ROUGH WRESTLING NOT APPRECIATED BY SPECTATORS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18640, 18 December 1928, Page 9

ROUGH WRESTLING NOT APPRECIATED BY SPECTATORS.

COMPETITOR MADE A! lACK ON REFEREE. l (Special to the “ Stan") l AUCKLAND, December 18. j The “New Zealand Herald,” in the ‘course of an editorial on the degradation of sports, says: “If the reputation of wrestling as a manly sport depended on such exhibitions as last evening’s, it would have to be regarded as guilty of false pretenses. By no stretch of imagination could that contest be classed as a legitimtae sport. "The redeeming feature was the emphatic resentment of the spectators at the most disgusting elements in the display. It must be added, in fairness to M’Carthy. that the responsibility for the whole sorry business did not lie with him. The bout was an outrage to sportsmanship. and in some respects worse than anything of the kind yet seen here. For the conduct of Kilonis there can be nothing but scorn. He showed preference for illegal tactics. and was so little amenable to the referee’s control that he not only defied the latter’s attempts to enforce the rules, but also made an assault on him in a fit of ungoverned passion. “The match was ostensibly under the management of the New Zealand Wrestling Association. If it cannot manage contests in better fashion than in this instance it should give up the task. The police. too, surely have a duty when an assault such as that inflicted by Kilonis on the referee is com‘mitted openly in a public place. It may be pleaded that large liberty should be allowed in such affrays, but what happened was not an assertion of liberty; it was unbridled license.“