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HYLAND He came to the fore when boxing moved at a relentless pace. A victory meant the loser got another fight, and if the loser won that one, there had to be a rubber match. Just look at Johnny Bratton's record. He fought the brutal Ike Williams three times. He battled Holly Mims twice within twenty-one days, with a lesser bout sandwiched in between. And nobody who witnessed his last chance to regain the championship, when Kid Gavilan carved him up for fifteen rounds, ever will forget his absolute refusal to retreat or surrender. Afterwards, he lay on his dressing room table unable to speak. e problems Johnny Bratton had always were supposed to be physical—an impacted tooth that led to a fractured jaw or tiny hands that crumbled like potato chips. But what got him in the end was his mind. He was not punchy. He was mad. "It started getting worse after my last fight," he says. "I got beat by Del Flanagan. e referee patted me on my back and told me I was through. I was twenty-six or twenty-seven. A couple years later, I went to the state hospital at Manteno. I had a private room. Do you think they were giving private rooms to psychopaths in 1954? I wasn't no psychopath. I even had my picture in the paper. Do you remember that? ey had a picture of me looking out the window. I was in my room."