MOORE RETAINS TITLE

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27988, 7 June 1956, Page 5

MOORE RETAINS TITLE

BOXING

Technical Knock-Out Against Pompey (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON. June 5. The world light-heavy-weight cham- , pion, Archie Moore (United States), i retained his title by beating Yolande . Pompey (Trinidad) at Harringay Arena in London tonight. . The referee stopped the fight in I Moore’s favour in the tenth round, ( after Pompey had been floored several x times. « Pompey fought a maenificent battle, dealt out plenty of punishment on his own account, but was still not in the same class as the 39-year-old Moore. Most remarkable of all was the manner in which Moore paced the fight. Af|er five rounds, he looked almost too tired to stand up. but in the eighth, ninth and tenth, he gave Pompey a battering which made further resistance futile. Pompey, aged 27, did so well in the first half of the fight that he was about level on points by the time the tenth round started. In the ninth, *he took a blow which gashed his left eve, and in the tenth he was knocked down three times. The champion waded into his opponent and had him down with a right jab to the jaw fpr a count of eight just after the opening bell. Pompey rose, only to be sent down again, this time for a count of nine. Reeling like a drunken man, and almost out on his feet, the plucky West Indian was sent to the boards for another count of eight, but still he tried to continue. ~ The referee. Jack Hart, stopped the fight. It was the first time that courageous Pompey had failed to go the distance with any boxer. He had lost only two of his previous 35 fights. Moore, the favourite, was defending his title for the fifth time. Waterman’s Title Peter Waterman, the 21-year-old former amateur champion from Clapham (London), took the British welter-weight title from Wally Thom, of Birkenhead, in five rounds, in a preliminary bout. A bad cut over Thom’s right eye received in the third round, compelled his retirement two rounds later. Although Thom had been out of the ring for six months because of an injured hand, he was in very good shape. His boxing was sharp, his punching accurate. Waterman had things by no means his ov r n way until Thom was forced on to the defensive in the fourth round when his cut .eye became troublesome. Critics believe that Thom was handicapped by having to get down to welter-weight and that his future will probably be as a middle-weight. He started vigorously, but in the second and third rounds his punching began to lose some of its sting. From the moment blood started to flow from Thom’s eyebrow, it was clearly only a matter of time. Thom threw all he had into a desoerate fifth round assault, but Waterman rode the storm.