THE BOXING RING Notes From Far and Near

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 260, 24 January 1928, Page 11

THE BOXING RING Notes From Far and Near

By

"LEFT COUNTER”

Although Johnny Leckie has been invited to fight in Sydney, he intimates that as long as he can obtain matches in New Zealand he will remain here. ♦ * * “Punch ’Em Paul” Berlenbach, who onco ruled the light-heavies, is thorough. In his dressing rom after he had been knocked out by Jack Delaney, Berlenbach was approached by an attendant who asked him for his gloves. “No,” said Paul, “I’ll keep these. Tve made my last appearance in the ring.” * * * George Cook, Australian heavyweight, who on November 20 fought a draw with Bartazzolo, the Italian champion, will meet him again at the end of January, when he hopes to improve on the draw. “There is nothing doing in England,” said Cook, “and I will probably return to Australia in June.” • * * Gene Tunney plans to undertake active service in the Marines for brief periods at Parris Island, South Carolina, and San Diego, California. On the suggestion of Major-General Lejeune, Commaiidant of the Marines, Tunney decided to go on duty probably at Parris Island after a visit to Florida. The San Diego assignment will be made while he is on the West Coast at some future time. Tunney is a lieutenant in the Reserve Corps. He served with the Marines in France as an enlisted man. The South African heavy-weight, Johnny Squires, cannot have improved as a result of his experiences in Australia, says the “Referee.” On Saturday, at Johannesburg, he fought a draw with the once-famous “Kid” (Ted) Lewis, ex-welter champion of the world, and among the best of the heavier division in England. Lewis, who was a topnotcher in his prime, is well past his best, so this is not a good performance by Squires.

Otto von Porat, Norwegian heavyweight champion, ruined whatever hopes Ted Sandwina had of progressing in the championship ranks by knocking him out in the second round of a scheduled eight-round fight in America. Before leaving England for the States, Sandwina, who is a Ger-man-American, and the son of the world’s strongest woman, had been doing well in the Old Country.

The Northern Boxing Association has matched Matt Hatton and Frank Taylor for a 15-round bout for a purse of £IOO on February 20. Both boxers were well-known to Aucklanders as amateurs, and since joining the pro-

fessional ranks have done well. Taylor has had two professional fights, both with Griffiths, of Dunedin. He will meet Griffiths at Wellington for the third time to-night. Hatton has been having a quiet spell lately, but as he has won both hds fights in the pro. ranks the meeting with Taylor should be interesting. A weight limit of 8.12 has been fixed, but even with this limit Taylor will be giving away nearly a stone.

Tom Heeney will meet Jack Delaney on March 1, and a fortnight later Sharkey will meet Risko. The winners of these two bouts will meet, and the victor will probably meet the winner of the Dempsey-Tunney bout, which will take place in June or July. Heeney’s opponent, Delaney, is a clever and hard-hitting boxer, but he is not noted for consistency. He is a little light in avoirdupois as far as heavyweights go, but he is highly regarded by At-emican sports writers. On paper it looks as if Sharkey will carry off the decision when he meets Risko.

On his return to England. Phil Scott somewhat bitterly remarked that the “only way to win over there (in America) was to knock ’em about.” Phil evidently failed to study some of the scoring charts of New York referees and judges this year, states an American critic. Some of the latest published exhibits of these indicate that victory is more likely than not to go to the boxer who has spent the most time on the floor without actually hearing the count of “ten.”

Bombardier Billy Wells, the British heavy-weight, recently pointed out an error in a book of boxing records, saying that he was beaten by Tom Kennedy in New York. As a matter of fact and history, Kennedy was knocked out in the eighth round. Speaking of his later fight with Gunboat Smith, Wells said he know now exactly where the last punch came frdm. - He was boxing his man easily, and had just got him right, as he thought, for a finishing blow, when Smith swung a right from somewhere near the floor, which curled round his neck . and brought him down. For want of a better name it was called the “occipital” punch. Both Kennedy and Smith are now “in the films” in America.

The following story is told about Johnny Vacca, the Boston bantamweight, who is known in this country chiefly for his two victories over Fidel La Barba when the latter held the world’s fly-weight title. When he had begun to earn three-figure sums for his contests he told a friend that he was going to set his father up in business. A little later the same friend met him, and asked: % “Well, Johnny, did you buy the old man a business?” “Yep,” was the answer, “he’s doing well.” The “business,” by the way, was an organ and two monkeys!

Boxing is the ‘trade” learned in prison by Delbert E. Kennedy, who was sentenced to the United States disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., for deserting from the army.

Kennedy learned it so well that his activities had been curtailed on the ground that prisoners should not be allowed to get rich while they are supposed to be undergoing punishment. Kennedy learned to box because the sport is a part of the recreational programme at the barracks. He became so handy with the gloves that his appearance was demanded outside the prison. With a guard as his “manager,” he scored several knockouts in Kansas and Missouri cities, making so much money the prison authorities forbade the practice.

Kennedy, a heavy-weight, is keeping busy finding opponents for fights after February 20, when his sentence expires. __

Holland Park Hall, which was acquired a few years ago by the National Sporting Club to be used as the stage for British and international championships, and other boxing events of prime importance, has been sold. The buyer is Sir Herbert Austin, and the hall will be used as a service depot by Austin Motors, Limited.

Recent American papers say that boxing is likely to become a thing of the past as far as New York is concerned, because of the 25 per cent, tax on all charges of admission of and over five dollars. Tex Rickard is hoping that the measure will not pass Congress, or that, if it does, the president will exercise his power of veto and scrap it.

Billy Grim© suffered another defeat when he met Bobby Gordon, billed as the coloured light-weight champion of America. Grime after the fight stated that he had had only two fights in five months and made it known that he would stay in America in order to show the Americans what he could do. It is unfortunate that Grime has been unable to reproduce his Australian form, and his decision to remain in America in the endeavour to regain his lost form will be welcomed by his supporters on the other side of the Tasman. * * * Battling Levinsky, the former light-heavy-weight champion of all this world, has been going better lately than he did in his fistic prime, some five or six, or maybe seven, years back. The old battler retired from the pugilistic world for a spell, but after looking over the new crop of light-heavies he became so disgusted that he staged a “comeback,” and has been boxing very well. An American writer says that there are very few of the young fellows who can do very much with the old battler. 0 * m “Solar Plexus,” of the Sydney “Referee,” comments as follows on the Purdy-Cowboy fight when the Aucklander knocked out his opponent in the fifth round: Discarding his custom of landing with the butt of his hand, the New Zealander displayed hitting ability, which combined with his elusiveness makes him a near approach to his countrymen’s high estimate of his prowess as a boxer. When Aucklanders see their champion again (provided he carries on the good work of hitting properly), his improvement will surprise them. Striking in Purdy’s ordinary way, with the unpadded part of the glove, his well set coloured opponent would have lasted much longer, perhaps the full journey, to be beaten by a wide margin of points, and badly marked. But with every punch landing correctly, and telling its own tale, the knockout was merciful. For a while “Cowboy” showed some idea of evasion. But this did not compare with the manner in which Purdy made him miss. Purdy then took on the attack, and landed many stiff lefts with an occasional right, all well and truly placed. Until “Cowboy” scored with two rights to the side of the head in the second round, Purdy was lenient. But these stung Purdy into action, and he peppered his man badly. Owing to Purdy’s back-moving, the Filipino tripped and fell, and was assisted to rise by his opponent. He immediately got busy trying to stop the coloured man

by short blows to the head. Twice in the third Purdy, in close, shamrocked, but immediately pulled up, as if determined on the new and more appreciable style of doing things. In the fourth round Purdy was cheered for his clever ducking of •‘Cowboy’s” wild swings. Finding that he had carried his man far enough, Purdy went out in earnest in the fifth. With his left, and then his right squarely on the chin, he dropped the brown boy for the full count. Boxing writers and critics in America have taken up the task of ranking the fighters for 1927 in advance of the annual selections made by Tex Rickard and established as something of a standard by the Madison Square Garden promoter. Summing up the results of a poll among newspaper experts, the “New York Sun” discloses that Gene Tunney, king of the heavy-weights, tops the leaders of all other classes in total votes. Out of a possible maximum of 610 Tunney received 608 votes. The “Sun” notes that one critic placed Jack Dempsey at the top of the heavyweight list, presumably on the theory that the “long count” at Chicago cost the ex-champion a victory. Another places the “dark menace,” George Godfrey, first. Others in the “first ten” of the “Sun’s” heavy-weight ranking: Jack Dempsey, 513 votes; Jack Sharkey, 463; George Godfrey, 376; Tom Heeney, 318; Johnny Risko, 301; Jack Delaney, 247; Paolino Uzcudun, 145; Knute Hansen, 62, and Chuck Wiggins, 36. The first three, Tunney, Dempsey and Sharkey, are in the same order they occupied in the newspaper’s 1926 poll. Ted Morgan. junior light-weight title-holder, ranks next to Tunney in

total votes, polling 601, as compared with 465 for Jo€* Glick, who lost on a foul to Morgan in a recent title bom after outpointing the champion up to the fourteenth round. Other recognised champions lead their divisions with the following total votes: Mickey Walker, middle-weight, 591; Tommy light-heavy - weight, 576; Sammy Mandell, lightweight, 566; Joe Dundee, welter-weight, 563; only 13 more than his nearest rival, Ace Hudkins; Bud Taylor, ban-tam-weight, 534. The feather-weight and fly-weight divisions, which have no undisputed champions, remain tangled in the “Sun’s" balloting. # * * The “comeback" fever has not yet abated. Old-timers have such a poor opinion of the present-day fighters that they are staging comebacks all along the line. Danny Frush, veteran of the ring, is back in New York, bent on & comeback in his fistic career. He opines he can take the measure of the present crt>p of feather-weights. The tentative efforts on behalf of Johnny Summers, the old welterweight champion, to organise a “comeback” campaign have borne no fruit so far—unless they have had the effect of stirring the blood of one or two others who, like Summers, have been on the shelf for some years. Owen Moran, the English boxer, is said to cherish ideas of coming back to the ring. This rumour, ill or wellfounded, has caused Joe St&rmer, an other English veteran, to sit up and take notice. Joe Beckett said to me not very long ago that he had half a mind to have a few more turns with the gloves, as he had never let himself run to flesh since he left the ring, and it would not take him long to get fighting fit.