And they gave rather the appearance of the child and the ogre in the ring. Carpentier seemed unable to defend himself against the shattering onslaught of the American, and there was much clinching in the first round. The smaller man greatly surprised the spectators by going in and fighting at once, instead of trying to keep away and let Dempsey tire himself, which seemed to be the obvious course to pursue. He had not the strength to stop the majority of Dempsey’s blows, especially the upper-cuts which came crashing through his guard. He tried the trick of boxing with his chin on the big man’s chest, but even so his body suffered the more. It was, as a matter of irrelevant fact, Carpentier who scored the first hits, a left on the face and an upper-cut with the right, neither of which had any effect at all. During a clinch the champion gave his opponent a dig in the stomach which reduced his strength immediately. This he followed by a hard, very short blow on the back of the head, given whilst Carpentier was holding close. From the position in which two men stand in a clinch, such a blow cannot be given with the whole weight of the body. The glove can travel only five or six inches, and the body’s weight cannot in that attitude be swung behind the arm. I have seen in clumsy boxing a man knocked clean out by a blow on the back of the head or neck by an ordinary full swing, aimed for the jaw, which the victim has protected by bringing his head forward, but not far enough forward. But a man of Dempsey’s strength can make the short blow a very serious one when frequently repeated: and he repeated it many times on Carpentier. Next he landed on the Frenchman’s body with both hands. Emerging from a clinch Carpentier was seen to be bleeding from the nose. Then he swung hard at Dempsey’s jaw and missed it. He had done no damage at all yet.