BOXING NOTES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 43, 19 April 1940, Page 55

BOXING NOTES

Strickland Putting on Weight Importations In Australia + Joe And The Golden Eggs

little fighter in the days gone by. He hailed from Dunedin, the home of boxing in the South, and jumped into prominence very soon after he started boxing. It was not long before he became feather-weight champion of the Dominion, When he met the Australian Billy McAllister in the Palmerston North ring, in a ding-dong battle, he covered himself with glory by outpointing the Aussie over fifteen rounds. Tommy is still in his home town and is doing well. "T GRIFFITHS was a great

The Australian boxer Merv. Willis is one who believes in keeping fit in case something in the way of a contest turns up. He is very eager to start the season for any Association wanting a star performer. He is training in Auckland, * % * Joe Louis has fought himself right out of opponents and his manager is now concerned about keeping Joe "laying the golden egg." The champion is said to be a poor exhibition performer. It seems he is only imbued with the fight-to-win instinct in the ring, so any suggestion of barnstorming is out of the question. Since Louis stopped Johnny Paychek in a round and a-half recently, and no others of his calibre are in the offing, it

seems that Joe is destined to lay off until another worthy contender is born. In any case it is said that both Louis and his manager are anything but "hard up." x * * Ambrose Palmer is still in the limelight as an athlete, but is now confining his activities to sprint running and coaching a youngster or two. a %* * Importations to Australia have not raised any wind during the past month and the Australian boxers have proved more than a match for most of them. Joe Hall, who was in New Zealand some years ago, recently defeated the American Dave Lefton, and Alan Westbury took a points decision over Hughie Dwyer’s American importation, Leon Zorita. % * # No more has been heard. of the Strickland-Richards contest, either in

New Zealand or Australia. Strickland has now gone up to more than fourteen stone. As Richards is a_ legitimate middie-weight, such a big difference in the weights would not make for even matching, even though many consider that the Australian would win. * * * In the latest rankings Strickland is shown as fifteenth on the list while Tony Galento is shown as the logical contender for the world heavy-weight crown. It is apparent that Tony’s second round knock down of Louis in their bout last year, earned for him this honour, * Ea * Harry May is now in Auckland. In a contest with Gene Volaire in the distant past, Harry suffered an injury to his left eye and just recently had it removed

and replaced by a glass one. May was a light-weight champion of worth in his day.