BOXING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20612, 10 January 1929, Page 6

BOXING.

By Cross-Counter. Tommy Griffiths has not yet come to a decision concerning the offer from Australia, but there is' now no chance that the bout, if it does eventuate, taking place on the date originally suggested. There is now little prospect of Tommy MTnnes and Lachie M'Donald being matched by the Otago Association. The pair have been matched to meet again in Auckland on January 28. . The presence in Australia _of Willie Smith, the brilliant South African boxer, and Fidel La Barba, who is perhaps the cleverest American boxer of to-day, should help to place. boxing in that country on the pedestal it occupied previous to the wrestling boom. No word is yet to baud concerning the bouts arranged for them. England is making a move to have boxing controlled by something like a representative body. The new British Board of Boxing Control is to have Lord Lonsdale as president. It will also include two vice-presidents, six stewards, one representative of the National Sporting Club, three promoters, three referees, two boxers, two managers of boxers, one each from ringmasters, trainers, seconds, and timekeepers, and a representative of the Imperial Services Boxing Association. This sounds rather cumbersome, but it may work out right in practice. Lord Lonsdale at the head of affairs will tend to give it authority and prestige. Our British boxers are a funny lot (states an English writer). Jack (Kid) Berg has been to America, and returned sonic days ago, as you are aware. In the ordinary course of things he should challenge the reigning champion at his weight. What happens? _ Harry Corbett, who has the feather title in his possession, issues a challenge to Berg! This is too silly. Champions do not challenge; they should be challenged. If Berg wants the featherweight title his way to it is clear—through a contest with the holder. What on earth Corbett wants with Berg goodness only knows. Corbett is at the head of affairs, and should Berg be of the opinion that be is capable of wresting the distinction from Corbett, it is Berg's business to issue a challenge to the man who must be regarded, at present, as the best in his country. Jack Johnson, who was undoubtedly one of the greatest fighters who ever stepped into a boxing ring, had aspirations towards culture. A friend who was returning to England with Johnson after one of his fights in America asked the boxer what he intended to do when he retired. “ Waal,” replied the big negro seriously, "I guess I'll take a flat off the Charing Cross road (now the negro quarter of London) and do all Herbert Spencer’s works/’ Johnson had all the great philosophers in a bookshelf at his home. Dust lay thick on them, but still he had them. It is doubtful if he has them now.-

The American writer, Robert Edgren, has a very high opinion of the Los Angeles Hebrew welterweight, Jackie Fields, who recently most decisively defeated Jack Thompson, who just previously had knocked out Dundee, holder of the world’s welter-weight championship. He writes; Jackie Feilds looks like by far the best of the welter-weights. This boy is the greatest fighter I've _ seen in that class m many years. He is much better than Mickey Walker was when Mickey beat Jack Britton for the title. _ He is a more clever boxer than Jack Britton, and combines his skill with an astonishing aggressiveness, such as is rarely shown by great boxers. I can remember only one fighter in the past 20 years who boxed in the style used by Fields, and with the same effect. This was Packey M'Farland. Fields has everything Packey ever had in speed, boxing skill and the ability to fight continually at close quarters and not he hit. Packey M'Farland could stay right on top of his man and reach out to block blows almost before they started. He knew exacly when blows would start, and how. Fields has this rare talent It showed in his recent fight with Jack Thompson here. I wont to see that fight rather expecting that Thompson, who has plenty of speed and skill and:is a terrific hitter, would break through Jackie’s defence. But Fields carried the fight to Thompson through 10 rounds without taking a single backward step. The way he pressed in against the heavy slugger, block ing or avoiding his blows with ease and hammering, him until in the last two rounds. Thompson, dazed, battered, and driven staggering around the ring, bent over his face to save himself from a sure knockout, was amazing. Benny Leonard at his best never gave a finer exhibition of combined aggressiveness and boxing skill. The result of this almost one-sided victory put him in line for the welter-weight championship. It’s a ten to one shot he’ll get it.

Australian boxers are copyists, and, being such, there was a time when the fact absolutely ruined the game in this country (says the Australian Referee). Boxers who might have become great under the stand-up, correct method of doing things in the fighting space, adopted the poses of champions, and became failures. That was at a period when men from the States came this way and introduced the absurd Jeffries crouch, and the hold-and-hit methods. Those who introduced that weird, unattractive, ineffective style of milling, in their turn copied Jim Jeffries, who crouched for the purpose of escaping as much as possible the dangerous body blows of Fitzsimmons. Jeffries, in -his day, was so big and powerful that he would have been champion no matter his stance. As a matter of fact, I will always believe that had he stood erect, thereby taking full advantage of his height and reach, he would have been a much more attractive figure, and a better performer. With the ugly crouch fighter disappearing, and the correct, erect stance coming back to its own, Australian boxers greatly improved, and were rapidly approaching the form that enabled their elder brethren of the padded mit to make ring history the world over. Unfortunately the game fell on bad clays. At present, however, there is evidence in plenty to show that talent abounds among our present rising generation of leather-pushers, and it is more than likely that by watching La Barba and Smith in their all-too-few fights, many of our youngsters will take heed and try and emulate their deeds and adopt their methods. This advice could also be taken by instructors, the majority of whom ai'e sadly in need of the lessons this pair of real champions can teach.

Willie Smith, who is now in Sydney, won high honours at the Olympic Games. He subsequently turned professional, and his ambitions led him to England and America. After his bouts in Australia he intends to return to America, and in the Outspan he writes as follows;—"I shall be going on to America, and if I do well in the Antipodes that should make it all the easier for me in the States. In the meantime I am busy negotiating, so all the plans I am outlining, here are merely tentative. It is one of my chief ambitions to go back to the States and make good where I failed before, for I have every confidence in my own ability to do so. It is not a blind confidence, either, this time, since I learnt a lot about the American ring in my previous visit to the States, for all the fact that I had only ohe contest. Last time I went across the Atlantic as a simple South African, reared in the easy-going atmosphere of the Hand, where everything came so easy to me, and where I was surrounded by friends, who were always willing to smooth the path. But I f had the hayseed knocked off ’ me then, and I like to pride myself that I shall be going across there next time more in the spirit of a selfpossessed_ man of affairs. When I go over to America again, however, I shall take particular care over the managerial part of my arrangement, since it was this aspect which compelled me to abandon my eftort to win the world’s bantam-weight championship when I went on to America Irom England. I was very lucky to meet Jlarty Forkins before I left America, and 1 took such a liking to him that I resolved that, if possible, it would be he who would manage any future effort of mine to win the world’s title.”