BOXING AT HOME.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20649, 25 June 1935, Page 12

BOXING AT HOME.

Petersen and Neusel MayMake a Big Sum. DEMAND FOR SEATS. ; (Special to tlie “ Star.”) • LONDON, May 30. * There are few of the 500 five-guinea l seats set apart for the Petersen-Neusel i fight at Wembley Stadium on June 25 left (writes B. Bennison). If the demand for places continues at the present rate, Petersen and Neusel will each be assured of a small , fortune. They have not only been - guaranteed a handsome fee, but are to i receive a generous percentage of the : gate receipts. Unless the occasion is ■ entirely ruined by the weather. I estimate that both will be the richer by i the better part of £SOOO. Which all goes to prove that there is an unlimited public for a fight out | of the ordinary. News from Cardiff is that Petersen is in the highest i feather. I have been to see Neusel in his quarters at Windsor. He is al- • [ ready in rare shape, and the more confident by reason of not having to make an agreed weight, as he contracted to do in his first fight with the Welshman. Bantam Champion. Johnny King is the British bantam , champion for the second time. And now. it is hoped, a match will be arranged between him and Al Brown, the 1 i enormously-travelled Panama negro, for world’s honours. Manchester, his native city, is prodigal Jn her praise and help of her boxers, and King, no less than Jackie Brown, his fellowtownsman, owes much to his own folk. But can it be that King, as game as he could well be, is the very man for the famous and freakish black? It is true that the world’s champion has done little of serious account for some time, and there is a widespread notion that he has gone back. But he would need to be a shell of what he was, when we last saw him, to lose to King. I give to King every credit for what he has accomplished, but he may not be accepted as an outstanding champion, and I am far from sure that, these days, he can make Bst 61b without a deal of trouble. To pretend that he has all the qualities to fit him for a fight for a world’s title is to pay him too high a compliment. His defeat of Len Hampston at Belle \ ue last Monday, though deserved, was by no means the best he has given. Indeed, at the end. there was such a small margin in his . favour that there was some excuse for the show of disapproval at the decision. He just won on the post, and that was all. Hampston is a good, willing lad, and, if brought along on the right lines—that is, if he is encouraged to improve his boxing—he should win a place among the front-rankers. Slow Motion? I have had a photograph sent to me from Paris of a demonstration to Pancho Villar by C-arpentier of how he knocked out George Cook. Villar, an especially good-looking Spaniard, is about to come to London to fight “ the ! old man ” at the Albert Hall. Whether he profited by making acquaintance with the Frenchman’s right hand } we shall see when he toes the line , against the Australian. ( Fie will be a fortunatae young man, \ indeed, df he ever comes to be such \ another knock-out specialist as was Carpentier. Cook does no more than smile at all the qualities with which Villar is credited. Fie positively roars * at the possibility of Villar putting him 1 down and out, as did the Frenchman 1 more than a dozen years ago. For he £ will have it—“ lam better than I was * then.” f And I am bound to say that, if I ( may be guided by appearances, Cook is r just the same, and as full of fight as he was when he first came among us in the long ago. To see him at work ( in his gymnasium one might mistake 1 him for a beginner, such are his en- € thusiasm and passion for fighting. \ 1 Fie admits to 38 years of age, but * has no more intention of quitting the x ring than when he first settled in this r country. “I am good for four more years, he says. I will not go so far \ as that, but \ illar will have to be some- c thing decidedly out of the ordinary to 1 beat him. At least, Ido not think c Cook will find his job so difficult as that which will be set McCorkindale, r who is to fight Lenglet, the French 5 heavy-weight. F Note: Cook beat Villar (Snain), on C points. Experience in ringcraft defeat- v ed youth and impetuosity. Villar, who is a head taller than Cook, relied upon