BOXING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 299, 10 May 1913, Page 7

BOXING.

TOMMY BURNS BUSY. The following notes are from the independent cable messages to the Sun:— "Andy" Morris, Boston's white hope, has accepted terms offered by Tommy Burns to meet the big fellow Pelkcy, whom Burns defeated, in one or two matches at.tlie Calgarv Stadium on May 1. " Welter-weight "Billy" Griffiths, of Cin-cin-ati, meets "Mickey" Mclntyre. Burns is trying to match "Kid" Lucas with Eddie Franks. In this way Burns hopes to set going an elimination tournament to discover the welter-weight champion of the world. The heavy-weight matches mentioned'are to start a similar venture. A middle-weight competition is also contemplated. The winner of the Griffiths-Mclntyre bout will meet Hilliard Lang, who, at Winnipeg last September,, fought a 12rounds "no., decision" battle in opposition to Ray Bronson. • ■ lii the heavy-weight elimination tourney the winner of the* Morris-Pclkey match is to face,either "Jim" FJynn, the Pueblo fireman, or Luther McCarthy, the Nebraska cowboy, on May 24. Flynri has already definitely accepted the offer of a match, and McCarthy has practically done so. Tommy Burns, who considers "Jimmy" Claby one of the best middle-weights in America,, intends matching that boxer with either Freddy Hicks, of Detroit, or Hugh Ross, of Kentucky. In matching "Patsy" Droullard and "Jack" White for a date in May yet to be fixed, Burns hopes to produce, the best British-born light-weight to be pitted against Canada's champion "Joe" Bayley. Altogether a very ambitious card has been arranged by the ex-heavy-weight .champion of the Avorld.

I A DETHRONED HERO. That American system of boxing which wiseacres on the other side of the Atlantic will not tolerate seenM to have been pretty effective with Bombardier Wells,' He started asto lon favorite with Gunboat Smith, because of the. weight of English money which was planked down upon him, and of the con-' fident assertion that he could whip any other white hope in the world, and the reports which have been received show that Wells had all the best of the first round, landing at least a dozen blows on Smith, in exchange for two punches which did not reach their mark. Wells really is a dandy boxer,- a pretty boxer, a man who, having scored with' a right or left to the head, or body, almost seems to say "tug." That method was all very woll while he was in England. If you look through his records you will find that he has not knocked out many men in his progress to the heavy-weight'cliam-pionship. He did not need to do'so with, referees determined to uphold the ancient and now exclusively British conception of boxing. So long as he complied with the canons of orthodoxy lie could pile up points to his heart's content, but in America they have a different school, and Smith, according to a friend who has seen him, is something of the Joe G'xUhrd type, who tore his way through an opponent, or else promptly went to slcp himself. America has, as a matter of fact, been the graveyard of English'lighting reputations for many years, and will continue to pro-, vide gravestones for the English school as long as they stick to it. It means .in Wells' case a very heavy loss. He went over expecting to fight the muchboomed and very slippery McCarty, but was shunted on to Gunboat Smith. His share of the gate was £I2OO, hut he U an exploded theory in America and a dethroned hero in England. Instead of an income of £2OOO or .£3OOO a year, Wells will have to bo content with very little pickings in the future, unless he can persuade some quixotic backer to get him another,big fight in which he'is successful.

_ AMERICANS TRIUMPHANT. Misfortune piled upon misfortune. Hardly lutd England recovered from the defeat of Wells than Harrv Lewis incontinently knocked out Jack Harrison, the middle-weight champion of England, in three rounds, at the National Sporting CI lib, the referee having to interfere in the interests of hmnanity to save Harrison from needless punishment. Harrison is something more than a lookingglass boxer. He is that to begin with, but he is also practically indifferent to pain. Once he fought five rounds of a strenuous contest with a broken arm, and on another occasion he wanted to ■go on although he had fractured his jaw. He has, therefore, plenty of what was known as "'stuffing" back in the palmy days of the prize ring. But neither his daintiness nor his superhuman courage was of any avail against the half-arm punchings of the typical American, against whom the only defence is attack. Harrison did not do badly in the first round, but the second gong found him well on the way to a beating, and the third never sounded; and from this Lewis, who hn.d only just obtained £750 damages in a court of law from a motor 'bus company for a serious accident, which was considered to have spoilt him as a boxer. It seems to come to this, that an American mangled up in the street, and not long out of hospital, ismore than equal to an Englishman at the top of his form, and reputed to be a champion of his class.