DEMPSEY READY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 16 July 1927, Page 12

DEMPSEY READY

TO FIOHT TUNNEY. A PERPLEXING SITUATION. Jack Dempsey, ex-world’s heavyweight champion, became (somewhat of an enigma after Tunney relieved him of his title last year. Since that date Tunney has held the stage, full of philosophic learning and an avowed intention of redeeming the gugulistic world from the intellectual morass into which according to Gene) it had fallen and lifting the brutal prizefighter to a higher plane in the social register. As to the all-important question of getting into the ring and delending iiis title, Tunney lias been just as shy of tne job as ever Dempsey was. DEMPSEY GITS FIT.

In the meantime, Dempsey has been up m the mountains in California preparing lor his “come-back” act. His wood-chopping, his daily runs, and general activities are said to have hardened up the ex-champion who has lost much oj*“ his former flabby appearance. On coming down from his mountaineering lair last month, Jack’s first step was to send Gns Wilson, his own particular guide, philosopher, and iriend, post-haste to New York to tell Tex Rickard that he was out after Mr Tunney’s scalp and that the sonner lie stepped into the ring again the better he would be pleased. All this was calculated to tickle the ear of the astute Mr. Rickard, who talks in terms of million dollars fights these days. Jack Sharkey having eliminated Maloney from the list of contendors for the Tunney final is to be set up to prove that Dempsey'is really in earnest about his ‘ jetome-baek 1 ’ slogaji Rickard, however, has been compelled to soft-pedal on another choice tit-ibt for Ills pugilistic grand slam owing to the discourteous and ' ruffianly treatment of a Spanish wood-chopper bv one, Heeney, a New Zealander.

NAUGHTY MAN. Tlie ingenious Mr Heeney had the exceedingly bad taste (or lack of humour) to refuse to become part- of the ‘ April Fool’s Day” joke, which misfired with the unsophisticated Philadelphians. Mr Heeney even became so obstreperous that instead of allowing Senor Paolino to ‘knock him cold had the colossal effontery to hand out suc-h a lacing to this second “wild bull of the Nevadas” that the referee had to he called in to declare the axeman from the Pyrenees the winner, in the face of a tidy rumpus from the fans and the press, who swung a majority vote In the Maofiilander s J a THE WHY AND WHEREFORE. Heeney’s refusal to be made a chopping block for the Spanish axeman has complicated the heavy-weight situation very considerably. _ One of the reasons why Senor Paolino, and not Heeney, is ‘a desirable adjunct to the championship series is that the wood-chopper person, with his colourful antecedents, is great newspaper copy, and worth the sort of long-sus-tained “ballyhoo” which made Luis Angel Firpo such a tremendous drawing card, although after events proved him to be only a second-rat boxer with a sledgehnniTltbr punch Heeney, on the other hand, is being put. to cool his heels outside the front gate to the pugilistic arena. He has sinned grievously against the canons of modern fight promotion, and the path to pugilistic fame is clearly not going to he strewn with ixises for the much-travelled Gisborne man.