NEW YORK, July 26.—Eugene Criqui, the Frenchman with a sheep bone for a jaw and a policeman’s night stick for a right hand, will meet Johnny Dundee, the esteemed Italian-American with the leaping complex, at the Polo grounds tonight im a fifteen round bout for the featherweight championship of the world. It will be John’s tenth attempt to do an Isadora Duncan to a world’s title and possibly his last. He has become somewhat elderly and can no longer frolic with the grasshoppers.
John, however, is conceded to have better than an even chance by no less an authority that John Patrick Kilbane. The latter might be classed an authority on the subject. Ten years ago, he fought a titular draw with Dundee and less than three months back was ill-advised to leave his jaw and title in the path of Criqui’s right hand.
That incident prompted increased respect for Criqui’s ability, but not sufficiently to make him a pronounced favorite in tonight’s affair. In fact, many believe Dundee’s speed will carry him through fifteen rounds to the official decision, it being the prevailing impression that the Frenchman must either score a knockout or finish second.
Criqui’s style is to hot shot the enemy with one punch. He follows his man like a hip pocket and usually takes quite a beating before he can bring him down.
On the question of whether Dundee’s feet are faster that Criqui’s punch, hangs the fate of tonight’s bout. The Italian, somewhat passe after having indulged in nearly three hundred fights, is still an elusive target and a very tough citizen altogether. It is just as difficult to hurt him as to hit him. In this respect, he figures a superior bet to Kilbane, the worst of whose delinquincies was that he couldn’t shake off a punch and come back-a talisman of age. Dundee, likewise, is believed to be slipping. Not long ago he lost his 130 title to Jack Bernstein and although many critics failed to concur with the verdict, Johnny obviously was not the man who carried Benny Leonard to the limit of eight separate occasions and made the rest of the lightweight colony hasten elsewhere. He seemed to lack his accustomed speed and endurance and that is tantamount to stating that a ladder needs rungs. John is no great shakes as a puncher.
Criqui himself is no schoolboy. He has been around and about for twenty-nine years and spent four of them in the war, leaving a shattered jaw behind him at Verdun. However, he has one asset that most featherweights lack—namely, a punch.
The men will weigh in at the featherweight limit, 126 pounds, this afternoon. Dundee is not expected to experience much difficulty in making the weight, Criqui none at all. The latter was slightly above the 124 pound mark with his finger nails clipped for the Kilbane affair.
Interest in the bout is not exactly at fever heat, the all too recent meetings of Willard and Firpo and Leonard and Tendler having taken some of the edge from the present issue. Only the belief that the fight is likely to be Criqui’s last in this country for some time, particularly if he wins, and the fact that it has been a very careworn year for champions, may induce the boys to say it with greenbacks at the box office.
The boys like nothing better than to see a champion unfrocked and the pleasure has been all their’s for the last twelve months. Britton, for example, lost the welterweight title to Walker and Greb was dethroned by Tunney, Kilbane by Criqui, Wilde by Villa and Dempsey won the decision, but lost much prestige against Gibbons. In addition, Villa was separated from the American flyweight title by Frankie Genaro during the season. Only Joe Lynch and Johnny Wilson, who did not fight, and Benny Leonard, who disposed of Lew Tendler so impressively on Monday, managed to retain their titles.
Regardless of the uncertainty over the outcome, it is hardly likely that a capacity crowd will view tonight’s proceedings. The Polo grounds has accommodations for upwards of 60,000, but championship bouts are becoming bromides and New York is fast running out of cash customers.
