BOXING

Southland Times, Issue 19500, 14 March 1925, Page 14

BOXING

(By

“Punch.”)

The following is a record of the most notable performances of Jimmy Hill, who was recently defeated by his fellow country-man, Ern Baxter; —Won pointe, Sid Godfery, 20 rds; won, pointe, Volaire, 20 rds.; won, points, Fairhall, 20 rds.; lost, pointe, Fairhall, 13rds.; lost, K. 0., Herb McCoy, 15rds.; won, points, Sid Godfrey, 20rds.; draw, Sid Godfrey, 20rds.; won, points Teddy Green, 20rds.; won, pointe, Bert Spargo, 20rds.; won, pointe, Bert Spargo, 20rds.; draw, Bert Spargo, 20rds; won, foul, Bert Spargo, 7rds.; won, points, Sid Sullivan, 2(>rds.; K. 0., Snowy Ireland, 4rds; K.O. Theo Burns, 13 rds.; lost, K. 0., Llew Edwards, 18rds.; draw Barny Adair (Boston, U.S.A.), 12rds.; draw Monk Fowler (Boston, U.S.A.), 12rds.; lost Benny Valger (Boston, U.S.A.), 12rds.; won points, Frank Thorn, 20 rds.; draw, Frajik Thorn, 20rds.; won, Lee Johnson (of America), 20rds.; won, Leon Truffier, of France 20rds.; K.O. Snowy Ireland, 2rds.; won, Joe Brooks, of England, 20rds.; won, Harry Thomas, of America, 20rds.; draw, Vince Blackburn,lo rds.; won, Charley Simpson, champion of Victoria, 20rds.; won, Joe Russell, for championship Australia, 20rds.; K.O. Watty Austin for championship Queensland, 7rds.

“When Joe Russell, ex-featherwGight champion, fought Frank Fitzjohn in Sydney some years ago, his neck was very tender, the after-affects of a big boil” (say a Sydney paper). “Knowing human nature, Russell’s manager, astute Jim Donald, surmised that the sore spot would be Fitzjohn’s objective. So he placed an adhesive plaster on the other side of the neck. Just as Donald thought Frank banged away at the wrong place, and was a very surprised man when, in the dressing-room, he saw his mistake.” This recalls an incident that occured in New Zealand. In the light-weight amateur championship, decided at Auckland on August 31, 1907, Dick Mayze, of Christchurch met A. J. Blewden, of Auckland, in the final and had his left arm badly jarred. The left was Dick’s fighting weapon, and as he was called upon to represent New Zealand in the Australasian championships, set down for decision at Wellington about a week later, there was much concern over the condition of his arm. Tom Robson, who was manager of the Canterbury team at Auckland, solved the problem. The party were sworn secrecy, and it was put abroad that it was Dick’s right arm that had been injured. Consequently, on the night of the bout, Mayze entered the ring with his right arm in bandages. His opponent was D. White of Sydney, a man with a long list of knock-outs to his credit. He kept working away from the left hand and was constantly bumping up against a solid right, which probably caused him to wonder what the left would be if such a punch could come from a crippled right. However, Mayze

“walked in,” and won the Australasian championship with one hand. Jim Donald, the boxing writer in Smith’s Weekly (Sydney) evidently has a high opinion of Sid Shannon, a young featherweight, who recently defeated Newbury at the Stadium. From the start (writes Donald) Shannon set himself to outbox his man, and it was entrancing to watch the cool, deliberate manner in which he accomplished his purpose. Nowadays when a pugilist con- : ceives it necessary to avoid too frequent ! collision with the other fellow’s gloves he , depends more on his feet than his hands. | In other words, he taps and runs away. The i uninitiated call this stuff “boxing ’im.” That is not the Shannon method. The Rozelle boy used his feet certainly, but he watched his step and did not allow them to run away with him. Weaving in and out of dist&nce, avoiding smashing punches by a graceful back move or side-step, never so far out of range as not to be able to punish the other fellow’s miss with a sizzling hook or stinging jab, he fought up to the best traditions of the old masters of the art. Dour and dangerous, and well seconded though he was by the keenest brains in the business, Newbury could make no decided impression on his cool and wily foeman. Shannon worked in bursts of flashing speed alternated with spells of crafty evasion. Shannon is fitted to fight any feather-weight in the land. Outside of Grime, I do not know one that he has less than an even-money chance with. Both Shannon and Newbury are to be congratulated on the fine form they displayed. Here is Jack Dempsey's theory about how a man should fight. It was published in The Ring, a boxing magazine well known in America. “Jack Dempseys philosophy :>f fistics sounds very reasonable to a lot of fans who are convinced that one good shot at the chin in the beginning is worth a whole hour of feinting. It is the natural impulse to hit and hit hard if you are attacked. If you are giving a boxing exhibition it is fair enough not to try to knock the other fellow's head off. If you are fighting for . ■ .. , FOnr

safety, however, there is not much u e in stepping around and doing a whole lot of fancy stuff. Hit a man on the chin and knock him down, then you won’t have io worry about his footwork, his feinting or blocking.” This is Dempsey’s code. “I’ve never tried to be clever," says Jack. “I have only one thought in my head as I sit in the corner waiting for the light to start: 'Where am I going to hit him?’ No man is ever going to hit you if you hit him first and hit him hard enough. Fight in the ring just as you would on the street. If you’re in a street fight you don’t stop to feint and to be clever —you hit! I know only one kind of footwork —the kind that brings me in close enough to ‘sock.’ Firpo can testify to that. There is really nothing to fighting except the hitting.”

WALKER’S WALLOP. DRAMATIC DEBUT. Mickey Walker, Tom Hanley’s longnourished champion pupil, made his first professional Sydney appearance the other evening at Leichhardt (says the Sportsman). He also took his first step towards local ring fame and left all who witnessed his performance gapingly amazed at his terrific body hitting. He took the audience by storm and the general topic of conversation coming home in the tram car was Stadiums, Ltd’s seeming indifference to, and wilful wasting of such a promising youngster. Walker had for an opponent Billy Upton, who is no wonder but a tough, rugged, game little battler who will try the prowess of anyone near his weight. For the first two rounds he held his own with Walker. Leading, finessing, and an overdose of clinching perhaps marred the sessions as far as attractiveness goes, but they were mere feeling preliminaries to what was to come.

Opening the third Hanley sent his protege in. Walker went, cheerily, happily. His first action was to feint with the left and shoot a fast, hard right at Upton’s cheek. Billy staggered, but came back to fight. He also essayed a right, and caught Mickey’s chin, but failed to shake him. They then fought at a fast bat, and Walker predominated in the two minutes’ rally with his cleaner and more accurate punching. The fourth was sensational. Walker made no bones about his job, and hooked Upton a left to wind. It hurt, and Billy closed in. As he came Walker’s right crashed home against the temple, and Billy fell flat on his face.

Eight seconds he took, and then gamely struggled to his feet. Unfluatered, Walker measured with the left and drove a terrific right home just below the heart. Again Upton sprawled on his face and took a count.

Grimly game, he again struggled up, and endeavoured to stave off defeat. nvishl Walker let a right go at the chin, End missed by a fraction. Then he made the bi ’y hia target again, and for the third time Upton crashed face downwards. Then the bell saved him. The fifth round was the last. Walker’s awful right hand battering of the body was too much for the heroic little Upton, and after another trio of crashing visitations to the mat he turned over on his back finished to the world. Again the bell ended the round before the count of ten was reached, but Referee Elliott intervened and crowned Walker. Rarely have we witnessed such body punching. And if Walker can reproduce such hitting ability against others he will go on to an unbroken string of success. He is a boxer of distinct promise; one, if carefully nursed along, who should some day own an Australian championship. Of course, he will meet better men than Upton if he is to climb higher, but the manner in which he disposed of his last adversary, and his truly wonderful body battering, stamp him the best rising youngster in Sydney to-day. TOM GIBBONS. AGE AND THE RING. ITS NEVER TOO LATE TO BEGIN. In many ways Jack Dempsey is the great, est ring marvel of all time. No one else has ever approached the deadliness and ferocity of his attack. But in many other ways there is a middle-aged man, the father of five children, from St. Paul, who is even more of a ring marvel than Dempsey is. His name is Tom Gibbons.

While Dempsey at the age of twenty nine, weighing 192 pounds, is the heavy-weight champion, Tom Gibbons at the age of thirtyfive, weighing 180, is close to the forefront of the champion’s challengers mainly because Tom Gibbons many years ago decided to see just how far clean living and clear thinking would carry him on the way up, writes Grantland Rice, an American sporting writer. The result is that after twelve years of fighting, more often than not giving away both years and weight, Gibbons has never been knocked down, although the slashing Dempsey was once one of his opponents for fifteen rounds. It seemed to us that Tom Gibbon’s habits and methods of training might be something worth listening to. And after a long talk with Gibbons the morning after he knocked out Kid Norfolk at Madison Square Garden we found the surmise was correct. A FAMILY MAN. Gibbons is no ordinary boxing type. Here is a married man whose wife has no particular interest in ring affairs—the father of five children who seems to be more interested in his family and in looking after his business investments than in any glory of resin renown. A quiet, pleasant, welleducated, well-dressed man of thirty-five who isn’t conceited, slangy or profane in any sense, who neither smokes nor drinks, and who, in addition, is a sportsman of the first rank looking for nothing better than a square deal and an even break. The best of record books show that Gibbons was born in St. Paul, Minn., in 1889. His brother Mike Gibbons, known as the St. Paul Phantom, was a famous welterweight and middle-weight before Tom was ever heard from. In fact, it was not until 1913 that Tommy Gibbons, then twenty-four, managed to break into the records and take his first important step up the long, hard road which leads only the few into the open country of success. FAME COMES LATE.

It was not until Gibbons was thirty-four years old—an age when most boxers are forgotten—that he bounded up among the elect. This happened on July 4, 1923, at Shelby, Mont., when he was still on his feet, almost unmarked, after standing up fifteen rounds against the devastating fate of Jack Dempsey, the most annihilating champion in all ring history. In that battle, under a blazing Montana sun before the strangest assortment of fight fans that ever gathered together, Gibbons proved to be the greatest defensive boxer of his time. Dempsey had lost something of his rare timing and judgment of distance after two years of idleness, and Gibbons refused to let the champion get set for any of his man-killing punches to the body or the head. He protected his body through deft use of elbows ana te’esrms, and he protected his head by skilful use of the hands and sudden elusive head motions, which left a shifting target that a sniper might have missed. It might be said that Dempsey was not at his best in that fight. But a rushing, slugging boxer is rarely at his best against a cool, clear-headed, scientific boxer who knows how to block and duck and keep away at the right time. NEVER TAKES THE COUNT. The fact that Gibbons after twelve or thirteen years of fighting has never beep knocked down is fair proof that he knows how to protect himself—and his string of knock-outs shows that he can punch when he takes the offensive. It was not until Gibbons had changed his tactics from defensive to offence by knocking out Bloomfield of England and Kid Norfolk of New York, in a few rounds

that he again stepped forward on even terms with Harry Wills as the most likely of all challengers for Dempsey’s crown left in rhe field.

“Just how can a middle-aged family man manage to look as young and active as you look?” we asked. “I wasn’t so good against Norfolk,” he said, ‘T didn’t do well as I hoped to do because he is a hard type to fight against. But I suppose the answer is simple living, simple diet, life in the open and exercise that is part fun and part routine. ‘*l have never smoked in my life and I have never taken a drink, because I could see no sense in deliberately handicapping myself. lam also a great believer in mixing up exercise between fun and work. I don’t believe in too much routine as it will lead to staleness. For example, there is no finer exercise than walking. I can get this in hunting and in golf, two pet forms of diversion, without any thought that I am merely taking the right exercise. I have found that two of the best combinations are golf and handball. Golf gives you the long hike needed for general .health and stamina, while handball gives speed and builds up the wind. And both games are good for timing and for different types of co-ordination. TRAINING METHODS. “It is also my belief that the best way to get in condition for a fight is to keep in condition all the time. My weight rarely changes over a pound or two unless I am taking off flesh to make a certain weight, which I don’t like to do. If one likes an athletic life, if one likes to feel fit most of the time, what is rhe object in breaking training and then having to start all over again? You hear that many champions hate to take up the routine of training. But why make it a routine? Good, plain food, simple living, fun and exercise together are not so hard to face after alh Doesn’t a fellow who is in good health and in good training get more fun out of life than the one who isnt? I can’t understand why a lot of young fellows never stop and figure that there are a lot of years left beyond thirty or thirty-five where it means just as much to be in shape as it means for a football player or a fighter. Perhaps it is no wonder that Tom Gibbons at thirty-five is now at his best. The great competitive years were always supposed to be from twenty-six to twenty-eight. But perhaps this is wrong, if one has happened to live correctly. Stenroos at forty proved to be the best of the marathon runners.

Most of our ring champions have passed on and out before they were thirty-six. Yet Fitzsimmons had slipped by thirtyfive when he whipped Jim Corbett. And Tom Gibbons at thirty-five has slipped od by the younger challenger to take his place as one of the two leading contenders left when the next big ballyhoo starts. Gibbons isn’t flashy, but there is no waste movement. He knows how to use his ieet and his hands. He knows when to shift his head away from the blow. He started a trifle late in life, which gave him no chance to burn himself out in youth. At thirty-five he is still coming on, better than ever.

Gibbons has proved that a man can be physically better at thirty-five than he was at twenty-five or thirty. He doesn’t feel that he has missed any fun in life and what fun he might have missed has been more than paid for in the knowledge that after twelve or thirteen years of fighting he has never been knocked off his feet. His investment in clear thinking and right living seems to have been pretty sound. At least it has paid him big dividends in gold and health and happiness. THE INIMITABLE FITZ. When Bob Fitzsimmons fought Jim Corbett in Carson City, Nevada, he had only a few supporters and only one sporting editor of prominence, Dan Mills, of Philadelphia. Dan urged attention to Bob in a hundred flattering ways, and also bet his money on the lanky one, and as everyone knows, won out. When Bob went east there was nothing too good for Danny. Fitz gave him a pin and sleeve buttons, a lion cub and a bulldog, a picture of himself, the wife and baby, appropriately inscribed, and, whenever he went to Philadelphia be looked Dan up, and they reviewed the great fight and congratulated each other on the victory. Bob got to be a tame eat around the newspaper office and remained so until he undertook, in the best spirit in the world, to illustrate the ‘strangle hold’ on the managing editor. After that, Bob was barred from the editorial rooms, and was forced to look Danny up in the streets or elsewhere. One day, after he had sought him in vain for gome time, he saw him standing at Eighth end Chestnut Streets, and, coming up behind him, struck him hilariously with his mighty fist on the back, crying out his delight at the same moment. The blow sent Danny into the middle of the street, sprawling in front of a trolley car. that just held up in time to do him no harm. But the sporting editor was hot. He sprang up, covered with mud, cursed the prizefighter, and announced that before he was through with him he would beat his bullet head into a pulp. Bob laughed uproariously, but that night, as he stood in Green’s bar with a host of admirers, still telling the story of Mill’s discomfiture, Dan stole in and suddenly struck him under the ear. As Bob fell there was a twinkle of Dan’s feet as he fled up Chestnut Street. They picked up the prizefighter and carried him upstairs. When he recovered consciousness he asked what had happened to him and he said: “Why, the darn little cuss. 1 didn’t suppose any man could hit me like that. Well now, ain’t he a daisy?” Mills was an athlete in the finest training but he kept on running toward the suburbs about all that night. The next day Fitzsimmons was on the repentent seat and sent for Danny, and Danny hesitatingly responded. There was no “comeback” and that night the two friends were seen dining together in perfect amity; Bob wearing a bandage around his ear.