THE SQUARED RING
BOXING AND WRESTLING. PUBLIC INTEREST INCREASING. (By “Referee.”) That wrestling is booming in America, Europe, Great Britain and Australia at the present time, and will even increase in popularity, is the deckled opinion of Mr Walter Miller, manager for Earl McCready, champion heavy-weight wrestler. No man is better qualified to pass an opinion on wrestling that Mr Miller, a ; s i lie was a world-renowned exponent of the mat game in his day, and at one time held four world titles—light, welter, middle and light-heavy-weight. Ho won the light-weight championship in. 1910 by defeating Eugene Trumble at Winnipeg, Canada; annexed the welter title in 1911 by beating Ered B'reiutle at Rochester, New York; added the light-heavy-weight crown to his growing list of honours by outclassing Theodore Peters at St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1913; and took bis fourth world title when he defeated Mike Yokel lor the middle-weight crown at Montreal, Canada, in 1916. Though he only scaled from list 21b to list 41b, Walter Miller lias engaged in over 3000 wrestling contests in all parts of the world, and bus met many of the best, heavy-weights in the ring, including Fred! Beel, Ulan McLeod, and Earl Cadock. He came out to Australia in 1923, and won the Australian heavy-weight championship, defeating such big men as Clarence Y eber and Ike Robin, the giant Maori. The match between Walter Miller and Ted Thye for the light-heavy-weight championship of the world in the Motordrome at Melbourne in 1924, drew an attendance of 26,000. This was a thrilling outdoor contest, with the temperature standing at 108 in the shade, and after 13 a draw was declared.
“Wrestling is booming in the United States and France, and is rapidity getting a firm hold in Britain,” Mr Miller'said in an interview. “The reason that wrestling has become soi popular is that wrestlers endeavour to give the public what they want—plenty of action. Wrestlers know that if they do not take chances, and infuse plenty of life into their displays, neither the public nor promoters will want them.” In New York, he said, as many as ten wrestling matches were staged each week, and throe matches a ueek were put on at Los Angeles. Questioned as to whether his charge Earl McCready, would contest his title a,s champion of the British Empire here, Mr Miller said that McCready took the title a year ago by defeating that line wrestler, Jack Taylor, another Canadian, at Vancouver. Taylor had just returned from London, where lie had beaten the best of the British wrestlers.
McCready, Mr Miller said, uas a front-rank performer, as lie had shown by bis contests with Londos in America, McCready, though a Canadian, had been educated at Oklahoma University and in three years had carried off the inter-college and national championships’. Meteoric Rise.
The victory gained by Joe Louis, the hard-hitting 21-year-old negro, over Primo Camera, came as no surprise as Louis has forged his way to the front in one .short year in a manner which has caused him to be dubbed by American boxing writers as ‘‘the fistic sensation of the year.” He stands 6ft lin weighs 1951 b., and made his profess 9)% ad debut as recently as July 4 ol last year with a one-round knock-out of Jack Kracken, and he has since been knocking out opponents with almost monotonous regularity.
Louis began boxing as an amateur in Detroit, winning the golden gloves, and later the A.A.U. championship. He lias bad 17 straight victories since turning professional, and bis latestvictim, Red Barry, was knocked out in the third round after being down twice in the previous round. He has built up a reputation at the expense of four well-known heavyweights—Charlie Hassare, Lee Ramage, Patsy Perroni and Hans Birkie. The first three were fighters of considerable distinction, each with an apparently bright future before him. Birkie was a veteran trial horse, who, out of 42 battles, suffered only two knock-outs, and lost narrow margin decisions to Primo Camera and Art Lasky. Massare was stopped in the third round by Louis, Ramage in the eighth and Perroni was dropped for “nine counts” in the second, seventh and ninth sessions of a ten-round bout. Birkie was draped helplessly over the ropes in the tenth round, the referee intervening and pronouncing Louis tlie
winner. Louis scored a one-round knock-out off Stanley Porcda last year, but the latter, once a promising heavy-weight title contender, has practically become a human punching bag for ambitious aspirants to hammer as they please. Louis belongs to tlie fighter-boxer type that wastes no time in desultory sparring or skipping around- a ling with acrobatic activity, but makes every shot tell. Bob Fitsimmons was that sort of a fighter, so was the redoubtable Sam Langford. Both were adepts at scoring knock-outs with short, jarring punches that travelled but a few inches, but hit the target with a stunning effect. Also, like them, the new coloured boxer can shock an opponent into oblivion "with either left or right.
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Bibliographic details
Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 241, 25 July 1935, Page 7
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838THE SQUARED RING Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 241, 25 July 1935, Page 7
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