REFUND OF £150,000 TO BOXING FANS

Chronicle (Levin), 12 March 1947, Page 6

REFUND OF £150,000 TO BOXING FANS

LONDON. Jack aoloinonsy king-pin of British promoters, admitted the. other. day Liuit he was faced with the task of refunding £150,U0O to 95,000 people who were too late with applications for ticlcets to see the light between Bruce Woodcock and tlie American, Jbe Baksi, at Ilarringay on March . 25. There are .10,500 ..seats at Harringay. Of these the Greyhound Racing Association, owners of the hall, take 3500 and Woodcock has 2000 for Yorkshire followers, which leaves the promoter with 5000 to satisfy 100,000 customers. All of which goes to prove that this W'oodcock-Baksi fracas is one«.of the biggest draws in British boxing history. Baksi is already in this country and is training down at Brighton. He is a tough^. hard-hitting bruiser, but most people in the game over here think that Woodcock knows more about . boxing than he does and will beat him. An additional incehtive is that tlie winner is pretty sure to get a crack at Joe Louis later in the year for the world title. 1 mentioned last week that tlie Londoner, A1 Phillips, and the Welsh boy, Cliff Curvis, would probably be matched for the vacant featherweight championshij) of Great Britain, forgetting the fact that Curvis has been putting on j)oundage and can 110 longer box at strength at 9st. Curvis has wisely, in these circumstauces, decided to go up to the lightweight class and the Board of Control have decreed that another Londoner, -Joe Carter, shall meet Ronuie Clayton, of Blackpool, in a preliminary eliminating contest, the winner to meet Tom Smith, of Sunderland, the winner again to light Phillij>s for the featherweight belt surrendered by Nel Tarleton. Dates for these contests have not yet lieen lixed, but in the meantime Phillips is to box Cliff ^ Anderson, of British Guiana, for the Empire title at the Albert Hall on March 18. This should be worth seeing, for both are tearaway ligliters, with murderous punches at close quarters. Sheffield weiter weight Henry Hall meets the new ■ European champion, Robert Villeman, of France, on the same bill. A week earlier at Seymour Hall, Arthur Danahar, leading eontend er- for the British weiter championship will oppose another Frenchman, Kid Marcel, who ranks next to Villemain in his ovvn country. So in the next month the boxing fans look lik6 getting plenty for their money.