DARCY DEFEATS LOUGHREY.

NZ Truth, Issue 508, 13 March 1915, Page 10

DARCY DEFEATS LOUGH REY.

Great Crowd and Thrilling Excitement.

(By "Boxerl-Major.")

That the middleweight contest betwten/ Les Darcy, East Maltland, and Frank Loughray, Philadelphia, U.S.A., was expected to turn out something different from that between the\ two American lightweights, the previous Saturday, was amply demonstrated by the tact that the Stadium was pretty nearly packed on Saturday night, 27th ult, by a thoroughly representative throng, whoso enthusiasm was unbounded and who Baw a fight well calculated to repay, the outlay of even the several hundreds who came all the way from the Maitland and Newcastle districts to see tho champion perform. Anticipation became realisation, with ». vengeance, for not the veriest glutton could ask for n more thrilling, persistent, dogged battle than that put up by Darcy and Loughrey on Saturday night. It was a fight from first gong

to last; and though Darcy was always m the ascendant; though he punished the iron man from the Quaker City continually and terribly; the latter WAS ALWAYS DANGEROUS, while his marvellous endurance and the speed at which he forced the fighting made it a Very stiff try out for the youthful East Maitiand'er,* and a treat for the fans such as they rarely enjoy. Frank Loughrey is a fighter by instinct. He has a real fighting face and would have made an ideal member of "The White Company." It is" safe to bet that when he 'was a, kid he used to invade the quarters of the other fighting boys Just for the sake of having a turn up and proving that the other fellow was not the' only pebble on the beach. He fairly revels m his work, and evidently feels little inconvenience from hard knocks. ' With his splendid color and goodhumored face; his broad smile that discloses teeth a queen might envy; his prognathous jaw, heavy brows over laughing Irish-blue eyes; his thick black hair, smooth, satiny skin under which the muscles ripple like the sandribs under a pellucid tide, Frank Loughrey is a pleasant object to look upon, a man's face that does you good to watch light up and show the workings of the alort mind, and the body 1 of r Greek god. HIS STAMINA IS AMAZING, as is shown when, at the opening and close ot- every round he fairly bounds from his chair or sprints back to it like Jack Donaldson out of his holes for a hundred yards record-making run.' I never saw him on the track and I'd be surprised if I were told that Frank Loughrey cannot break eleven, or do the 440 m 54. Darcy is yet m his adolescent period and has a most peculiar type of countenance, the eyebrows running up at a sharp angle from where they meet over the nose to the outside end. His clear, honest prey eyes, engaging smile that hardly ever wears off, and beautiful white teeth make people forget the slanting brows and prominent cheekbones. He is built on the Dave Smith lines, and Dave is the absolute perfoction of the slightly sloping shouldered type. But the blacksmith boy is deeper m the chest and has the shoulder muscles of Bob Fitr-simmons. His skin has -vastly improved since he went into regular, healthy training, and his movements are those of a remarkably fine specimen of the panther. He has •weightier upper arms than Loughrey, though the Philadelphlan has one of the BIGGEST AND HARDEST BICEPS I ever felt. Little wonder he out- hit a Pat Bradley runty from disuse. The weights were: Loughrey lOst 9%1b, Darcy list 31b. Darcy could not out Loughrey, though he hit him all ways. He could, and did, split his lip and his cheek under the eye, and batter his ribs till the whole of the left side and along under the superb chest was red-raw; bbt he could not out this splendid specimen of the Irish- America n. Les dropped him fair, m the second round, by means of a perfectly lovely right lead to the Jaw. Loughroy hit the floor with a resounding bang, but was up as if he was made of indlarubber; and, cunning even m his discomfiture, he killed Darcy's attack by an apologetic gesture and rnn to his own corner to ostentatiously rub his boots m the resin. It was n great play to try /inrl make thr roforoo and the people holifvp hr» had slipped. My! but these Yankees are on to their Job every time. The amuspd grin on Darcy's fnen during this

proceeding was dimply killing. He's a bit of a comedian himself, but this action simply beat him. He had to laugh though it robbed him of a chance to finish a. rattled man. It is rare to see so much body punishment served out m a. fight as Darcy treated Frank to, and never was there a Irian v.'ho could have withstood it as Loughrey did. Certainly, he several times BENT DOUBLE UNDER A FIERY LEFT upswing to the belly, or a fearful right under the heart; but m these crises he would smother and bend till he got over the shock; and always he was ready to" attack afresh m a few moments. That he survived the third round was the next thing to a miracle;' for Darcy simply rained blows to body, jaw, face, temples, and ears; blows any one of which would have crumpled up any other man. All the while, too, the excellence of the training of Dave Smith, m the art of hit and stop, was vividly apparent to all but one crazy anti-Smithite, who j declared m print, to his own utter confounding as one possessed of even the crudest knowledge of the game, that none of the vaunted Smith polish was observable m Darcy's work. Darcy showed out as a second pavid. m the almost miraculous way he blocked or evaded the Yankee's weighty swings, hunched his shoulder to the right, or took that wicked left swing or hook on the glove or the wrist. It was a picture, a dream of science against terrible attack: and any but a soured and biased watcher would have, as nearly every ringsider did, remarked upon theDave Smith polish on one of the best of natural fighters. One could at times almost swear it was the incomparable Smith that blocked and ducked and backmoved the swing of those magnificent arms. Even Maitlandera recognised the improvement m their idol. It was after the third round that Walter Coffey, the newly-arrived middleweight from the States, began the application to Loughrey's middleplece of some oily lubricant. And, strangely enough, the first blow that Darcy landed m the fourth was a terrible left swing to the very spot that shone most of the anointment. All through the fifth Darcy SIMPLY WHALED THE STURDY MAN from Pennsylvania, and when the bell rang he had him Just where he wanted him, ripe for a finisher, so that when he heard the "stop-flrinir," Les uttered a disgusted exclamation that looked like, "Oh, bother the blessed bell!" Loughrey endured a terrible hiding up to the tenth. It was, not till after the sixth that, on a complaint by Les, Dave Smith, his principal second, spoke to referee Harald Baker about that lubricant. Suspicion was the stronger from the fact that Coffey never applied it above the belly. The official went over and rubbed his fingers across the j stomach, smelled them, and said noth- i ing. During the tenth session, how- | ever, promoter R. L. Baker, who was a keen watcher, strolled casually over, asked Coffey. to let him look at the bottle, and calmly commandeered It, 'j taking it up to the office for future reference. The blacksmith had become so satisfled with the condition of things, by the time the twelfth was m progress that, m tho clinches, he looked smilingly over Loughrey's shoulder and talked with his eloquent eyes to his friends outside the ring. More than ever, at this stage, was Frank's wonderful endurance and Indomitable will made apparent; for he was beaten like a punching bag and must have succumbed had he not been the miracle of hardiness and pluck that he is. The crowd shouted, "Take him away!" as early, as the fifteenth round. He was badly cut and bleeding" and was always a target for Darcy's punching; yet he sat m his chair, during the intervals, by far THE MOST CHEERFUL MAN THERE, and submitted to the sting of collodion to hip wounds with the calm aspect of a Stoic. It actually / hurt him to spit out the gouts of blood; but his troubles', It wad all m the game, and he still trusted m his wallop.. When, m the sixteenth, which he made almost one grand rally of — fancy ! it ! — ho was knocked into the ropes by an awful left to the body, and hung there limp and apparently done, and the bell rang surcease; he bounded to hid chair like a springbok. Endurance? Recuperative power? Frank Loughrey is the limit m these lines. J In the seventeenth Darcy. after wal- j loping Frank till everybody was sorry for him, looked appcalingly to the American corner as • though asking those therein to take Loughroy away. But no sign enme from those handling j him; and Les had perforce to continue J basting the iron man. "Take him j away!" yelled the crowd, m the 18th, I but nobody interfered, and Loughrey ' looked as florid and game as ever. So J bad was,hc,*a« ho. was knocked into the ropes, that Les stood off, lookine at the'referee, as though asking for his' Interference, but there was nothing doing m that quarter. Al Lippe simply drenched Loughrey with water, (luring the rest after the nineteenth so thai it ran nil over him and soaked his boots. In consequence ho sonked the ring and once nearly came down an Darcy punched original sin out of him and he trlod to pet out of a cornor. Whereupon lie ran to Darcy'fl corner and rubbed his soles m the refiln ihero. A few hooted hint for what thry took for ilnahness; but Darcy looked towards the hooters and held up an admonitory hand. No wonder he's popular! There was only one course open to the referee, and that was to proclaim Darcy wl en,nrndn-'-W swvv Cwl Darcy winner, and this he did the moment the bell rang.