THEY NEVER COME BACK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 915, 7 March 1930, Page 7

THEY NEVER COME BACK

/CONCURRENT with the shattering of Phil Scott’s hopes of U clinching the world's heavy-weight boxing crown for England, comes the report that -Jack Dempsey is to return to the ring. The boxing world has been in the backwaters since Gene Tuimey, with honours thick on his shoulders, took unto himself a wife and retired from the ring, and New Zealand's Tom Ileeuey climbed down the ladder he had ascended. Nothing could do more to revive world-wide interest than the return of the erstwhile “Manassa Mauler.” For Dempsey is the dominating figure in ring history of modern times, from that day, eleven years ago now, when he knocked out tlie cowboy mountain, -Jesse Willard, in three rounds, and became the eighth heavy-weight champion of the world. No man has captivated the imagination of the masses, as Dempsey did. No man has been responsible for so many sensational rounds in one career. Dempsey, during his tenure of the title, saw boxing enjoy a popularity it had never enjoyed before. In all the sensations of his decade none created a bigger stir than his bout with Luis Firpo, when, after being- knocked clean out of the ring, lie battered the Argentinian into submission in two rounds. The “mauler” met his master in Tunney, and after suffering one defeat set about to do what no heavy-weight has done before —regain the championship. “They never come hack” is the boxing ring's greatest truism, but Dempsey proved the one exception to the rule when lie put Tunney down for 13 seconds in that second Homeric battle, only to let his hard-won chance slip through his fingers by not retiring to his corner immediately. Dempsey then said good-bye to boxing-, but despite many reiterations since then That he has done with tlie hempen square, he now announces his intention of again attempting- The impossible. But time is taking its toll of the one-time invincible eastiron hitter. lie is now in his 35th year. The will to win may remain, the hawk-like eye and the terrific punch also, but Time cannot but have sapped the might of the Dempsey of ten years ago. But if any man can defeat the advance of Anno Domini even thus far, Dempsey is the man to do it. Never a boxer in the sense that Tunney was a boxer, he was (and, perhaps, still is) a great natural fighter with a streak of the primeval caveman in him.