Word: braddock
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...misty June moon shone down on Madison Square Garden's Long Island City Bowl one night last week as a solemn prizefighter in a blue bathrobe climbed through the ropes. The plain Irish face of James J. (born Walter) Braddock was puckered with earnest anxiety. Improvident of his earnings when he was a top-flight light heavyweight seven years ago, 29-year-old Jimmy Braddock had, after successive defeats, toppled completely out of the prize ring. He worked briefly as a janitor. He made a pittance as a stevedore on the New Jersey docks opposite Manhattan. Finally he changed...
...fisticuffing and, by inference, its patrons. The fact that he had won his title in the same ring where he was now about to risk it. and where no championship had ever been competed for without changing hands, did not appear to worry happy-go-lucky Baer. Over Braddock he had the advantages of weight (18 lb.), reach (3 in.) and a fabulous right-hand punch which had once killed a man. In all earnestness he had told reporters: "I'm scared stiff I'll kill Braddock. I dreamed last night I hurt the boy. I woke...
When the referee warned Baer for hitting low, he made a ludicrous bow. When the champion noticed an acquaintance at the ringside, he waved a friendly greeting. When Braddock reached his face with stinging but unimportant jabs, Baer sounded a jolly ''Ho, ho!" But solemn, plodding Jimmy Braddock took the first three rounds...
...fourth round Baer seemed suddenly to settle down to business. Striking an antique posture with his long left arm extended, Baer measured his opponent, cocked his deadly right, sent in three uppercuts. Braddock staggered as the round ended...
Baer lost the fifth round on a foul, the sixth on points. With a rare flash of his old savage form he rocked Braddock with a right to the jaw in the seventh. Then in the eighth round Braddock sent a harmless blow to Baer's chin. And, again going comic, Baer electrified the crowd by staggering about in a circle, then straightening up with a great laugh and repulsing the hopeful challenger...