BURLY BO-SUN.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18875, 13 May 1931, Page 2

BURLY 80-SUN.

EX-CHAMPION FIGHTER. While the White Star liner Corinthic was berthing at the Prince's Wharf, Auckland, the seamen who were making fast the bow lines moved smartly to the orders of a burly bo'sun. This in itself was not unusual, but the man who gave the order was no ordinary bo’sun. On the crew list his name appears as Charles Garrett, but 25 years or so ago he was known from one end of England to the other as "Spike” Sullivan, the uncrowned middle-weight champion fighter of the world.

Sullivan, as he is still known to his friends, is a man who has played many parts. He has sailed round Cape Horn in a windjammer, he has fought in over 700 fights, he has floated for twelve hours In an Icy ocean, he has controlled negroes in a world-famous circus, he has acted as physical instructor to the Canadian North-west Mounted Police, he has filled the gaudy uniform of a theatre commissionaire, and he has bossed and been bossed on the deck of many a ship. A County Mayo Irishman, Sullivan is one of those old-time fighters whom the Old Country has not yet forgotten. From 1898 until 1908 he was without a peer in the world as a middle-weight boxer. There was no title for the middle-weight fighters of those days, but when, in 1898, he battered “Elbows” Mick Fadden to defeat, the whole boxing records bear out his claim. The Sullivan estimates his victories as somewhere about 700, and English boxing records bear out this claim. The man who proved his stumbling block was the famous Stanley Ketchel. Ketchel knocked out the Corinthic’s bo’sun to the boards, but it took him 26 rounds to do it. A few days later Ketchel was shot dead by a cowboy with whom he quarrelled. After this reverse Sullivan went on to beat Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, a fighter who accounted for Tommy Burns, who lost his world’s heavyweight title to “Ebony” Jack Johnson in Sydney, where the police ordered that the fight should be stopped. When he eventually decided to retire he had £20,000 in the bank, and at one time he owned three London saloons. But, on Sullivan’s own confession, he had a “good time,” and he lost his fortune much more easily than he had won it.

Before he became a fighter whose name meant something Sullivan twice went round the notorious Cape Horn before the mast. The year 1912, when his boxing days were over, found him again at sea. In that year he was wrecked with the Titanic, which went down with an appalling loss of life after striking an iceberg. For twelve hours he was afloat on an ice-strewn ocean.

Later Sullivan travelled to America with Barnum’s circus, sometimes controlling 300 negroes. During the World War he served in France as sergeantmajor in the Ist Canadians, was wounded in the head and leg, and won the D.C.M. with bar, the Military Medal and the Croix de Guerre. Discharged in 1920 he was for some time physical instructor to the famous Canadian North-west Mounteds. Later he returned to England and held a variety of jobs before returning to sea. Sullivan has sailed in every sea, boxed all over the world, and been decorated by King Edward of England for the part he played in the Boer War. Like most old fighters of 20 and 30 years ago, Sullivan is not greatly enthusiastic about the fighters of to-day. No modern boxer, he thinks, can touch the heavies or middle-weights of his time. It is his opinion that Primo Camera, the giant Italian, must some time be heavy-weight champion, because of his great height and weight. “It is no use Englishmen thinking of style,” he says. “They have to go out to kill in America; where nothing is barred. We never thought of style in my day. We forced the fight all the v.v.y. Modern boxers have not got the old-time stamina. They can’t possibly have if they fight only once a year. AU the old-time champions fought three times a month. They had to earn a living. “Jack Johnson was the greatest fighting and boxing machine ever known, and there was never a greater middle-weight than Ketchel,” says Sullivan. "What a chance a strong, young fighter would have to-day. There Is nothing to stop him banging his way to the front, and once he's there all he has to do is to sit still and wait for the money.”