THE RING. AN OBSTINATE GLOVE FIGHT: WILLIAMS v ELLIS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1891, 17 February 1888, Page 26

THE RING.

AN OBSTINATE GLOVE FIGHT: WILLIAMS v ELLIS.

A Wanganui telegram states that a deposit of £20 a side has been made with Mr Parsons by Slavin and Laing to fight for the championship of New Zealand, the belt, £300 a side, and all the gate money. The articles are to be signed on Monday night ; the fight to take place on the lOfch April.

A glove fight, remarkably interesting as a spectacle, but presenting some very peculiar and discreditable features, came off on Saturday last at the Princess Theatre, Dunedin, between "Tommy " Williams, of Invercargill, and " Dick " Ellis, of Wanganui. The theatre held a large audience, and Mr Owen consented under pressure to act as referee. The event proved either that he did not know the Queensberry rules which is unlikely,— or that in the interest of the spectators he was determined not to enforce them ; while as for the conduct of Ellis it became perfectly inexplicable towards the close of the fight, except on one hypothesis. He apparently desired to fight neither according to theQueensberrynortheprize-ringrule9,butupon a rough and tumble system of his own. However, to briefly describe what occurred. Messrß F. Woods and S. Mercer each held a watch, and Mr Owen, as already said, was chosen referee. A mistake was made at the very outset in nob reading over the rules to the men and informing them that they would he held strictly to them. Still, both men having fought often before might reasonably be supposed to know whether they stood up to fight or to worry aud clutch and scramble; and no doubt they did know all about it perfectly well. On leaving their corners and advancing for the Maltese Cross hand shake, both mea were seen to be in first-class condition ; but there was at least a stone and a-half or a couple of stone difference between them, Williams scaling lOat odd and Ellis apparently nearer 12. Both, as the event proved, were able to take punishment well. From the outset Williams became the favourite, and, indeed, was winning all the way until the seventh or eighth round, when it became apparent that Ellis' endurance and superior weight would be too much for him. The iHvercargill representative, after a little preliminary sparring, began to hit out with his left, and got home several awkward body blows in the first round, besides giving Ellis a nasty clip in the mouth just at the call of time, Thelight-weight shaped very prettily indeed, and showed from the start infinitely superior form as a boxer. Ellis, although a finely-made fellow, stands awkwardly, and hits more awkwardly still, but for all that he is a fighter, as he proved in numberless ways. He was very slow with his returns at first, often not returning at all, and often hitting very short. In the second round he got home once, but only hard enough to make Williams smile. Then there was a sharp rally, and Williams put a dangerous one in very near the left ear. He was doing most of the fighting, and Ellis was prettj well occupied at this time in getting away. He was blowing a little when they went to their corners, and Williams was so far as fresh as at starting In the third round also all the exchanges were in Williams' favour, and he inflicted a good deal of punishment from first to last, which Ellis stood like a man. He had been hit a lot about the left side of his face, and body, but was still quick at the call of time for the fourth round. There was some fast fighting now, and some severe exchanges, both men apparently meaning business and trying hard to get in the favourite finishing blow so much affected by Matthews and Murphy, but neither succeeding. However, in the rally Ellis scored the first knock down blow, but it was not a hard one. Williams was quickly on his feet again, and in the exchanges that followed he got in a swinging cross-counter on the left jaw that sent Ellis to earth like a shot, and might have finisee the fight if the call of time had not come at that moment. Ellis looked very old fashioned in his corner at this stage, but he pulled himself together and came up quite strong again for the fifth round. In two or three rallies that now occurred he more than held his own. Evidently the rough handling he had received had nettled him, and he made up his mind for reprisals. In the sixth round Williams was still taking the lead in the fighting, following his opponent up to the ropes and hitting him pretty well as he liked. But Ellis bored in and broke clear away_ each time by his superior weight, and it was plain enough that he would need more punishing than Williams could administer. However, the Invercargill man went in, playing a fa9t game, and in the seventh round drove his antagonist with a nasty crash on to one of the stakes of the ring. But Ellis didn't mind it, and in some scrambling rallies that followed Williams went down twice. He seemed as gay as ever, though, in his corner. The eighth round, however, turned tho scale, and from that out Williams held a losing suit, and fought a hopelessly uphill battle with great pluck. He had hit his man about in every possible way, getting in what should have been a deadly cross-counter on the jaw several times, and yet the man was not beaten, and evidently now never would be. He wanted more than Williams could give him. The eighth round began with exchanges, of which Williams, as usual, had the best, getting home with the left on the body and the right on the head and face, but his strength was giving a little, and Ellis bore him back on to the ropes and continued hitting him while he was lying back over the ropes with his toes off the ground. A foul was claimed, and no doubt it was a foul, but the referee disallowed it, having perhaps his own good reasons. In the ninth round Williams was again forced back and punished on the ropes, whether foully or not it was not easily to see, but there was another wrangle. They were ordered to fight on, and then a worse thing happened. There was a clinch, and Williams went down, but instead of retiring to his corner while ten seconds was allowed for the man to get up, Ellis stood over him and absolutely made a dig at him while upon the ground. In a prodding aud hugging match between a couple of schoolboys, such a thing could have been understood ; but in a ring it looked too supremely ridiculous. Of course there was renewed clamour and cries of " Foul," but the men were still ordered to get to work again, and Williams having had a breathing spell went gamely at his antagonist again, and the round was finished with some fast fighting, but there was another clinch, and the light-weight was again sent down. The next five rounds were a repetition of this sort of thing, Williams getting weaker every moment, and Ellis finding that bis weight enabled him to smother his adversary whenever'they came to half-arm distance. Why on earth, seeing that he had the battle practically won, he should have behaved in the extraordinary style he did seemed a mystery at first, but it did not remain a mystery long. In every round he was guilty of the most glaring fouls, but Mr Owon staunchly refused to allow them. The Queensberry rules, although they are severe in compelling a man to recover unassisted after a knook-down blow within 10 seconds or lose the fight, prevent hia adversary standing over him and hitting him again before he has regained his legs. The other man must atones retire tp Mi row w>til hfoopponatf

is up. This Ellis persistently disregarded. He bored in, overwhelmed Williams in a scrambling clumsy fashion at close quarters, over and over again locking and neglecting to break; then, when he was down, stood sentry over him, and hit at him directly he attempted to move. The shouts of those on the stage and in the auditorium moved him not a bit, and Parker, his second, who knows the rules of glove fighting as well as anyone, more than once ran out and dragged him back to his corner. But it was no good, because Ellis in the next round would do the same thing again. He would hit his antagonist when he was lying on .the ropes, he would hit him when he was half outside the ropes (the ring, by the way, was gimcrack affair, and was broken all to pieces), and he would prod at him when he was on the ground. It was a way he had, and nothing could apparently convince him that it was not a right and proper way. As to Mr Owen, he had only one reply to all appeals, " Fight on," aud so the scrambling and the smothering was resumed. But the indignation of the onlookers grew greater with each foul, and there was immense hooting ; but the public might have bottled up their wrath, for there was no sympathy deserved by either side. The men were obviously kept fighting only because Mr Oweu, as referee, obstinately refused to " see " these fouls. It is too utterly absurd to suppose that Ellis, a man who has often been in the ring, does not know the elementary rules of fighting ; but some of the public were apparently humbugged in this way. After the fourteenth round, Williams, vrhowas much distressed, said he had won the fight on fouls, and would not continue ; but the referee declared that he was trying to do >^hat was fair and square, and that in his opinion the man who first said that he was tired of fighting had lost. Thereupon they faced each other for the fifteenth round, and Williams being bored down as usual after some sharp exchanges, Ellis deliberately prodded at him again while upon the ground. Then at last the referee in desperation gave the fight against him. If he had not Williams supporters would evidently have been driven to rush the ring. As it was the public really got a first-rate exhibition for their money but the fouliug business was altogether too " thin," to use a slang expression. The arrangement evidently was that Ellis should lose on a foul; but Williams went in to play a lone hand, and finish his man if he could by one of those choice cross-counters in the earlier part of the fight, just as Murphy finished Faddes on the same stage a few months back. But Ellis knew too much. He kept his shoulder well up and his jaw well down, and most of these dangerous ones were received on the point of the shoulder. The Wanganui man did get warm and go in to punish Williams a bit during the latter part of the engagement—the wouder is that he did not set to work and knock him out in earnest, as he obviously could have done whenever he liked. In all' the in-fighting he was greatly the superior. Whatever the pecuniary success of these exhibitions bhe prize ring will certainly never be revived in this sort of way.