BOXING.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17220, 1 October 1927, Page 20 (Supplement)

BOXING.

A DOZEN RETIREMENTS. WHAT WILL DEMPSEY SAY NOW? (By “Left Lead.") Somebody quoted me as saying that win, lose, or draw in my next battle with Gene Tunney, I’d hang up my gloves and quit the ring game, stated Jack Dempsey before going under to Gene at their latest meeting. I never put it that way at all. I may quit after that fight—that is, I may say that I’m going to quit. But quitting and staying quit—those are two radically different things. Up to the present moment I have quit the ring game about 12 different times. But I’m still around, am I not? So what’s another farewell or two, if I’m just a fistic Patti, anyway? Back in 191 G I made my first jump in New York, and fought three fights there. I got about 27 dollars for the first battle, 47 dollars for the second, and the third netted me 100 dollars—a total of 174 dollars for 30 rounds of tough work. After my third fight there John Reisler, who was managing me then, gave me the air. He said I was terrible. I got to thinking John was right, and when I got back home I announced that I was through with the ring game. But it wasn’t long before I changed my mind —and back I came. Again and again after that I’d decide that I was all through fighting. Almost Quit After Flynn Fight. In 1917, after the Jim Flynn fight, I made up my mind never to do any more fighting. I was away from the game for quite a while. Then Kearns dug me up and I put on the gloves again, and continued fighting until after I had whipped Fred Fulton. That battle netted us around 20,000 dollars or 25,000, I forget the exact figures. But, at the time, my end seemed to be just about all the money there was in the world. I told Kearns that I was through .with the ring game. Kearns laughed at me. But I said I was serious. And I didn’t do any more fighting for money for quite some time. About the only fighting I did after that, for some months, was in benefit shows. But when Kearns fixed it up for me to get a shot at Willard in 1919—well, then I changed my mind altogether about quitting the ring, because I always thought I could whip Willard, and doing that meant winning the title. After the Carpentier fight I said I was through; that I’d do no more battling. But two years later there came the chance to mix with Tom Gibbons for 300,000 dollars —and I forgot all about resignation from boxing. But in the samo year, after I won from Firpo I got the notion again about fighting no mora,

After Tunney—What Then? After Gene Tunney whipped me —\ well, that was different; altogether different. A fellow usually doesn’t find it hard to make up his mind to quit a game while he’s a winner. But when he’s beaten, and he’s not sure that the man that beat him is the better man—well, he gets it into his head he wants another crack at that fellow just to prove that the first heating was a fake. That’s the way I felt after the Tunney fight. I wanted another shot at him. But I never was sure that I 1 could get back into good enough shape to make a winning fight until after I had trained’privately up in the California mountains. After 10 weeks there I figured I could get right—and now I’m back in harness again. What’ll I do if Tunney beats me again.? Well, let’s wait until that happens. What’ll I do if I beat Tunney and grab the title back? Oh, I suppose I’ll announce that I’ll never do any more fighting—and then wire Tex Rickard: “Will meet anybody you name next Summer.’ 1 BILLY GRIME IN U.S.A. MAY YET REDEEM HIMSELF. After his defeat by Finnegan, that Sydney authority “Solar Plexus,” had the following to say: Look at it as you may, Grime was not disgraced. It is likely that his own views are the sound ones. He stated, after the mill, that he did not feel that he was fighting with the usual speed. He attributed this to not having had sufficient contests to take him up to the pink of his physical powers and to sharpen, his boxing. Being in good managerial hands, it is likely that, after meeting a few of the lesser lights at the junior light or featherweight limits, he hopes to earn the right to a return contest with Finnegan. In that case there may yet be a chance of his coming back with the 9st championship, provided he has not grown beyond the featherweight limit of 9st.