Coast Boxers Win Five Out Of Seven Christchurch Bouts

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 July 1950, Page 7

Coast Boxers Win Five Out Of Seven Christchurch Bouts

West Coast boxers won five out of seven bouts in a tournament held at Christchurch last evening. The standard of boxing was high, but the disappointing feature of the evening was the disqualification of the form-, er New Zealand middleweight, M. Tuck, for a low punch, early in his' bout with the Canterbury champion, J. McMahon. Tuck was having his first bout this year. The real tussle, between the two provinces commenced 'in promising style when the two paper-weights, G. Finlay, 6.6 (West Coast) and B. McLaren (Canterbury) faced one another. McLaren, who appeared the more mature of the two midgets, carried the fight in the-early stages of the first round, and looked like rushing the West Coaster off his feet. Finlay, however, like the rest of his teammates, showed a sound knowledge of the art of boxing, and before the end of the round he had evened the points. In the second round Finlay forged still further ahead with clever footwork and clean punches and, in an effort to get an early decision, both young boxers waded in with renewed vigour. All through, however, Finlay showed up as the more polished boxer and earned a popular decision.

Second Win

West Coast scored its second win when V. Tuck, weighing lOst 101 b gavb away weight to J. Lingham, list 31b, and won handsomely in four rounds of two minutes each, each minute producing fresh thrills. Tuck was the clever, well-trained boxer-fighter, with a good variety of punches, clever footwork _ and ringcraft gained bv wide experience. Lingham; showed a knock-out punch in either hand, and a degree of gameness that should carry him a long way. Tuck’s greater experience carried the decision after a capital bout, which had the crowd worked to a high pitch of excitement. A. Williams, the second of the paperweights paraded by West Coast, weighed only sst 51b, and a cooler and more accomplished boxer of his weight has not been seen in a Christr church ring for a long time. Clean punches with shoulder behind them, aligned with clever footwork and a degree of ringcraft, gained him the verdict over M. Prenderville (Canterbury), 6st. Unfortunate Ending

There was an unfortunate ending to what promised to be the bout of the evening when M. Tuck (West Coast) lost to J. McMahon on a foul. After the two boxers had joined in several hot exchanges Tuck landed a low punch and McMahon went to the canvas. A medical examination showed that a low blow had been struck and McMahon was acclaimed the winner. Tuck is one of the best known and clever young boxers in the Dominion, and the general feeling amongst officials and the audience was that the occurrence was purely accidental. C. Cook (Canterbury), 9.9, after a rather slow beginning brightened up in the second and third rounds of his bout with V. Graham (West Coast), 9.4, and dropped his opponent for a count of nine and a further seven seconds in the fourth round. Cook has a long reach and a punch which he uses with full weight.

Eder Hits Hard

B. Eder (West Coast). 9.8 and K. Murfitt (Canterbury), 9.4, both well known in boxing championships circles, provided a rare exhibition of clean, hard fighting for the first round, which was fought at a trimming pace. Both men appeared to be in ex-cellent condition and Murfitt received his first set-back when Eder dropped him for a count of seven. This took all the steam out of Murfitt, and the referee had no hesitation in awarding the contest to Eder.

Murfitt is a former New Zealand champion. In the seventh bout ,C. Curtis (West Coast) 9.2, beat J. Clausen (C.) 9.3.