"UNGOVERNED PASSION"

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 141, 18 December 1928, Page 11

"UNGOVERNED PASSION"

WRESTLING BOUT CONDEMNED KEFKIfKE ASSAULTKD (Dy Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post") [■". AUCKLAND, This Day. J'n the course of an editorialon "The Degradation of Sports,", dealing with tire wrestling match between Kilonis and M'Carthy (reported-"oh" page 15), the "New Zealand Herald" says;— "If the reputation of wrestling as a manly sport depended on such exhibitions as last evening's, it would have to be regarded •as guilty of false pretences'. By no stretch of'imagination could that contest..be classed as legitimate sport. The redeeming feature was the emphatic resentment of the spectators at most disgusting elements in the.display. • It must be add■ed in fairness to M'Carthy that the responsibility 'for the whole sorry business did not lie with him. The bout Was an1 outrage to sportsmanship, and | in. .some respects w.orso. .than . anything of the kind yet seen here.. "For the conduct of Kilonis there can bo nothing but scorn. • Ho showed a. preference for illegal tactics, and was so little amenable to the referee's control that jho not only defied tho hitter's attempts to enforce the rules, but also made.an assault on him in a fit of ungoverned passion. The. match was. ostensibly 1 under, tjie management of the New Zealand Wrestling Association.. If it cannot manage its contests, .'in. a better fashion than in this instance, it should give up the task. .The police, too, surely have a 'duty when, an assault such as that inflicted by Kilouis on the j referee is committed openly in .a. public place. ' It may bo pleaded. that large liberty should be allowed in such affrays, but what happened was. not an assertion of liberty, it was unbridled license." - .