BOXING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 13 November 1922, Page 2

BOXING

BIKI SUSPENDED (By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.) PARIS, Nov. 9. Siki has been suspended for nine months, and deprived of the lightweight championship. BECKETT AND" STKI MATCH ■ LONDON, Nov. 10 Beckett is bitterly disappointed (lb the ban on the fight. He says lie will fight anywhere else Siki likes. A boxing authority says the suspension automatically restores Cnrpentier's championship, and expresses the opinion that a fight between Carpentier and Beckett will replace the Siki fight. Bennison writing in the Daily Telegraph, says the vetoing of the SikiBeckett fight was inevitable, apart from the colour question. If it had taken place it would have grievously damaged boxing and probably would have killed professional boxing. Siki; by his conduct in Paris on Wednesday, put himself outside decent boxing and he can never re-enter it. The door must be kept closed to him in this and every other country.

The Daily" Express declares there might have been some reason for banning the fight on the ground of Siki's conduct on Wednesday; but not for the Home Office to take a stand on the colour line. It is preposterous to imagine that the Empire's coloured people would be driven to some exalted notion of superiority if Siki knocked out Beckett. We deplore this fractious, old-womanish interference.

PARIS. Nov. 10 A motion to disqualify Siki for life was defeated bv 8 to 6.

Siki says he will leave the ring and enlist in the army. The Boxing Federation also requested the National Sporting club and the American authorities to prevent Siki fighting.

(Published in the Times.)

XiONBON, Nov. 10

Comeuting on Siki, Tlune Times supports the Home Office decision, declaring that boxing is a fine manly sport, but boxing between whites and blacks filmed and photographed for the delectation of the coloured races may become a. dangerous anachronism, and allowing such contests on English soil would be an act of suicidal folly. PARIS,. Nov. 11 Hellers, Siki's manager, states he -tried his best to teach Siki the elementary principles of civilisation, but failed." "I made Siki a boxer but it is impossible to make him a gentleman." It is reported that Siki intends to give up boxing and sell blacking for a living. SYDNEY, Nov. 11 At the stadium Grime was awarded the verdict on a foullh the fifteenth of a twenty-round bout with Freddie Jacks. 'The loser made a better show : ins. MELBOURNE, Nov. II Stone beat Collins on points after a somewhat tame contest, but the audience strongly demonstrated its disapproval with 'the referee's verdict.