Boxing New Zealand receive multiple requests from people each year, seeking information on relatives who they believed boxed in the country in early life. Many are like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack, with little in the way of information being able to be supplied to start the search.

The latest request for information, which came in recently regarding a boxer who was born 1898, revealed a short sharp career which last not much more than a year. James Cleary O’Sullivan, better known as Jim O’Sullivan, became a part of professional boxing folklore with a trilogy of bouts, against New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame boxer Tom Heeney.

Gisborne born Tom Heeney challenged World Heavyweight champion Gene Tunney (google World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Gene Tunney Meets Two Kiwi Boxing Legends) for his title in New York in 1928.

Heeney won his first professional bout against Bill Bartlett (who was coincidently also Jim O’Sullivan's first opponent) in Gisborne during 1923 and ended his career ten years later in New York with a 69 fight record of 37 wins – 22 losses – 8 draws – 1 no decision bout. During that time Tom fought in New Zealand, Australia, England, South Africa, Canada, Ireland and the USA.

The Gisborne born pugilist fought plenty of the best Heavyweights on the globe, including Jim Maloney, Jack Sharkey, Gene Tunney and Max Baer who would go on to win a world title and  fight Joe Louis.

Papers Past provides a NZ Truth sports piece dated 6 October 1923 – A capacity crowd rolled into the big Auckland Town Hall to see the bout for the (New Zealand) Heavyweight championship between the holder (Tom Heeney) and the challenger (Jim O’Sullivan). We said a few weeks ago after Mr Heeney’s very rude remarks about Mr McCleary that Jim Sullivan was the only man in sight that could give him a go for the title – and Jim did and he got away with it on its merits.

(N.B. Mr McCleary, was in fact Brian McCleary 1920 & 1920 New Zealand Amateur Heavyweight Champion, who went on to win the National Professional Heavyweight crown in 1922, when he beat Cyril Whittaker on points. Brian lost his professional title to Tom Heeney on the 14 August 1923 -  with Jim O’Sullivan beating Heeney in the above & below described bout. Brian McCleary went on to be selected as an All Black in 1924 and 1925).

The crowded house was on tip-toe when Heeney and O’Sullivan came to the ring and both looked the picture of fitness. Heeney was bronzed and solid, while Charlie Peoples and Harry May had the long O’Sullivan as fit as training could make him.

Heeney had the advantage of weight by two pounds. Tipping the beam at 13stone 8lbs while O’Sullivan could only show 13st 6lbs. But O’Sullivan had an overwhelming advantage in height and a reach of several inches, which proved to be Heeney’s downfall.

Heeney hopped in and wasn’t trying the k-o stuff but found O’Sullivan a hard man to hit. Heeney monopolized the centre of the square, but O’Sullivan adopted Mr Gunson’s new by-law ‘to keep to the left’ and he kept it to some good effect, as Heeney showed with a bung eye and claret on tap.

It was not expected that O’Sullivan would last six rounds by the experts in the know, but he saw the fifteen out and got a storm of applause for getting in and fighting Heeney to the ropes in the thirteenth spasm.

Heeney tried different tactics at various stages, but O’Sullivan’s reach reminded one of travelling on the Arahura and Heeney was constantly connecting his face with O’Sullivan’s straight left. Jim O’Sullivan was the winner on points, not on account of how he hit Heeney but by his cleverness in making Heeney miss.

There was the usual aftermath that Heeney wasn’t anxious enough, but it is grossly unfair to blame the Gisborne boy for failing to hit one of the hardest heavies in New Zealand to connect with. There was no blame on Heeney and every credit to O’Sullivan.

We pick up the second and thirds editions of the O’Sullivan v Heeney trilogy, from Brian O’Brien’s outstanding chronicle of New Zealand boxing up to 1960, Kiwis With Gloves On.

After Heeney had knocked out a pretender named Savage in the first round, he was rematched with O’Sullivan in at Gisborne. It was race week and the Gisborne town was alive with ‘sports’. The hall was packed like a workers bus and by 7.45pm, some 300 people were turned away. These disappointed patrons congregated outside the hall, where news of the fight was relayed to them in intervals.

The realization that he had been shorn of his laurels seemed to have brought Heeney to his senses. Bearded and determined and in his own hometown, he was a different fighter this time and set after O’Sullivan like a man with a mission. Lofty Jim used every inch of the ring as he back-pedaled to avoid a massacre, though one of his long spearing lefts caught Heeney on the eyebrow in round four and caused blood to cascade down his face like a miniature waterfall.

But if this cut distressed Heeney at the time, it was to prove a winning factor in the fight. Between rounds, Charlie Peoples, O’Sullivan’s trainer, seeing Heeney covered in blood urged his man now to change his tactics and to go in and make a job of the bloody figure in the opposite corner. This was a fatal error.

Following instructions, O’Sullivan tried to stand in and finish Heeney off. A short right caught him coming in and big Jim went down as though dead. Referee Alan Maxwell tells the story of what followed.

“Amidst the din of like of which I have never heard in my life, I began the count”. “O’Sullivan reclined on the on the blood stained canvas with full realization of his mistake. He began to get to his feet as I reached nine. Heeney’s face and chest covered with gore and looking like something out of the abattoir, rushed across the ring to get to grips with O’Sullivan, Jim feeling that discretion was the better part of valour, quickly dropped to his knee again. He rose at once, but before Heeney could connect, O’Sullivan’s two gloves once again were on the floor and I promptly disqualified him”.

“To intimate to O’Sullivan that he was out of the fight, I put my hand on his arm, upon which to the amazement of the crowd and to my utter consternation, he leapt joyously to his feet and held his hand aloft. He thought he had been awarded the fight on a foul and indicted this to the roaring crowd. He believed that he had been hit while on the floor”.

“With me trying in vain to restore order, O’Sullivan and his trainer embracing each other in the corner, Heeney ranting around the ring like a mad bull in fly time and the spectators competing with each other to add to the din and confusion. The scene was one never before encountered in a New Zealand ring”.

“I finally got across to Heeney and raised his arm as an indication that he and not O’Sullivan had won the fight, but those who wouldn’t listen and those who couldn’t hear came to the conclusion that the decision must be a draw. I tried standing on the press table, on a chair, to talk to the mob and make it clear that what had happened, but with the din and somebody’s insistence on raising and lowering the curtain, not to mention trainer Peoples addressing the crowd from the other side of the ring, even ringsiders were hazy about the actual position as a blind man in a London fog. It was only the dimming of the lights and the appearance of many men in blue that cleared the atmosphere and the hall”.

“There were no radios to tell them the story and it wasn’t until the Monday morning that newspapers carried the true story”.

Palmerston North won the scramble for the third fight which had to be and again the hall would have needed elastic sides to have held the crowd which tried to gain admission to it. Heeney made no mistake this time, however, settling all arguments, by outclassing O’Sullivan and knocking him out in the ninth round.

O’Sullivan was finished as a fighter after this. He had only one more try and was knocked over in less than a round by George Modrick and gave the game away to go back to wielding his beloved axe. But can any boxer have made such an impact on the game in a career embracing no more than six fights.

James Cleary O’Sullivan (b 1986 – d 1939)

Record - Bouts 6          Wins 3             Losses 3

1 March 1923              v Bill Bartlett at Town Hall Nelson - Won KO

4 June 1923                 v Ern Young at Empire Theatre, New Plymouth – Won Points

23 September 1923      v Tom Heeney at Town Hall, Auckland – Won Points

23 November 1923      v Tom Heeney at Opera House, Gisborne – Lost Disqualification

26 December 1923      v Tom Heeney at Opera House, Palmerston North – Lost KO

3 June 1924                 v George Modrich at Town Hall, Auckland – Lost KO

Article added: Tuesday 27 November 2018