IS BOXING BRUTAL?

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 349, 16 January 1912, Page 2

IS BOXING BRUTAL?

The Birmingham stipendiary's decision that the Moran-Driscoll boxing contest for the featherweight championship of the world would be an illegal prize-fight may go far towards stopping boxing matches altogether if it stands. This sequel of tlie Wells-Johnson business dismays many who wanted to stop a black-and-white fight without interfering with all-white affairs. The men were to box the best of 20 3min rounds for £200 a side, a purse of £2,600, a gold belt (value £300), and the championship ; winner to receive 60 per cent, of the purse, leser 40 per cent. ; admission, from ss> to sgs. Tlie police contended that such prices showed that the public expected a stand-up fight, and that damaging blows would, and were meant to, be aealt. Driscoll had won. seven fights by the knockout blow, Moran four. The chief witness, Police-constable Hall, late of the 21st Lancers, who won the Cavalry Brigade boxing championship m 1906, said that m ordinary fights the boxer's intention was to knock out his opponent. Before fights the gloves were often "broken" — i.e., the padding was pushed from the knuckles into the fingers or back to the wrists, so as to protect the wrists and " put the finishing touch of the knuckles." "You say to yourself : ' I am going to beat him, or he" will do it on me.' You lose all your ordinary human spirit, and what is predominant is the animal spirit, and you try to knock your opponent out." The great aim was to get m a blow over the solar plexus and then a hook on the chin. A knock-out blow jaiised jjncoiisekßisnesrjr- airef- -niiguL _«isc : "cle'ath. If the 20 rounds were fought the men would be exhausted, with eyes stopped up, lips cut, blood flowing from hose and mouth, and bruises on ribs, neck, and

body

For the defence, Mr Douglas, president of the Amateur Boxing Association, said that as the science of boxing had increased brute force had declined. Skill made the knock-out unlikely. Lord Lonsdale pointed out that the contest would be under National Sporting Club rules-, with 6oz glove/5, not Queensberry rules with . 4oz gloves. ' as accidentally agreed upon. The knock-out blow was " absolutely unknown to him, except that he had had it three or four times and given it several times. It was the blow that happened to come and knock a boxer out. A light blow might do it, and it did not always end the nght, since a man might respond within lOsec. There is a lot of humbug talked about the knock-out." Mr Eugenic Corri, who was to have refereed, gave similar evidence, and said he would permit no brutality or glove-breaking. Dr Allport, medical adviser to the Amateur Boxing Association, said that one of the chief objects of boxing was to educate the body to receive progressive amounts of shock or " punishment," and the point to which this was carried was extraordinary. The knock-out blow was not painful. Other doctors concurred. But the stipendiary held that the defence admitted that, but for the precautions they would take, it would be practically a prize-fight, and he could hot find that the precautions were infallible. This decision is to be appealed against.