BOXING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2139, 14 March 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

BOXING.

CHARLIE GRIFFIN BEATEN FEATHER-AVEIGIIT CHAMPIONSHIP OF ENGLAND DISQUALIFIED FOR BUTTING. Tho following cablegram was received .in Sydney on Feb. 26. LONDON, Tuesday evening. At tho National Sporting Olid) to-day, Jim Driscoll, of Cardiff beat Charley Griffon, of New Zealand, in a match lor tho Tenther-weight championship, £I.OO aside, and a purse given by the club. Griffon was disqualified in the. fifteenth round for hutting, alter being cautioned three times. It is evident that the Alaorilander put up a great fight and it is quite possible that his disqualification was brought about through boxing under strange rules. Charley Griffin is lucky in liis generation (wrote the London correspondent of .the “Canterbury Times,” under date January 17). The little New Zealander arrived in London last Sunday, and on Monday night, was introduced to the members of the National Sporting Club. He had a line [reception on being introduced by Air Bottinson, who in the course of his speech intimated that the match between Jim Driscoll, of Cardiff, and “Spike” Robson, of Newcastle, havbeen “called off,” the Australian would meet Driscoll at the N.S.C. for the feather-weight championship on Monday, February 24. Grifliin is decidedly a likely-looking youth, but ho will have to bo “smart as they make ’em” to take down Driscoll’s number. Tlio Welshman is not only very clever with hands and feet, blit possesses plenty of punching power and ability to take punishment. He is certainly tho best man at the weight we liavo in England at tho present time, though I think Joe Bowker would give him a very close run. Both arc, I think, better men than Robson at the feather-weight poundage. Concerning Griffin, “Caestus,” of the “Sportsman,” said:—“The new comer is a dapper little fellow, who, to tell the truth, looks a bantam in his clothes, and something very much like a lOst man in liis portrait. His muscular development in his pictures is wonderful for a ‘nine-stoner,’ and lie must strip very big unless the camera has lied, which is not very probable. Griffin is a very well-spoken young fellow, and. buttoned up ms lie was when I first saw him in a frock overcoat, with a silk muffler round liis neck ,ho looked more like a fashionable jockey than a “pug.’ He is twenty-four years of age, but going’ just a shade in the thatch. . . . Griffin’s pluck in coming front New Zealand to England, all by himself, too, must be admired. He told me he had never seen anything like the National Sporting Club, and stared when he noticed the gentlemen in evening dress. Griffin knows lie will get- fair play. He was assured of this before lie left, the colonics by Air All. Squires, for years a member of the National.”

“LITTLE CHOCOLATE”

DEATH OF GEORGE DIXON, THE FAAIOUS FEATHER-AVEIGIIT.

(Bv George Siler in the “Boston Globe). j In a New York hospital on Tues- ' day January 7, death claimed one of the most notable figures that ever , crawled through the ropes of u prize ring, and in tlie climax there is much for tlio pugilist of to-day and of tlie future, to learn. George Dixon, familiarly known in the heyday of his ring career as “Little Chocolate,’" died penniless and practically friendless, although when at the height of fame he was one of the popular idols in the game. Dixon, negro though lie was, was idolised by followers of the siiort almost from the time ho showed his great pugilistic ability until Terry M’Govern stopped his successes and robbed him of his ambition. The lesson taught by Dixon’s end is a sad one. Taken to the Bellevue Hospital, in Gotham, a victim of alcoholism, there was no friend to wish him recovery, none to offer him •assistance. Those who were his friends in tlie days when he was a winner and a spender of tlio thousands of dollars, were not among those present, and apparently he was forgotten. It plainly showed that the so-called friends who stick so clostlly to a successful fighter arc the quickest to desert him at liis downfall, or after ho lias outlived his usefulness in tlie ring. Many of these were among the mini who after Dixon’s career had ended smothered liis casket with floral tokens, but- who would not give the ' little negro the price of food to keep him alive. There are many who will

say ho canio to liis end by Ins own hand ; that he drarik himself to death. Whatever truth there may be in this can bo taken as it will, blit the question is, Where were the friends who shared the shekels lie made in lus fi'dits, after he became useless as a "ring tool? Not one of them offered hi maid, and before liis death .Dixon said he had only one friend in the world, John L. Sullivan, who, strangely enough, ended his fighting career long ago. ,ii It seems strange that one who had helped so many others to succeed could claim but one friend at the end, and on every hand the comment was free: “Where was Tom O’Rourke?” In inside ppuglistie circles Dixon was credited with “making” O’Rourke, instead of O’Rourke making Dixon, as was believed by many of the modern followers of the game. The truth is that O’Rourke did not even know how to put up liis hands when Dixon came into the limelight as a fighter. Many say that O’Rourke stuck closer than sticking in » l l il-fln r'lincnloto 5 5 whilo

was a winner, but that after he was beaten ('knocked out in the seventh round) by Terry M’Govern, O’Rourke began to lose interest in bis fighter. Tin’s indifference increased until the parting line was reached -and Dixon went his road alone. Dixon’s career in the ring is too wellknown to recapitulate. He fought hundreds of battles, and won more than any other fighter, hie was considered the grandest little fighting machine of his inches the world has over seen. He stacked lip ntrainst any and everything until Terry M’Govern started liis own meteoric flight to the feather-weight championship. That meeting between “Terrible ■ Terry” and “Little Chocolate” in

Now A’ork, not a great whilo before the game was closed down in that city was tlio grand finale for Dixon. Dixon never had met such a fighter as Al’Gpvern. He was knocked out in seven, rounds, hut before half of these were over, “Little Chocolate” had seen the handwriting on tho wall. AA’ith O’Rourke in his corner urging him on, Dixon fought as never before, but it was no use. lie took the sledge hammer blows shot at him by Terry until there was no strength left in his body, and then fell helpless and beaten.

It was that defeat that took all the heart out out of Dixon, and, strangely enough, liis conqueror met the same fate after, his many victories, at the hands of “Young” Corbett. Dixon’s defeat by M’Govcrn turned him down tlie road, the “drink route,” and brought about his end when he was hut thirty-seven years old. 1 M’Govcvn’s finish came more quickly, and already he lias spent some time in a sanatorium because of insanity. He, too, lias spent liis money with a free hand, and to-day, it is said, lias only the money derived from the benefit given him in New York a couple of years ago. it was that awful wallop handed him by Corbett in tlie second round of their battle one Thanksgiving afternoon that sent Terry staggering down the “pike.” Through all Dixon’s years of fighting lie gained a reputation for sterling honesty and straightforwardness, not any too often found in the fighters of other days, or the modern ones for that matter, In his long career, lasting more than a dozen years, in which lie fought all over America and in England, lie was never known to have been a party to a dishonest battle. To those who knew “Little Chocolate” in the days of liis success and popularity, the knowledge that lie was honest will live, even though lie has gone from tho stage.