A Quick Knockout at the Athletic Club
A local boxing match ended in under a minute when Joe Wardinsky landed a decisive left hook on W.W. Wade.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Joe Wardinsky, the Minnesota middleweight, proved his superiority over W.W. Wade, a local boxer, at the Walla Walla Athletic Club last night. Scheduled for 20 rounds, the fight ended in less than a minute when Wade bumped into a left-hand hook that 'set his lights bobbing,' forcing Referee Parker to stop the match. Wardinsky impressed the crowd of 200 with fast and clean work. Immediately following the match, a letter was read from Tom Riley, a Portland middleweight, challenging the winner. Wardinsky intends to accept, with a rematch likely in January.
“Wade bumped into a left hand hook that set his lights bobbing.”
Boxing matches were the primary spectacle of local social life in 1903, serving as both a venue for professional gambling and a community gathering point. While the venue itself has vanished, the fascination with regional prize-fighting remains a staple of the Pacific Northwest sports landscape.
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