FLY-WEIGHT CHAMPIONS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 278, 20 August 1919, Page 5

FLY-WEIGHT CHAMPIONS

I WILDE V.MOORE LIVELIEST FIGHT FOR TEN • YEARS London, Jul) 18. The fight for t;'he fly-weight boxing .championship between Jimmy Wilde, of England, and l'al Jloore, of' America, is regarded as ono of the liveliest seen in London for ten yep.rs. The immenso crowd cheered each of the boxers, and sang patriotic songs. Wilde's form and superb finesse in the opening round held tho spectators spellbound, while tha swiftness of his attack to the face and body startled his opponent. In the second, fourth, and fifth rounds Moore delivered terrific punches to the body and the head. Iu the seventh* round Wilde recovered, and hustled the American round the ring, connecting with sharp blows on the rite. In later .rounds ho repeatedly. drove Moore to tho ropes. At the end of the ninth round, Wilde, believing tihat he heard the bell, dropped his hands, and received two severe blows on the head. By the sixteenth round, Wildo had a substantial lead on points. Moore, being aware of this, realised that a knockout offered him this only chance. He rushed Wilde, and heavily punished him about the face, until everyone marvelled at tile endurance of the _ Welshman, facing a crafty and determined antagonist, ' ' v Intense excitement was aroused by the splendid attacks of both men in the nineteenth* round. Wilde's lightning head blows repeatedly landed in the twentieth round, and when the bell rang, and the referee awarded the tight to Wilde, the groat audience broke into a storm of cheering. Moore attributes his defeat largely to forgetting that open-glove blows do not count in England, though they always count iu America. The match was half over before he was warned that tho open glove was not permitted, and he thus lost many points on which he was relying. He is anxious to figiht Wilde again at as early a date as possible. Wilde, in an interview, admits that he was bftdly stunned in the sixteenth round, but had fully recovered by the nineteenth. "Moore wouldn't have beaten me if we had fought for a month," he said, and added that he was ready for another match if Moore found his own backingSydney "Sun."