"GOOD LUCK TO GENE."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 214, 10 September 1928, Page 11

"GOOD LUCK TO GENE."

HEENEY ON HIS DEFEAT. BROKEN THUMB HINDERS TRAINING. CHAMPIONSHIP PROSPECTS. How Tom Heeney went down with colours flying to Gene Tunney in the eleventh round of their fifteen-round battle for the world's heavyweight championship six weeks ago is now boxing history, but the fight was fought all over again with Heeney's arrival from America last evening. Heeney told the story of the fight as the Aorangi was anchored in the stream awaiting pratique. "It was quite right about my thumb," he said. "Three weeks before the match I broke a bone here (indicating a bump near the base of his right thumb). We couldn't tell anyone for fear Rickard might find out and g&t a substitute. For four days I could not spar at all and almost to the end of my training I was unable to use my right. When the night of the big fight came along I found it hard to get the idea about not using my right out of my head. .Not that I want to take anything from Gene. He won and •rood luck to him!" At this stage Heeney was interrupted in his story with a request to sign an autograph book. "Sitting" Shots. "The turning point in the fight occurred in the eight round, when I injured my left eye," Tom said. "The upper lash somehow or other got under the lid and while I was trying to get it out Tunney had a lot of sitting shots at me. And he hit me plenty," Tom smiled. Asked how the accident happened Tom said that neither he nor anyone else knew. "I never said that Tunney deliberately poked his thumb in my eye," he added. Heeney was next asked whether he thought he could have lasted out the distance if the referee had not intervened. "Well, I don't know," he said. "When the fight was stopped there were only eight seconds of the round to go, and although there were shouts of 'Stop it!' I wasn't going badly. I was really in a worse way in t'he tenth." Heeney was loud in his praises for the sporting qualities of the American boxing crowds. "Their sportsmanship is 100 per cent, and anything to the contrary is just bunkum," he declared emphatically. £21,000 From the Fight. "How much did you get out of the fight t" was the next question put to Heeney by his interviewers. "I got £21,000 and there was £11,000 left when a! 1 expenses had been paid. My sparring partners cost me £10 a day each for six minutes' boxing and there were three of them, and that was only one of the items that ran away with some of the money," he said. Heeney said the reason he had not gone to London to fight Phil Scott, the British heavyweight champion, as had been stated in a cable he would do, was that he could not get the terms he wanted. "I asked for £8000, win, lose or draw. When I last fought Soott at Soutohampshort -notice got only £300, jWhifo the English champion received over £1200, and I wouldn't have got a penny more if I had woij. So this time I figured that it was my turn to call the tune." Discussing his plans for the future, Heeney said that 'he was due back in the United States late in November or early in December. Tex Rickard's elimination series to find a new champion to occupy the heavyweight throne recently vacated by Tunney were due to start in about two months' time. There were about eight or ten aspirants for the title and he would not take part until the number had been reduced- to about three. "I will not fight before January," said Tom. An Even-Honey Chance. Tom emilad when he was asked what chance he •eneidered he had, of winning the championship. "I think I have an even-money chance," he answered. He thooght the winner of the series would be among Tommy Loughran, Jack Sharkey, Paolino, Johnny Risko and himself. Scott he considered an "also ran." Heeney said that he would like to meet Tunney in a return match, but he did not think it likely that the ex-champion would fight again.

"I've got a feeling that we will go across to Australia and see the Melbourne Oup, but our plam are not fixed yet," Heeney concluded.