Doing Well

Island Boxers Are Doing Well

■J7" ITIONE LAVE, Tonga’s internationally popular heavyweight boxer, weighed in at 14 st 7 lb at Perth on March 14, when he scored a technical knockout over Steve Zoranich (13 st 13 lb), of Western Australia, in the fifth round of a scheduled 12-round bout.

Zoranich was hopelessly outmatched, according to Perth critics. Early in the second round he went to the canvas for nine, and in the fourth round he went down for a count of eight.

After Zoranich had been felled early in the fifth round, the referee stopped the fight.

Lave was at prohibitive odds-on to win the fight, and the “West Australians” critic said that the boxers were badly matched. He added: “Lave is probably the best heavyweight in Australia”.

Lave, 20 years old and 6 ft. 1 in. tall, has been beaten only once in 62 bouts.

His best win was in NZ last December, when he knocked out the Australian heavyweight champion, Ken Brady, in the last round of a 12-round bout. 1 AVE’S only defeat was in February, 1331, at the hands of Brady in a 12round bout at Auckland. This fight, avenged 10 months later, was far from decisive. Most of the spectators had no idea who had won until the judges gave their unanimous decision.

Lave’s biggest physical joi: to date probab’y came from a Fijian, Semi Galoa, who, in a bout at Suva in 1053, caugh* him with a terrific right-hand wallop in the fifth round. Lave, however, was up before a count and promptly had Semi flat on his back for the full count.

Lave was one of the star pupils of the famous Daunibau, unbeaten Fijian ex middleweight and light - heavyweight champion, who in 1947 went to Tonga at the invitation of a Tongan nobleman, Vilai Tupou, to help Tongan boxers end a long succession of failures against Fijian fighters. \/f LAN WHILE the procession of Island boxers to NZ continues, and H.

Laitia (Fiji) and Sefo Lepea (Samoa) will

probably appear at Auckland this winter.

The unbeaten Laitia (25 years old, 5 ft. 10 in. and 12 st 6 lb) holds the South Seas championship and the Fijian light heavyweight title. He has nine knockouts, a points win and a draw to his credit.

Lepea, Samoan light-heavyweight cham pion, claims a win over the formidable Fijian Atunaisa Camaibau, who, under the professional name of Henry Bray, has won substantial successes in Melbourne, Sydney, Vancouver and NZ.

Another Samoan, Niko Kronfeld (middle weight champion of Western Samoa and former welterweight champion), has also been visiting Auckland. He made his NZ debut on April 4 in a bout against Henry Sadler.

The main contest in the same Auck land programme was between Peter Schmidt (Samoa) and George Naufabu (Tonga).

Fossie Schmidt (brother of Peter), a heavyweight who was recently accorded good publicity in Australia, has been on holiday at Auckland, and so has Jimmy Ripley, the Samoan lightweight who beat Ray Coleman, a former top-rated Aus tralian.

Fossie Schmidt has had a formidable list of knockout wins in Samoa but was sur prisingly knocked out by Ross Jenkins, who was subsequently easily beaten by Kitione Lave.