BOXING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 127, 11 March 1936, Page 2

BOXING.

SHARKEY’S COME-BACK. The come-back efforts of Jack Sharkey, the “Boston Gob,” former champion of thg world, are earning him a whole heap of notoriety, hut nobody seems to take him very seriously. In his first bout Sharkey disposed.of a certain “Unknown” Winston. In an article entitled “The Tanker ‘Unknown Winston ’ goes down in a Light Breeze off the Massachusetts Coast,” a New York reporter wrote: What a tragic sight! The old tanker Unknown Winston, which lias roamed the seas for some years with its dark mystery, rides the waves, sighs in the zephyr, and goes dc»vn into the briny deep. It is one of those hard and terrific tragedies of the ocean of fisticuffs. And before .Sharkey sank the aforesaid Tanker Winston, here’s what another of Uncle Sam’s bright hoys said about the impending battle: — Fat, forty and full of that nut-brown ale he unloads on arid autographseekers at his barnlike beer stube, Saloonkeeper Jack Sharkey, aged in the wood since 1932, and positively guaranteed 110 proof, will make his fistic come-back in the Aquarium —pardon, the Boston Garden! The lachrymose Lithuanian’s adversary will be that horizontal hooligan, Unknown Winston. If the crying towel champ has any trouble with this Weissmuller of the tank trails, he’ll be the first fellow who ever did; for the Unknown one always wears his waterwings concealed in his trunks, and when he jackknifes off that high board the spray carries to all parts of the hall.

Some fellows will do anything for a few pounds. Sharkey is rich. He has all the buttons that lie started with, and is a devoted family man. Yet, at an age where most guys are ducking drafts as they shuffle around the house in tlieir carpet slippers, jittery Jolinno decides he’ll knock himself over a few stumblebums and then risk his life against Joe Louis. Thin of hair and with one of these balloon tyres encircling his middle, Sharkey lias trained diligently for his return to the resin racket. To-day Jack did at* least five miles behind the bar of his gin mill,- and he got his punching bag exercise by working out on his larger pumps. He dieted carefully on a Nhw England boiled dinner and a slab of mince pie. Then he dropped into a barber’s shop for a shave, shine and hair-cut. Thus end,ed his training: