BOXING.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17605, 9 January 1929, Page 11

BOXING.

AN OLD MAN OF THE RING. DUNDEE WINS COMEBACK EFFORT. Johnny Dundee, ex-featherweight champion of the world, is a regular Harry Stone, for the older he gets the more he courts the limelight, but unlike the latter, Dundee is still able to swing punches with all his old cunning and power.

Johnny Dundee seems to go on for ever. In New York the other week the Scottish Wop defeated Gaston Charles, the French junior light-weight in ten tough rounds. The older fans will remember Dundee’s ring exploits in the days gone by, when he fought the world’s best and held his own. It was Dundee who met Joe Rivers in the last twenty-round bout to be staged in California, and even then—1914—he was looked upon as something of a veteran. In 1923 Dundee won the featherweight championship of the world from Eugene Criqui, after the latter had knocked out Johnny Kilbane six weeks previously and won the title. That bout between Criqui and Dundee will go down in ring history as one of the most gruelling contests of all time, for early in the fight Criqui’s synthetic jaw, which had been shattered during the war, came in contact with a heavy right and the steel in the jaw, becoming slightly bent, penetrated the, upper part of ■Criqui’s mouth and caused him terrible agony and rriuch loss of blood during the fifteen rounds that the battle lasted. That bout was in 1923, and the following year Dundee won the junior lightweight title of the world. Weight no Consideration. Dundee has always been willing to engage boxers of greater poundage than himself. He could make 122 pounds when that was the featherweight limit, but he frequently met opponents as high as the welterweight class and even middleweights. Looking over the list one finds that he met such ring celebrities as Benny Leonard, Johnny Kilbane, Charlie White, Lew d'endler, Joe Rivers, K. 0. Chaney, Willie Jackson, Pal Moran, Joe Welling, Bernstein, Mandell, Criqui, O’Brien and Terris. The veteran of some 400 battles and still going strong, is Dundee’s record at the age of 36. '