Chocolate v. Watson

Eligio Sardinias y Montalvo ("Kid Chocolate"), generally acknowledged featherweight champion of the world, is a wiry, knob-fisted Cuban Negro whose quick, malicious dexterity makes him one of the most exciting fighters in the world to watch. His opponent in Manhattan last week was a serious little Englishman, Seaman Tom Watson, who acquired a strange flat-footed technique by learning to box on the heaving deck of a battleship. The best featherweight in Europe, he began to commute to the U. S. for fights last autumn, returning after each one to tend the Newcastle bar which he bought out of his winnings. The difference in their styles made the fight interesting, puzzled Chocolate for the first two rounds. Then he found a way to tie up Watson's arms while keeping his own right hand free to pound his opponent's ribs with looping, hammer-like blows. Watson's ribs appeared to be steel-plated. Methodical and earnest, he waited for Chocolate to tire, held his own till the tenth round. Then, overestimating Chocolate's fatigue, he backed away from a clinch with his hands down. Chocolate saw his chance and took it with a left swing at Watson's jaw that sent him rolling into a corner of the ring, left him groggy for the rest of the round.

That was the high point of the fight. Too wise to give Chocolate another opening, Watson chopped at him warily for the next four rounds. In the 12th. Watson cut Chocolate's lip with a right uppercut. He won the 15th as well, but both judges, the referee and most of the crowd agreed that Chocolate still deserved his title.

In every generation of fighters there is likely to be at least one colored fisticuffer who enjoys the prestige which, in Kid Chocolate's case, is best indicated by the fact that fight critics last week felt -- even though he had roundly whipped the best available challenger -- that Chocolate had failed to do himself justice. Now 22, Chocolate arrived in the U. S. four years ago. won 167 fights before he lost his first one, to Lightweight Jack Berg two years ago. Before that he had been a newsboy in Havana, learned to box by studying cinemas of Panama Joe Gans. Equipped with 365 suits, $65,000 in Havana real estate and a magnificent fighting brain so single-tracked that it so far contains only a few dozen English words, Kid Chocolate makes himself a nuisance to his indulgent Cuban manager, Luis Gutierrez, by misbehaving instead of training. After a month's rest, Champion Chocolate will go abroad for four bouts, one of them a return match against Seaman Watson in London.

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