Berlenbach Drubbed

Handicaps are devised to keep a better man from being too much better, and in most branches of sport they are imposed more or less involuntarily. But every now and then in boxing someone thinks he is pretty good, and then what does he do but give away weight --agree to fight somebody a good deal heavier?

That is what Paul ("Astoria Assassin") Berlenbach, world's light heavyweight champion, did last week. The champion got on the scales and he weighed 174 1/2 lb. Then his rival got on and the weight was shoved way out on the bar to 190. Of course with such a difference in weight, the champion was not risking his title. But he freely and voluntarily entered the ring at Madison Square Garden with the 190-pounder, Johnny Risko, in consideration of a part of the $62,000 of gate receipts collected from Theodore Roosevelt, Red Grange, Charley Hoff and 11,669 others.

The boxers were garbed in brown kid gloves and black tights, over which the champion draped a Canadian blanket, and Risko (Clevelander) wore a ringside cloak resembling a brown plaid bathrobe. These latter were dispensed with and the pasting began. Before the first round was over Mr. Berlenbach discovered that the 15 1/2 lb. he had given away were coming back to him with a vengeance. Most of these pounds seemed to be in Mr. Risko's left mitten. Toward the end of the first round the knowledge of how much weight he had given away came to Mr. Berlenbach so forcibly that he rested pensively on the floor for four seconds.

The second round ended with the champion not prostrate but reclining. The third meeting left Mr. Berlenbach a little vague as to the absolute directions in the universe. But things did not go all against him. Ever and again the champion took the offensive and jostled his opponent rudely. There was a great deal of pasting interspersed between these events. Mr. Risko took his chastisement with something akin to genius, an infinite capacity for taking punishment. Mr. Berlenbach's punishment was 15 1/2 lb. heavier, but he was very brave. In the end the judges put their heads together and said to each other and to the world, that in their judgment, in such a contest the heavier man had won.