BOXING

Wairarapa Daily Times, 3 March 1934, Page 5

BOXING

HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP. WIN FOR CARNERA. MIAMI, Thursday. With only about 10,000 spectators, who paid between £IO,OOO and £15,000 in admission money, and under a threatening sky, which made a continuation of two days’ rain imminent, the championship bout was held. It was considerably delayed because of the unreadiness of Loughran to go .on at 9.30 p.in. when the bout was scheduled to start, necessitating another preliminary bout. 1 1 Camera at to-day's weighing-in surprised boxing, experts.'' He scaled 19st 41b., against Loughran’s 13st 21b. The odds during the day strongly favoured the Italian.

Before the fight rain deluged the arena, and there was a 15-minute delay, after which Camera was declared unready to go on and another preliminary was begun. Finally the rain stopped and the principals came into the ring. Among the spectators were Tom Hecnev, the New Zealander, and Gene Tunney.

Camera took the first round, landing blows to the body and face. Loughran was missing badly. The champion continued to lead in the second round, the American having difficulty in getting a blow past Camera’s long arms. The Italian punished his opponent severely at close quarters, almost crushing him with a right to the jaw at the conclusion of the round. The champion maintained his advantage in the third round, Loughran being short with his left jabs and the Italian fighting him off at every attempt to get to close quarters. Loughran stumbled toward the end of the round, and was punched hard about the head. Loughran showed up to advantage in the fourth round, when he leaped in at the bell and shook the Italian with a hard right to the jaw. Camera missed many punches, and the American was reaching his opponent with lefts to the face and rights to the body at the end of the round.

Camera in the fifth staggered Loughran with a succession of solid rights to the'head. Women shrieked hysterically at the spectacle as the champion continued to pound the American with both hands, but the latter finally drove the Italian off with a right to the head that sent him off his balance. It was Camera’s round, as was also the sixth, when Loughran was almost driven through the ropes twice. A right to the head brought blood from a cut on his forehead at the bell. Camera maintained the same tactics in the seventh, pinning his opponent on the ropes and battering him with both hands. The American was game, but the Italian continued to lead by a wide margin. Through the eighth round lie., similarly battered the contender and almost floored him with clubbing rights to the head and jaw. There was little to differentiate the ninth or tenth from the two previous rounds. The American was absorbing an inordinate amount of punishment. The bout was full of action, but almost monotonously similar in pattern as it drew to a close.

In the eleventh and twelfth rounds Camera continued his pounding of his opponent, snapping his head back with straight lefts, and hammering him with a clubbed right and punching him to the ropes with both hands. The Italian went after the American with renewed energy in the thirteenth, dealing out unvarying punishment atter his earlier fashion. Loughran almost fell. He was so punch-drunk in the fourteenth that he walked to Carnera’s corner at the bell. Loughran was several times saved from falling by the ropes during the fifteenth. He was helpless on his feet at the bell.

The statement made in a Wellington naper that John L. Sullivan was the first world’s heavyweight champion is incorrect. Sullivan never fought for the world’s championship.