DEMI-GODS OF THE RING

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 293, 2 March 1928, Page 10

DEMI-GODS OF THE RING

TUNNEY’S THROW-BACK TO CORBETT

John L, Sullivan burst like a raging lion into the O boxing ring of the gay and festive eighties, the high priests of fistiana have come and gone with the rapidity of a small-town congregation replacing its ministers. The chequered history of the ring has seen many changes in the more or less noble art of self-defence, but few more rapid shifts of style, methods and popular opinion than in the last generation.

CULLIVAN himself knocked all pre- . conceived ideas of prize-fighting into a cocked hat. Before his thunderous methods, the old theory of the London prize ring—wearing your opponent down to a physical standstill, and then knocking him out—collapsed like a pricked balloon. Right from the gong, John L. tore into his startled opponents like a roaring bull. If he could knock his man insensible in the first round, Sullivan did it. He was

hailed as a demi-grod of fistiana. So he was, until bad whisky and wild nights in the Bowery sapped hi.s magnificent strength and primitive lust for battle. THE MASTER CRAFTSMAN Came Corbett, the dashing and debonair; gentleman adventurer of the ring. Before his rapie.r-like thrusts and scintillating ring-craft, the hollow shell that housed the once invincible Sullivan was ripped and jabbed to a standstill; the fury of the caveman subdued by a smiling Beau Brummel of the ring. Boxing became an art; Corbett the master artist. h tom far-off New Zealand came a strange challenge to the new and fashionable cult of pugilism. The idolatrous throng of worshippers at the shrine of Corbett greeted with hilarious laughter the spindley-legged figure in faded green tights who looked more like a circus performer than a challenger for world's championship honours. Only medical science could explain the mystery of Corbett’s defeat, and the swift, sharp blow which temporarily paralysed the pneumogastric nerve and flung th e vital functions of heart and lungs into jangling discord. And so, with the defeat of Corbett, a new day in boxing had dawned, and the skinny middleweight that was Fitzsimmons, and his famous solar plexus blow lorded it in the realms of fistiana. A huge boilermaker, exulting in the stark strength of body and limb built on mammoth proportions, next heaved his tremendous bulk through the ropes to supply a still more vivid contrast to all that had preceded him. Against his opponent's celebrated rip to the stomach, he interposed the "crouch." Fitzsimmons’s sledge-hammer punches glanced off the iron frame of his conqueror like hail on a galvanised roof. So was the classic pose of Jem Mace discarded, and the "American crouch” came into vogue. JEFFRIES’S ONE MISTAKE Jeffries was the greatest fighting j

i machine of his time—possibly of all time. Retiring as undefeated champion of the world, the lure of a rich prize and the so-called honour of the white race which a seething populace called on him to defend, brought him back, like a splendid engine rusted and worn out. Small wonder that he was flung back on the pugilistic scrapheap, with a great reputation tarj nished by an ill-advised return to the scene of his former triumphs.

The elevation of a giant negro to the premier position in the world’s boxing symbolised the remarkable rise of a dusky race to athletic fame. Had Johnson kept his head, he might have lived down the strong racial feeling of his day. But his tenure of the heavyweight crown was marked by a series of incidents which did irreparable damage to the cause of the black man. GREATEST OF HIS TIME Jess Willard, the stop-gap champion of the war period, relinquished the honours to a man who came as near to being classed as the greatest of his time as it was possible for a present-day champion to do against the inevitable prejudice that clings in favour of the golden-shadowed past. There was a dash of the Sullivan in his tigerish onset. But in his disdain for the other man’s ability to fight back, his sheer invincible self-confi-dence, and the murderous fury of his never-ending attack, Dempsey at Toledo and New Jersey set a new standard for the prize-ring. Let him not be judged (as a fighter) by his more recent commercial exploitation of a reputation which brought him wealth, and strangest of all, a popularity which has increased as his fighting ability declined. So far each successive champion has introduced some entirely distinctive note to ringcraft. Tunney has yet to be fitted into his own particular niche in the temple of pugilistic fame. ■ There is something of a Corbett in his masterly defence, and a touch of the dusky Johnson in his steady, consistent onset, but it is too soon to put a ticket on him and place him among the prize-winning exhibits in the gladiatorial show. IN RICH VARIETY Hown through the years, they have stepped into the ring in all shapes and sizes, from th© llJst Fitzsimmons to the huge Jeffries, who would have rivalled a Springbok Rugby forward of to-day. Black man and white, New j Zealander and American cowboy, each has played his part. I