“UNGOVERNED PASSION.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3886, 20 December 1928, Page 3

“UNGOVERNED PASSION.”

WRESTLING BOUT CONDEMNED. In the course of. an editorial on “The Degradation of Sports,” dealing with the wrestling match between Kilonis and M‘Carthy the “New Zealand Herald” says:—

“If the reputation of wrestling as a manly sport, depended on such exhibitions as last evening’s, it would have to be regarded as guilty of false pretences. By no stretch of imagination could that contest be classed as legitimate sport. The redeeming feature was the emphatic treatment of the spectators at the most disgusting elements in the display. It must be added in fair ness to M'Carthy that the responsibility for the whole sorry business did not lie with him. The bout was an outrage to sportsmanship, and in some respects worse than anything of the kind yet seen here. For the conduct of Kilonis there can be nothing but scorn. He showa preference for illegal tactics, and was so little amenable to the referee’s control that lie not only defied the latter’s attempts to enforce the rules, hut also made an assault on him in a fit of ungoverned passion. The match was ostensibly iud der the management of the New Zealand Wrestling Association. If it cannot manage its contests in a better fashion than in this instance, it should give up the task. The police, too, surely have a duty when an assault such as that inflicted by Kilonis on the referee is committed openly in a public place. It may be pleaded that large liberty should be allowed in such affrays, but what happened was not an assertion of liberty, it was unbridled license.”