[Cap]

From The Barnsley Earwigger September 1902...A column in a prestigious New York paper carried the following comments, "...It's a curious thing that the big men in Europe, particularly the English, don't class with the small men. They have no cleverness and they can't fight. The height of their ambition is to become proprietors of ale houses and to drink more ale than the best customers. Gunner Moir, Iron Hague, Bombardier Wells, all the lot of them could probably be cleaned up easily by any one of a dozen good American middleweights. The current group of touring second-rate heavyweights from this country are mowing down the best Europeans with little effort..."..."While admitting some truth to those unkind remarks, they must have been penned before Bombardier Billy Wells easily outpointed the Western American champion Al Kaufman at Madison Square Garden in New York City and Frenchman Georges Carpentier stopped Jeff Clarke, aspirant to the championship of America in Philadelphia yesterday. Clarke had gone almost 11 rounds with the present world champion."...In an elimination contest at Le Palais Grande in Paris to find a challenger for Carpentier's EBU title, Scotland's Derek "Battling Beattie" knocked out young Marc Gaucher in eight rounds of a bristling battle in which both men visited the canvas...At Limerick, the vacant Irish heavyweight title was decided when Packey Mahoney (14st 5) KO'd Dublin's Padraic Boyle (13st 12) in just two rounds of a scheduled ten round fight...At the Salle Wagam, Paris Sam McVea (14.8) demolished former European champion Raymond Berenger (13.11) in six rounds...A white-tie crowd at the NSC in London witnessed the one-sided dusting of Wm Iron Hague by Joe Jeannette of the USA, Hague taking the full count in round seven...Many members took some solace in the victory of young Tom Cowler, the Cumberland Giant, over Gunner Moir when Referee Corrie halted proceedings in the eighth stanza with Moir tangled helplessly on the ropes taking unanswered blows to the head...Moir would likely have been wiser to ignore the NSC's invitation to box Cowler in favour of his intended trip to South Afrika...