[BigBoyBrackey]

The 1934 bout between Johnny Risko and Jim Maloney ended in a 10-round decision in favor of “The Cleveland Rubber Man,” an outcome not surprising for a couple of journeymen with a combined knockout rate below 25 percent.

Perhaps inspired by the raucous crowd, both came out eager to end things early. The underdog rocked Risko with two huge overhand rights in the bout’s first 90 seconds and swelled the 14th seed’s right eye with several jabs later in the first.

Risko swung things his way in the second with a series of combos followed by a snapping uppercut, finding an opening that would prove pivotal in the third. A scythe-like uppercut a minute in tore open Maloney’s nose, sending a river of blood over his upper lip. Gasping for air, Maloney held on until receiving a warning from referee Benji Esteves. The wounded fighter managed to keep an energized Risko at bay with a hard jab, then held on until the final seconds, when he absorbed a cracking right to the jaw.

Legendary cutman Freddie Brown tried to work his magic during the break, wiping the blood away and smearing the wound with Vaseline, making Maloney’s schnozz look merely misshapen, and not about to fall off.

The illusion lasted all of 48 seconds, when a swiping right cross from Risko failed to jar Maloney’s brain, but succeeded in extending the vertical gash further down the bridge of his nose, nearly reaching the tip. Realizing that Esteves was not going to allow him to fight for long with a nose that was very close to becoming plural, Maloney eschewed the clinch-to-survive strategy and slugged it out, finishing the round with a hard jab and thudding uppercut that forced Risko into grappling mode just before the bell.

After soaking up a sponge full of blood in Maloney’s corner, Brown broke out the thromboplastin, a medicinal plastic that he used to save Rocky Marciano in his second meeting with Ezzard Charles.

Again, Brown’s artistry proved fleeting, as Risko’s right cross 15 seconds into the fifth landed with the effect of a sledgehammer coming down on a well-decomposed tomato.

Esteves called time and led Maloney by the arm to his corner, where the ringside physician, Dr. Nicholas Riviera, who looked at the wound, shook his head and said, “That’s gotta hurt.”

Riviera then turned to Esteves, shrugged and said, “If he wants to fight, who am I to stop him?”

No sooner had the referee reluctantly waved the fighters back together than Risko’s best punch of the fight, a vicious straight right, landed square and sent Maloney stumbling backward into the ropes, drawing groans and cries of “Enough already!” and “That’s disgusting, even by the standards of a bloodthirsty mob!” from ringsiders.

Esteves looked rather pale as he led Maloney back to Dr. Riviera, who turned and ran screaming up the aisle and out of the arena. Interpreting that as a cue to stop the fight, Esteves declared Risko the winner by technical knockout at 44 seconds of the fifth round.

Maloney, who led on two scorecards by margins of 40-36 and 39-37 at the end, while trailing on the third by a 39-37 count, was rushed to Saint Michael’s Hospital for emergency plastic surgery.

“That made The Rock’s cut look like a kid’s pimple,” Brown said after the fight. “Ewww.”

JOHNNY RISKO TKO5 JIM MALONEY