Pete Sanstol, the blonde bullet from Norway, will fight Al Brown for the bantamweight championship of the world this summer, provided, of course, he beats Pete DeGrasse at the Forum on Wednesday night, and then scores over Bobby Leitham, the Canadian champion who is lined up for a bout with the winner of the Sanstol-DeGrasse tussle. This was definitely established over the week-end when Sanstol arrived here from New York to complete his training for his return to the local ring in the main bout of Promoter Aleck Moore's pretentious show.

Sanstol, confident he can hurdle both DeGrasse and Leitham, is in receipt of a cable from Paris, offering him a bout with Al Brown there for the title. Pete also understands that such a bout is in the offing here, should he beat DeGrasse and Leitham, so he is certain to have another crack at the crown he failed to take by a sensationally narrow margin in the Forum ring two years ago when his rally in the last four rounds almost toppled the crown from the dusky brow of tall Panama Al Brown.

[From an undated and unidentified Montreal newspaper clipping in Pete's scrapbook.]

Pete often wrote about philosophical matters. He studied Hinduism, and practiced yoga as well as meditation. He tried to visualize and understand the concept of Karma -- that one's behavior today determined one's destiny. And did reincarnation mean in the modern world of the 1930s actual re-birth, or more realistically resurrection of one's life via memories and lasting accounts of words and conduct?

Pete recorded all kinds of quotes in his journals. Many appear to be original. Others likely were things he had heard or read some place. The following are examples from this period:

"Philosophy is the science of wisdom, and wisdom is the art of living. Happiness the goal but virtue, not pleasure, is the road."

"A great man is one who has not lost the heart of a child."

"The best life is one rich and varied in content, ripe with action and thought, adventure and contemplation, responsibility and danger."

"I like to impose discipline on myself. I hate others to impose it on me. I can work hard if nobody drives me. I would never take steady work just to earn money. I don't need money that badly. I spend freely when I have the means, but I can also reduce my standards of my means."

"I am enjoying one of the rarest of human experiences. I have abandoned a way of life I have disliked. I am adopting a new way of life that I desired. I am free to do this without regret or hindrance."

"A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself."

"When I reach the end of my life, I hope to have missed nothing, and to be sorry for nothing."

Once back in Montreal Pete had a warm-up practice bout and worked-out at Raoul Godbout's Exchange Stadium. At present it is unclear why Pete had returned to the management of Raoul Godbout. There is no further mention in his scrapbooks of George Blake. The likely answer is that Blake preferred to keep his headquarters in Los Angeles and did not wish to move to Montreal.

Pete was scheduled to fight Pete DeGrasse, the St. Regis Canadian Indian fighter, and apparently negotiating to fight Bobby Leitham, the Canadian Bantamweight Champion. Then, if things worked out, he'd face Al Brown once again for the world title.

But the clever and intelligent Pete DeGrasse didn't see it that way. "So Sanstol is going to fight Al Brown for the title, eh?" he snapped. "Well, he might think so now but he won't for long. And he's going to knock me out, huh? As if he could knock any kind of fighter out. That Scowegian couldn't break an egg. The only ones he's been licking for the last two years were setups and that's why I'm certain I can send him back to Norway where he'll be a lot healthier."

He then predicted, "Say, if he happens to be lucky enough to get away with a win over me he'll take a pasting from Leitham who is the best bantam I've ever fought. Not that I couldn't beat Leitham if I met him again," DeGrasse quickly added.

[DeGrasse quotes courtesy of one unidentified Montreal news article.]

Meanwhile Sanstol continued his work-outs at the Exchange Stadium. "He showed speed galore in a set-to with Greggy Gregersen, bounding Danish bantam," a paper reported. "The blonde battler, whose popularity is undiminished judging by the large [400 person] crowd of interested railbirds, was oozing confidence as he discussed future plans."

"I am in the best fighting shape of my career," Pete told the press. "And if I don't take that title from Brown, I'll be ready to hang up the gloves."

On the day of the fight, July 26, a headline read, "Sanstol Slight Favorite" and "Established Class Gives Him Slight Edge Over DeGrasse in Bout Tonight." The text says, in part:

Possibly a chance at a world's title is the stake as Pete Sanstol, after an absence of many months, and Pete DeGrasse swing into action at the Forum tonight in the first major boxing bout of the year here. The winner to meet Bobby Leitham on his return from England, and that winner to tackle Al Brown is the generally-recognized program.

Sanstol goes into the ring tonight a slight favorite.... Sanstol's proven class and generalship and his harder hitting give him the call.... DeGrasse has the edge in speed, there is no doubt of that... DeGrasse blazes around the ring at a terrific rate, leaping in with daring wide-swinging slashes... Both are colorful performers and highly rated bantams and with the incentive of a match for the winner against Bobby Leitham, Canada's bantam king who is returning from his invasion of British rings, for the right to meet Al Brown in a world's title bout urging them on, the action should be sensational.

[In the pre-fight publicity surrounding Pete's last professional appearance in the ring -- his September 1935 summit with Al Brown in Norway -- an article was published in an Oslo paper that purported to list all of Pete's professional fights since 1927, or as many as could be recalled in time for the article to be printed. The source of this information likely was Pete. There are a number of fights which are not listed. Maybe Pete forgot about them at the time. A later Oslo clipping seems to fill in the blanks. For the fights which are listed, however, the names of the opponents, the year of each fight, the number of rounds, and the outcome are provided. Precise dates and locations were not offered. In one of his scrapbooks Pete pasted a copy of this Oslo clipping. He made handwritten notes to translate the Norwegian: indicating wins, defeats and draws. The funny thing is, he indicated he lost to DeGrasse when in fact he won. Pete had lost only four fights when he met DeGrasse (to Joey Eulo, Joe Scalfaro, Al Brown and Young Tommy). He would lose only twice more before his career ended two years later.]

Before meeting Bobby Leitham Pete headed off to meet Philadelphia's Midget Wolgast at the Fugazy Bowl on Coney Island August 15, 1933. At this time The Ring magazine rated Wolgast as the leading contender for the vacant Flyweight World Championship. Pete's chronic eye gash opened in the third round. He was "a gory specimen at the final bell."That Sanstol vs. Wolgast clash was, according to reporter Wilbur Wood, "probably the best of the summer."

Reporter Charles Vackner wrote that Wolgast back-handed Pete several times for which he was warned once, and regarding the others "the Quakertowner did the trick so fast that the referee couldn't see [them]."

Vackner continued, "The brow of Sanstol's eyes oozed gore at the finish and the fiery Norwegian looked as though he had been battered about the face with a carpet beater."

These articles also recount some of Pete's earlier victories over such boxers as Phil Tobias, Johnny Erickson, Sammy Farber, Benny Tell and Petey Hayes. They then mention that Pete had defeated Augie Ruggiere in 1927. Boxing historian Laurence Fielding published Ruggiere's record in the International Boxing Research Organizations's Journal, IBRO Journal #78, June 22, 2002, p. 64. He researched The New York Times, the Brooklyn Eagle, and the Washington Star. He reports that Pete got a sixth-round TKO over Ruggiere July 20, 1933 in Brooklyn.

Pete lost to Wolgast. It was his one and only defeat in a Brooklyn ring and the fifth of his professional career. Pete's smiling post-fight comment on the loss was, "It's all in the game." (Wolgast was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame June 2001.)

In the early 1930s sculptor Trygve Dammen created a bust of Pete that was displayed prominently in Oslo's Museum of Arts. One wonders if it exists there to this day.

The following article suggests that there had been much controversy and disagreement over the terms of the proposed Sanstol-Leitham fight; but, strangely, there are no other clippings in Pete's scrapbooks to this effect. Maybe he had stayed in the New York area after the Wolgast fight, and thus did not have any Montreal papers to read.

The end of a million arguments was put in sight -- or perhaps a million new verbal batttttles were started -- when yesterday contracts were filed with the Montreal Athletic Commission for the long-awaited Bobby Leitham-Pete Sanstol battle to take place at the Forum next Wednesday night.

The definite signing ends a long-drawn string of arguments preliminary to the making of this "natural." The stage is now set for the biggest attraction of the local boxing season to date and Matchmaker Alex Moore can sit back at ease since he has finally clinched the "grudge affair" by offering sufficiently attractive terms to get both parties signed.

The bitter feeling that will be prevalent in next Wednesday's meeting results from the battle these two fighters staged at the St. Denis Theatre more than two years ago, March 23, 1931, to be exact....

The chance that the winner will be matched with Al Brown in October is, of course, a main incentive, but quite as deep is the natural rivalry. Sanstol gave Leitham a bad drubbing in the last few rounds of their previous fight, perhaps the worse the Verdun Flash ever took. He was game, but reeling and bleeding, and he's never forgotten it. Leitham believes he is good enough now to beat Sanstol, and it will remain for the fight to prove or disprove his theory. "Pete cuts about the eyes too easily, and he hasn't the stamina he used to possess," Leitham said recently. And the latter part of the observation tells why the fight has been booked for twelve rounds. Leitham wanted it that way.

That same clipping goes on:

Sanstol yesterday had a letter from his old-time and first manager, Lew Burston, who is promoting fights in Algiers and finding it no easy way to keep the wolf from the door. The letter reveals that Rene DeVos, Belgian middleweight, who once loomed as a probable champion, was shot in a brawl there with an Arab and as a result never will be able to box again.

In fact, DeVos is lucky to be alive, as the bullet severed an artery in his right arm. Burston says the arm has shrunk almost an inch in diameter and probably will shrink even more. DeVos no longer has any control over the movement of the arm.... [Our note: Although virtually no one thought Rene would ever fight again, he eventually did -- for another five bouts before retiring. Click here for his record.]

Another bad break for Burston was the suspension slapped on Al Brown by the European fistic authorities, as Lew had figured on using the bantamweight king in five fights in Algiers. DeVos will be recalled by Montreal ring fans for a terrific fight with George Fifield at the Forum a few years ago.

Pete finally faced Canadian National Bantamweight Champion Bobby Leitham a second time September 13, 1933, in a 12-rounder at the Montreal Forum. (They had fought once before in 1931. Click here to read about that fight.) The Ring magazine ranked Leitham as the world's 9th best bantam contender for 1933, while Pete was ranked second behind Young "Baby" Casanova.

This second match between Pete and Bobby was a "Very Hot Bout." It was described as "one of the best and most savagely contested headliners that has appeared on any local fight program for years." This fight affirmed a rivalry which "ranks among the bitterest in the long and tangled history of Montreal ring warfare," contemporary papers reported. Pete and Bobby "chased one another into their own and into neutral corners, and they drove one another against the ropes, and battered one another about the head and kidneys and the stomach to their hearts' content. And when it was all over there was little to choose between them, but that little should have gone in favor of Bobbie Leitham."

"A bad habit, which Leitham displayed frequently last night, was pushing his opponent away when they went into a clinch, which they did not do very often." "Almost simultaneously blood began to flow freely from cuts over the eyes. Sanstol had two and Leitham one, old affairs, which are hard to heal because there is so little flesh under the skin of the forehead, and if healed, are easily opened again. They do not hurt much, but cause obstruction of vision."

Pete won the decision.

Dissatisfied Leitham fans (the "Franks of Plattsburg") wrote to Montreal's The Standard to complain of the outcome:

Decisions such as that given Sanstol over Bobby Leitham at the Forum last Wednesday night are bound to injure the boxing game in Montreal. I have seen raw decisions but nothing that could equal that rendered by the judges when they awarded the fight to Sanstol after he had been out pointed in every round. Had I placed a bet on Sanstol I would not accept the money and none but an out-and-out chiseler would think of doing such a thing. The fight was a hummer all through the entire twelve rounds but I wouldn't waste a perfectly good evening again if that sort of judging is to continue.

Seven weeks later Bobby and Pete were at it again for the third and final mutual contest of their careers. On October 18, 1933, another Wednesday, the two met at the Forum for yet another 12-round match. "Montreal may have more important fights from title standpoints during the year than this one, but none will excel it in glamour and interest," one Montreal paper declared.

Figuring on his great fighting display against Midget Wolgast, the boys have already established Bobby Leitham a 6-5 choice to beat Pete Sanstol in the 12-round return match between these two fighting bantams next Wednesday night at the Forum. But here's a tip-off to the price-makers right from Sanstol himself:

"I'm going to fight a different kind of battle next week against Leitham than I did before. I am quite willing he should know my plans, because he'll find out right at the start anyway. I'm going to discard boxing, and the efforts to make him miss, the plan I followed last time. Instead, I'll walk right in and out-fight him from the start. I believe that on that system I am a certainty to win." ...

The blonde Norwegian has told Aleck Moore he doesn't want a cent if he doesn't win the Leitham fight.... "I'm not in with that bargain," quickly cut in Raoul Godbout, who is manager of Sanstol....

What makes Sanstol so confident of the outcome isn't his plans for a change of fighting style, which is a point of minor strategy, but the cure of his foot-trouble that has been a bane to him in his last few matches. Every fight fan recalls the fashion which Sanstol was humming along against Emil Pladner, only to slow to a walk midway, and barely eke out a draw. Everybody recalls the more recent incident of how he stopped up in the last two rounds against Leitham, so that the battling Verdunite swarmed over him.

Sanstol blames all that on foot trouble. "And it's all over now," he said yesterday. "Dr. Locke fixed everything. Every one of my shoes, walking, training, fighting, is equipped with a small brace that fits right under the joint that was at fault. I feel great, not only physically, but I've got my confidence back. He cured my foot, and my foot cured me up here," said the blonde, tapping his forehead.

"It was not until announcement had been made from the ring that Leitham was being restrained because of the refereeing nomination that Manager Gibbs decided to move and it was 11:25 when he entered the ring...." There was also the threat that if Leitham failed to appear immediately in the ring, the officials would declare the match forfeited.

"The tension seemed to reflect itself on Leitham for the little Canadian champion was nervous at the start, upset by a hostile demonstration greeted him on entering the ring as the protest of the crowd against the delay."

Subsequent headlines read:

It was a "Grueling Battle, Leitham Winning Early in Great Display, Sanstol Finishing Best." An article explains:

That tough little bit of whalebone and rubber, Pete Sanstol, is today still entitled to high ranking among the top-notch bantams.

Out-battled and battered for part of the way last night before the season's biggest fight crowd at the Forum, as Bobby Leitham's flying fists slashed and chopped him, closed one eye and split his eye-brow, Sanstol gritted his teeth and started a rally....

It was a close thing as these two game-cocks fought a lusty, red-blooded brawl.

"The final gong stopped a punching duel on the ropes."

"The crowd was fairly divided when the decision was announced."

This time someone dissatisfied with The Gazette's account of that fight wrote a letter, which Pete pasted in his scrapbooks:

Whoever reports or writes results of boxing events for your valued publication is obviously a greenhorn at reporting such events and belittle your otherwise outstanding publication. The article in today's Gazette, covering the Leitham-Sanstol bout at the Forum this morning, is far from being a true report.

No mention is made of the fact that Sanstol cleanly left-jabbed Leitham at the rate of at least fifteen times in every round from the fourth on, and repeatedly put Leitham off balance and making him helpless in his efforts to counter.

Your writer also failed to report that Sanstol caused Leitham's knees to sag quite noticeably with a clean right cross to Leitham's jaw in the very first round, and that Sanstol did the same in the tenth round with three right crosses to the jaw that fairly staggered Leitham.

Also, how Leitham did NOT open Sanstol's eye brow with clean punching, but with his right elbow in the fifth round, for which he was warned by the referee and loudly jeered by the audience. Such foul tactics are indeed unbecoming to a Champion, and especially a Champion of Canada.

And, as the Champion, who declared before the fight, in many newspaper articles, that he would knock old man Sanstol cold, the fact that he objected to a referee does not bespeak the action of a real Champion. Surely a referee will not prevent a Champion from knocking his opponent cold, nor is the Champion expected to fight the referee. This act on the part of Champion Leitham removes, in the opinion of every real fight fan, any of the little Champion calibre that Leitham has, or ever will possess, and rather stamps him as a might "yellow" type of champion....

Pete Sanstol, the Norwegian flash, came into the sporting department of The Standard today to bid us good-bye for a couple of months.

"I am leaving Montreal tonight for New York," said the dapper little boxer, "and on November 25th will sail for my home in Norway."

"What's the occasion of your journey home?" we asked him.

"In the first place my foot has bothered me very considerably recently and tended to slow me up at times, so much so that my doctor has ordered me to rest up for a while, during which time I will wear an arch to support the foot.

"This rest will also give me a chance to let my eye heal from the effects of a cut received two years ago, and which opens so easily whenever I fight now. It looks bad from my own point of view and from the view of the spectators to see a man bleeding like that, when there really should be no occasion for it.

"In addition I have a business in Norway representing a considerable investment, and there are some things in that connection that need looking after. I wrote my father to look after these things if he would, and he wrote me back that he had plenty trouble with his own business and that I would never learn sooner to take care of my own troubles.

"At that I will be glad to go home again as I am the only boy, and like to see my father and mother as often as my business will allow me.

"But I am going to take a real rest, after which I will make a new start with new vigor and a new inspiration when I return home in February or March next."

"What's the new inspiration?" we asked.

"I am going to get the bantamweight championship of the world yet. I made up my mind to that a long time ago, and I am yet going to realize that ambition."

"But you will have to climb over Bobby Leitham to do that," we interrupted.

"Don't you think I have done that already?"

"To be candid, we do not."

"We have had three fights now. I gained the decisions each time."

"Yes, but you know, Pete, you did not deserve those last two decisions."

"But I got them."

"But do you really believe you should have gotten them?"

"I am not saying anything about those decisions, but I really believe there is a lot of misunderstanding about which of us is the better man. I agree that is so, but--"

And would you believe it, readers, the phone rang just at that minute. Who do you think was on the other end of the wire?

"Hello, McD," he says.

"Hello, Sam," we replied.

It was Sammy Gibbs, manager of Bobby Leitham.

"Did you get my wire about Bobby beating Lorenzo at Syracuse?"

"We did," we replied.

"You should have seen Bobby fight that chap. He was marvelous."

"Yes, but leaving out that chatter, I have a friend of yours right beside me here."

"Who is he?"

"Pete Sanstol."

Sammy did not answer just a moment. We thought we heard him grind his teeth but maybe that was only imagination.

"Listen," says Sammy. "Listen. I wish you would tell him that Leitham can beat him just like he beat Lorenzo last night."

"He has just told me he has beaten Bobby three times."

"Let him tell that to his people in Norway, maybe they'll believe it. He won the decision over Bobby once when they fought two years ago, and twice since the judges won the decision over Bobby. We'll fight him any time, any place, and fifteen rounds if he likes, and we'll give him any side bet he wants from a $1,000 up. Let's all go before the Boxing Commission right away with the proposition."

"Wait a minute, Sammy."

Then we told Sanstol what it was all about.

"Let me talk to Sammy," says Pete.

"Hey, Sammy. I am leaving Montreal tonight and I sail for Norway on November 25th from New York. But I will be back here in February or March and I will take on your man, any time, any place, any number of rounds."

"And, Sammy," continued Pete, "if you like, I will take that $1,000 of yours or anything you like to add to it as a side bet. We will get a few friends together on your side and my side, and we will have a private fight like they did in the old days. No limited rounds. Then Bobby and I will go until we find out who is the better man. There will be no judges' or referees' decisions, and the better man of us will be the one who is standing up when the battle is over. How would you like that, Sammy?"

"OK with me," replied Sammy. "But if you mean that, tell your people when you leave them again that you will be back home right away."

"All right, Sammy. I'll be seeing you soon again. And give my best regards to Bobby Leitham. He's the greatest little fighter of his weight -- except me. Bye-bye."

How Bobby Leitham reacted is evident by his "greeting" when Pete eventually returned to Montreal. And just who indeed was the "better man" would be answered shortly thereafter for many fans.