JOHNSON-WELLS FIGHT

Otago Witness, Issue 3003, 4 October 1911, Page 33

JOHNSON-WELLS FIGHT

CONTEST ABANDONED. JOHNSON'S RETIREMENT. LONDON, September 25. After full inquiry and taking the best legal advice, Mr Winston Churchill has decided that the Wells-Johnson contest for the world's heavy-weight boxing championship., which was set down for Monday next, is illegal, and says that unless it is voluntarily abandoned steps will be taken to prevent it. The Home Secretary implies that, if necessary, a summons will be obtained with a view to getting the promoter bound over in order to prevent a breach, of the peace being committed. The promoter of the contest (Mr White) will endeavour to prove its legality. September 26. Johnson and have signed an agreement to box under the National Sporting Club rules in order to prove that the issue at stake is the right to box. ■ i Wells, on being interviewed, said, .that if the match was stopped it would be transferred to Paris. Mr White, the promoter, said that if its legality was upheld the contest would proceed, but if it was illegal it would finish sport in England. Sporting Life says that even if the promoter is bound over and the match proceeds no subsequent legal action can be taken unless an illegality to cause a breach of the peace occurs. September 27. In the High Court, Mr Justice Lush granted the Metropolitan Railway Company, which is the freeholder of Earl's Court, an interlocutory injunction on the ground that the license for the building would be endangered if the fight proceeded. The summonses issued against the combatants in the prize fight and the promoters have been adjourned till Friday. In a letter to the Sportsman, Lord Lonsdale says that he is unable to understand Mr Winston Churchill's (Home Secretary) action, as in the SlavinM'Auliffe case the judge decided in the boxers' favour. September 28. The five defendants—Johnson, Yvells, and the three promoters of their glove fight —were before the Bow Street Bench this morning. They gave an undertaking not to box within the British Isles. The summonses were therefore withdrawn. An injunction asked for to restrain Johnson appearing elsewhere than at Birmingham on Monday next was refused.

September 29. Johnson announces that after finishing his present contracts in England he will permanently retire as heavy-wedght champion of the world. This decision, he explains, is not connected in any way with I the contest with Wells. He had decided to retire even had the contest come off. | SYDNEY, September &).

Mr H. M'lntosh has received cable advice that tho Johnson-Wells fight has been abandoned, and that Jack Johnson is sailing for Australia.