"There's a lot of conversation to boxing," admits Boxing Manager Jack Hurley. He ought to know. In 40 years of guiding good boxers, light-fisted clowns and human cauliflowers through the sweaty jungles of prizefighting, he has learned to use the language as effectively as a Sixth Avenue pitchman. Out of his rowdy-ringside wisdom he has fashioned some fine tigers, e.g., Lightweight Billy ("The Fargo Express") Petrolle. Sometimes he has taken a tame tabby, such as Heavyweight Harry ("Kid") Matthews, and conned the public into believing he was a killer. With either breed of cat, Hurley has promoted many a rapid dollar.
Time has whitened his hair and the nervous agonies of his trade have given Hurley ulcers. In the past two years he has taken Matthews, his managerial masterpiece, to New York to see him flattened by Rocky Marciano, and home to Seattle to watch him taking a licking from British Heavyweight Champion Don Cockell. A lesser man might have given up. Hurley was undaunted. Last month he arrived in London with Matthews in tow, and announced with infinite gall that his tabby could knock over Cockell.
Home-town Decision. Moving in to the attack. Hurley caught the home-town sportswriters off guard. "Cockell," he told them, "could beat Rocky Marciano on the best day Rocky ever knew. Marciano can't box. He's just a big, crude swinger. Who has Marciano beaten anyway?"
One reporter tried to roll with the punch: "Well now, hasn't Marciano beaten Matthews, for one?"
"Matthews wasn't beaten by Marciano," Hurley countered. "He was beaten by Yankee Stadium. He was overawed, sort of. He would have beaten Marciano in three rounds in Seattle."
"Well now, didn't Matthews lose to Cockell in Seattle?''
"Hometown decision," snorted Hurley, as if he meant it. "There's been a lot of jealousy in Seattle. We fought there too often, I guess."
After a while Hurley moved his pitch to the seedy confines of Promoter Jack Solomons' gym, one flight over a down-at-the-heels poolroom on Great Windmill Street. No one really believed that Kid Matthews belonged in the same ring with Cockell, but Hurley had the reporters mesmerized. Maybe Hurley had changed him into a tiger.
Hurley was too smart to let the ring-wise reporters see much more than the tag end of a rubdown. Matthews turned out to be a tough subject to interview. "Do you do any reading, Harry?" asked one polite Briton. "I never did find a story interesting enough to hold me down," answered Harry amiably. He headed for the door. "Aren't you going to put on a tie?" asked the newsman. Harry clutched at his collar. "I thought I had it on."
For a sour second Hurley showed disgust. "Feel around and see if you're still in bed," he snapped. Then the old pitchman started his spiel again. His "athalete," he told the reporters, was going to murder Cockell. The words flicked out sharper than a Matthews jab.