Neutral Referee Wanted For Empire Title Bout

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31346, 17 April 1967, Page 16

Neutral Referee Wanted For Empire Title Bout

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON. The manager of Empire feather-weight boxing champion Johnny O’Brien, Mr B. Jacobs, is demanding a neutral referee for the proposed title fight in Christchurch between O’Brien and Toro George, the New Zealand feather-weight champion.

“If the money is right and they will guarantee a neutral referee, the fight is on,” Mr Jacobs said in Cardiff today. “We do not want to give the title away and after all that unfavourable publicity about Bunny Grant losing his title out there we would not consider going without a neutral referee.” He said O’Brien could make quite a lot of money by putting the title at stake in Britain, but they would be happy to travel to New Zealand in the right circumstances.

He declined to say what financial guarantee he would require for O’Brien.

He had sent a letter to the Canterbury Boxing Association outlining O’Brien’s requirement and was now awaiting a reply.

O’Brien won the title three months ago in Ghana from the local feather-weight Floyd Robertson. He has not fought since then but plans to fight again in Scotland on May 4 against an opponent to be found by promoters there. The assistant secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control (Mr R. Clarke) said here today that board members believed the staging of a return bout between New Zealand Empire light-weight champion Manoel Santos and Jamaican Bunny Grant would satisfy what he called “that situation.”

Mr Clarke said the board had received a letter of protest after the Wellington fight in which Santos won the title from Grant on a split, and hotly disputed, decision. The letter had come from Grant’s manager.

“There is really little we can do and we feel the staging of another fight between the two boxers with the title at stake is the best way of resolving matters.