"It Was a Pleasure"

One sportswriter (the late W. O. McGeehan) used to call it "the manly art of modified murder." And modified murder was what this particular boxing match looked like. In Manhattan's Polo Grounds 27-year-old Fritzie Zivic, world's welterweight champion, met 21-year-old Abraham Davidoff, U.S. Army private known in the ring as, Al ("Bummy") Davis, in about that was bloodier than a bullfight.

Bummy Davis, who used to be one of the toughest kids in Brooklyn's notoriously tough Brownsville section, had punched his way into the big time with a lambasting left hook. Bash-nosed Fritzie Zivic, youngest of Pittsburgh's five "Fighting Zivics," is no angel either. Teethed on a fighter's mouthpiece, he learned all the tricks of the family trade before his voice changed, picked up a few more during some 200 professional prizefights.

Last fall Zivic fought young Davis in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden. Zivic gave the kid the business. Davis, stung by an alleged thumb-poke in the eye, forgot his professional acquaintanceship with the Marquess of Queensberry, relapsed into a fury of fouls. Disqualified and suspended "for life" (after kicking the referee), the Brownsville bully boy sullenly joined the Army.

Last week's fight between Bummy and Thumby was a return engagement to settle that unfinished business. Soldier Boy Davis, reinstated by the New York State Athletic Commission (for good behavior at Texas' Camp Hulen) and given a six-weeks furlough from the Army, entered the ring a reformed Bummy. The Army had tied up his tongue, taught him discipline and respect for others. But Army hikes and drills had also tied up his muscles.

From the opening bell it was apparent that Bummy's reformation had gone too far. He lumbered around on his pianolike legs, used his fists like a slightly angry Lord Chesterfield. Cool and calculating Zivic, instead of knocking him out, jabbed at the doughboy's face until it looked like a gooey cherry pie. By the tenth round Davis was a helpless mess, bleeding from eyes, nose and mouth. Referee Arthur Donovan mercifully stepped in, awarded a technical knockout to Champion Zivic.

"It was a pleasure," gloated Zivic in his dressing room. "I never enjoyed a fight so much."

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