Boxing

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 256, 13 October 1923, Page 16

Boxing

No wonder many people believed that Luis I’irpo would administer a sleeping potion to Jack Dempsey at the meet ing between the two the other day. Luis used to be a chosinists’ assistant. » • « Johnny Buff, former bantam-weight, and fly weight, champion of America, who was knocked out. by Henry Catena in the ninth round of their 10-round contest at Long Isiland City, has announced his retirement from the ring. He declared after the contest, that his legs had gone back on him. Buff is 33 years obi. So Robert Roth’s dreams of being the eventual vanpuisher of Jack Dempsey have phutted, Albert Lloyd, the Australian, outclassing him at Olympia, London. Roth, who is a Swiss, and a former Olympic wrestling champion, is 24 years old, of magnificent physique, with a reach of 7S inches, which is four inches longer than Dempsey’s, His height is lift 2in, and his weight nearly • • • "Verily the colour line is the armoured buckler of llu? while man’s prideHarry Wills, the brown panther of New Orleans, yearns to pant on Air. Dempsey’s bosom, but, alas, there is nothing colourful in the champion’s battle plans. He knows Will’s record ;iy heart. Hen* it is: 32 years old, lift Jin tall, weight J 5.0; S 4 contests, 38 knock-outs and 28 won on points. Ni. decision bouts 13, mid lost four. No wonder Dempsey treads warily. * * * Torn Heeney and Jim Savage have been matched to meet at Napier on October 27. * * *• Charlie Cann, the New Zealand ban-tani-champion, is Io meet Bert Faconey at Auckland for the title on October 22.

“There's nothing in Australia to touch him,” roared a Sheppeurdile when Ern Shcppcard fought Blackie Alillar. “I.’ve seen nothing miss him up to date/’ grunted his neighbour.

At last Bermondsey Billy Wells, the English welterweight, wh’o has made American fight fans almost overlook his crime of being an Englishman, has eoinojo life again. He has met Roy Conley, of Green Bay, m the State of Wisconsin, and after hammering his man around for the first three rounds, Wells floored him in the fourth, and the bout teas slopped to save Conley from further punishment. Why this sudden spun ?

That old sporting query, “Can a champion wrestler be deveioped into a champion boxer?” is revived again. Nat Pendleton, one of the greatest, wrestlers ever developed in America. and winner of t he amateur heavyweight championship at the Olympic and Games, has decided that tie is the boy to stouch Jack Dempsey. Critics claim that. Nat is not mu-wle bjund, and he is fast and niinb'e. Moreover 10. has shown extraord"n n.• form in the gymnasium as a boxer. Wlifeh mav be so, but the whole -iff:iir looks like an attempt to exploit the credulity of the public to staging a light that could end only one way. Jack Dempsey, be yond Hie slightest doubt, would pile up Nat on the listic ;.crap-heap. boxers have to be caught young, and champion are not made in a day. catvs-M.x- ’t’

lo have lost the decision on points and the heavy-weight cliampionsnip to Hm Sulu van, a boxer scarcely known in New Zeauuid or anywhere else, must be gaUng to Tom Heeiuy. Reports of tiie match show that although neeney w<ls by no means overwhelmed, he met more than his equal as a boxer in O’Sullivan. The big Gisborneite is essentially a fighter, and when he iound that the Aucklander was as scientitic as he was tail, the position puizzlqd heeney, try as lie would, could not keep entirely clear of the challenger’s long reaching left, which prodded him painfully and incessantly. O’Sullivan is so tall ami so awkard to hit that even a six-foot opponent is at a loss. The left, straight and sure and strong, is O’Sullivan’s most useful weapon. It was never inactive; when it connected Heeney didn’t need to be told. To win he had to deliver the K.O-, aijd fail«,S,,any to do this, he lost. O’Sullivan has made a name for himself that should endure for many a day.—(Christchurch ‘‘Sun. ”)

* * » The toboggan slide is easy. Sam Langford, onoj the terror of many a good heavy-weight scrapper, has lost another tight. Clem Johnson, also a negro, stopped him in the 13th round of a scheduled 15-rounds fight in Mexico.

So Georges Carpentier and Joe Beckett met again at last, and the meeting proved worth none of the fuss that was made over it. Beckett lived about as long as he did on the previous occasion ,and his defeat was just as ignominous. He didn’t stay in the ring long enough to plead that his hand went back on him—or, indeed, to plead anything, except that he was walloped. It is full time that England produced a new band of champions.

Frankie Geneva, the American n; weight champion, has been knocking out his opponents in such rapid succession that a battle with Pancho \ ilia, the little Filipino, for the world’s title is inveitable. It wae rather a peculiar incident that Genara should win the title from Villa after the latter had won it from Johnny Buff, and that the Filipino should turn around and grab off the world’s title by defeating Jimmy Wilde. Genaro has also offered to meet Joe Lynch ofr the bantam-weight- championship, but the granting of the <tle. to Joe Burman of Chicago by the New York Co'mmission kinjd of" mixed matters up a bit- Genaro will hardly care to tackle Burman at the weight. All three oi the big open-air clubs in Now York have been after the Genaro- \ ilia match, :|nd it will likely be held. There wa.s a doubt about .-the winner when the two met last winter, many of the. writers disagreeing with the verdict of the judges.

Keen imagination is about as great a handicap any youngster aspiring to pugilistic fame can suffer from (writes vV. F. Corbett in an article on “The Effective Boxing Temperament”). For the ring the phlegmatic temeprament is ideal. It may not enable the boxer to live in the clouds, but it saves him many a mental flop to the padded boards. Boxers who are highly-strung and have brain-power above the average of their fellows often suffer intensely in the dressing-room- They can hear the hoarse shouts of the crowd watching another battle, and they know, all too tensely, that an ordeal awaits. Such realisation is not good lor the morale. A striking example of the effects of “nerves” was the famous Jeffries-Johnson fight, when the giant white, after giving his imagination free play, entered the ring a nerve-shattered weakling, with defeat, certain. That was a classic example of the havoc that might be wrought by imagination.