BOXING

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 257, 14 July 1926, Page 7

BOXING

(By

Left Hook)

Cleverley's Bad Luck. Young A. J. Cleverley has certainly met with misfortune in regard to boxing lately. He was in the pink of condition to compete in the middle weights at the local championships last month, but he was seized with a tevere attack of influenza, which prevented him from doing so. He was then matched to meet Johannsen (the winner of the local middle-weight championship), but Johannsen was unable to appear. Arrangements were then made to match the Marquis of Clydesdale and Cleverley for last Monday night, hut this fell through also, through no fault of Clev-

erley. Young Cleverley has proved himself ono of tho best all-round athletes the Dominion has produced. He has competed in the following successful representative teams: Swimming, tug-of-war, life-saving, tenuis, shooting, Rugby, cricket and boxing. His boxing record is of a rare quality, for he has fought in five different weights and never been defeated. He has defeated such prominent boxers as Rathner (when a feather-weight), “Seaman" Ridgeway (when a welter-weight), Evatt (the present holder of tho light-heavy and heavyweight local championships), Fitzsimmons (the well-known heavy-weight), and Vai. Gunion (middle-weight;. Cleverley is only 18 years of ago and his present fighting weight is lOst. 131 b. He is remarkably fast for a middle-weight, carrying a good snappy punch in either hand, and with another two years to fill out, he should develop into a good light-heavy-weight for the New Zealand 1928 Olympic boxing team. Johannsen and Cleverley will meet on August 1(1, and the winner of the bout will represent Wellington in the middle-weight oivision at the New Zealand boxing championships, which are to he held at Napier on August 26, 27 and 28