The Fight that Finished the Champion
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1954.
A GIANT BEAT THE FIRE OUT OF WOODCOCK
T
HE heavyweight champion of Eng- land lay strangely still on the rubbing table at Harringay. All wo .could see ILB we shuffled quietly around were a pair of boxing boots, A drab coloured blanket, and swathe of towelling round the champion's head. We muttered among ourselves. No brash questions tonight, boys. This could be a hos- pital case.
AL
BAKSI" was (nobody's: fool in the fight game. He carried out to the letter the simple and the explicit instructions for annihilation ...
● SO BEGAN a night of blind gallantry, of tragedy... and
so, too, began the story told here in this first article of a
I visited
new serier
by GEORGE WHITING
The door of the dressing- room opened, and we moved aside as # grey-haired,
both camps, and, square shouldered American such is the insidious nature of of middle age pushed publicity, i fooled even mysell through the mob outside, into believing that here indeed Colonel Edward Eagan, the was the mutch of the moment.
Kings Cross Rhodes scholar who became Thousands packed in
arrival fight.
night before
the
chairman of the New York the State Athletic Commission, special squads of police had to clear the way outside Jock
Windmill
lifted a corner of the towel, Solomons's office for the midday gazed for full 20 seconds at weigh-in Great
at what lay beneath, and said. Street. very quietly:
23
winner
Nat Rogers, ich matchmaker for New York's Maison Square Garden, arrived with an aimost frante offer of £30,000 for the to fight Joe Louis for the heavy weight
championship the world. Even Baksi's of attractive blonde wife, Anne.
the
pubilety was roped into
And labelled in the lick Picture
gossip columns as "The girl who walts while her husband fights."
"Bruce Woodcock, you are brave boy who has taken beating. You've been out there In the punishment plt. Don't Jet it dishearten you, but go out and get some experience. Beat ing second-rate men has done you no goud. Rough it around for a While-and you'll them all yet."
Jaw broken
All for one of the ir.. st through-paced threshings ever handed to u British heavy- weight champion.
to
to
In
be
KCAS
PETROL
ELEVATOR LIFT FREETOAR TRAM
ENGLISH -
AMERICAN
Chartered Accountants To Meet
VERY TIGHTLY ORGANISED
By Charles Handley
THE spiritual descendants
Hia
T
Page: 7
SLEEP --the dentist says (very quietly)
By HUGH CLELAND
E time may come Afraid of having When the operation is over,
a tooth filled? Then patients while he ไป
when a date with the dentist will hold no
thờ" dentist, first telling
hla
more terrors for normal ask for a spot of hypnotized, that he will feel no people than an appointment hypnotism, newest formula Buch DS "When with a tailor or hairdresser, tool in the dentist's up." And the patient does.
Relaxed in the comfort.. ablo seat provided, which most people at present re-
follow.
workshop.
pain or discomfort, ALC count three....you will
weke
Who are the best subjects for hypnotirm in the dentist's sur gery? Children, by a long way.
will to. Id-year age
hypnotised deeply.
ing
group can be
gard about as equably as if people. If they believe they can Ninety percent of the four-year it were an electric chair, the be hypnotised, '- success patient will do what his How does the dentist dentist tells him, and be a hypnotism go to work? With much at ease that the shin his patient in the chair, he holds ing drill poised over him will up some bright object. (one use seen as homely as a fireside lamp.
How is this transformation
brought about?
of hypnotism.
repeals some such "Relax....relax...,relax,”
A group of dentists, members "Go to sleep," of the British Dent Associn- tion have formed
Society of Dental which
itself now
members. Thirty mostly
area,
men
the British
Hypnotists,
has
50-00
in the London
taken have already
♫
la
Tof Egibi of Babylon samme 18 they forrned the deeply--that is, to the point of Patients would
Sons
Of adults, Servicemen, ured
Intelligent.
the ap-
to
a small torch with a pin-point to obeying orders, are good, and light, another dentist uses a of others, normally ring) and asks the patient to people are the best. Those who comforting concentrate upon it, and put all are weak-willed or incapable of to bo other thoughts, cut of his mind. concentration are difficult to By. the use Then, quietly, of Intervals, he hypnotise, and no one can be
words as hypnotised against his
or her or will.
The chalinnan himself never invites people to be hypnotised,
the Ho lets
suggestion come from the patient Not many "At first.
the operator doing people as yet do make the rug- of those, this feels shy, rather
foolish, gestion. Few know about the said the chairman, but you just work the group have been doing. To spread the knowledge, the three-week course in the use of go on, In a monotonous volee. hypnotism and,
do it, though per chairman goes soon to Somerset, when their Anyone can patients ask for it, have put hops a little flair is needed to Merseyside and Edinburgh, to to dentists, The society of Baksi
into practice what blacksmith arms
they have overcome the shyness."
will bo intensive learned.
hopes there that ghustly Brst round. We saw
What of dentists unable or weak-end courses "In theory," said the chair unwilling to conquer their shy-plication him dragged ilke a war casualty
af hypnotism tils
a Wimpole corner, there
man of the society,
ness in carrying out hypnosis? dentistry all over the provinces prodded and patted and patched
dentist, successors enjoyed the Stroet
"everyone
The chairman envisages a
an annual kind and
conference la it wasn't Into some semblance of recovery
prestige, but
being hypnotised
remote-control hypnotism London. white-faced by his
Le manager,
first isit 8 "Hurst.
have two enemies," wrote and his Tum
of first official society with a royal being anaesthelised. Pode and Marashu and
dental or medical hypnotis! the
the chairman, recently in a sperately anxious young brother, Nippur will flock to Edin- charter. Another was formed In
("I don't think laymen should letter to a professional journal. Billy Woodcock.
"In fact, at the present time, dabble in it") who would send "They For three
over-enthusiastle one-sided burgh this October to cele. Glasgow and received its char-
one-Alth about
them
dentist advocates, 00 to their own
and blindly cal-brate the 100th anniversary ter from the Queen the next
year.
with a note phrased, say: be
"Mr judiced sceptics." first recognised of the
From there on, it was a mat-pellents probably
The society, "strictly a pro- Ac- ter of organisation and exten- capable of deep hypnosis, end So-and-So, says that you are te Society of Chartered
to sleep." two-fifths capable of medium immediately.
And they would, fessional body," will no doubt be Once
hypnotism able to keep the Brat in their They got to England in 1870 hypnosis-being hypnotised
whole may by an opere place; society as The few hundred who pay and to Montreal in 1880. By the point where they would feel has been ported out even one day confound the others. homage to
canny 1904, they were established in nothing of drilling or the other for it can be
of
FOOTNOTE: In the years Alling Scottish forbears will ofli- Vancouver and at most points discomforts
The question is, how are we Patience is also needed on 1888-1890,
several thousand cially represent a few thou- in between.
hod teeth ex- American
of both sides. It may take three people in Hull number organisation par to increase sund behind-the-scenes men
minute sessions Tracted under the hypnotism of alleled the Canadian spread, and anaesthetic casts? There are or four 20-30
can be deep hypnosis on whose integrity most of now recognised bodies exist in two things to be done. Operators before
a Dr Bramwell, who was rarely must be trained-we are doing produced. But once it has been present during the operation. He the world's business depends. New Zealand, Australia, Malta, Woodcock's wits took no paris They trace their trade Rhodesis, Portugal and, inthis. Secondly, the public murt only a moment or two is needed sent patients their "orders" by with the letters which were read out to fact, almost everywhere you be trained to regard hypnosis as on future occasions whatever In those erusting back to the stalwart arms
can think of.
the normal thing for normal same operator.
them to produce deep hypnotism. second, third and tourth rounds of Egibi and Marasu, or in the frenzied repair work with which his distraught employed to keep a wary seconds, by now preciously near eye on the business of the panic, sought to restore kim. Chaldean and Babylonian After four rounds the fight empires 4,000 years before was over or should have been. Christ.
nine
more
of minutes und strienv
legitimate mayhem, the battered Woodcock stumbled and groped as un open target for the punches of Baksi,countants.
instinei with Bttle else but an
for survival to stem the tide of hooks, jobs and uppercuts that bludgeoned him,
One mystery
Colonel Engan was right in bis disgucals but only partly
A show-off outside the ring. right in his assessment of the the giunt Baki was nobody's pugilistle future of the bruised fool at the fight game. He and bleeding man on the table.
Bruce Woodcock did Indeed simple and explicit instructions for the annihilation of Wood- fight again, and with much purpose, pubilelty and profit. cock: "Don't fool around go
get him in the first round," He stopped Lee Oma (if you need reminding!), Johnny Ralph and Freddie Mills, lost and won against Lee Savoid, and was finally beaten by Juck Gardner,
in the opinion of those carried out to the letter Accel's
Silent skirmish
We even rated him a world
und we know now that the fire
contender again. But both he ringay
Joe did just that. The Har- fantur:s died down, retiree Moss Deyong completed that was Woodcock was doused his introductions, the bell hush- for ever on that night of Aprli ed our expectant
chatter-and
15, 1947-the night that Joe the fight between America's Joe Baksi broke his jaw, pulped his Baka! (15st. 31.) and Britain's face, put him in the shadow of Bruce Woodcock (18st. 12lb.) semi-blindness, and rendered was on.
him unfit for public viewing for 17 pain-wracked months.
Baksi, the clown
For possibly one minute, glove sought flesh and eye met eye in silen skirmish.
And then-bingo! Woodcock, the trained-to-a-hair ex railwayman we had pictured as world, had In a flash a fumbiing,
The Woodcock-Bakai fight, we champion of the were assured in those day of become plentiful dough, would have semi-conscious and witless heap everything. Its dato was E of humanity on the door-- nounced at a sociallto gathering paper-legged victim of an at the Savoy; Baksi, a giant plosive hook to the upper jaw from the anthracite
mines of froin Baksi's ponderous-looking
Pennsylvania, was trumpeted left arm.
into the country with all the phuney ceremony of a film star ringside meats, priced at twenty guiness each for the last time
ex-
I couldn't see
In Britain, changed hands for treble their value; more than Woodcock has subsequently 100,000 applications were made called that hook a "sucker" for the 11,000 tickets available: punch. "It landed on the gross takings topped the then side of my head, and the effect Indoor record of £54,000.
was the same as if he'd thrown
Baks, a genial man in pubile halt a ton of lead at me. Bakal's
boor in muscular bulk became like and a bad-tempered private, behaved like a clown vague, ghostly vision in front of
mc.
couldn't
of
011
bמן!
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trying not too successfully the ringside to keep personal eye on the massacre. It ever there were justification for honourable surrender or merci ful closure, this was it.
on
118 Exalted Place
And, although Egibi and Marashu carved their figures {painfully atone block while their successors use electronic brains and lightn- But the grim and bruising ing calculators, the basis of business continued until referee the business has changed it: Deyong called Baksi off round seven. How Woodcock only one major respect over survived till then, and even the years. managed an occasional pathetic counter-punch, is a mystery that only pluck, blind instinct and the shock-absorbing qualities of the human frame can explain.
If only...
in
Chartered accountants are now as tightly organised as any aristocracy, while, only a scant hundred years ago, anyone could set himself up in the business.
Yet that one development is enough to draw men from Quietly, almost reverently. New York, Wellington, Van- they led the unseeing Woodcock couver, Baghdad, Capetown. away, Led him, eventually, to u
to an opera- and Sydney, and all the hospital bed tion on a fractured temporal points in between, to help bone above the jaw
to celebrate. temporary blindness to four
It is that organisation months of darkness as blls of which has lifted them to an
to
exalted place on the social registers and a top spot on the income tables.
bone camo perilously near penetrating his left eye.
But, between the pain of Baksi and the despair of blind ness, come seething self-anger. George Watson Holding an ice-pack to his in-
And it Is that organisa- jured eyes in a hotel bedroom that night, Woodcock strenght- tion which has made it ened up from the wash-basin, possible for almost апу buried a pillow at the wall and citizen anywhere to be sure gave vent to enormous that he can put his faith in wrath.
"What a bloody fool! What e mug to let myself. get caught like that," he stormed. "If only
I could get back in there again right now. know I would.”
But he never did.
a man who can call himself
a Chartered Accountant.
In bcotland accountants were
with
not
of
always closely asociated see properly.
lawyers, and they were I'd lick him,
slow to see the advantages the lawyers' kind of organisa tion.
in
at Brighton, where he trained The whole vast arena seemed to under the expert eye of that be swimming round me suave American, Ray Arcel
Crazy whirlpool of lights and Woodcock, never readily ap- heads, and white shirts, like proachable, inspired even silller trick camera-shot from a Holly- "pecrat punch" stories than wood film trailer. I lost all sense usual by the simple expedient of of balance and distance, all locking the door of the stable he count of time. I don't remem- had converted into a rough and ber going down." ready gymnasium adjoining a But we who were there
Woodcock pub at Balby, his Doncaster member. We saw
take two more counts from the home.
го
WORLD COPYRIGHT RESERVED
THE BLACK WILDCAT Next Saturday, George Whiting tells of the demon fighter who
France's toppled
idol
-
Georges Carpentier.
Scotland's first professional accountant (born in Edinburgh in 1045) was George Watson, who made so much money that ha was able to form a
Large trust for the benefit of the capital. The fruits of his work are still enjoyed today by the boys of two famous schools.
AN INVITATION TO MONTEVIDEO
Paris.
†NESCO is used to
Unancially neglected by Executive Board, which is to confusion
Some of these members,..like Poland and Chiang Kai-shek's Formosa, have not paid for. more than five years, jo
From SYDNEY SMITH
in Paris's Hotel
;
The list of defaulters"
round the world.PL
Its members. But since already considering how to Majestic where they are, at Stalin's death Russia has shown increasing interest in make up defaults in mem- work this month.
its educational work!
bers' payments.
When
1aiked a Unesco But Britain and America, the official for some budget figures two highest payers, do not owe It Moscow ......... accepts the I was told: “The man I have a cent. The Russian Embassy in Montevideo invitation, will the to, phone, is a Chinese, and London has asked the Bri- chief non-payers, Iron: Curisin usually find him "dimeult 4 tish Foreign Office for de- countries Day Up? And how understansi,"
can Russia be invited when all... -
tails of Unesco's programme. Ameramas, staff on Unesco state
nichirisare
So Russia is to be invited to on home that they are Trot, while Unesco's
the autumn conference in Commúoletat
Montivideo. Pas
These are only
This raises two awkward forks the set d problems for the Unesco, directors..
stive: Board
sion.
EFFECTIVE APRIL 1st
the
of a dentist's
would
tooth.
ta
uver the telephone.
Jung
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