BOXING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 178, 11 May 1935, Page 2

BOXING.

LOSS ON COOK-WALKER FIGHT. LONDON, May 10. The Cook-Walker fight resulted in a heavy loss. The attendance was only 8643 instead of the estimated 60,000. Cook gets £6OO and Walker about £2OO. MAX BAER INJURED. WASHINGTON, May 9. : At Asbury Park, New Jersey, Max Baer, wfio was training there, received a painful powder burn on his chest when he accidentally discharged a pistol containing a blank, cartridge during a rehearsal of a playlet. Baer .was ordered to bed because of neryous shock, although* he is not seriously hurt. Officials announce that there is no likelihood of a postponement of his bout with Braddock on May 13. ————— { STEVE HAMAS.

INTELLECTUAL TYPE. In a long and intimate talk I had with jSteye Hamas, who fought Max Schmeling at Hamburg, I found much that recalled Gene Tunney (states, an English critic). He has not the physical oigness of the old world's champion nor his almost forbidding seriousness. Tunney was aloof, frigid, in the severity of his detachment from all else save an immediate and specific purpose the first and last of his kind. In that regard there is nothing in common between him and Hamas. In mental make-up, however, they bear close relationship. For Hamas, though no highbrow, as was Tunney, is of the intellectuals. But a healthy, vigorous full-of-lifo scholar, as different from the immortal Gene, whose passion, outside the ring, to the dismay, if not despair .of his fellows, alternated between Plato and Shaw. The scholarly attainment of Hamas is represented by a university education. He is a young man of considerable charm and naturalness, which Tunney, except to his intimates, did not have. He does not profess an abhorrence of fighting as did the exking, but he does see in it a road to fame and fortune. At Pennsylvania he won much \ distinction at football, and in field events generally; "but," he confided, "when I had finished I was unpleasantly reminded that I was without the money to qualify for a doctor, which it was my ambition to become. My available capital was youth, strength, and, so I decided, a natural aptitude for games. The fight bug hit me, but when I set up as a pugilist it was with but small hope of earning more than enough to take me fo the end of my medical studies. . "I scarcely dreamed of getting within measureable distance of the championship. I just hoped for the best; I am still hoping. It is ail a gamble. "Whether or no, I shall have had my fling; and, better, made more generous provision for the future than perhaps would have' been possible had. I confined myself to medicine. That, of course, has been my good luck. I make no claim to being a wonder fighter. "The ring was meant to destroy obsessions ; you have either to beat the other fellow or he will beat you. From first to last, and always, yo.u are on your trial. . "Incidentally, the £SOOO I get paid for fighting Schmeling exceeds by far any sum I have got for a single previous contest. "What is called- big money in the States only comes the way of the positive top-notchers. Before I left New York I was assured that Jack Boyle, when little more than a year-old pugilist, received as much as I got for fighting Schmeling in what I. personally, hold to be a world championship eliminator. More power to his elbow! Britain is surely the home of generosity ; and if only for that reason I hope it will be possible for me to have a match in London."