The Spirit Was Willing

He bobbed and weaved, grimaced and grunted, swung his hard fists in & out, up & down. Hammering Henry Armstrong looked like old Perpetual Motion himself. But he was not. He was a sluggish, weary old man of 30, plagiarizing his youth. Lithe, 23-year-old Negro Ray Robinson knew it, and held back for ten shadowy, monotonous, one-sided rounds. The customers also knew it and lustily booed the kind of drama they did not come to see.

Fifteen thousand fans had paid over $60,000 to see Henry Armstrong because he had once been a pugilistic blitzkrieg. The flat-faced little boxer was the only fighter ever to hold three titles simultaneously--feather, light and welterweight. For five years it was a near certainty that chocolate-colored Henry Armstrong's opponents would eventually crumble before the inhuman, tireless onslaught of will and pounding fists. Last week at Madison Square Garden, the Armstrong repertory of lethal motions was on display, but the crucial Armstrong hammer was no longer part of the equipment. If it had not been Armstrong, it would have been funny.

After the fight, he announced his retirement: he had made enough money to pay his taxes. Two years ago, he had similarly retired but after the Robinson fight, everybody knew that Henry Armstrong was really through.

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