Jack Dempsey Is Ready To Fight Tunney

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 79, 24 June 1927, Page 10

Jack Dempsey Is Ready To Fight Tunney

Perplexing Heavyweight Situation for Tex Rickard “THAT APRIL FOOL’S JOKE” TACK DEMPSEY, ex-world’s heavyweight champion, became somewhat of an enigma after Tunny relieved him of his title last year. Since that date, Tunney has held the stage, full of philosophic learning and an avowed in-

tention of redeeming the pugilistic world from the intellectual morass into which (according to Gene) it had fallen, and lifting the brutal prizefighter to a higher plane in the social register. As to the all-important question of getting into the ring and defending his title, Tunney has been

just as shy of the job as ever Dempsey was. DEMPSEY GETS FIT In the meantime, Dempsey has been up in the mountains in California, preparing for his “come-back’' act. His wood-chopping, his daily runs and general all-round training activities are said to have hardened up the ex-cham-pion, who has lost much of his former flabby appearance. On coming down from his mountaineering lair last month, Jack’s first step was to send Gus Wilson, his own particular guide, philosopher and friend, post-haste to New York to tell Tex Rickard that he was out after Mr. Tunney's scalp, and that the sooner he stepped into the ring again, the better he would be pleased. All this was calculated to tickle the ear of the astute Mr. Rickard, who talks in terms of million dollar fights these days. Jack Sharkey having eliminated Maloney from the list of contenders for the Tunney finale, he may yet be set up to prove that Dempsey is really in earnest about his “come back” slogan. Rickard, however, has been compelled to soft-pedal on another choice tit-bit for his pugilistic grand slam, due to the discourteous and rufflianly treatment of a Spanish woodchopper by one, Heeney, a New Zealander. NAUGHTY MAN The ingenious Mr. Heeney had the exceedingly bad taste (or lack of humour) to refuse; to become part of the “April Fool’s Day” joke, which misfired, with the unsophisticated Philadelphians. Mr. Heeney even became so obstreperous that instead of allowing Senor Paolino to “knock him cold” he had the colossal effrontery to hand out such a lacing to this second “wild bull of the Nevadas” that the reteree had to be called in to declare the axeman from the Pyrenees the winner, in

the face of :i tidy rumpus from the fans and the press, who swung a majority vote in the Maorilander’s favour. THE WHY AND WHEREFORE Heeney’s refusal to be made a chopping block for the Spanish axeman Ims complicated the heavyweight situation considerably. One of the reasons why Senor Paolino. and not Heeney, is a desirable adjunct to the championship series is that the wood-chopper person, with his colourful antecedents, is great newspaper copy, and worth the sort of long-sustained “ballyhoo” which made Luis Angel Firpo such a tremendous drawing card, although after-events proved him to be only a second-rate boxer, with a sledgehammer punch. Hf'eney, on the other hand, is being left to cool his heels outside the front gate to the pugilistic arena. He has sinned greviously against the canons of modern fight promotion and the path to pugilistic fame is clearly not going to be strewn with roses for the muchtravelled Gisborne man.