Bold Step To Line-Up Boxers

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30602, 19 November 1964, Page 19

Bold Step To Line-Up Boxers

fßy Our Boxing Correspondent) As forecast in “The Press” of October 15, there will be no boxing in Christchurch before next year—and it is likely to be February or March before the next tournament takes place locally. The last bout was on Octo-

ber 2. In an effort to get boxing going again, the management committee of the Canterbury Boxing Association is taking the bold step of sending its president and match-maker (Mr E. G. Pocock) to Australia to try to line-up some bouts for next year. Mr Pocock will seek suitable opponents for Canterbury’s sole professional draw-: card, Dion Murphy, the New; Zealand light-weight cham-j pion.

Negotiations for Australian professional boxers to come to Christchurch and fight for the Canterbury association have in the last two seasons been conducted by Ambrose Palmer, the Australian trainer and manager for Stadiums, Ltd., and a former champion boxer.

Mr Palmer arranged for many boxers, including Cobblah, Pasquale, and Amarfio, to fight Murphy. He was paid no fees by the Canter- ; bury associaiton for these i services and relations cooled. The Canterbury association endeavoured to arrange a bout for Murphy with Daniel Tuyen, but Tuyen failed to arrive. This was in September, and in October, through Mr Palmer, Arthur Bradley, of Brisbane, was matched

against Murphy. Murphy won in the third round when Bradley suffered a cut on the head. Since then there has been no boxing in Christchurch. An endeavour was made to match Denis Hagen, of Invercargill, the New Zealand welter-weight champion, against Cobblah—billed as the Australian welter-weight champion. However, Mr Palmer informed the Canterbury association that Cobblah, a Ghanian, was fighting in Manila and would require a permit to get back into Australia again. Last week, it was obvious that there was only the slenderest hope of this bout taking place this year, if ever. This week, Mr Pocock announced the bout had fallen through.

The Canterbury association is chary of arranging bouts when Murphy is not one of those taking part—the association has lost heavily on these bouts. The association is also chary, Mr Pocock said on October 21, of arranging amateur tournaments with visiting boxers from Wellington, Auckland or Australia, for fear of losing money. Mr Pocock said this in reply to an article in “The Press” suggesting that the Canterbury association spent more of its profits made through Murphy in arranging quality amateur tournaments. However, Mr Pocock is now on record as saying that he will be seeking to arrange visits to Christchurch by Australian amateurs when he is in Australia this month.