The Sweet Science - A. J. Liebling [88]
Moore went along well in the eighth and ninth, but Johnson was getting stronger instead of weaker. I had Moore far ahead, but my immediate neighbors from the newspapers didn’t; they thought that it was pretty even, and that Moore, at his age, figured to tire faster than Johnson. Moore was also trying to calculate where he stood. He thought that he was ahead on points right through, he told a reporter after the fight, but he felt that the crowd was against him and might influence the officials, because “the sentiment was with the underdog.” After a couple of hundred recitals, the artist develops a sensitivity to his audience. So in the tenth he was even more aggressive, and had Johnson in real trouble. But near the end of the round Moore was pressing in to get in one more combination of punches before the round ended—and Johnson hit him with a beautiful overhand right to the left side of the head and knocked him flat. It was as if Vladimir de Pachmann had been assaulted by a piano stool. It was an event so unexpected, so unprecedented that even the referee, Ruby Goldstein, lost his head. Goldstein’s first impulse must have been to help Moore to his feet and apologize on behalf of the management, but he checked it in time and began to count. He forgot, however, that since this was a championship bout, hostilities were de règle as soon as the fallen man got to his feet, which Moore did at “Three.” The New York Athletic Commission has a foolish, though well-intentioned, rule governing non-championship matches: Whenever a boxer is knocked down, the referee must stop the fight for eight seconds, even if the man is back on his feet by “One.” This is designed to protect boxers from the effects of their own imprudence but has resulted merely in atrophy of their estimative powers. Formerly boxers stayed down as long as they could when they were truly hurt. When they were undamaged, they got up as quickly as possible, in order to minimize the seriousness of their mishap. Now they all bounce to their feet if they are conscious, secure in the knowledge they will get the eight seconds anyway. This substitutes a reflex for an exercise of reason. It is also hard on a fellow who, after staying on the mat until “Eight” or “Nine,” might have decided to remain there. In championship matches, this new fangle does not apply. But when Moore got up at “Three,” the addled Goldstein stood in front of him, continuing to count, and this precluded further operations, because the ball rang for the end of the round at “Five.” In the two lost seconds, Johnson might have hit Moore a couple more licks if Goldstein hadn’t been there and the challenger could have prevailed on himself to take the initiative.
The jubilation of the short-end bettors had reached what Colonel Stingo calls a “frenzium.” “Go get him, Harold!” they shouted. “You got him!” None were so craven as to counsel caution now. Mr. Johnson’s seconds were wagging their jaws like a Gilbert and Sullivan chorus in a patter song. One of them slapped him jovially on the nape of the neck with an ice bag. Johnson alone seemed unamused, reflective. “I got so much different kinds of advice I thought Moore was in my corner,” he told a newspaperman later. Johnson could now be sure he was ahead on points; a knockdown counts like the dickens in most judges’ minds. He had his choice of two policies: to pursue and try to demolish, or to fence and try to conserve his lead. The first was not in him, and so he built a bridge for his retreating enemy.
Moore used the bridge for about two minutes of the eleventh round, staying away from Johnson as if they had changed roles. Then,