Jimmy Wilde

From a 1923 book 'The Story of Boxing' by Trevor C. Wignall.


Were it not for the fact that every author is expected to wind up his book with whatever conclusions he may have formed, I doubt whether I would have the courage to follow precedent. I have been watching and reporting boxing—studying it, too—for twenty-five years, during which time I have seen the majority of the world's best; but I do not claim to be either an inspired critic or an infallible judge. I am so conscious of my limitations, indeed, that it is with considerable diffidence I set down here some of the impressions I have gained since I witnessed my first fight. If, therefore, there is a suspicion of egotism—and I devoutly hope there is not—I ask to be pardoned.

Mr. Bettinson has selected Jimmy Wilde as one of the greatest boxers of all time. Undoubtedly he is right. I am even prompted to say that he is the greatest. Consider his handicaps. He weighs less than a schoolboy, he is as thin as a lath, as frail as a reed, as weakly-looking as an invalid. His strength does not appear to be sufficient to dent a hole in a pat of butter—yet I have seen him crumple bigger men with punches that were like the kicks of a mule.

Wilde is the very antithesis of the boxer of fiction. In appearance he more resembles an anaemic student than a fighter. He is pale and painfully slender ; his arms and legs are hardly thicker than pipe-stems ; his body is that of a child—one would think, simply by glancing at him, that a really strong breeze would carry him off his feet. Yet this curious little man with the high-pitched voice and the eyes of a dreamer has knocked flat something like two hundred opponents. Before he became famous—this was when he was working as a miner in the Rhondda Valley—it was his daily habit to engage in six or eight contests after leaving the pit.

His first sparring partner was his wife. Mothers, as will have been gathered from earlier chapters, have had much to do with the education of their sons as fighters, but Mrs. James Wilde, so far as I know, is the only lady who helped to transform her husband from a collier into a world's boxing champion.

" We used to spar in the bedroom or in the kitchen," Wilde said to me on one occasion. " She'd lead at me, and I'd dodge the blow."
" But did you ever hit back ? " I asked.
" Oh, no," replied Wilde, " but even if I had she'd have been nimble enough to get out of the way. She knows as much about boxing as I do."

I happened to be present at Wilde's London debut. It was the kind of noteworthy occasion that leaves a lasting memory. A little while before he climbed into the ring (to be laughed at by a crowd who were later petrified with amazement) I was introduced to him by Mr. Teddy Lewis, his manager. I can see him now—a shy, miniature man, twirling a cheap cane, and attired in a suit of rusty black. The biggest thing about him was his cloth cap. I remember I chuckled when Mr. Lewis, with all the gestures and all the enthusiasm and all the earnestness of the Welshman, told me that Wilde was a world-beater in embryo. The statement, it seemed to me, would have carried more weight if the tiny hewer of coal had not been on view. " But he has been knocking them out at the rate of three and four a day down in the Valley," insisted Mr. Lewis. " There's no one left for us in Wales, and that's why we have come to London." Wilde's sole contribution to the conversation, from what I can recollect of it, was an occasional " Ai, indeed," or " there 'u are." His Welsh accent is still very pronounced, but it could be cut with a knife that day when I talked with him in a newspaper office near Fleet Street.

The name of his opponent has long since left my memory, but I do know Wilde defeated him in almost quicker time than it takes to tell. His extraordinary gifts, however, were not recognized until he was given a match at the National Sporting Club with a Frenchman called Husson. Wilde knocked him out in the sixth round, and his display was such as to induce many of the newspaper writers—myself included— to go into hysterics. From that evening (March 30, 1914) Wilde has had the fly-weight field all to himself. ((In May of this year Wilde lost his world's championship to Pancho Villa, the Filipino. The fight took place in New York, and Wilde was knocked out in the seventh round.)) He has been beaten, of course, but usually by men to whom he was giving away pounds of weight. He was badly defeated by Herman, the American, but that was a match that should not have been made. It is common knowledge now that Wilde would not have taken the ring had it not been pointed out to him that among the audience were members of the Royal Family. He fought for " the good of the game," as his action has been termed ; but he was very ill-advised. The evening, to the overwhelming majority of the spectators, was one of crushing sadness.

Wilde's principal asset is his unorthodoxy. He has torn to pieces every textbook ever written. There isn't a principle that he hasn't stamped on deliberately and with malice aforethought. He has no guard, no defence, yet he is—or was, for he has not boxed for two years—as difficult to hit as a moving shadow. Watch him when an opponent is striving to be aggressive, and you will see him shuffle backwards or sideways inches at a time, and you will also observe—probably to your consternation—that punches are grazing his nose or his jaw. He does not move his head so much as slightly jerk it ; a fraction to the left, a fraction to the right, or a fraction forward. When he performs the latter movement he resembles a bird, pecking. His sense of distance is uncanny. He can stand within range of a blow when it is started, and then— hey, presto ! a dart, a jerk, and the delivery has skimmed his face. There is no man on earth who can escape punishment with such nicety of judgment.

Now glance at him as he is preparing to finish a fight. He is a little higher on his toes, he is better poised, his body is almost imperceptibly executing a wave-like motion. His gloves are on his hips—there is no semblance of a guard— his knees are slightly bent, his left foot is turned in, pigeon fashion, while it is a million to one that his eyes are anywhere except on the spot he has made up his mind to hit. He usually feints before he lands his final blow. He does something which looks crude and which tempts his antagonist to lead— and it is all over from that moment. There is the flash of something that moves with the rapidity of a chameleon's tongue, and which is not much more substantial, and all that remains is for the time-keeper to intone the passing seconds. For a man of his weight and size, Wilde has the heaviest punch in the world. Where he stows away all the power he puts into it has never been explained.

But he is not a conscious boxer. Practically everything he does is subconscious. When he throws back his head or steps away from danger he is simply responding to some instinct that has given him a warning signal. But for this hidden quality he would not have climbed to such renown as a boxer. There are men in England and in America equally good in attack, but what they lack is Wilde's phenomenal knowledge of what is about to happen. He is like a chess player ; he can visualize the thing that is bound to occur ; he can look ahead ; he can see a move before it is properly created. Wilde is a master because he is aided by a wonderful attribute that no other boxer possesses. There is a compartment in his brain where nestles the instinct that guides his every action, that tells him what to do, that prompts and instructs him throughout a contest. If this subconscious sense—this miracle—ever leaves him, his day will be done. He will become an average fighter. Of that I am absolutely convinced.