'maybe Somebody Did Rob Me But I Don't Know Who'

Now for all this robbing they say was done to me, I ain't so bad off as some people think. I own this drive-in barbecue and soft-drink stand which cost me $8,000 and is gonna be a big success some day. I referee wrestling bouts once in a while and work as a second when they have fights over in Aiken, S.C. The people come to see me just being a second. They like me, the people still like me.

Besides the drive-in I own 32 acres of land and I grow peas, beans, greens just for the family. If my house don't look like so much it's because I was kinda short of cash when I got home from boxing up north. I'll build a new one for the family some day. It's cheaper, you see, than getting the old one fixed up.

But Mr. Roberts, Mr. Clifford Roberts, the head of the Augusta National Golf Club, he and Bowman Milligan took care of all the money I had left and they got me a $10,000 annuity that will take care of all my old age. Mr. Roberts and Bowman Milligan and Mr. Alvin McAuliffe?he's a businessman in real estate in Augusta?saw to it that I got all this that I have left, and I think they're the finest men who ever lived.

If I was robbed, I don't know who robbed me.

But today, they tell me, they have a new New York Athletic Commission who take care to see that us fighters get all the money that's coming to them. Maybe it was different when I was fighting. That's why I have to listen to all these people who keep saying I was robbed so bad. Maybe that's the way it should've been.

Then maybe everybody would finally stop talking about that and just remember how hard I always fought and was well liked for it by everybody who ever saw me go.