Fight for Kiwi boxing great

'Torpedo' Billy Murphy pictured in his featherweight world championship belt.

Great-nephew battles to raise funds for statue to honour the only NZ-born world champ.

One hundred and twenty-five years after Ponsonby tailor "Torpedo" Billy Murphy became the only New Zealand-born boxer to claim a recognised world title, his ancestors are still battling to have a statue erected in his honour.

When he knocked out Ike Weir in 14 rounds in San Francisco on January 13, 1890, Murphy achieved a level of fame that perhaps only Sir Edmund Hillary eclipsed among people born in this country, according to his great-nephew Dillon Kennedy.

"For a boxer, the world title is their Everest," said Mr Kennedy. "Nobody has equalled Billy's record in 125 years."

More than 4000 people, including many Kiwis, have matched Hillary's great feat since he "knocked the bastard off" in 1953. But while the philanthropist mountaineer was knighted and had his legacy enshrined on a banknote, Murphy's recognition is confined to the pages of a few obscure boxing tomes.

Mr Kennedy is battling to change that. In May 2012, he approached Auckland Council with a proposal to put a statue of his great-uncle in Ponsonby's Western Park, a stone's throw from where Billy grew up. Council planners embraced the idea, not least because Mr Kennedy pledged to raise the $140,000 for the statue himself.

The fundraising hasn't gone well, with just $30,000 raised in two and a half years. Mr Kennedy commissioned a sculptor to build 40 small bronze statutes of Murphy that he planned to sell for $4000 each. However, 29 remain unsold. More than a dozen applications for pub charity funding have been rejected and a planned bare-knuckle exhibition failed when Gary McCrystal, a boxing identity who was helping put the promotion together, died suddenly.

While he has been supported by the likes of current heavyweight prospect Joseph Parker's promoters Duco Events, Mr Kennedy has also been unable to secure a wealthy benefactor for the project. Herald columnist and boxing aficionado Sir Bob Jones funded a similar commemoration for English-born Kiwi world heavyweight champion Bob Fitzsimmons that was unveiled in Timaru in 1987.

However, in a recent column, Jones pondered whether he had done the correct thing - given Fitzsimmons' English heritage and subsequent US naturalisation - and said he wasn't a supporter of Murphy receiving similar recognition.

Jones would likely point to the 52 losses and 35 draws on Murphy's 224-fight record, and the fact that he held his title only briefly before losing it to Australian Young Griffo.

The fact remains, however, that the eight months between January 13 and September 2, 1890, that Murphy spent as the featherweight champion of the world is the only period in history during which a Kiwi-born boxer has legitimately been able to call himself a world champion.

A small, sickly child who grew into a boy with "stick thin limbs and prominent ears", according to boxing historian Dave Cameron in the New Zealand Boxing Scrapbook, Murphy was perhaps an unlikely champion. Legend has it he never received a boxing lesson. His talent, built on a fire that still burned strong into his latter years, and a remarkable punching power considering his diminutive 1.69m stature, was innate.

When he was kicked out of school at 12 for punching a teacher, his parents apprenticed him to become a tailor, a profession in which he would forge a successful career. By his teenage years, he was fighting regularly on the local scene and by 19 he was fighting as a pro.

To donate to the statue fund or arrange sponsorship visit www.torpedobilly.co.nz