ONE-SIDED BOUT

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 23

ONE-SIDED BOUT

THE WELTER-WEIGHT TITLE

"After a one-sided and uninteresting contest, Don Stirling (Oamaru), the holder of the New Zealand porfessiohal welter-weight boxing championship, easily retained his title in the fifteenround bout against Jim Griffin, of Wai-: pukurau, which was staged at Dunedin last Saturday night (reports the "Otago Daily Times"). There was an attendance of about 1500, but it is probable that had it not been that the preliminary contest between Charlie Buckley (Dunedin) and the Wellington boy, Billy Aiken, more than compensated for any deficiency in the principal bout the majority of those present would have left the hall feeling that they had hardly had their money's worth.

"To begin with, the welters were anything but a good match, and Griffin, much lighter, younger, and less experienced than Stirling, was fighting a losing battle practically throughout, although it must be said for, him that he stuck to it gamely. Stirling, however, although he had the best of nearly every round and finally won on a technical knock-out in , the fifteenth, hardly came out .with flying colours, for his display was anything but what might have been expected of him. He certainly did most, of the; fighting, but time and again he failed to follow up his advantage, arid while he always appeared: to be just'oll. the'verge of going: in and finishing he never did it. ■■• •

''Stirling's weight was given as lOst 31b, and that of Griffin as 9st 611b, but the discrepancy in poundage appeared to be much greater when the lads came together in the ring."