After Jem Belcher’s signal defeat at the huge hands of Pearce, the “Game Chicken,” two years passed by before the temptation once again to risk the chances of the ring overpowered the old champion. During that time his life as a publican had by no means improved his already enfeebled physique. And those two years had seen the rise to fame (and that fame steadily growing) of one Tom Cribb, a Gloucestershire man like Pearce and Belcher himself, a heavy, slow, ponderous fellow, who had beaten good men, the best of whom was Bill Richmond, the black, and who had been beaten but once, when quite out of condition, by George Nichols.
Once again Belcher’s jealousy blazed up, and he challenged Cribb. The challenge was accepted. At that stage of Cribb’s career it could in no wise be avoided, but his backers were not at all easy. They knew what Jem Belcher could do, they knew that their own man was dead slow. They were afraid that, despite the old champion’s unathletic life, Tom Cribb would never be able to touch him.
The fight took place on April 8th, 1807, for ￡200 a side. The place chosen was Moulsey Hurst, on the Thames, almost opposite to Hampton Court, the scene of innumerable prizefights. The battle attracted all the foremost sportsmen of the day, and the gutteral exclamations of the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV., were heard amongst the chatter at the ring-side. John Jackson kept “time.”
In spite of his pasty face and weedy appearance Jem was still the favourite. His arms, never remarkable for muscular development, looked thin and meagre, his whole body poor. 31 But the lion-hearted courage of the man had so firm a hold upon the imagination of his friends that they believed him still invincible. It was easy enough to invent excuses for his defeat by Pearce.
Cribb was a shorter man, but fully two stone heavier. He was built on the heroic scale, with huge chest and shoulders and the arms of an inelegant Hercules. To the more dismal of his friends, who warned him of Jem’s speed, he replied, grinning. “You’ll see, he’ll break his hands on my head.” Cribb’s was a very tough nut, and with considerable experience behind him he knew it.
The fight began with the usual caution. Then Jem darted in with a couple of spanking blows at his adversary’s face, and almost before Cribb knew where he was, he had jumped away again out of reach. Again Jem did this and yet again. All the stories he had heard of Cribb’s great strength were comfortably balanced by the discovered truth of the stories about his slowness. But the next time Jem leapt in upon his man Cribb was ready with a heavy right-hand counter on the ribs; and then before he could get away Jem found himself whirled off his feet and flung hard upon the ground.
In the next round Jem backed away, tempting Cribb to try for another fall, and as the big fellow lumbered after him, Jem stopped abruptly and sent in lightning blows with left and right, a bang under the chin and again and again on the face and nose, so that the blood ran fast. Then like the vainglorious fool that he was, he closed with Cribb, and exerting all his strength, flung him on the ground.
It was an idiotic thing to do, for to throw a man two stone heavier than yourself is more exhausting than to be thrown by him. And Jem Belcher knew it, but seeing the opportunity could not resist it, well knowing as he must have done, that Cribb could endure any amount of such treatment. Thereafter for a little while, it is true, Jem was all over Cribb. He was infinitely the better and the faster boxer. Lord Saye and Sele, Jem’s principal backer, watched him with satisfaction. “He’ll have Tom blinded in half an hour,” he said: for again and again Jem’s sharp knuckles had landed on his opponent’s shaggy eyebrows. But the amateur 32 had not thoroughly studied the anatomy of Cribb. He had not noticed, for example, that his eyes were unusually deep set, so that though his brows were badly bruised and constant sharp blows had fallen on the cheekbones as well, the subsequent swelling had not closed Tom’s eyes as it would have other men’s. Moreover, when blow on blow upon the hard bone of his brows had lacerated the swollen flesh, the flow of blood partly relieved the swelling. But for some rounds Jem Belcher hammered him unmercifully. Left and right, quickly following up advantages, he drove Cribb before him round and across the ring. Thrice in succession he exerted his strength and, closing, threw his antagonist heavily upon the grass.
But Tom Cribb was hard and healthy and strong. He might be a poor boxer at this time, but he knew how to play a waiting game, and he had the moral courage to bide his time and the physical courage to endure the inevitable punishment, and now at last he saw that Jem’s rushes were slower. The grim-faced, battered fighter looked across the ring at the slim and delicate fellow, so light a burden upon his second’s knee, whose face showed not a mark, and he nodded to his own attendants. “You watch,” he said.
When they came up again, the spectators noticed that there were bruises about Jem’s ribs, and that when Tom’s infrequent body blows did land, he winced with obvious pain. But he continued to take care of his head. For a round or two Jem had been slowing down, then once again he pulled himself together and went for Cribb with the fury of despair. He understood now what it was to fight a man so vastly his better in sheer strength. And under the rain of his punches Tom Cribb retreated and at length fell prostrate in his own corner. Many folk at the ringside thought that the fight was over. Half a minute to go—could Cribb recover? His seconds sluiced him with cold water, rubbed his limbs, dragged him up. There he was, staggering at the scratch, a pitiful sight, broken, bleeding, but upright, and, as the moments passed, steadier, with left foot out, hands up and head erect. And again Jem went for him and landed a couple of 33 blows, right and left, upon his head. Then he backed away towards his own corner, glancing at his fists as he did so. Tom Cribb grinned, and turned for an instant towards his own corner, nodding, as much as to say, “Told you so.” Jem came forward again and made a hesitating attempt at a blow. Tom guarded it easily and went after him, pressing him towards the ropes and finally sending him down with a heavy right on the ribs. In the next round Jem came up again, clearly afraid to hit, and this time with a terrific-body blow Cribb sent him clear through the ropes.
JOHNSON & PERRINS
Published August 27 1812 by A. Smerton St. Martins Lane.
The turn of fortune had been amazingly sudden. Not three minutes before every one save Cribb and a few of his supporters had thought the end had come and in Jem’s favour. Now Tom knocked him down again without anything like resistance. And at the end of forty-one rounds and thirty-five minutes, Jem Belcher had perforce to give in. Immediately afterwards he walked, weak but not dead-beat, round the ring, showing his hands to the spectators. They were quite useless. Tom had been right: his hard head had driven up the knuckles so that the lightest hit was to Jem exquisitely painful.
It was an honourable defeat, though a bitter disappointment to Jem Belcher. Well he knew that in all but strength and hardness he was the better man. And he knew, too, that few, save Cribb, could endure the amount of punishment that he had given before his hands went, and that in the days before he lost his eye and before he had weakened his constitution by drinking, Cribb could never have stood a chance with him.