Ring Records

NZ Truth, Issue 1152, 29 December 1927, Page 8

Ring Records

HIGHER— AND HIGHER Heeney Makes Name For Self And New Zealand

He's going higher and higher— Tom Heeney. And having reached a point that would make the average fighter dizzy, Tom promises to go on and top the peak.

T"HE limelight is now pouring on 1 Tom with a vengeance, and he

seems to be one of the pugilistic men of the moment over in the States.

He has come into his own, and by putting paid to the account of Johnny Risko, the Cleveland (Ohio) "rubber man," he has gone a step nearer the crown that adorns the head of champion Gene Tunney. Maorilander and Yankee met at the Olympia Sporting Club in Detroit, Michigan, in October, and by the flies to hand Tom more than held his own to win on points over ten rounds.

Proof of the pudding is always in the eating, and the fact that Heeney and Risko attracted 17,000 persons to the arena, making a record crowd for iDetroit, goes to show how Tom has lifted himself in the favor of fight fans in America

Old hands who have been watching pugs punch each other for years and years, said after the fight that for ferocity it beat any of the heavy battles seen ■in recent years.

The clash meant a. lot to Tom, and no doubt Risko knew that after it was all over.

Just read what the iNew York "Police Gazette" had to say about the New Zealander who ia strutting across the world's pugilistic stage:

"Murderous rights to the jaw, headlifting uppercuts and good defensive against a vicious attack were Heeney'B specialties," said the paper.

"With the conclusion of the ninth it looked like either man's fight, for Heeney had five rounds to his credit and Risko had four.

"Had Johnny captured that final, which supplied a whirlwind finish to an already hectic battle, the decision might have been a draw." •

And how Tom did prove that there's no flies on him! Shaken by Johnny in

the second, he took all that the "rubber man" could give him, though Risko dittoed the performance in the third.

But Tom is as hard as the greenstone, and he wouldn't let Risko send him to sleep.

More than that! He politely turned the tables, shook Johnny till his trousers shivered with the concussion, and kept smartly moving in to dodge devastating hooks that might have made his jaw ache like an inflamed boil for a week.

Heeney, as the warfare went on, to quote the New York paper, fought "with the savagery of a wounded wild animal."

That's the stuff!

•Risko, by all accounts, took all sorts of risks without actually seeking a sudden ending for himself, and fought Tom like a wild cat. But so high has Heeney soared in the game that he gave Johnny more than he received. ' When the third man raised the Maorilander's hand aloft as a sign that 'Victory was his, there wasn't one bleacherite game enough to raise a hoot against the decision.

Heeney will meet Sharkey early next year, and if Tom wins then he will battle with Gene Tunney for the world's heavyweight title.

Truly, Heeney is boosting his wares where he can make the most out of them. He may have been disappointed when the promoters in Sydney looked upon him with the freezing glance, but Tom has simply proved the old Irish saying, that "one door never shuts unless another opens."

• Hard times here have led his footsteps along the road to wealth and affluence. He's the best advertisement New Zealand could have.