TOM HEENEY SERVED HARD APPRENTICESHIP

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6631, 9 June 1928, Page 8 (Supplement)

TOM HEENEY SERVED HARD APPRENTICESHIP

Early Career in

Gisborne man had knock-out punch and little else — Tragic battle with Cyril Whittaker recalled —How Heeney got £34 for bout in Australia—Brother Jack explains Tom's belated rise to fame.

TI/fANY New Zealanders have been 111 frankly puzzled at Tom Keeney’s meteoric rise to fame in America. Only a few years ago, they knew him as a rough and ready fighter with the strength of a bullock and a minimum of speed and science. In the following article an interesting light is shed on his career, and his brother Jack gives his explanation of Tom’s rise to the position of challenger for Tunney’s world’s championship crown. The first time Tom Keeney entered the'ring he was in a blue funk. He looked furtively round the hall and confessed afterwards to having felt wobbly about the knees. It was not his opponent, however, who was responsible for the future champion’s anxiety. The picture which was uppermost in his mind was the face of his father, whom he had glimpsed out of the corner of the eye as soon as he entered the ring. Tom was fighting without the knowledge of his parents, and more or less • against their wishes, for although Mr. Keeney—“Old. Kughie,” as he was affectionately called by his boys—had taught, them to box, he did not encourage their initial public appearances. On this night Jack Keeney, at that time amateur welter-weight champion of New Zealand, was the star attraction, and Tom, then only 1.7 years of age, had been requisitioned at the last moment to fill a vacancy in the programme. Tom knocked out; his opponent in the third round. So it was that on July 1, 1915, Tom made) his debut in the ring as a substitute. It is Interesting to recall that nearly ten years later he made his first appearance in England in a similar capacity. Incidentally, "Old Hughie,” in his excitement at Tom’s success, for* got everything else, and since has given him every possible encouragement. Tom Keeney never entered the ring

acain until toward the end of 191». SSfin he beat Brian McCleary n a Sited bout at Hastings. There have been several statements about Tom fighting in England and France durm„ the war. they are entirely imaginative. Tom was »oo young to gel to France, and It was Jack who fought in England, incidentally, under the wing of Tom’s present manager, Mr. Bernard Mortimer. NOTHING DETERRED HIM Talk about “Keeney's luck. fn reality there are few boxers, perhaps, who have had less luck, and although his recent successes might Justly be termed "meteoric," his career, judged as a whole, is characterised by a persistence and determination seldom equalled in the history of the ring. The fact that he failed to win half his fights in Australia would have been sufficient to deter most men; but not Tom, for he knew of what he was capable. Returning to New Zealand he met with only a degree of success, and then he went to England. No boxer could have received less encouragement than did Heeney in England, and, as has been related before, he was pn the point of returning home. In South' Africa he had only a moderate run, but still he refused to give in Then came America! An early success against Charlie Anderson, the big Chicago negro, was discounted by his twice failing to account for the giant Spaniard, Uzcudun. Had Heeney thrown ■ in the towel at this stage no one would have blamed him, but still he persevered, and he has been rewarded. Tom’s earliest indication of that aggressive style which has made him so popular in America was probably given in his first fight in Australia, when he met Max Gornik Iff Queensland. “He slashed and ripped his opponent unmercifully," says one report of the contest, “and the Russian was on the carpet no fewer than four times before the towel was thrown in.” This fight, too, was an indication of what Heeney could do when he really let himself go. UNLUCKY SAVAGE His New Zealand matches told the same tale. If he once became properly aggressive, or was stirred into action, the result was never in doubt. When ho took things easy, as he always was prone to, his opponent was steadily piling up points without his realising it, and. he lost,. The most striking instance of this was the fight with Jim Savage in Napier. Within a few minutes of the fight opening Tom got a nasty cut on the eye—that same eye troubled him for a good while after, but seems to behave better or keep out of the road nowadays—and, nearly blinded as he was, Heeney realised that he must end the fight quickly or else lose it. He put all his strength into one terrific on-

siaught, and sent Savage down for the full count, the incensed spectators, being robbed of their money's worth, quite unjustifiably venting their wrath on the unlucky Savage. Had Tom had a similar incentive in other of his fights his opponents might easily have shared Savage’s fate. Tom’s tactics on that occasion are practically without parallel in his career. The nearest approach to tjiem was in his fights with O’Sullivan after the latter had taken the title from him. Tom was considerably a nnoyed at his defeat in Auckland, or not so much at his defeat as at what was said about It, and he made up his mind that there should be no room for talk on their second meeting. It will be many years before that second fight, in Gisborne, is forgotten. The scene in the. Opera House has seldom been equalled in New Zealand, although it was repeated during Heeney’s • South African tour. In the early round. 1 # Heeney had punished O’Sullivan severely. In the fifth round the Aucklander went down. He got up again, but then, as Heeney approached with blood pouring from a wound over the eye—his previous fight had been the one with Savage— O'Sullivan, without being touched sought refuge on the carpet. The referee touched O’Sullivan on the shoulder. and the latter promptly raised his arm. In less time than it takes to tell the ring was full of officials, seconds and spectators. The referee was

surrounded and the two solitary policemen were lost in the crush. Heeney. absolutely thunder-struck, paced the ring like a caged tiger. The referee tried to speak but was howled down. As a final effort to restore peace he went over to Heeney, and raising his arm in the air declared, “The w i n n e r." I f Heeney’s supporters had been annoyed before, O’Sullivan’s were beyond all control. Pandemonium broke loose; there were arguments in all parts of the hall. Only the presence of mind of some individual who extinguished the lights prevented a riot. The referee afterwards explained that he had touched O’Sullivan’s arm to disqualify him, and that the winner had never been in doubt. The merits of the two boxers were effectively decided a little later on, when Heeney knocked, his man out in the ninth round. Tom’s tragic match with Cyril Whittaker, which resulted in the Southland boy’s death, is recalled because of the interest attaching to the following comment which appeared in the “New Zealand Herald”; “As a display of scientific boxing it was disappointing. Neither of the competitors exhibited any evidence of science It was characterised by wilful and extravagant slogging, with repeated clinching.’* The purses Tom received for some of his earlier fights represent a very small figure when compared with the “cuts” he is getting in America. One

of the smallest, if not the smallest return he secured for winning a light was in Queensland, when his reward for knocking out Max Gornlk after 15 rounds w-aa £34. Win or lose, his bout with Gene Tunney he is likely to get that many thousands of pounds. Several of his professional fights in Now Zealand had as their reward sums of £7O and £75. or less than one per cent, of his share of the Sharkey “gate,” while even in England he only obtained £IOO for his match with P'-' Scott. Tom’s brother, Jack, maintains that Tom always Jtm showed the makings of a great boxer, but it took a lot to • his possibilities out. “He was always quick for a heavy-weight,” he added, “and exceptionally fast on his feet, but he never put much ginger into his work, and at one stage he was a bit scared to use his strength. There no doubt that he has learned much in America, but it’s not so much what he has been taught as the fact that he has learned to let himself go.” STRONGER THAN EVER Some of the talk about Heeney’s rise to fame has been coupled with the comment that he is at the height of his career at an age when most boxers are thinking of retiring. Such a capable critic as Trevor C. Wignall recently wrote: “When a pugilist nears the age of 30 without reaching a higher position than that of a deputy-trial horse it may usually be taken for granted that he is a failure. . . . Heeney is a classical example of a boxer finding world-wide fame at the very time when his age and accomplishments prompted everyone to believe that his insignificant day was over.” There is an interesting explanation of why Heeney is at the top of the tree at a time of life when others have started to climb downward, and this is likely to have an important bearing upon his future. I struck the explanation quite by accident. In going through the records of Tom’s fights I' was struck with the fact that he continued putting on weight, notwithstanding that he was training harder than ever. When he first fought as a professional Tom weighed 12.8; when he was in Australia he was fighting at over 13.0; in South Africa he got up to 14.4; and when he stripped for his last fight, against Delaney, he turned the scales at 15.2. “That’s easily explained,” said’Jack when I pointed this out to him. “It’s a Heeney peculiarity.” He said that at the age when most young fellows finished growing the Heeneys were just starting. “At 20 I held the welterweight title, but in a few years I had grown so much that X had to join the middles. I’ve kept on growing and now 1 guess I’m not far off being a full-fledged heavy. It’s the same with

Tom. He’s just getting into his best condition. That extra weight he’s putting on means extra strength and extra strength is going to count a lot in his future fights.” It is Jack’s opinion that this family characteristic very largely explains the whole of Tom’s career. All the time ha was giving mediocre displays and being hailed as a second-rater he was

developing. Far from being past his prime ho is just reaching it. Instead of reaching the retiring age Tom’s best fighting days are ahead of him. While Jack will not say straight out that Tom will beat Tunney, he has pretty firm ideas of his own as to what is going to happen to the title. Copyright—THE SUN Feature Service.