Southland Amateur Boxing Championships Next Week

Southland Times, Issue 23897, 16 August 1939, Page 11

Southland Amateur Boxing Championships Next Week

By

VERITAS

The Tuatapere Boxing Club’s annual tournament tomorrow night has attracted good entries from the amateurs of the province. That will be the last opportunity local boxers will get to have match boxing before the Southland amateur championships, at Invercargill next Wednesday night. It is not expected that the entries for the championships will be as big as usual, and for that reason the Southland Boxing Association is trying to arrange a professional contest for the same programme. A. Sutherland, who was a member of the New Zealand Empire Games team last year, will be a competitor in the light heavyweight division. Sutherland has not been seen in action this season, but he has been training steadily and he hopes to reverse the decision gained by Don Anderson against him last year. Anderson showed by his form in the Otago-Southland match on the night of the Otago Ranfurly shield match that he will be hard to beat, so that the An-derson-Sutherland bout promises to be one of the best on the programme. W. E. Enright, the middleweight champion, is not likely to have much opposition in his division. He has been boxing at the top of his form and many of his supporters expect him to show up in the New Zealand championships next month.

The featherweight class, although not likely to be a big one, should produce one or two good bouts. W. Brown, present champion, A. Jones and L. Neylon will be competing. As usual a good contingent of Otago boxers is expected to take part in the championships. TITLE BOUTS Jack Jarvis has issued a challenge for Clarrie Rayner’s lightweight title. The Manawatu Association immediately offered to promote it some time next month. Whether the bout eventuates, of course, is a matter for Rayner, as he need not be in any great hurry to defend his title again. Another title bout in the offing concerns the lightweight division. The holder, Stan Jenkin, has been called upon to defend it against George Allen at Hastings. A tentative date in August has been decided upon, but the negotiations have yet to be completed as objections have been raised on Jenkin’s behalf involving the question of whether he can secure leave from his employment, the amount of the expenses, and the fact that Hastings might be considered Alien’s home town. A hitch threatened to develop in respect to the Jarvis-Ai,tken bout at Palmerston North on August 19, but Manawatu, on the advice of the New Zealand Boxing Council, stood firmly by the original terms and the fight will still be for a £5O purse despite Aitken’s efforts to get it raised to £6O. Aitken also stipulated that Jarvis should make 9st 91b under forfeit of £l5. The weight stipulation did not worry Jarvis but his reaction was to make certain that he and Aitken signed the same articles. Jackie Sharpe, the Australian boxer who has been training at Jack Crowley’s gymnasium this year, has. accepted a position in Taihape and will have his headquarters there in future. It will be interesting to see how Sharpe fares in his forthcoming bout with Joe Collins at Palmerston North.

“BURSTING WITH HEALTH” This is how Tony Galento took the stiff medical examination by three doctors before his fight with Louis: — First doctor, with thermometer: Say, Aw, Tony. Galento. Aw nuts Doc. Second doctor: Take a number from one to ten. Tony: Thoiteen. Third doctor: Did you ever have any stomach trouble Tony: Yeah, I’m having it right now. I can’t get me last year's suits on; they won’t go round the waist. First doctor: Have you ever had any gastric trouble? Tony: Nope, we use electricity. _ Second doctor: Ever had amnesia? Tony: Sure, I take a bottle every night before going to bed. Third doctor: Did your doctor ever say you had anything? Tony: Nuttin’ but halitosis. The doctors came to' the conclusion that all the lumps on Tony were not carbuncles and the verdict was: “This geezer is bursting with health.” CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE At the White City arena, London, a crowd of 70,000 saw Len Harvey outpoint Jock McAvoy in a 15-round bout for what was termed the world cruiserweight (that is, light-heavy) championship. In May John Henry Lewis went from America to London to defend his world cruiserweight title against Harvey. On his arrival the Boxing Board, on the advice of doctors, refused to give the American negro a licence to fight in England. It was contended that Lewis’s sight was defective in his left eye. This has been substantiated since Lewis returned to America.

When the 'London fight was abandoned it was claimed that Lewis’s title was forfeited and English promoters match-

ed Harvey and McAvoy and styled the bout the world championship. Twenty rounds for the heavyweight title bout is unusual. The last occasion on which a championship bout was scheduled for 20 rounds was when Jack Dempsey disposed of Jess Willard in four rounds at Toledo in 1919. Before that, at Havana in 1915, Willard himself knocked out Jack Johnson in the twenty-sixth round. In 1891, at San Francisco, James J. Corbett and Peter Jackson fought their memorable draw of 61 rounds. These fights are listed in the records under the caption of “Boxing Champions of the World,” starting from 1891. A prior section headed “Champions of the Prize Ring” (1850 to 1889) shows John L. Sullivan (U.S.A.) to have fought a 39-round draw with C. Mitchell (England) at Chantilly, .France, in 1888. Next year Sullivan took 75 rounds to knock out Jake Kilrain at Greenport, United States. Apparently the rounds in Mitchell’s case were ' of five minutes’ duration, as the match lasted three hours and a quarter, whereas in the Kilrain contest the time occupied is given at about two hours and a-half, this making the rounds only two minutes.