PRETTY FIGHTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 299, 15 December 1923, Page 7

PRETTY FIGHTERS.

NO " KILLING INSTINCT."

ENGLISHMEN CRITICISED.

LONDON, December 8. ■ I Tex OTvOurke's efforts to produce a ' I heavy-weight champion of the world in '■ one of the thre young English giants he ' is training at Malvern have aroused ' widespread interest, tinged with amuspment, in America, whose boxing experts are unanimously of the opinion that the scheme is foredoomed to failure unless o"Rourke adopts American methods. Walter Trumbell, a leading boxing writer, scathingly comments that l.ngland has no chance of producing a i-on-queror of Dempsey by following the present methods. It is like asking a '■ deer or an antelope to fight a rhinoceros. I "The English," he says, "seem fond ■of a pretty fighter who possesses a > pretty left hand, and such a boxer can- ■ not beat the world, because more than 1 half the battle consists in heavy infighting. Johnson used to hold his opponent with one arm. hit a lightning uppercut. and get the arm back in time to keep his guard. "The American heavy-weight is • known to have a hundred tricke to apply against a pretty fighter. Corbett was a pretty fighter, and could easily outpoint. Jeffries in scientific boxing; but .Teffries floored Corhett with . one blow. I remember how Fitzsimons ! broke both his hands on Jeffries' jaw. '"Dempsey takes the heaviest blows on ; i the jaw. Apparently the nerve con- .' necting his jaw and brain does not function. English heavy-weights i.annot do this. Beckett cannot do it. Wells, although he has unbounded courage, has a glass jaw. "Pretty fighters do not possess the killing instinct, and are inclined to step back when an opponent is helpless and reeling. Dempsey steps in quickly with straight, not swinging, blows, i carrying every ounce of his muscle." ! J Frank Bagley, a successful American . trainer, says " that English training methods are wrong. Boxers are allowed too much tea, pastry, cakes, and cigar- ' ettes. , America, he declares, had improved on ' the methods followed when Ensland was supreme. Englishmen are good boxers for |K)ints, but there are few fighters ; among them. Promising English lads I would have a cbence if they migrated ; and learned American methods. He considers that Todd. one of the few ; boxers who fight like the Americans. |*nd Goddard are the best among the Veavyereights. English experts do not relieh this criticism. One points out that Bagley formerly trained Ratner, -who declared that he wae never rea.Uv fit until he eaesa. " . ~