PUGILISM OF TO-DAY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2668, 6 December 1923, Page 4

PUGILISM OF TO-DAY.

CARPENTIER AND BECKETT. AN OUTSPOKEN CRITIC. _ STRONG DENUNCIATION. An outspoken criticisin' of the Carpentier-Beckett contest and of professional boxing generally was published'in the London Observer a week after the match. The writer of the article refers to the fact that no notice was given to it by the paper named on the day prior to the fixture and states this ommission was deliberate. He says—

The match was ignored because the Observer stands before all for the spirit of sport in t his country, and would not advise its readers to patronise any event that even at its best could not only prove to be a spectacle, holding nothing of the clean spirit of contention that should be the back-bone of all our national games and trials of skill and strength. If Beckett won it would prove nothing except that he had beaten a spiritless hack, a husk of the Carpentier of four years ago. Tf Carpentier proved victorious, boxing would not be advanced one ,jot. That this deliberate policy was more than justified was made apparent to all who saw the affair. I should be the last person to attack a boxer because he had fallen swiftly before a speedier and much more skilful opponent. Pity or contempt may be felt or even indifference but one does not taunt a beaten man. In this instance the affair was disgraceful, because the public should never have been misled as to the importance of the match. Certain boxers to-day have been given inflated values., and the public has been encouraged to flock forward time after time to see mediocre boxers engage in mediocre bouts that-,, stripped of all their publicity and glamour, created around them by the press, would shame the proprietors of a small local boxing hall.

On Monday night Beckett entered the ring looking in as poor a condition as I have ever seen him for an important contest. He had announced previously that whatever the result might be, he had deter-; mined to retire from the ring, and it was known that for his appearance in the great spectacle he was to receive £4,500. He was a tough enough man, and was once considered as the foremost of the British hopes, but all who knew anything about boxing realised that he had not the spirit, the aptitude, or the wilful determination to climb up another rung of the pugilistic ladder. When he faced Carpentier, he lumbered forward with an unprotected jaw like a. man who had not received a lesson in boxing in his life, when surely his most significent and educative lesson had been given him on this yei*y point by his opponent four years previously. There was no defence, and apparently no attempt at defence. He went down like a lamb under the butcher’s knife, and his seconds surrendered for him long before the count of “ten” had expired. When Beckett was knocked out the public was knocked out too. Now that it has regained consciousness, it is seriously considering whether it will retire with Beckett from the ring. For months it waited for this lrjatch. Beckett sprained his thumb. The public must wait so that he could give of his best and wipe nway the humiliation he had brought upon ns. Postponement followed postponement in rapid succession, and even Carpentier entered into the game, so that it seemed at one time that the championship at stake was really the great postponement championship. At last the great day came, and for all the moneys, all the sporting interest and the boiling excitement that had given to the event for many months, came a fitting reward. But there are signs that the public, will at last revolt against these insults to its intelligence. Tf it wants sporting matches it will say: “Give us real contests between skilful men; or you will see us no niorp.” If it desires spectacle only, so much the worse, but if spectacle is demanded it should be supplied with spectacle for its money. In this latter event, the true sporting public would rightly withdraw its patronage from professional. boxing tour* naments.

Professional boxing has been brought to its present sorry pass, not so much by the boxers themselves but by their greedy managers and the manager-promoters. It is they who have brought about the big purse peril that has almost ruined the sport. With a. very few exceptions they do little to foster the sport. They rope in honest enough young boxers, poison their minds with their own get-rich-quick policy and live on their earnings. It is they who have so quickly fouled the once clean stream of sporting professional boxing.

If professional boxing is to become a thing of evil, a clumsy device for mulcting the public that will in time warp our spirit of sportsmanship, then it were better that it was scotched at once. But if there is a chance of saving it and bringing it back to its old standard, and infusing it once again with red healthy blood, then every effort should be put forth to purge it of poisons with which it is contaminated. The hi g purse must be fought, and the greedy managers and promoters driven from the field and it is the public and the public alone that can bring this about.