In order to dispose of Tommy Burns so far as this book is concerned, it is necessary to break the chronological order of contests and jump twelve years. Between his defeat by Johnson and the encounter to be described now, the records tell us that he engaged in five matches, none of the first importance. Then, in July of 1920, an affair was arranged with Joe Beckett, the Heavy-weight Champion of England. This took place at the Albert Hall, and should be regarded rather as an event than as an athletic contest.

As already suggested, the interest in many widely-advertised glove-fights is spurious: a passion of sensationalism stimulated by the Press. The fight between Beckett and Burns hardly comes under that head, because there is always a genuine interest in watching the return of a veteran, whether that veteran be boxer or prima donna. Burns had been in the hey-day of his fame when Joe Beckett was a young lad. He had been execrated by sportsmen for his trick of “mouth-fighting,” for trying to intimidate his antagonists by heaping insult upon injury during the course of a battle; and also for his rank commercialism. He had been one of the first “business boxers” to be seen in England, and we had been rather appalled by the phenomena. Since those days we have grasped the fact that there is a practically negligible correlation between professional sport and sportsmanship, so far at least as boxing goes—especially now that men like Jim Driscoll and Pat O’Keefe (both of whom appeared as seconds in Beckett’s and Burns’s corners respectively) have retired. It was from Burns that we first learned the dodge of demanding a fixed fee for a contest—so much down, whatever happened. And Burns, 155 having through his Press agents arranged to be famous and to be a certain attraction to the multitude, could get pretty well what he asked.

To set against this unpleasing but no doubt justifiable business acumen, Burns was gloriously plucky. And in his fight with Beckett he displayed that merit undiminished. People remember these things; they remember the fame (never in Burns’s case entirely undeserved) and the good points quite as readily as the notoriety and the bad ones: so that Burns had a great following at the Albert Hall, and, in despite of his age and condition, his chances against the younger and stronger man were considered good.

I had seen Burns watching several fights during that year, and his appearance did not suggest the hardened pugilist. Even in the ring after training he was much too fat, and he did not box like a young man. He was thirty-nine and looked a good deal more. Yet he remembered a good deal of his boxing. His footwork was still excellent, though he wasted his height by keeping his feet too far apart. His blows, however, were not really hard, except when he made a special effort to knock Beckett out. For punishment the English champion’s hitting was much more level and dangerous. But Beckett looked singularly foolish on several occasions: he hooked and he swung and he led, and over and over again his opponent simply wasn’t there. Burns’s defence was good, and it was youth and strength that beat him. But he deserved to be beaten if only for continued holding and “lying on” his man. “Lying on” consists of resting your head on your antagonist’s chest or shoulder, making some pretence at in-fighting, but all the while throwing your weight forward so that you get a good rest, and your opponent holds you up and loses energy in so doing. In a long contest between heavy-weights it is extremely important to save all the strength you can and to make your man do the more work.

Taken as a whole, this contest was full of bad boxing. The referee was continually having to separate the men, and the fault was nearly always Burns’s. 156

The first two very cautious rounds were Beckett’s. In the third Beckett too, held a little: for Burns landed............