Godoy To Try Boxing Comeback

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 11, 13 January 1945, Page 6 (Supplement)

Godoy To Try Boxing Comeback

By JOHN LARDNER

NEW YORK. NO sooner had the mighty Menichelli. the Argentine heavyweight, arrived in this country recently and dropped with a thud into the lap of his importer, James Joy Johnston, who promptly put him on a diet of tea, than Mr. Alphonse Weskit Weill dashed to the cable office and summoned his own South American assassin, Arturo Godoy, from Chile. If' Mr. Johnston thinks he is going to be the only manager to stroll Jacobs Beach with a South American heavy-weight on a leash, he is mistaken. "My Arturo will soon be here," says Mr. Weill, "and will kill 'em all." Since this is exactly the same programme sketched out by Mr. Johnston for the mighty Menichelli, Broadway should shortly be carpeted with dead bodies, with no one surviving but Menichelli and Godoy— and, naturally, Mr. Johnston and Alphonse Weskit Weill, who have arranged to exclude themselves from the extermination ceremonies. The fans of this country have never seen Menichelli fight. Neither has Mr. Johnston. Mr. Weill was pointing out the other day that for this reason the prestige value of his South American is much higher than that of Mr. Johnston's. Almost "Killed" Louis "Everybody knows what my Arturo can do," said the Weskit. "He almost killed Louis." Allowing for the natural exuberance of Mr. Weill, and the colourful quality of fight managers language, it is true that Senor Godoy once gave the world's champion a little trouble. He is a big, rough, vigorous fellow. In his first fight with Louis he charged Joseph repeatedly, in a crouch, and grabbed the champion around the waist. This made it difficult for Louis to hit him cleanly. Though he scored the necessary points, Joe never did solve the Godoy problem completely within the 15 rounds' time of that first meeting. Their second fight was one of the most powerful examples of Louis' return-match brilliance, his ability to learn lessons and clean up back accounts. Gofloy, bone-tough, still required a good deal of chopping to bring him down, but Louis was in a chopping mood. He hit the Chilian with everything in his extensive repertoire and knocked him cold in the eighth round. To my mind, the classic performance of Godoy's American career was his first fight with Tony Galento, in 1937. Mr. Galento, in addition to his i other bovish traits, had one of the finest collection of dirty tricks that ring history has ever known. The thumb, the knee, and the top of the head were standard weapons for Tony. He went to work on Senor Godoy with all three, and was startled to find that the South American not only was adept at the same stuff, but even had some-new ones Tony had never seen. That is a very interesting South American that Mr. Alphonse Weskit Weill has restored to local circulation.