The Whitechapel Whirlwind: The Jack Kid Berg Story by John Harding

Author:John Harding
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2018-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

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But Glick was past his best as a fighter and Berg had little trouble keeping on top of him, accumulating points in his now familiar non-stop style. However, in the third round, a left and right combination caught him off balance and he went down momentarily. He was up before a count could start but in the eighth he went down again, though this time not from a legitimate blow. A newspaper commentator wrote: ‘Referee Jack Dorman had waved Glick to his corner after delivering the first palpably low thrust. Berg clutched his groin desperately and his knees sagged. His face white and lined with intense agony, Berg finally pulled himself up off the ropes.

‘“Are you hurt? Can you continue?” roared referee Jack Dorman, who was about to disqualify Glick. “I’m alright,” retorted Berg feverishly. “Please don’t disqualify him. I don’t want to win on a foul.”

‘The men resumed fighting and then Glick hooked low with another blow that escaped Dorman’s notice. Berg dropped to the canvas grimacing and groaning, but he got up at the count of seven and proceeded to hold his own with Glick during the rest of the eighth.’

To emphasise their concern regarding fouls, the New York Boxing Commission’s physician (who just happened to be the brother of the Mayor of New York) made a great show to pressmen of examining Berg in the dressing room after the fight.

Berg was, quite literally, laid bare. ‘Berg was struck over the scrotum, which is so protected by the protective cup now in use that no fighter can be injured so badly as to be unable to continue,’ wrote the commentator.

Berg was indignant at the suggestion that he might have overplayed the pain.

Those blows stunned me. I wanted to show the American folk that an English Jew would not quit under any circumstance.

The medical man said that he was not criticising Berg. ‘He is an excellent example to other fighters who lack his pluck and seize upon a low blow to squirm out of a match blubbering “foul.”’

He then proceeded to behave like a demented salesman, offering to don the protector and permit Berg, Gold or Jacobs to kick him in the scrotum. No one took him up on the offer. Berg’s anxiety not to take the fight on a foul, though no doubt instinctive, could not have been better calculated to earn him plaudits from press and public. The debate over fouls (or more specifically low blows) was a simple one: there were now many fighters claiming they had been fouled, and thus cheating their way to victories. There were just as many seeking to end fights by fouling their opponent: some to weaken their man, some to preserve an unblemished record of not having been either knocked out or defeated on points, and some following orders when their ‘backers’ stood to lose a lot of money.

The answer being considered by the New York Athletic Association was to refuse to accept low blows as a reason to end a bout.

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