at the time of writing this chapter, joe beckett is the heavy-weight champion of england, and has been ever since the contest described below when, on february 27th, 1919, he first met bombardier wells. he is not a very good champion. his skill is not of the first order, and he has neither the height nor weight to supply his deficiencies. carpentier disposed of him in a round, because carpentier is incomparably the better boxer. wells is also a better boxer so far as skill—one might almost say “mere” skill—goes, but as some one said of him once, “he’s too bally refined,” which is a better description of the bombardier than most loose generalisations. he is too bally (and i might dare also to add—“blinking”) refined, both in his style of boxing and in his appearance. the old-time pug-faced bruiser is dying out, not only because men no longer fight with their bare knuckles, but because their skill is so much greater in defence than it used to be, that a broken nose is a comparatively rare accident; and modern surgery can make a job of the worst battered faces. your opponent aims chiefly for those places which are most susceptible to temporary but overwhelming effect—the jaw and the mark. the most terrific blows on either spot do not produce disfigurement. what is known as a “thick ear” is common enough still—many amateurs have it: but wells has managed to avoid even that. his profile might easily be called greek—at all events by some one who had once seen a photograph of praxitéles’ hermes and had rather forgotten it. even carpentier, whose personal appearance is discussed much as a good-looking actor’s, and by the same sort of people, looks, at close quarters, more of a bruiser than does wells. 171
punch chose to be amusing on this subject not long before the war, satirising the old and new methods of the manner in which celebrities of the ring were photographed. in one drawing you see the old bruiser, a doughty ruffian, stripped to the waist, with a flattened nose, beetle-browed, with a long aggressive chin, piggy eyes and short-cropped hair; in the other you have a smiling young man dressed in the last palpitating extremity of fashion, with longish hair brushed back from a somewhat noble brow, whilst beside him a beautiful young woman smiles into a baby’s cot. the source of mr. punch’s inspiration was not far to seek.
in the old days a boxer was portrayed at his job just as actors and actresses were, because his job it was that interested people. and like actors and actresses he is still photographed at his job. but to-day just as you will see in the illustrated papers photographs of theatrical people playing quite irrelevant games of golf or making hay which has nothing to do with the point, so you will see photographs of feather-weight champions dandling purely inapposite infants. it is an age when people like to assure themselves (for some inscrutable reason) that show-people are just exactly like people who are not on show.
for good or for ill, boxing has become more and more a matter of exact science in which the quick use of brains has, to some extent, superseded purely physical qualities. and a new type of professional boxer has therefore been evolved. nevertheless, it is worth observing here that the most important quality of all for success in the ring remains unchanged from the very dawn of fist-fighting, a quality possessed by tom johnson, by jem belcher, by tom spring, sayers, fitzsimmons, carpentier—what we call “character.”
now joe beckett (to continue for a moment this unseemly discussion of other men’s personal appearance) is in the old tradition of english champions. he “looks a bruiser.” this is largely due, no doubt, to much rough and tumble fighting in his youth, when he travelled with a booth, which is still (as it has been in the past) a first-rate school for a hardy young bruiser. in this way he won a great many contests, which have never been 172 recorded, and then began a regular career of no particular distinction in 1914. in the following year he retired after fighting pat o’keefe for eight rounds. in 1917 he was knocked out also in eight rounds by frank goddard, on whom, however, he had his revenge in two rounds two years later. he lost on points to dick smith, who was once a policeman and amateur champion, after a contest of twenty rounds. indeed the people who beat beckett were better known and better boxers than the people whom he beat. but all this time he was improving as a boxer and getting fitter and stronger.
when he entered the ring at the holborn stadium with bombardier wells he was, as they say, a picture. he was in perfect, buoyant health; a mass of loose, easy, supple muscle slid and rolled under his bronzed and shining skin, he was obviously eager and ready for a good fight.
wells led off with his academic straight left, and landed lightly. joe beckett dodged the next blow, came close in and sent in a hot right-hander with a bent and vigorous arm to the body. wells doubled up and went down. on his rising beckett went for him again, put another right on the body and followed it quickly with a severe punch rather high on the jaw which knocked wells down again for a count of nine. beckett ought to have beaten him then, but wells boxed with great pluck and covered himself with care. during the rest of that round he never took another blow, and, after a rest, came up for the second fully recovered. beckett rushed at him clumsily, trying to get close, and wells used his long reach with much skill and promptitude, propping him off, hitting him with his clean and sure straight left, moving quickly on his feet, so that, try as he would, beckett failed to come to close quarters. just at the end of the round wells gave his man a really hard blow on the chin which made beckett exceedingly glad to hear the bell which announced time. and in the third round, too, wells kept his opponent at a distance, boxing brilliantly, and adding up points in his own favour. in the fourth wells was really happy. he had suppressed beckett, he thought; and sent a hard right-hander to the jaw which would 173 have staggered less hard a man. but beckett is very strong, and replied with a couple of body-blows, without, however, doing any damage to speak of. again it was wells’s round. he had quite forgotten the beginning of the fight and how nearly he had been beaten then. he was acutely conscious of being the better boxer, and consequently underrated beckett’s strength and persistence. at the start of the fifth round he was not prepared for the rush with which his antagonist came for him, so that beckett got quite close to him before he could think about propping him away. right and left came beckett’s gloves with a will into wells’s slim body, and then a short jolting blow went upwards to his jaw, and wells went down. he was up again very quickly, not seriously hurt, and beckett darted in again. this time wells was ready and did his utmost to use his long reach. but beckett’s greater strength and his willingness to run a little risk told in his favour. he was fighting hard, but not wildly or foolishly; he ducked under the long arm and began to punish wells severely about the body. another blow on the head sent wells to the ground for nine seconds. wells rose feeling dazed and helpless, he tried to cover his jaw, but beckett darted in and sent in a hard right over his shoulder to the point, and wells was knocked out. and the championship of england again changed hands.
photo: “sport and general.”
bombardier wells.
a return match was arranged a year later, and on may 20th, 1920, this pair fought again for the championship at olympia. beckett in the meantime had been summarily knocked out by carpentier, but had himself knocked out frank goddard in two rounds, eddie mcgoorty in seventeen, and dick smith in five. he had become more confident, more adept. he was not a great boxer, is not now, and is never likely to be. but he had improved. nor had wells been idle. he had knocked out jack curphey in two rounds, harry reeves in four, paul journee, the frenchman, in thirteen, and eddie mcgoorty in sixteen. this last was a terrific fight, but mcgoorty was quite out of training. wells had also beaten arthur townley, who retired at the end of the ninth round. 174
what i might call the cochranisation of boxing has now for some time past enabled vast crowds of people to watch, in comfort, altogether too great a number of championship fights. the popular excitement about these contests, or the majority of them, is largely artificial—almost as artificial as the reputations of the “champions” themselves, the result, that is to say, of purely commercial advertisement. of course, the case of bombardier wells is singular. long ago, before the war, he had his hold upon the popular imagination (if such a thing exists), because he was tall, and good-looking, and “temperamental.”
as for his methods, a friend of mine who used to judge army competitions in india, and who saw the all india championship of 1909, used to say that he never knew a boxer who so persistently stuck to the plan of campaign that he had previously thought out as did bombardier wells. perhaps that is the secret of his mercurial career: perhaps he always has a plan of campaign and sticks to it—successfully or not, according to the plan of his antagonist. wells’s antagonists have a disconcerting way of doing something fresh and unexpected, and the plan is liable to be a hindrance. the most crafty boxer may have a plan which he prefers, but he is able at an instant’s notice to substitute an alternative scheme suited especially to the caprice of the man he desires to beat. carpentier does that. wells, as already said, likes scientific boxing just as other people like golf, and he is apt to be disconcerted by fierce sloggers just as a golfer would be disconcerted (i imagine) by some one who invented and employed some explosive device for driving little white balls much farther away than can be done with the implements at present in use. circumstances or the advice of friends pushed wells—in the first instance possibly without any special desire of his own—into the professional ring. and people still flock to see him there, or at all events they did so in 1920, chiefly because the ring was, for him, so strikingly inappropriate a setting.
beckett, on the other hand, takes naturally to fighting. he is not nearly such a “good boxer,” his style is not so finished as wells’s, his footwork, though variable, is not so adept. but he 175 knows how to smash people, and i should say (intending no libel upon a gallant as well as a successful bruiser) likes doing it.
the majority of people who came to olympia to watch the second fight between those men probably wanted wells to win, for the inadequate reason that he looked so much less like a boxer than his adversary. they were disappointed. wells began better than usual, for he seemed ready to fight: but his own science was at fault in that he accepted beckett’s invitation to bouts of in-fighting, when he ought to have done his utmost to keep his man at long range. beckett accepted the situation comfortably, and sent in some hard punches to the body and a left swing to the head. during the last minute of the round wells did succeed in keeping him away and landed a succession of fine straight lefts; but these were not hard blows, nor did wells attempt to follow them up. joe beckett was imperturbable and dogged, but very cautious too. he kept his left shoulder well up to protect his jaw from wells’s right, and when he did hit he hit hard. there was no sting, no spring, no potency in wells’s hitting. and he was careless. he gave beckett an excellent opening in the second round, which the new champion used admirably with a hooked left, sending wells down for seven seconds. and he kept on pushing his way in for the rest of that round, once leaving himself unguarded in his turn and inviting the blow with which wells, if he had put his weight into it, might well have knocked him out. but the blow was too high and not hard enough. the third round was the last. beckett gave his man a hard left, and wells broke ground, somewhat staggered. they came together and for half a minute or more there was a really fine rally, beckett hit the harder all the time, and presently with a swinging left to the body and a beautifully clean and true right hook to the jaw he knocked wells out.