A FUNNY GAME

Evening Post, Issue 28, 1 August 1936, Page 22

A FUNNY GAME

TOUGH BOXER-WRESTLER

The mat game is funny. You think you have it worked out and tabulated —then something new happens and you start all over again. It's a question of definition this time and it looks a3 though the American writer was right. It isn't wrestling—it's ' "wrastling" (states the Auckland "Star"). On Monday night Paul "Bombshell" Boesch, one of the neatest, fastest, and cleanest matmen who has visited here, met Joe "Kopach" Woods, "ex-champion pugilist," at the Town Hall. With some drawn meetings listed already the crowd expected sensations. They got them; in the fifth round Boesch took the "X.0." from a beautiful right cross to the jaw, and he stayed down and out. The second sensation was that the bout was awarded to the "expugilist." ' . .

Woods looked comparatively "easy meat" to the versatile drop kick expert. But he wasn't. He looked1 the boxer from the moment he entered the ring. Strongly, muscled and compactly built, he was light and fast on his feet, and the way he weaved, sidestepped, and ducked—even his stance —was that, of the boxer. His major attack was the jolt, delivered more powerfully than any other matman has demonstrated it, with the whole weight of his body behind it. 'Boesch went down several times to it, but in the final blow and in several preceding

it, it was the back of Woods's fist that connected. The American footballer introduced the flying tackle'and the drop kick to the game, so perhaps it is right that the boxer should introduce the —cr —"jolt:" .

Woods, too, demonstrated an iron jaw and toughness in other directions. He went down to a fall from a press in the fourth following two perfect drop kicks, but in the fifth—his winning round—he stopped a drop kick to the point * that.'would have.; put.; most wrestlers down for the count. He came back from the.ropes not only fighting, but attacking. Arid Boesch stopped it. Woods hovered solicitously round Boesch as he was tended by ambulance men and assisted him to his feet, but Boesch showed feeling arid pushed him away. Woods gathered his .dressing gown and walked.'away, acknowledging plaudits with a ..wave" of the hand. .'■■',..'■.. ' '■'■.'■-' ■