BOXING

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 988, 11 February 1909, Page 11

BOXING

Concerning the big fight for the championship of Australia between Bill Lang and Bill Squires, the -.-able says that the former won in 17 rounds. With all the stuff that is cabled over as news one would have thought a few more details might have been sent along, but we will have to wait for the next mail to learn particulars.

Referring to Lang, who last Wednesday defeated Squires in 17 rounds, “Fairplay” says Lang is very lucky to have taken Sam Fitzpatrick’s fancy, and if he goes to America under his guidance he will be all right; for there is not a shrewder man in the game over there nor one better thought of. He was trainer and handler of the late Peter Jackson all through his meteoric career in America and England, and though Sullivan would not fight the great black and Jackson could not therefore term himself champion of the world, he really was just that; for Slavin made a punching-ball of Jake Kilrain, whom it took Sullivan 75 rounds to beat, and Jackson beat Slavin to a jelly,, in ten rounds of the fiercest fighting ever seen in a ring-

In those days we had no hitting in holds; none of that rotten humbug erroneously called 'by the modern school “in-fighting”—which it is not, by any means; you can’t call hanging on and leaning over and chopping a fist down on the small of the back “in-fighting.” It is more like foul wrestling and absolutely must be done away with. Jackson and Slavin stood straight up to each other, and tested skill and stamina. It was. a real boxing match, not a hugging match, and the moment they went into clinches they broke clean, with no measly, crooked “sneaking one on in the break-away.” Also, so terrific was the pace and severe the punishment, that neither man was up to much afterwards; it practically closed the ring career of both men. Jacksen went into the ring with Jim Jeffries, cer'ainly, but he ;was a broken man, and was easily defeated in three rounds. Slav'n has had a few scraps in the Yukon country, but. only with third raters- and he’s never shown a single spark of the superb form he exhibited when he walloped the h’de off Jim Smith, the English champion with the “raw ’uns” at Bruges, and made a doormat of Jake Kilrain with the gloves, in New York, and of big Joe McAuliffe in London. What a man Paddy Slavin was. and what sort must Peter Jackson have been to defeat so decisively such a magnificent animal and clever a boxer!