BOXING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19446, 4 November 1925, Page 4

BOXING

DEMPSEY IMPRESSIVE LOOKS FIT TO FIGHT. AT SHORT NOTICE. Jack Dempsey is the most impressive r ' 1 '<t s'i\v in a ring. The moment you set eyes on him you know he is a ! Fruiu the tip of his pigeon toes to the topmost lock of his tangled biack hair lie looks every inch a fighting man. writes the well-known Australian boxing writer, “The Count.” Shakespeare must have visioned a man 1-k • .lack Dempsey when he wrote: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. Disguise fair nature in hard favoured i age. Then lend the eye a terrible aspect. Let it pry through the portage of the head like a brass cannon. Let the brow o ’erwhelm it as fearfully as doth a jagged rock o’erhang and jutty his confounded base, swilled by a wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril, wide. Hold hard the breath and bend

up I'very spirit to his full height. This is how William Shakespeare described a lighting man. It described the present heavyweight champion boxer of the world as he danced on eager toes, prior to putting up his “daddies” to spar with Bill La Rue, former amateur heavyweight champion, at the Baseball Ground, San Francisco, on Labour Dav.

Dempsey’s legs are slender, and he is slightly knock-kneed. (Beware of a fighter with knock-knees; it is a pound to a gooseberry that he is a terrific hitter).

Dempsey looks fit to fight at short notice. His skin is heavily tanned and his muscular body is moulded in a way that would have sent the old Greek sculptors into ecstasies. His face is made to order for a fighting man. The cheekbones are high and strong; the jaw is heavy, but not protruding enough to be a conspicious target. Must go Forward.

Dempsey must go forward to fight. Il • aas never learned the knack of boxing on the retreat. He weaves in. making his opportunities by aggress?ve tactics.

His spars with La Rue and his other partner Cowboy Ed. Warner, were more a joke than anything else. La Rue boxed with a sheepish smile and a look of panic in his eye. Dempsey could have stopped him any moment ho chose. Warner made an effort—and Hie champion whipped a short left to the body, and followed by lifting it io the chin. Warner went to the floor. Yet Dempsey did not excercise his strength to do so. All the time he was painfully restrained, toying with liis opponent like a playful bear. Twice during the progress of his bouts with Warner and La Rue, however, he got off balance. Jack Johnson would have ripped home a punishing uppercut in such circumstances. Peter Jackson or Jim Corbett would have slashed him with jabs to the face. Fitzsimmons would have nailed him with either hand.

Yet they would not necessarily have beaten him, for Dempsey is made to laiic it as well as give. He fights one way—going up all the time. That is part of his mental make-up. He was never made to be a boxer. He is meant to batter and slash and rend and tear. Any lighter must be prepared to take punishment who does that. We treasure the memories of the great fighters of the past. But they are memories maybe enchanted by our imaginations. Jack Dempsey is flesh and blood. We have got him in perspective. In another generation maybe his memory will be enchanted also, when he is compared with the fighting masters of a previous age. lam speaking of him as a fighting man only. For if he does not hurry and show his mettle in a ring battle a smudge of shame may mar his record.

For the sake of boxing as a sport — for his own sake—the sooner he gets into the ring with Harry Wills the better.

Shared the Limelight. Although he was fighting in a preliminary contest at the Baseball Park on the same day, “Clever” Sencio, a young Filipino flyweight, shared the limelight with Jack Dempsey. Sencio was making his first appearance in America. He is under the management of Churchill, who guided the ring drstinio« of the ill-fated Pancho Villa. It was said that Sencio had come on a mission to win back the world’s flyweight crown which had been held by his own countryman. Sencio filled the eyes of the critics in every respect. Built like a miniature •v. i A'oollo. he possesses a wonderful left. hand. He carried the fight to his opponent, Mickey Gill, who is rated as iu.«i on Lius coast. Gill had not the slightest chance against him ami was so chopped about in two rounds that the referee intervened to save him further punishment. So Sencio made his start in a blaze of glory. He has bounded right into the limelight. Already there is talk of matching him against the champion. It is certain that a great fight would be provided, but La Barba should win. Any lad who comes up like Sencio should be made for his counter punches. Still, the Filipino would make things . very interesting for him while he was there.