BOXING.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15272, 23 June 1923, Page 15 (Supplement)

BOXING.

irly “Left Lead.”)

The recently-formed Association at Frankton is going ahead, and the prospects are bright for producing much good material, both in boxing and wrestling. One evening this week a Lry-out was held when some very attractive work was shown.

Tommy Fairhall,- the conqueror of Paul Hannah at Petone, is a twohanded fighter of class who takes the fight to his opponent. ' Tom Keeney is booked to' meet Brian McCleary at Christchurch during Grand National week. There has been a strike on among the public at Brisbane, where they have been withholding their patronage from the ring as a mark of protest at excessive charges, it is alleged. Harry May, who won tile Australasian amateur lightweight championship two years ago, but who afterwards turned professional, is t 0 be given a flight under the auspices of the Whangarei Association next month. Harry Holmes was beaten by Blllly Stanley at Sydney Stadium recently. Holmes led well in the earlier rounds, but tired very quickly towards the finish*

So we are to have another world's heavy-weight contest. Jack Dempsey and Tom Gibbons will meet on Inde-_ pendence Day. All sorts of “dope” is' now coming through boosting Gibbons’ chances, but the champion should not be over seriously troubled In accounting for the challenger. Jimmy Wilde has gone under to that wonderful little boxer, Pancho Villa, whose rise to fame has been but within recent months. The “Welsh Wizard” was convincingly dethroned from the world’s fly title by the Filipino in New York this week. The New Zealand championships are coming round again, but before these are held the various provincial championships will have to be decided. At present - the indications are that in Auckland big entries will be received In all classes but few, if any, of the novices seen out in the preliminaries this season give promise of> representing the Dominion this year at the Australasian contests. Dick Meale and Charlie Purdy holders of the amateur middle and featherweight titles of Australasia have retained their amateur status, although it was rumored some time back that Purdy intended to turn professional. He, however, is still fighting with the amateurs and improving all the time, so that it looks a certainty on his again representing the Dominion* ~, , , This is going to be a tall story .(says the Sydney-Sportsman), and the tallest part of it is one of the principal characters—Frank Da Silva, of India. He is so tall that his head and his feet never experience the same climate at the one time; and so proprotionately narrow with his length, that a sparrow would find difficulty in perching on one of his shoulders. He Is also a boxer, and if he stioks at the game as long as he is himself, he’ll be a “Fighting Methuselah. Saturday night last this stretched Son of India made his bow in a Sydney ring. Welshman Danny Morgan, a very ordinary-built lightweight of average height, was his opponent, and somehow or other, in the seventh round, actually stretched up to the lofty chin and knocked Da Silva cold. Seeing that Eugene Criqui defeated the veteran American, Johnny Kilbane for the featherweight title of the world, Australia’s featherweight boxers can be rated much higher than they have heretofore. Kilbane held the title for eleven years, winning it from Abe Attell in 1912, in the sixth session of a scheduled 15 rounds bout. The boxing authorities in France are unanimous in their opinion that Georges Garpentler, former idol of France, has reached the end of his string and should retire from the ring, according to the verdict of Paris boxing critics, who saw him knock out Marcel Nilles, French heavyweight, in the eighth round. Although Carpentier won, it was the general opinion that even a second rate American heavyweight would have finished Georges in the second round when Nilles clipped him on the jaw and had him out on his feet. Nilles beat him down with body blows, and had he not been timid about going in he might have won.