BOXING.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 October 1921, Page 3

BOXING.

TO-HIGHT’S BIG TOURNAMENT. A SPLENDID PRORAMME. The Taranaki Boxing Association’s big tournament takes place in the Coronation Hall tonight. The first bout will be staged at 8 p.m. The tournament will open with the amateur bouts. In the fly-weight, Collins (Stratford) will be matched with Childs (Stratford). Next will be the bantam-weight between Davis (New Plymouth) and B. Donovan (Eltham). In the lightweight S. Hope (New Plymouth) will meet V. Brosnan (New Plymouth). Jack Willis (New Plymouth) will try conclusions with A. Clarry (Eltham) in the welter-weight. Willis is a very promising lad, and Clarry is well known in the ring. In the heavyweight A. Mills (Riverlea) will meet L. S. Pepperell (Matapu). All promise to be good matches. The star item of the evening will he the 15-rounds professional bout for the middleweight championship of the Dominion and a purse of £2OO, the contestants being Jack Heeney, of Gisborne (the holder) and Laurie Cadman, of Auckland (the challenger). Heeney arrived in New Plymouth yesterday afternoon by motor car, and he is in the pink of condition, and is quite confident of retaining the championship. Cadman is also in great form, and he is alsq confident that he can win. The referee w|ll be Mr. Frank Burns, of Auckland. The whole programme is a credit to the local association, and a bumper house is already assured. The prices of admission are £1 Is for ringside seats, 10s and 5s for stulls, and 3s for back seats. There will be plenty of seating accommodation for patrons, and everyone will get a good view of the ring.

AUSTRALASIAN AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIPS. FOUR OF SIX TITIA3S TO THE DOMINION. (By W. F. Corbett, in Sydney Referee.) J. Purdy (N.Z.), Bantamweight Champion. A. Kay (Vic.), Featherweight Champion. H. May (N.Z.), Lightweight Champion. R. Finley (N.S.W.), Welterweight t3iampion. D. Meale (N.Z.), Middleweight Champion. B. McCleary (N.Z.), Heavyweight Champion. It is a truth older than Aristotle—although h< was the first known to enunciate it—that party feeling is the real mainspring of life, and party success the pleasure above ail others. Say what you will of the Australasian amateur boxing premiership, there is no doubt that it is a moving, inspiring idea with thousands of latter-day young men. This setting of State against State, and New Zealand against Australia, for supremacy creates an enthusiasnt and a spirit of rivalry which must unake fcr the good of the game generally, and bring us to the time, in the near future, perhaps, wl.cn we will see our way clear to .inviting the best amateurs of England and America to visit our glorious country aid compete against us for world’s honors in the nonprofessional ring. The 13th Australasian amateur boxing championship meeting is over, and the pennant of

supremacy spreads its wealth of glory to the breeze from New Zealand’s flagstaff. The Doir In lon’s representatives won four of the six distinctions involved—the bantamweight, the lightweignr. the middleweight, and the heavv- . weight titles—and they covered themselves with glory by their manner of succeeding. The. welter and feather crowns fell to New South Wiiles and Victoria respectively. A better conditioned nor a manlier lot of boxers than the premiers has never been seen in a ring. Not. one of them attempted to take a point, even in the hottest corners. Each was content to stand or fall on his merits as a boxer. This was as it should be, but unfortunately i r is not always with apiateurs. And every one of these manly fellows had. ccmbative instinct stoutly implanted. All fought to the bitter end in every bout and in every rally. Small wonder that the sympathy of spectators was strongly with them. This is the first lime New Zealand has waged battle so vigorously and successfully In the continent’s annual joustings, and it will noi be the last, or signs are misleading. Having tasted of rhe sweets of supremacy, our friends from ayoat the Tasman may be depended upon io do their best towards drinking, still'further from the same cup. What they accomplished last week will give them great encouragement. They enay sweep th? board next year—who knows? There will be no apathy on their part. There may be a grfod deal with the amateurs of the Commonwealth. Usually what New Zealand does athletically is done thoroughly. We have had evidence many a time and oft. Il will have been gathered that this latest achievement is New Zealand’s greatest in the continent’s boxing events. That country has won two events at different times in the past, hut never more. In no other part of world is amateur boxing fostered as it Is in the Dominion. New Zealand produced ’those remarkable professional boxers of their time—Bob Fitzsimmons. Billy Murphy, and Dan Creedon v ho stood before the world as wonders of that day. Certainly Fitzsimmons was born in Cornwall (Eng.), but Cornwall had nothing io do with his building-up. That, was accomplished in New Zealand. It began when he was four years of age. Had he remained tn Cornwall he might never have been heard of as a pugilist—never, perhaps, have been heard of a# anything worth while. The conditions of life obtaining In his adopted country made him the man he became, and the atmosphere

of fight he lived in did the rest. It was si>milar with Peter Jackson in Sydney. This being the case, and with so many well-conducted, popular amateur boxing associations established and thriving throughout the land, it is surely not too much to expect that some heavy men may be developed who might fight with the skill, the speed, the tenacity, and the dogged determination of New Zealand's 15-year-old boy, bantam champion Purdy. When this happens Maoriland will assuredly rule the amateur boxin< roost with .a powerful Throughout these latest championship battles we saw no Ernie Weylands, no Snowy Bakers, no Parburys, no Fitzjohns, no Fenn Lushers, Jack Kings, Billy Elliots, Reg. Midwoods, Dave Smiths, Jack Reads, or other high-class amateurs of days agone, who. do no: so readily occur to memory; hut the standard of boxing, taken by and large, was by no means poor. When the stars mentioned shone they were contemporary with many possessed of no better than mediocre ability. Not all the titled boxers of yore showed to advantage.