BOXING AND BOXERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 11 October 1928, Page 9

BOXING AND BOXERS

BRAINS V. MUSCLE

WHAT WILL TUNNEY DO? . COMMENT BY EUGENE COIIRI (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 6th September. I met Tunney as soon as he set foot in London (writes Eugene Corn). They called it the meeting of the "genial Genes/' but while t hesitate to deny the soft impeachment, I hardly think the adjective fits the retired heavyweight champion. Tunney, as a friend, J. would describe, as of pleasant demeanour, but not "genial."' He is a most .serious young man, with the type of mental character to lie found in an earnest explorer, or a scientist, or a . hospital physician. He is a man with a fervent desire to do something for the value of the deed itself. He told me that he would never enter the ring again; and I feel that he will never alter that decision. .But he did not say that his interest in boxing had entirely ceased, and I should be both astonished and deeply disappointed if that proved to be so. 1 should be astonished because of all the thousands of men I have known who have ever taken an active part in boxing, I cannot recall one who has entirely lest his interest in the great game as Jong as he lived. Some of the amateurs of the good old days disappear for a year or two. Then, one Monday night, T feel a clap on the shoulder at the National Sporting Club. ' Jones has turned up again just to see if Smith is anything like as good as they said he was.

I do not think Tunney will be able to resist the idea of seeing what manner of man his successor turns out to be. It would, in fact, be a loss of a big factor for the good of boxing if Tunney really lost interest.

He is essentially the type we want, now that his days in the ring are done, to encourage the youngsters in the game. I!y his boxing he has given them a great example. He can now ( carry on the work in a hundred and one ways. BRAINS AND .MUSCLE What Tunney did for boxing was to prove to the world the superiority of brains over muscle; that is the one big lesson of sport, as well as its everlasting charm. It is, too, essentially British. In all the sports which have ever been popular amongst us, the external warfare of brain against physical power has predominated. In.cricket the attraction is provided by the battle of wits between bowler and batsman. Football without brains would be a hopeless helter-skelter business which would bore us to tears. One of the oldest of our sports, the art of fencing, perhaps gives us the best parallel to boxing in its charm and effectiveness. The mere slasher falls easy prey to the skilled swordsman, but only so long as the latter has the clear eye, the cool temperament, and the courage to stand steadfast and use his skill. Whenever the basher has been prevalent in boxing in this country, boxing has sunk to a low ebb. At the moment we have two Tunneys—that is to say, two of his type in boxing and character: Johnny Hill and Lcn Harvey. Others will surely follow now that both have so clearly demonstrated what Tunney has shown the world—that the top-class scientific boxer will beat the basher every time.

It" is, in one way, as well that Tunney has retired unbeaten, for if he had remained in the ring until age overtook him, and was defeated at last by a man of inferior skill, all that he had accomplished as an example to youth would/have been lost.

WHAT TUNNED CAN DO Tunncy will ask me, doubtless, what I suggest as his first step. I think his opportunities will arise of themselves. He is the sort of man to take a hand in controlling the sport and in undertaking to ensure that referees and the public alike give real boxing its due. We have been told that Newsboy Brown would have received the decision had his fight with Hill taken place in America and run on similar lines. Now, to be perfectly frank, I do not believe it; otherwise Jack Dempsey would be world's heavyweight champion to-day, for he scored more clean points in his second fight against Tunney than did Brown against Hill. Still, there are different conceptions abroad as to what is boxing. I think Tunney should interest himself in the world of amateur boxing—a vast world, this, which reaches from the Universities down to dockland. And I would prefer Tunney to start at do'ekland. He knows, as I know, that boxing is neither brutal nor lustful, but a sport which, if conducted with the right spirit, and as long .as the ideal is retained, ca*n only result in an improvement in the manhood of the race. I would not have this grand young man go hunting for heavyweight champions, as some other old boxers have done.'" And I am quite certain in my own mind, from what I have cume to know of him, that any such scheme would be repulsive to him. But 1 would have him, now that he is a man of leisure, with high ideas, spend a little of his time among the boys, and a. little more among the controllers of the sport. He is a world's hero. His power for good at the present time is simply without limit. What he asks people to do they will do. If only because his freedom has been given to him through the medium of boxing, lie owes it to the sport to remember it and to go forward, in a spirit of high endeavour, to put boxing where we have always wanted it to be.