Gallant Galento

"I just hit 'em and they go ah-h-h-h-h-h-h!" For the last five years barrel-bellied, beer-bibbing Tony Galento, a New Jersey saloonkeeper, has made this boast to anyone within earshot. And for five years everyone within earshot has smiled at the pasty, pudgy little prattler and his self-appraised ability to knock out the best prizefighter in the world. He looked as unfit for the prize ring as a dachshund for a greyhound race.

Last week, after a year of extravagant ballyhoo on the part of his manager, shrewd Oldtimer Joe Jacobs, Two-Ton Tony (weight 233!) was given his chance against the best prizefighter in the world, Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis. Not in years had a world's championship heavyweight match been given such a jocular press. Boxing experts noted that 29-year-old Galento had been around for eleven years, had been defeated 22 times, was a slow-moving human tub whose boxing technique consisted of roughhouse butting, wrestling, sticking thumbs in opponents' eyes. They agreed that the little fat man had nothing but a roundhouse left, elephantiasis of the ego and an honest conviction that Louis was a bum.

However, there was always a chance that a miracle might happen, and what a laugh it would be if a barkeep who trained on hops and did his roadwork in a Chevrolet were to win the world's heavyweight championship! So, one moonlit night last week, largely out of sardonic curiosity, 35,000 fight fans turned up in New York City's Yankee Stadium. No miracle happened. But ringsiders had to admit that no one since Max Schmeling in 1936 had got into a ring with Joe Louis with less fear of him.

Crouched over so that the effect was that of a turtle trying to annoy a mastiff, Galento looped up and over with his left, time after time, during the first round. He even crowded Louis to the ropes, belaboring him picturesquely but not damagingly.

In the second, Louis, peering down mastiff-like for an opening, let go. Over went Turtle Galento on his back. But he got back on his feet and in the third he even caught the mastiff off balance and rolled him over for a count of one. After that it was like all Louis fights, save the one he lost to Schmeling. He straightened the turtle up and subjected him to a swift and terrible mauling.

After 1:49 sec. of the fourth round, Referee Arthur Donovan untangled Galento from the ropes, awarded a technical knock out to Louis and dragged Galento to his corner. When he came to and had his fat face put back together with 23 stitches, the gallant little tavern-keeper set some kind of world's record by being just as unafraid of Louis as when he went into the ring. He still thought he could beat him. "I just got a little careless," he explained through lacerated lips. "That bum's way overrated. He's not even a patch on Jack Johnson's pants." Meanwhile, more disinterested sports men hailed Joe Louis as the greatest pugilist of all time -- no one had ever successfully defended the world's heavyweight championship seven times.

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