IS THROUGH FOR EVER

NZ Truth, Issue 1179, 5 July 1928, Page 10

IS THROUGH FOR EVER

Fearing Blindness, Dempsey Will Quit Though many people think that Jack Dempsey will make yet another comeback to the ring, latest reports from America are very adamant on the score that he is through for ever.

THE fear of blindness, it is said, keeps Dempsey away from boxing. The ex-champion's left eye was seriously injured during his matches with Tunney, and since the last battle at Chicago he has. undergone a great deal of treatment for it. ' Recently, he made a trip to New York, and announced his definite retirement. One critic spoke of him as follows: — _ ' „ "His arrival was a far cry to the day m 1916 when the bronzed youngster from the mining camps of Colorado rode into the metropolis m search of fame. . . "If there was a dining car on that train it was m the caboose and there was no place there for a Dempsey to work out the kinks that came from 'riding the rods.' "Dempsey then would fight anyone — and he ' did. His sweeping fists, the lure of his ring personality and ferocity, arid the courage that pulled him back to score a knockout after .Luis Firpo hammered him out of the ring, made Jack the greatest drawing card m the history of sport. With him came million-dollar crowds,

then 2,000,000 dollars, and finally a gate of close to 3,000,000 dollars for his last stand against Gene Tunney m Chicago last September. "Now Dempsey, still possessing the major part of the 2,500,000 dollars his granite fists have earned, believes that the time has come to quit the game for good before the thudding gloves of a Tunney or the punches of a younger man strip him of both health and reason. "Ever since his first engagement fear of going blind has haunted Dempsey. "It's hard to discourage a sceptic, and there are few more sceptical persons than those associated with the prize ring. They wouldn't believe Dempsey when he announced his retirement out on the Pacific Coast. "Some even remained sceptical, although the ground .. appeared pretty well removed from- under them by this statement of the ex-champion: '"I wouldn't fight again for 50,000,000 dollars. I have all the money I need. I can walk around. I know what time it is — and I want to stay that way. "Because Rickard is my pal he knows I'm through, that I'm only 40 per cent, of what I was. as champion. He was the first to ; )figree with me."':