'Patterson does not know how to protect himself. He turned
his back on Johansson after being knocked down.' Thus, Gene Tunney in the Observer. But anybody who watched the fight on television will have seen that the unfortunate Patterson did not know whether he was coming or going, after the first knock-down blow. The referee propped him up in a position vaguely facing Johansson; from which he turned around, with the glazed look of a man who has lost his way coming out of a pub in the dark. At this point Johansson caught him from behind with a looping punch, knocking him down again. There could hardly have been better ammuni- tion for the anti-boxing campaigners. During the rest of the round, Patterson alternated between blind rushes at his tormentor, and hazy defensive covering-up—a travesty of 'the noble art.' The current argument among doctors about the prevalence of punch- drunkenness among pugilists, significant though some of the statistics are, gives only part of the picture; the real indictment of boxing is the ugly effect not on boxers but on audiences.
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