitable than a bout with Schmeling. They signed a contract for that one also. The contracts were mutually exclusive but the ethics of pugilism are such that no one was much surprised at this nor by Champion Braddock's announcement that he had no intention of living up to his contract with Schmeling. Only unusual feature of the affair was the behavior of Pugilist Schmeling.

With what sportswriters regarded as an extraordinary disregard for professional conventions, Pugilist Schmeling announced that he would live up to his end of his bargain. Backed by Madison Square Garden Corp., which publicized the fight, and printed tickets for it, he went into training for a month at Speculator, N. Y., announced that he was confident of winning by a knockout. Only detail in all this preparation that admitted that neither Schmeling nor the Garden actually expected the fight to take place was that on the tickets, of which 43 were sold as curios, Schmeling's name was misspelled with two Is.

Less unrealistic than it seemed, Schmeling's stubborn conduct had a purpose: to force the New York State Athletic Commission, whose function it is to give prize fighting an air of respectability, to award him the title by default. Last week, when Schmeling went from Speculator to Manhattan to weigh in at the Athletic Commission offices for the phantom fight, his hopes were disappointed. Instead of awarding the title to Schmeling, the Commission merely voted to fine Braddock and his manager $1,000 each, suspend the champion for an indefinite period. In such a rage that a scheduled radio talk in which he was to tell the public his side of the story had to be canceled as too violent, Pugilist Schmeling promptly sailed back to Germany. Boxing critics predicted the outcome: a bout between Schmeling and the winner of the Louis-Braddock fight (June 22), either this September or next spring.

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