view raw text
i .j i... i in mi. I ■ ■■— — — — _■■ AT THE RINGSIDE By BarneY Nagler NEW YORK. April 30.— There is something sad about a prizefighter who Is not going anywhere. He is standing still and i .j i... i in mi. he he knows knows it. it, and and any- he he knows knows it. it, and and any- I anybody trying to tell him he has a future has only a past himself. Frankie Ryf f is such a fighter, a kid out of the Bronx who has been up and down and now frankly. Is fighting only for a living. He was at St. Nicks the other night in a stinker. Fellow he was fichtinir fighting, was was Johnnv Johnny ■ ■■— — — — _■■ fichtinir fighting, was was Johnnv Johnny Gorman, who was supposed to be fierce and was not. So they went 10 rounds, chasing the customers looking in on TV. and when it was over Ryff not only won the decision but scored a quick victory in applied frankness. "After all." he said. "I wasnt getting a million bucks." AAA From this it is to be inferred that the boy is just around to keep his family in eating money. He came on TV after the fight and said he had lost his money running a cleaning store and was back fighting because this was his trade. He said, "Im not one of them handy guys who knows a lot of things." The boy once seemed to be a prospect. He — ________ " J - - j _y_r_" r ■ — »-»-l moved quickly and won 16 fights in succession, and they said he would be a champion. He did not make it because his thin skin could not withstand a punch. Bloody eyes cost him fights, and he put his gloves away and went into business. Fighters seldom become tycoons. He was burned in the pants-pressing buincss and now he is back boxing. / AAA From the beginning men have wept about fighters who should be all through and. are not because they are captives of their trade. There should be some tears, for Ryff. I ■ J He was never an exciting fighter because he could not punch, but there was a quick-" ness about him that caught the eye, and he moved with graceful agility. For his day he was more than able. Now it cannot be said that he Is. The time will come when he will have to turn his back on boxing and a few years j after that it will be said that he was ruined by the tough fight game. The story will grow that he earned half a million dollars, which he has not by many nun- dreds of thousands, and the fight mob will be smeared because it is a soft touch. , Continued on Page Forty-Three J AT THE RINGSIDE By. BARNEY NAGLER Continued from Page Two None will remember then that Ryff made a good living in boxing, good enough to enable him to lay aside ,000, the amount he lost trying to- get a capitalistic toehold in a cleaning store. He is married and his wife is a pretty young woman who sat with him the other night as he talked on television. She wants to be a singer. "She has a real good voice," the fighter said, "and Id like to get her started so I can have something going for mel But she is too shy." His candor was depressing because his •words were sharp and -cut a clean picture of his dismay. In the way of the fight game he should have been building himself up as the fiercest thing since Leo the lion, but he was trying instead to agent a career in music for his wife. Yet he is the typical fighter: A guy who is not going to get rich and knows it, and hangs around for rent money and a few bucks to lay aside much as a guy sweating out in a garment factory does. AD fighters do not get rich, not even the ones who- fight main events, and Ryff is one of these. He will fight long after his time because not even his manager can chase him. Charley Black, who has the paper on Ryff, says he would like to have the boy cashin, but knows the boy will continue fighting. "This is all hes got," Black says. . Thats the way it is. Years from now, when he is long past his time in the ring. Ryff will talk about his fights and tell how fierce they were and how he fought tigers instead of men in their underdrawers. He will not remember the dreary night such as the one at St. Nicks this pait Monday. And nobody will remind him of them.
