Speary Heavier for Davis Bout

Whittlers usually whittle downward, but Billy Speary is engaged in the unusual pastime of whittling upward. His purpose, reversed as this may seem, is to whittle down the difference in weight between him and Billy Davis of Minersville, when they enter the ring at the Allentown Fair Grounds next Monday night, for the purpose of deciding once and for all, the supremacy between the two in an eight round contest.

As a result of some fancy verbal passing, which took place in the Kingston Armory the night that Speary boxed Eddie O'Leary, the former national amateur champion has changed his training routine entirely from what it was for the O'Leary fight-or rather his astute trainer and manager, Art Thomas, changed it for him.

The official weights for the Speary-O'Leary clash were 120 for O'Leary and 124 for Speary. Knowing that O'Leary was small; Thomas had Speary get down to weight too, for that contest, on the theory that the smaller Billy was, the speedier he would be. After the thing was over, Thomas blamed himself for Speary's failure to knock O'Leary out. "Billy could just as easily have entered the ring weighing 126 (the weight the bout called for) as weighing 124," Thomas confided in a friend, "and those two pounds represented the difference tonight between a decision victory and a knockout victory for Speary ."

But it was Davis himself who definitely change the plans of Thomas, although he didn't realize it. Following the bout with O'Leary, the former bootleg coal miner from Minersville paid his respects to Speary in the dressing room.

The two shook hands.

"Howcha feel Billy?", the cocky little Davis, who just a year ago sent Speary down for a nine count, asked.

"I feel well thank you Billy", the polite Speary replied.

"I just thought I'd ask," said Davis. "You looked kinda skinny tonight, and I thought maybe ya wasn't feelin' good."

Speary looked surprised. "You mean because I didn't knock Eddie out?", he said. "You know that O'Leary is one of the best boxers in the country, and he is a dangerous puncher, too."

"Maybe I ain't hittin' swell," said Davis. "I floored Frankie Bluis with the big gloves. To I hit him so hard in so often I eased up. And do you know what Billy? I weighed just exactly 133 pounds when I finished the workout this afternoon."

At this point Art Thomas cleared the dressing room. Everybody had to get out including Davis.

Speary trained in public for the bout with O'Leary. Visitors to the Thomas gymnasium in recent days have found the door barred. Billy is training in private. "Davis will have less than four pounds on Billy when they meet in Allentown next Monday night," Thomas has told intimates.