Word: berlenbach
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1920-1929
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that evening Paul Berlenbach, a onetime taxi-driver with an extraordinarily brutal and stupid face and enormous muscles, won the world's light-heavyweight championship from shifty, tired Mike McTigue. His methods was to plough flat-footed after the Irishman, taking two punches to one for the occasional privilege of bringing home his cemetery left. The referee's decision was unpopular. "A champion is ut," McTigue's followers queried, "that ham an'egger?" They were consoled only because they had seen, in a preliminary bout, a light-heavyweight boxer whose speed and rhythm surpassed anything...
Last week, in the white glare of an 18-foot ring, Berlenbach and Slattery touched gloves and began to weave about each other, glaring. Since the spring evening upon which they had simultaneously established their reputations, Berlenbach had been disqualified for stalling in a bout against Tony Marullo (TIME, July 27), and Slattery been knocked unconscious by a blow from the fist of David Shade, welterweight (TIME, July 13). The stalling, many thought was quite to be expected from a onetime taxidriver; the knockout was a regrettable accident. Nevertheless, as the two squared off, not a few, who had learned...
...Berlenbach launched a one-two punch like the slow, alternate strokes of a freight locomotive's pistons. Slattery danced out; he lifted his hands from his sides to flick the sultry visage of his opponent; he mocked and mowed, smiling his smile of a derisive faun; his body flashed with spite. Berlenbach lowered his head. When struck, he shook it from side to side-a bull perplexed by dragonflies...
Disgraceful. A crowd in Newark, N. J., hooted and jeered. Ringside humorists expressed the idea that they had come to see a boxing match, not a pillow fight between a couple of roommates. In the center of the ring Paul Berlenbach, cloudy-faced Light Heavyweight Champion, stood with his huge arms around Tony Marullo, New Orleans fondler. Now and then they stepped apart, dealt each other coy fillips. The referee warned the fighters against petting. They did not heed. Customers' catcalls grew louder. At length the referee ended the disgraceful scene, ordered both from the ring...
...hooters, the booers, who walked to the exits across the transformed baseball diamond, consoled themselves with the reflection that they had seen, that evening, at least one light-heavyweight who knew how to box. Neither Berlenbach nor McTigue was this one, but an adolescent named Jimmy Slattery,* who knocked out Jack ("Bulldog") Burke, Dempsey's best sparring partner, in a round and a half of the third preliminary. He was so fast that he never lifted his hands from his sides to parry, struck with his wrists slack and whippy until the moment of impact. The beauty...