Then the seconds removed the heavy woolen horse-blankets, and the two fighters stood forth in their ring costumes, visible in all their fighting strength for the first time to the crowd—both men deep-chested, heavy-thewed, with muscles which moved like live snakes under their black-satin skins, their bodies acrawl with life and brutal power.
The two men advanced and touched gloves.
Then something happened which would make old John L. Sullivan laugh till he dislocated his iron jaw.
You who follow the fistic combats of Jess Willard and other white hopes and hopelessnesses, know that for months before the combatants meet in the ring their press-agents are busy informing the public what each pugilist says he expects to do to his opponent.
In the negro prize-fights in the South, the pugilist, lacking the press-agent, demands the right to make a speech before each round of the fight, in which he tells his friends and backers what he expects to do to his opponent in the next round.
Can you beat that?
So, in accordance with this custom, after the two fighters had touched gloves, Hitch Diamond went back to his corner and sat down.
Conko Mukes stepped to the middle of the ring and bellowed:
“I’s de great unwhupped Tuskeegee Cyclome. I fights any nigger whut misdoubts my words! I’s de brayin’ jackass of Georgia, an’ no nigger in Tickfall cain’t comb my mane!”
He sprang up, cracked his heels together, waved his gorilla-like arms in the air, and uttered a piercing whoop which echoed like a steam-whistle far down the Dorfoche Bayou.