BECKETT WINS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10640, 13 July 1920, Page 8

BECKETT WINS

WELLS GOES BACK. CAEPBNTIEirs LESSON, t w , ' LONDON. May 11. j.v , • Southampton, is still the British heavyweight hosing champion. “Bombardier” Wells, at Olympia," ixmdon, m the presence of a vast multitude, made a desperate effort to repeat the Carpentier knock-out in something over a minute, but Billy Wells is not Georges Carpentier. fie cannot bend bow of Apollo. The effort miscaiv ried, and from the moment it failed -Dectett s victory was certain, • WHAT WAS THE SECEET? . have been wondering and guesswas it that Carpentier told Wells? The Frenchman cabled a few. days ago to Mr Cochran: “Tell Billy to, remember what I told him." What was the secret? 'Wells' doubtless remembered, but he told nobody. Obviously what the Frenchman told Wells, was what everybody know who saw the marvellous encounter between Carpentier and Beckett. On that occasion Beckett stepped into the ring with the intention of spending the evening there. It was quite clear—and his own subsequent utterances left no doubt upon the subject—that ha intended to occupy at. least three rounds in preliminary sparring. But within three seconds of the opening Carpentier drove his left fist hard into Beckett’s face. Ho did thin three times before swinging a tremendous right to the point of the jaw. and the fight was over. Billy Wells did not forget what Carpentier told him. The ring was hardly cleared when he put a staff lead with his left hand! into Beckett’s face. But the blow was delivered without the Gallic venom. It was clearly experimental, and Wells was either. in doubt as to its efficacy or as to his own ability to put it in properly. MISSED HIS TIDE. His wavering mind was betrayed on the instant. The attack was not followed up. Wells, indeed, showed every evidence of a desire to follow at up, but ho fought like a man who was trying to remember something that he had never quite clearly understood. He had missed his tide.' Taken at the flood it might have led on to fortune, but ho is not the man to seize the psychological moment; nor is Beckett, who fights with the determination of a true British bulldog, the man to bo set down by a half-hearted attack. AH the rest of Wells’s journey was bound in shallows and uncertainties, and when Beckett, in the third round, went for him with both hands ho came heavily to grief. . The gallery, who cannot got it out of their heads that ho is Apollo, were disappointed s but the better man won.