The Washington times., 1924-01-17

Throughout 1928 there was not a
single boxing match Of real cham.
pionship caliber staged in England.
What was advertised as the best
turned out to be the worst, namely.
the Georges SCarpentier-Joe Beck
EFT mess. which ended in a minute
and half, with Beckett sleeping
off the effects of AL overdose of
Carpenters knuckles.
When 1928 began the recognized
champions OF Great Britain were
Jimmie Wilde. flyweight; Tommy
Harrison, bantamweight; joey Fox,
featherweight; Seaman Hall. light
weight; kid" Lewis, welterweight
and middleweight; Jack Bloomfield,
cruiserweight. and Joe Beckett,
heavyweight. Not a single one Of
these Misunderstanding knights has
advanced an inch toward higher
honors in pugilistic ranks.
Out Of the seven Wilde has
retired following his defeat by
PanchO Villa i'm New York, and
Beckett has slipped into oblivion
since Carpenter polished him off
so eXpeditiOusIy. Hall, Harrison
and Lewis have progressively
refrigerated to the ranks Of
wOrnOut veterans. Fox has not
fought i'm England, being busy
with bouts in the United States,
and Bloomfield has failed to take
advantage of great natura!
ability to develop into real
tOp-nOtcher.
The present-day hopes Of British
boxing-if there is any hope for 1t
are Roland Todd, the middleweight
champion, who is now in America,
| Bugler Lake, a clever young ban.
tamweight, and the aforementioned
Bloomfield. What Todd and Lake
need is to develop a wallop. what
Bloomfield needs is to discard some
of his peculiarities of tempe"amnt
and give his natural ability chance.
Generally speaking, it is the alb
sence of the highly essential punch
| that hangs the crepe on English box
/ ing prospects for 1924 and probably
few years after. There are shoals
| Of lads working out daily with the
padded mitts who shake clever
glove, but none Of them are experts
at the necessary chore Of turning
out the lights for their opponents.
Knockouts are almost as rare at
fights in England as they are at the
meetings of the Ladies' Aid Society
of Oshkakee.
In fact, it not infrequently de-
velops that there is more fighting
done by the spectators than by the
legitimate participants at boxing
matches in London. British boxing
fans have been disappointed so often
when they came to see couple of
scrappers fight that they have taken
to bringing their own"
If they don't like the way a
boxer parts his hair, or the cut Of
his fighting trunks, or il they dis
agree with the ruling of a referee
they fight it out among themselves.
Twice since December 1, 1928, box.
ing matches at London arenas have
broken up in riots. At one of them,
bout between Danny Frush and
Billy Matthews, FruSh claimed a
foul. The crowd got so hostile about
1t that the referee refused to give a
decision, but waited until the next
morning, when he got a couple OF
doctors to kick in with medical
opinion, and announced through the
press that Frush was the winner on
foul. The police had a far buster
time than the referee.
1t may be that the hope Of British
boxing is among the spectators.
Some fine night a robust scrapper
is going to get enough training fight
ing the other customers to put him
in shape to challenge Dempsey.
Unless that happens England is
quite likely to have all her war debts
worlds boxing title.