WBA Heavyweight Elimination Tournament-1967

[Ambling Alp II]

Nice of you to post that. Some of the other fights from the tournament have been on youtube as well; not sure if they still are.

[Flump]

The third fight of the seven fight tournament was
Karl Mildenberger vs Oscar Bonavena.
16.September 1967,Frankfurt,Hessen Germany..
It was (or was)scheduled to air live(via satellite)
on ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS.
however ive never seen any video-tape of the broadcast,however here is some film footage of the highlights,

http://www.britishpathe.com//video/karl ... r-bonavena

The Mildenberger- Bonavena fight was on Channel 5 (terrestrial TV station in the UK) late one night a few years ago. Mildenberger did well in patches, but he kept getting dropped, strange fight.

[yancey]

The third fight of the seven fight tournament was
Karl Mildenberger vs Oscar Bonavena.
16.September 1967,Frankfurt,Hessen Germany..
It was (or was)scheduled to air live(via satellite)
on ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS.
however ive never seen any video-tape of the broadcast,however here is some film footage of the highlights,

http://www.britishpathe.com//video/karl ... r-bonavena

The Mildenberger- Bonavena fight was on Channel 5 (terrestrial TV station in the UK) late one night a few years ago. Mildenberger did well in patches, but he kept getting dropped, strange fight.

I watched this fight live and your description is accurate.

Mildenberger was a strong favorite in this fight. Every time it looked like he might be asserting himself he would get knocked down and would lose his momentum. The knockdowns were well spaced out during the 12 rounder. If I recall correctly, Mildenberger was down 4 times in all. The last one was by a wild left by Ringo and killed all hopes of a Mildenberger late rally.

Ringo was just too strong and unorthodox for Mildenberger to effectively deal with, at least on that occasion.

[BoxBuzz]

The first across the atlantic broadcast of a fight was Liston Patterson.

[Dubblechin]

I've always been fond of this tournament. One could argue Liston deserved a spot. That said, there were a lot of quality heavyweights involved and everyone was evenly matched.

In fact, the '67 tournament was so evenly matched that the underdog in the '67 tournament won every bout. (Martin was favored over Ellis, Patterson over Quarry, etc.)

If the WBA held a vacant heavyweight title tournament today, the top eight contenders from their ratings would be:

* Luis Ortiz
* Alexander Povetkin
* Bryant Jennings
* Deontay Wilder
* Ruslan Chagaev
* Fres Oquendo
* Alexander Ustinov
* Travis Kaufman

It's just not the same quality.

[Dubblechin]

June 11, 1967

(UPI) The World Boxing Association Saturday rejected a reinstatement appeal by deposed heavyweight champion Cassius Clay and named eight fighters to compete in a tournament to determine his successor. The WBA executive committee affirmed its decision of April 28 in stripping Clay of his title for refusing to be inducted into the Army.

"The executive committee finds the actions of Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) to be detrimental to the best interests of professional boxing," the group said in a prepared statement. Attorney Hayden Covington of New York pleaded Clay's case earlier in the day before the committee. He urged that Clay's title be restored on grounds that he has not been convicted of criminal charges filed against him by the federal government.

The WBA released its heavyweight ratings, which were withheld pending the Clay hearing, and rated Karl Mildenberger of Germany as the No. 1 contender for the vacated title. Ranked behind Mildenberger were (2) Joe Frasier, (3) Argentina's Oscar Bonavena, (4) Ernie Terrell, (5) Thad Spencer, (6) Floyd Patterson, (7) Jerry Quarry, (8) Jimmy Ellis, (9) Leotis Martin and (10) George Chuvalo.

"There will be an eight-man boxing tournament, comprising seven different bouts," the WBA said, "with the top eight ranking contenders eligible to participate in the elimination tournament for the heavyweight championship of the world."

WBA president M. Robert Evans said the time and place of the seven bouts would be up to promoters. In affirming its earlier decision, the WBA said: "In recognizing a boxer as world champion, the WBA enjoins him to set a champion's example in high ideals and sportsmanship in the belief that, while a world champion is not greater than the sport in which he reached the pinnacle of success, no sport can rise above the level of those who take part in it."

[Dubblechin]

Sports Illustrated
July 10, 1967

The Once And Future King?
Though lacking the glowering presence of Sonny Liston—who waits to challenge the winner—a tournament of interesting home television matches will determine the No. 1 claimant to Ali's vacated title

Tex Maule

Never have so many owed so much to the absence of one. When the intransigent Muhammad Ali lost a decision to the law of the land and was stripped of his heavyweight championship, he transformed a baker's dozen of potential victims into credible heavyweight contenders. In counting himself out he may have done even more to revive interest in boxing than he did in the three years during which he held the heavyweight championship. At the end of the lively era of his tenure the heavyweight division had degenerated into a modern version of the bum-of-the-month club Joe Louis presided over during the dog days of his distinguished career. No one honestly believed that a Joe Frazier or a Jerry Quarry could give Ali a fight. The only question was how long they could remain standing.

Ali towered over the field, and boxing might have perished in the shadow of his excellence.

Now, suddenly, the fight is on again. Among all the pretenders to Ali's throne, no one stands head and shoulders above the rest. The lowliest is capable of giving the best an argument, and the opening skirmish in the battle for control of the heavyweight division was a portent of things to come. In this encounter a young contender knocked a veteran cold as a mackerel. The fight did not take place in the ring. It was a paper battle fought with contracts, and Sports Action, Inc., the youngster with American Broadcasting Company television money in its corner, disposed of the venerable, crafty Madison Square Garden with a knockout punch revealing the strength of what Ernie Terrell calls green power.

Green power, of course, is the power of money. Sports Action, Inc., headed by Mike Malitz, corralled most of the top contenders for Ali's crown by the simple expedient of offering them more money to fight than Madison Square Garden would. Malitz' group could make this offer because ABC will carry the matches in the elimination tournament on the Wide World of Sports, the first two on Saturday afternoon, Aug. 5, from the Astrodome in Houston. The purses for the four fighters in this doubleheader range from $23,000 to $50,000, and to all of them this represents riches. The Garden would not match these guarantees, and no private promoter would, either. They are part of a nut of some $300,000, an unimaginable sum without the contribution of television.

For the man in the living room, Sports Action's victory is a pleasant thing. He will be able to see the whole tournament without forsaking his cold beer and icebox lunch. He may quarrel a bit about some of the people in the tournament, because a few of the likely candidates to replace Ali are not among those present.

Sonny Liston, who has lost only three fights in his life and two of those to Ali, will be playing solitaire in Las Vegas, a 220-pound black Hamlet wondering whether he is to be considered as a genuine challenger when the tournament ends. Why he is missing from the eliminations is known only to the promoters. Joe Frazier, the young lion of boxing who has assumed the mantle Ali once wore as a former Olympic champion on his way up, is aligned with the Garden, where he will fight George Chuvalo on July 19. If he survives this test, Frazier, too, will be available to fight the winner of the tournament. Chuvalo, who may very well whip Frazier, was left out of the tournament because he dropped to 10th in rank after losing to Oscar Bonavena, who is in the tournament. Zora Folley, who fought one of the craftiest and most courageous fights against Ali, is absent because he, too, dropped out of sight in the spurious rankings of the World Boxing Association.

As it stands now, eight fighters will be allowed to decide the championship among them. They are, in alphabetical order: Oscar Bonavena, Jimmy Ellis, Leotis Martin, Karl Mildenberger, Floyd Patterson, Jerry Quarry, Thad Spencer and Ernie Terrell. Waiting hopefully in the wings, in addition to Liston, Frazier, Chuvalo and Folley, are a trio of long shots—Eduardo Corletti of Argentina, Manuel Ramos of Mexico and Buster Mathis, erstwhile protégé of Cus D'Amato.

The matches made so far are between Terrell and Spencer and Ellis and Martin in the Astrodome, and between Mildenberger and Bonavena in Offenbach, Germany. Patterson, who fought a draw with Quarry in Los Angeles not long ago, will probably fight him again on Oct. 21 or 28, again in Los Angeles. The semifinal matches between the winners are planned for the Astrodome on Nov. 11 and Dec. 2 and the championship at the same location in late January or early February. The Aug. 5 doubleheader is scheduled to begin in the late afternoon in Houston, which will surely be the first time in boxing's modern era that a fight goes on at tea time.

The tournament represents the final takeover by TV of a major sports field. Football, basketball and baseball all dance to the merry ring of television dollars, but this is an all-TV show and, despite the contrary views of many sportsmen, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Practically speaking, more fight fans will be given an opportunity to watch the action of this tournament than would have if the fights had been promoted individually and sold to theater television. With the wide exposure of national television, interest is likely to build. When the survivors meet for the title in January or February that fight may attract the biggest TV audience in sports history.

This is the creation of an organization made up of the remnants of Main Bout, Inc., which handled the theater television of most of Ali's fights. It includes Malitz, who has been in boxing all his life; Attorney Robert Arum; Former Cleveland Brown Fullback Jim Brown; Fred Hofheinz, son of Judge Roy Hofheinz of the Astrodome; plus theABC bankroll. It represents, as Harry Markson and Teddy Brenner of Madison Square Garden discovered, an almost unbeatable combination. Hofheinz has the best arena in the world in which to present a boxing program, and he demonstrated in the Cleveland Williams-Ali and the Terrell-Ali matches considerable skill at producing and showcasing fights. The Astrodome itself is a big plus. A visiting English writer, after watching a soccer game in the Astrodome that was attended by some 20,000 fans, said, "You could put on a shin-kicking contest in this remarkable place and draw 20,000 people." And with ABC as a partner, money is no problem.

"Without ABC, we could not go through with the tournament," Malitz says frankly. ABC's participation, in effect, locked out the Garden, which might have come in for a fight or two had it not been for its tie-up with RKO General in a special sports network. "We wanted the Garden to join us," says Malitz. "We were willing to accommodate them. We offered to sit down and work out a deal. But we could not dance to their tune, and they could not dance to ours. It was that simple."

Brenner, the Garden matchmaker, put the problem another way. "They wanted us to hold Saturday afternoon fights in July for the Wide World of Sports" he says. "With that kind of date we wouldn't draw enough to pay for opening the doors. Meanwhile they have given fighters contracts guaranteeing them up to $50,000 apiece. Many of these fighters have never received $20,000 for a fight. That's the worst kind of inflation. We couldn't make money on that deal even if we got $75,000 of the TV revenue."

Despite the absence of a few legitimate contenders, the tournament is a good one. "There aren't any out bets in the whole thing," says Angelo Dundee, the trainer of Ali and of Jimmy Ellis, one of the participants. "The worst odds may be 2 to 1, and most of the fights are even or maybe 7 to 5, and I wouldn't want to lay it either way. It's a breath of fresh air. Boxing has finally reached the point that all the other professional and amateur sports in the country reached a long time ago. These guys are evenly matched."

The Ellis-Martin bout in Houston certainly supports Dundee's theory. They have fought each other twice before, when they were amateur middleweights; Martin won the first decision, Ellis the second. It is not likely that either will win the tournament, although Ellis must be considered a better bet than Martin.

Terrell, who was savaged for 15 rounds by Ali and survived despite a badly damaged eye sustained early in the fight, is probably the best of the lot. At 28, he is mature without having lost anything to age. He is ring-wise enough to handle the youngsters and young enough to outlast the Pattersons, Listens and Folleys. "The only question is how much Ali left him after their fight," says Dundee.

Liston is Ali's own choice, and Ali is in the best position to judge. "He can whip any of the eight in the tournament,"Ali says. But there are a few questions about Liston today. Since he lost the second fight with Ali in Lewiston, Me. he has confined his activities to knocking over four nonentities in Sweden, and one of the four, Elmer Rush, rose from the floor five times after Liston had knocked him down. He stayed down after the sixth.

"That's not the Liston who used to be," observes Dundee. "He was a great finisher. If he put you down once you might stagger up, but if he got a clean shot and put you down again you stayed down for good. He's no spring chicken. If he's lost his punch, forget him. But if he's on a par with the Liston of the first championship fight in Miami Beach, he can take anyone but Ali."

In the early matches it seems likely that Mildenberger, Terrell, Ellis and Quarry will move up. Mildenberger gave Ali the toughest fight of his career as champion. "He's a lefty, and most fighters have trouble with lefties," Dundee said. "His hardest fight may be with Bonavena, because Bonavena crowds and left-hooks and that's the way to beat a left-hander. I know, because I handled five left-handers at one time or another.
But Mildenberger can fight, and this one is in Germany, and that helps, too. He fights like a madman at home."

Terrell should be a clear favorite over Spencer. He has the best left jab in boxing and the best combination of age and experience. Spencer has not shown a great deal, other than a propensity for conversation second only to Ali's. If there is a 2 to 1 underdog in the opening round of the tournament it is Spencer.

Quite possibly the most interesting and exciting fight will be between Ellis and Martin. Both have grown up from middleweights, retaining their speed while gaining power. But Ellis has two advantages: he is trained by Dundee, one of the smartest men in boxing, and he has spent more time in the ring with Muhammad Ali than any other fighter in the world. He worked with Ali before all of the champion's bouts and performed creditably. In his last three fights Ellis has scored first-round knockouts.

The Quarry-Patterson rematch is a toss-up. Quarry is a very tough young fighter who has moved quickly since he turned pro, not surprising in view of the fact that he had over 100 amateur bouts. He put Patterson down twice in the draw they fought in Los Angeles, then lasted through the best counterattack Patterson could mount. It seems likely that it will be Quarry, not Patterson, who improves during the time before their second match.

Aside from Liston, several fighters on the sidelines would seem to have a chance. Chuvalo's forte for a long time was his indestructibility. Ali and others damaged their hands on his head without disturbing his equilibrium. In the last few months he has developed a rudimentary left jab to go with the heavy body punches that carry his attack, but he is at his best with a fighter who comes straight to him. Movement from side to side—as demonstrated by Ali and Terrell in fights with him—seems to confuse him. Still, he may very well beat Frazier, who tends to move in a straight line.

Frazier is ranked high by the World Boxing Association—No. 2—but not all boxers and few managers agree with that rating. "He won't fight anyone," said Spencer. "His advisers make the old excuse that he's not ready. Scrap Iron Johnson gave him all he wanted and Scrap Iron can't walk from here to the door without falling down. You can knock Frazier out with a hard look."

It is Harry Markson's opinion that when the tournament is over the winner will be left with no one to fight. This appears to be sour grapes. The winner can take his choice among Liston, Frazier, Chuvalo, the tough Mexican, Ramos, and Argentina's Corletti. Finally there is the forgotten man, Zora Folley. "He made one of the best fights against Ali," Dundee says. "He's the only guy who could cut the ring in half, and he hurt Ali with belly jabs. I figure him as good as anyone today."

You have to figure all of them as good as anyone today. Muhammad Ali has vindicated himself as a Muslim holy man by passing a miracle. By not taking that step forward, he made potential champions of also-rans.

[Dubblechin]

Sports Illustrated
August 14, 1967

Then There Were Six

The bouts were good and honest in Houston's Astrodome as Jimmy Ellis and Thad Spencer became the first winners in the elimination tournament to pick a successor to a morose and fatalistic Muhammad Ali

Mark Kram

The cars moved through town, the car lights from across the other lane passing over the fighter's face. Quickly they reached the hospital. "Four or five stitches, Jimmy," said Angelo Dundee. Inside, the doctor worked, his hands moving beautifully. Dundee watched. "You can't have a butcher," he whispered. "The stitching has to be delicate so the cut is tight. You got to watch some doctors. I can't take any chances with this guy now." He nodded toward Jimmy Ellis, who was not a sparring partner anymore or just a fighter you never watched when he was taking five above the eye. Jimmy Ellis, who had just beaten Leotis Martin, was a property now.

"He is the best banger around in the division," said Dundee. "He proved that today and he will prove it throughout the tournament. He and this tournament can't miss."

Maybe so. There certainly was no question that the first round of the WBA heavyweight championship elimination tournament held in the Houston Astrodome last weekend did whack the roar out of its critics—and out of all the promoting competitors who had tried to submerge the tournament with the innuendo, delicate conspiracy and evil arts that are good business in boxing.

Before the fights it seemed that the tournament, shrouded by the gigantic shadow of Muhammad Ali and the brilliance of Joe Frazier, who refused to participate, was off to a smashing failure. The mysterious uncertainty of the packagers, Sports Action Inc., the sleight-of-hand moves by Madison Square Garden, Ali's unsuccessful passport plea in Houston and the absence of Frazier—peripheral things all—gave the promotion a massive inferiority complex. But the fighters, cruel, valorous, a blend of beauty and brutal awkwardness, rescued the afternoon in Houston and the world of boxing from what was figured to be another era of greed. They made a start toward an interesting aftermath to the age of Ali, an age Ali dominated by sweeping exhibitions and ring ballets rather than by conventional fighting.

Thirteen thousand nine hundred and forty-six people paid $92,560 to see the fights—Ellis vs. Martin, Ernie Terrell vs. Thad Spencer—in an atmosphere that was as cozy as a group of people sitting in the middle of a frozen lake. It was as if the fights had not been produced by natural forces but by the great god, Judge Roy Hofheinz, who was the promoter and sort of distributor for the packagers and had decreed: "Let there be a fight." Fortunately, the fights were not as repelling.

All four of the boxers, Ellis, Martin, Terrell and Spencer, came to Houston on the lam, looking for a slice of the moon. Ellis was trying to crack out of a strange, engulfing area of boxing. He had been Ali's sparring partner for so long a time that he became a sort of object that you expected to find in a training camp, like the light bag or a damp headgear. Martin, out of the violent, devouring pits of Philadelphia, had been ducked by everyone, including Frazier, who would not fight him with a shotgun. Spencer, with his bad feet, his lack of motivation, his tendency toward corpulence and his eager shuffle toward neon, sticky bars and sweet-scented foxes, was just ridiculous.Terrell? He had copped a plea against Ali, and he has always been poison at the gate.

In terms of effort expended to sign each fighter, you can measure each one monetarily: they got Martin for $1.75,Terrell for $17.50, Ellis for $80.00 and Spencer for $600. Willie Ketchum, Spencer's manager, wanted to be coaxed. All received $50,000 for their fights, except Martin. He was offered $22,560, but he paid heavily for his end. His fight with Ellis, in the argot of the business, was life and death. Ellis did a vicious job, and few will forget the way Martin's mouth looked as he lay in his dressing room. His eyes never moved from the ceiling, this anonymous kid who sometimes seemed like a solemn friar reading from a breviary or at times like an Edgar Bergen dummy; he is, because of a speech impediment, quite withdrawn. Nobody talked to him while he was there on the table. Finally his eyes looked around. He seemed like a frightened deer in the middle of a stream. The trainer every now and then moved the gauze away from his battered lip.

"Never," said Joe Polino, one of the master cut men in boxing, "never in my whole life have I seen a cut like this."

"He's gonna need plastic surgery," someone said. "Forget stitches."

"He never did a damn thing," roared Pinney Schaefer, his manager. He is called Pinney because he has a pinhead. "Didn't do one thing we planned."

The head on the table tried to turn, but only the eyes could make it in Pinhead's direction.

"We couldn't do anything with him," screamed Pinhead. "He's got to have earplugs in there. Nothing. He don't think one cent's worth."

The eyes turned back toward the ceiling.

Martin was whipped early in this fight. He never really had a chance, or anything left after the first round, and he survived as long as he did only because he has a soccer ball for a heart. Ellis wasted him with right hands in the first, and, had not Martin been hurt so badly, the heavy expenditure of energy might have been costly for Ellis. He was punched out in the second round, and Martin made a gallant recovery. But Martin's lip started to tear in the third, and blow after blow crashed into his face until the ninth round, when Ellis jabbed the cut and it opened frightfully.

"He sure do have a hard head," said Ellis later.

Martin also has a destructive pair of hands, but he never managed to make effective use of them. His plan was to stay on top of Ellis early in the fight, when Ellis has always been most dangerous, and then catch him in the late rounds. Martin knew that there was a serious question as to whether Ellis, whose early explosions seem to drain him, was more than a five-round fighter. The allegation may still have substance. Ellis has never really believed in himself, which is quite understandable in a person who has been carrying Ali's bag for too many years.

"Yeah," said Angelo Dundee, Ellis' and Ali's trainer (page 64). "He was there. He could've been caught good any number of times, could've been in real trouble. He stopped moving, you know, side to side, but Jimmy's right hands beat Martin and he knew Martin didn't have anything left. Ellis'll be much better from now on. He's getting the confidence."

"I'll be all right, I'm on my way," said Ellis, who seems surprised that people suddenly want to know the details of his life. "Now, when the day comes I fight Clay, I'm gonna go bing, bing, bing in that pretty face and say, 'Hey, boy, what's my name?' "

Muhammad Ali was much more than a spectre in Houston. He was very real a few days before the fights when, in court, he was denied a request to travel abroad and was ordered to surrender, his passport. For the first time, it seems, he is resigned to going to jail and is exuding unfaked fatalism, trying desperately to camouflage his moroseness with wild exuberance.

"I can see 'em at the gate now," he jokes. "This is the way it's going to be." He then describes this scene: TV reporter: Ladies and gentlemen, Muhammad Ali is finally going to jail. Here he is now, coming through the gates. Ali. Ali. Ali. How do you feel about all this?

Muhammad (big, deep, very masculine voice): I is ready. I am strong. And I'll do this here time easy, and I'll be back to fight again.

End of scene. Cut to five years later.

Reporter: Ladies and gentlemen, here comes Ali. For five years he has been behind these here walls. Ali, will you fight again?

Muhammad (soft, very feminine voice): I don't want to fight anybody, luv.

"Seriously, though," said Ali. "I've been visiting a few prisons to get accustomed to them. They say you're all right in them federal places. You can pay for your own food. You get TV. Only thing you don't get is your girl friends."

"Well," said Dundee, "you better learn to do a lot of reading."

"I don't think I'll crack up," said Ali. "I really don't." He paused for a long moment and then said, "I think I'll get married soon, and then retire. It'll be good for the tournament. With me around, nobody gonna take these guys seriously. If I retire, there'll be some significance." Silence again. "You know I gotta go back to Chicago now, and I don't care if that plane does go down."

Ali, before he left, picked Terrell to beat Spencer and win the tournament, but, like most fighters, he is not a good judge of talent or an accurate selector. Spencer looked better than Ellis in winning his fight. Terrell started quickly. His jab rammed into Spencer's face consistently and he succeeded in doing what he had planned, until Spencer broke him in half with body blows. He would take or pick off a couple of Terrell's jabs and then slide under and rake the big guitar player over the body. Spencer sent Terrell to the floor in the second round with a short right hand, and Terrell hung on to Spencer's foot as he sat on the floor.

Despite the knockdown Terrell was leading slightly going into the eighth round, but Spencer, hammering at the body and coming out of a crouch with a right hand, won the last five rounds. A pitiful, wheezing figure toward the end, Terrell fought a sloppy, stupid fight. He rabbit-punched, hit Spencer below the belt (he lost the 10th on twp blows to the groin) and inexplicably kept moving toward Spencer's right hand. This, besides being risky, reduced the power of his biting jab. Spencer fought an extremely intelligent fight, motivated by an acute dislike for Terrell, who was unbearably patronizing toward the other fighters going into Saturday's showdown.

"I'm tired of ham and eggs," said Spencer during a press conference before the fight. "I'm gonna have me some steak from now on." "Yeah," said Terrell, "he can have steak. He can come over to my house for it after he loses. Who is Thad Spencer, anyway?"

"Ha," said Spencer after the fight. "Who is Ernie Terrell? Where is Ernie Terrell now?"

The answer to that was not difficult. He was out of the tournament, which, to be certain, is what was greatly desired. An unpopular fighter with the crowd, Terrell would have strangled any excitement the tournament hoped to produce. Now, thanks to three fighters who made tough, honest fights, the tournament and boxing itself have climbed a sizable step up.

[Dubblechin]

Sports Illustrated
September 25, 1967

A Bean-can Bout In Frankfurt

From promotion to fight, it was all very much second-class as ungainly Oscar Bonavena easily beat his inept foe to the punch

Mark Kram

Luis Firpo is best remembered in boxing as the man who deposited Jack Dempsey on a row of portable typewriters, but in the dark interior of the sport he will always be recalled as one of its few financial geniuses. Firpocame to the United States carrying a cardboard suitcase and wearing a high celluloid collar, and ended up owning five estancias and 14 million pesos. His avarice was boundless and his parsimony was a mania.

"Firpo is on the phone," the late fight promoter, Mike Jacobs, was once told by his secretary.

"Are the charges reversed?" Jacobs asked anxiously.

"No," she said.

"Then it ain't Firpo," Jacobs is said to have shouted.

One Firpo in a century is sufficient, a second Firpo is a cruel aggravation. Yet he is among us once again, this time in the person of Oscar Bonavena (the mild bull of the Pampas), who last week in the Radrennbahn stadium inFrankfurt, Germany planted his grotesque, flat feet to the fore in the World Boxing Association elimination tournament. The packagers of the tournament, Sports Action Inc., paid Bonavena $50,000 and $5,000 or thereabouts in expenses. They should not be easily forgiven.

To be certain, it was a week of ridiculous happenings ( Jack Dempsey defeated Jim Corbett in a computerized fight, and Novelist Alberto Moravia had to take a test for beginning reporters so he could write for an Italian paper), but all must bow to this third quarterfinal match that blended the frantic clumsiness of Bonavena, the embarrassing ineptitude of Karl Mildenberger and the gross inefficiency of the German promoters and boxing officials into a comedic horror.

The Germans performed as if they had never conducted a fight before. A bean can was used as a bell. Rapped with a padded mallet, it was inaudible. At first nobody counted knockdowns, and when the gentleman in charge of that function decided it might be a trifle important he simply counted as if he were tapping a pencil. Wolfgang Mueller, Mildenberger's manager, ran around the edges and in and out of the ring during the fight uncensured, and the promoters, exhibiting matchless greed, even sold working press seats that had been allotted to reporters.

"It ranks," said Nat Fleischer, boxing's high priest, "as one of the worst conducted fights I have seen in my entire career."

No international fight, certainly no fight of major significance, should ever be held in Germany again, even though it seems to be fertile territory. There was a crowd of 18,000, and the gate came to $150,000. The top ticket sold for 150 marks ($37.50), and even before the fight the price seemed unreasonable. In retrospect, it was bank robbery. Mildenberger, ranked No. 1 by the WBA and No. 2 by The Ring magazine, is weaponless and defenseless. Bonavena just looks ferocious and, besides being a boor out of the ring, he is an unpardonable bore in the ring.

He was all of this and more in Germany, but the only way this primitive creature could have lost, despite his un-plotted campaign, his disgusting punching and elephantine moves, was on fouls. Three fouls and you lose in Germany, which is why Mueller kept bellowing "foul" at Referee Harry Krause, the man who allowed Floyd Patterson to be mercilessly battered by Muhammad Ali in Las Vegas and then had to recount his scoring. Still, there was nothing anyone could do for Mildenberger.

Bonavena knocked him down with a short left hook in the first round, but he was not hurt badly. Mildenberger was cut on the corner of his right eye in the second, and in the third he slipped and Bonavena raked his head with his heavy hands while he was down. Mildenberger was down again and almost through the ropes in the fourth, this time from another left hook, but no one did any counting. Bonavena lost a point in the fifth for punching low, but even with that Mildenberger could only gain an even round. A right by Bonavena in the seventh over a right hand lead dropped Mildenberger again, this time to one knee.

"God, will somebody please do some counting," Krause screamed.

Mildenberger drove Bonavena up on his heels in the ninth with a sharp left hook (one of the few decent punches he threw in the fight), but the Argentine survived to rip an ungainly right-left combination to Mildenberger's head in the 10th and send him down once more, his head snapping outside of the ropes. Mildenberger was in serious trouble now, and Mueller was on the edge of the ring, seemingly ready to throw his towel in. But Mildenberger got back on his feet, and Bonavena crashed into him with both hands. He then suddenly stopped punching and raised his hands. He thought Mueller was going to stop the fight. It did not matter. The bean can had been rung about 10 seconds earlier.

Two more rounds and this distasteful joke was over. The press gave Mildenberger one or two rounds. RefereeKrause scored it 56-48 for Bonavena. His was the only meaningful scoring: no one could take the Argentine or German judge seriously.

Bonavena's victory should not be taken seriously, either. It will provide this Silas Marner of boxing with more money—much more money than he is worth—to hoard, and it will enable him to hang about long enough to make more people miserable. But his victory is a blow to the tournament, which had such an excellent beginning whenJimmy Ellis and Thad Spencer won their quarterfinal matches in Houston. To think of Bonavena in the company of this pair is an obscenity.

The only impressive aspect of Oscar Bonavena is, in a weird sort of way, his physical appearance, especially his feet. Technically, he is an untutored oaf. He seems beyond even meager instruction. Certainly he is reluctant to listen to advice. His punches, badly executed, are an abomination, and his "bottom" or "heart" is quite circumspect when he is in with a professional. But, ah, the physical Oscar. Begin at the feet. His feet are flat and dreadfully gnarled. His ankles seem as big as basketballs. A German shoemaker took one look at his feet and shouted: "Gott in Himmel." Bonavena also does not have any waist, but he does have an ample belly. He looks like a caricature of an Italian tenor. He has a prognathous jaw, kites for ears and tops all this off with Haight-Asbury hair.

It was a rare sight watching him train in Bad Soden, a spa at the foot of the Taunus Mountains. The Germans did not know quite what to make of him here, where Mendelssohn's melancholy flowed out of a window of a once lovely house and where Count Leo Tolstoy, very lean and gray with a long white beard and running from death, his ever-present malaise, came for therapeutic baths. Bonavena, day and night, walked with his gang of squealing Argentines, alarming the old women who hoped he would not present himself at one of their evening concerts in the park.

But that kind of music is not his bag. He is a guitar player, and one evening, while gaping out of a window, he laughed convulsively at the scene before him: the musicians standing rigidly on the stage, the string music wafting dreamily over the night air, the leaves tumbling over the walks, the old men walking with canes, the little kids with long blond hair playing, the poplar and fir trees, and finally the old women tapping forefingers on their knees to the music.

"Crasy, man, crasy," Oscar grunted.

Bonavena is not unaware of that condition, because everyone—mistakenly—has at one time or another defined him as just a charming idiot. The trouble is that he is not one. He is an unscrupulous beggar drowning in megalomania who abuses people, and he has abused enough of them to the point where he now owns a clothing store, a restaurant, a nightclub and a barbershop in Argentina. He is also somewhat of a vaudevillian, and quite often in Bad Soden he could be seen doing a Chaplin walk or an off-to-Buffalo shuffle on the streets—that is, when he was not accosting Harold Conrad, vice-president of Sports Action, with this refrain: "Gimme money."

These are Bonavena's favorite words, and he has never stopped uttering them since he first came to the U.S. Jack Singer, who runs a chain of restaurants in New York and Miami—$1.29 a steak—brought him here. Besides eating an inordinate number of steaks, he was a financial and mental problem to Singer who, after Bonavena refused to work a few hours in the kitchen, unloaded him on Dr. Marvin Goldberg for $7,000. Goldberg is a decent, misdirected individual who is enthralled by the glamour of boxing. He is the worst kind of amateur, and therefore a perfect target for an Oscar Bonavena.

"I didn't want to sell the clown to Doc," says Singer. "I did everything to talk him out of it. I even called his wife, but, no, he was dyin' to be burned."

Bonavena obliged him. The doctor got stuck for airplane tickets, car rentals, gigantic phone and restaurant bills and, at times, equipment that was not needed, such as two light bags or two pairs of boxing shoes, two of everything. Bonavena usually took the extra bag or pair of shoes back to Buenos Aires with him. Compounding the bilking, the doctor, blinded by his dream of boxing prominence, seldom received his one-third of Bonavena's purses. Bonavena always pleaded insolvency. Goldberg, of course, remained his rooter. Who could tell? Bonavena might just be the next heavyweight champion of the world. Eventually, even Goldberg had to share his dream. He sold part of his action—which was nothing—to a syndicate composed of a stripper, a jockey and assorted others.

"Nobody had to do any selling," says one member of the syndicate. "Everybody wanted a piece of Oscar."

The syndicate, like Goldberg, Singer and everyone who has ever come in contact with Bonavena, came up mostly empty, too. It was later disbanded.

Wolfgang Mueller has had much more success with Mildenberger. He has cut up a number of excellent purses with his fighter, but Mildenberger's days in boxing are numbered now. Like Bonavena, he was in the tournament on the strength of his rating, which was an egregious error in judgment. His ability has long been suspect, and he, as well as Bonavena, has succeeded in tarnishing the tournament, which surely will gain momentum as it progresses. Charitably, let it be said that when you are lining up an eight-man tournament the fighters have to come from somewhere. This pair just happened to be the most incompetent.

Mildenberger was not particularly rankled by his defeat, and this is not surprising. He is an emotionless, pleasant man who is not warmly embraced by the Germans. They call him a spiessb�rger, which translated means square. He behaved naturally after the fight. He went up to his boardinghouse in K�nigstein on top of the Taunus Mountains, where a man who described himself as a panther roaming on a dark night is said to have stopped once and dined. The house and the mountains were enveloped by a Wagnerian mist. Inside, the kitchen was filled with dark, hanging hams and wine bottles and the dining room was quiet and dimly lit. Mildenberger ate and then went to bed. As for Bonavena, he may still have been in his dressing room, sitting there naked, scratching figures on a piece of paper.

[Dubblechin]

Sports Illustrated
November 06, 1967

They're Still Waiting For Jerry

A world of hope may lie ahead for would-be champion Quarry. He beat Floyd Patterson but, like his own progress, the result was debatable

Mark Kram

Everywhere, for so long now, from the dark, dank gyms and the rooms where the schemes are hatched, to the balconies and ringside with all its shimmering glamour, they have been waiting for Jerry Quarry. A white heavyweight, who could make the old remember and the young interested, who could take the sport and throttle breath back into it. Then the promoters could return to white-on-white shirts and fat rings, the managers could have a solid model for all the young kids who prefer changing tires in gas stations to pain, and for the fighter it would be one long and beautiful ride down velvet alley.

The trouble is that acceptance does not come easily. Suspicion, impatience and sudden dismissal, even by those who passionately want such a fighter and by boxing, which needs him desperately, trail the white heavyweight like another man's shadow. Personally, he can be psychotic, think that Police Commissioner Bull Connor is a sweet man who just eats too much or that Valley of the Dolls is a work of inspired genius, but in the ring he must perform, be the fighter that all the ancient gurus, who lie over 15� beers, claim all white heavyweights of another time once were.

Last week Jerry Quarry, neither psychotic nor stupid and far from immortality, defeated Floyd Patterson in the fourth and final quarterfinal match of the heavyweight elimination tournament. The bout, promoted by Aileen Eaton(page 76), attracted 5,300 paying customers to the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, 3,576 more to a closed-circuit television showing at the nearby Sports Arena and a national audience over ABC. But nobody at the Olympic threw any money into the ring, which is the custom there after a good fight and decision. This time they threw cups full of beer and other objects, none of which, refreshingly, could render one insensible. The fight itself—interesting and made exciting by Patterson's stout heart—did not ignite the crowd. It was the decision—quite questionable if not completely recondite—that did.

Floyd Patterson has now fought 22 rounds with Quarry. In the first bout, which Patterson won—but officially was awarded only a draw—he was a victim of points and the curious California scoring system that allows the maximum of five points to the winner of a round and none to a loser. Quarry, after scoring two knockdowns, was given a total of 10 points. Patterson got only five points when he sent Quarry to the floor. Patterson won maybe six or seven rounds in that first 10-round fight. This second, which went 12 rounds, was similarly inequitable.

Twice last Saturday afternoon Patterson went down, in the second and fourth rounds. The first knockdown came after an exchange in a neutral corner. Quarry beat Patterson to the punch, and gunned him, sending him to a sitting position. Patterson was down on one knee in the fourth after catching a short right; it looked like a slip this time, but it was a knockdown, if not a very good one. Neither time was Patterson really hurt, and Quarry did not deserve more than one point. Yet one judge—who should have two weeks' rest and no visitors—gave Quarry three points for the poor second knockdown. One wonders what he would have given Quarry if Patterson had had to crawl back to his corner.

By then Patterson was in serious trouble on points; Quarry had won the second, third and fourth rounds, and Patterson had taken the first and fifth. He was behind on points by, say, 5-2 or 6-2, depending on the judge. Only a knockout or a shutout of Quarry the rest of the way could save the fight. Quarry realized this and stayed away from Patterson most of the time after the sixth, which Quarry won with some brilliant body punching that left Patterson frozen. After the sixth, it was practically Patterson's fight. Quarry just did not deliver.

The two judges scored the fight 7-6 each for Quarry, and the referee, who after the sixth round allowed Quarry to lie and hang on Patterson without punching, scored it a draw, 6-6. Patterson deserved at least a draw; indeed, had Quarry been given only one point for each of his knockdowns, Patterson would have won. He certainly won this fight on rounds—6-4 and two even. A fight should be judged on the basis of the complete picture, and in this boutPatterson was the picture.

The California point system gives too much latitude to judges to run amuck with their pencils on knockdowns. A knockdown is only a section of the fight. It is not the whole fight. The system also provides a device that certain boxers can use too effectively: get in front early and then disappear, an odious strategy that satisfies nobody. The fighter who is there to go 12 rounds if unlucky early is faced with a man who wants only to survive, or maybe at best wants simply to steal a round or two, which is what Quarry did. After the sixth he kept looking at the clock, and then near the end of a round he would start to flurry.

"What do they want us to do?" asked Johnny Flores, Quarry's co-manager. "We gambled to try to knock Floyd out early. If not, then we had to stay away. He's too dangerous. He's a professional. Jerry doesn't have the stamina."

"I knew I couldn't take him out after the sixth," said Quarry. "He's got too much heart."

"Jerry'll be a good fighter in two years," said Quarry's trainer, Teddy Bentham.

Bentham, not known for hyperbole or sophistry, is being, it seems, too restrained in his evaluation. Quarry, only 22, is a good fighter now. Those who so badly want a big, white heavyweight back at the pinnacle of boxing should not dismiss him or demand more of him than he has to give at this point, which is not inconsiderable. He is skillful and cruel to the body, is an instinctive puncher and he takes a good shot better than many heavies, past or present. He is no longer the crude, heavy-handed puncher of a year or so ago, and he knows how to think in the ring. He let Patterson take him to the ropes, where Floyd was so effective in the first fight, and he turned what was supposed to be one of his weaknesses into a strength; Patterson was knocked down both times after exchanges on the ropes.

"He's terribly strong," said Patterson, "and he takes an excellent punch. This makes Quarry's style even less comprehensible. A man who has the strength he has should be more aggressive. He utilizes only 35% of his ability. Here you have a man who is either cheating himself or the public. Or both."

Patterson then paused and asked: "Was the fight exciting?"

Nobody answered, and Patterson continued: "I don't know; I got to ask myself that question all the time. But Quarry never seems to ask that. He's not concerned whether the fight was satisfactory to the people who paid. A fighter with these credentials is soon discovered by the public for what he is—a fraud. I hope Jerry isn't."

Patterson came close to unraveling Quarry. He is not a fraud, but there is something very wrong with Quarry as a fighter. He is lazy and seems to lack the raw desire of great fighters. And he has been pampered for far too long by the people in boxing's hierarchy in California. It is almost certain that he never wanted to be a fighter in the first place—his mother supposedly shoved him into the ring—and it is quite probable he will not labor in the sport long, whether he becomes the champion or not. He is not timid, which was a charge once made by many who had followed him, but he is fearful of one day looking like the classic pug. Already his young face has turned hard and is slowly beginning to resemble the faces you see gazing emptily out in the yellow light of arena lobbies.

But Quarry's real problem is himself and the confusion and insensitivity that surrounds him. He wants to be an individual, yet his family, which interests itself even in his marriage, holds a tight rein on him. Professionally he is also caught in a choking web, which has been woven by his managers, Flores and his father, Jack Quarry. Father Jack wants to be the mastermind behind his son, and has for a long time been trying to remove Flores from the scene. Flores, the original manager, gave Jack half of his interest because he wanted the father to see that Jerry did his roadwork every day. Father Jack, who reminds one of an Alabama deputy sheriff, was never effective in this duty. He wants to sign contracts and tends to bore promoters with his unspectacular oratory and his erratic demands. He has succeeded in being only a monumental and distracting nuisance to the progress of his son. After the Eddie Machen fight, in which Jerry (in poor condition) was given a boxing lesson, father Jack wanted to sell his half to Flores. "He's not going anywhere," he said. Later he suddenly changed his mind, which is unfortunate for Jerry and all those who have to listen to father Jack.

Patterson could have buttoned up the old man in last week's fight and stalled Quarry temporarily, but he is fighting from memory now. His skills have been diminished. He was too left-hook conscious in this bout, and his punches, lacking that punishing snap they once had, were too wide. He kept waiting, waiting just that fraction of time too long before he dug in behind the jab and exploded violently to the head. Patterson, even with his graying talent, has all the fine moves of a superb fighter, but with his style it is necessary to have a chin. "Yeah," said Thad Spencer, the No. 1-ranked heavyweight according to the WBA (and third behind Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazieraccording to The Ring magazine). "It's too bad; Floyd's legs ought to sue his chin for nonsupport."

Yet Patterson persists in his solitary journey, and few can understand why. He has money, though not as much as he once had, a fact with which he is not greatly concerned anyway. He is more disturbed by the way he and his money have been used. "I thought," he said before the second Quarry fight, "that friends were special people, that you do for them and they would do as much for you if they had the means and the opportunity. The rats left the sinking ship when they thought I was through. I don't fight because I need money. I've more than enough to live on, but if I were retired what would I do? Boxing is the one thing I know. It is what I do best. It scares me when I stop to think what I would be able to do if I quit fighting."

But it is not the money or the lack of something better to do that keeps Patterson in boxing. For him it is a way of life, the kind of life that has cost him his wife and more than once has driven him into monastic seclusion. "You have no idea the way it is," he says. "You're out there with all those people around you, and those cameras and the whole world looking in, and all that movement, that excitement. But the real thing, the thing that sends it right through you, is the moment two strange men seek each other out. They come together and find out who will succeed and who will fail. There is no other competition like it in the world."

Half of this solemn man's life has been spent in dusty gyms and on lonely roads preparing for those evenings, or for the evening that will finally give him peace. Perhaps his commitment to his profession, his invulnerable pride are what draw people to him and make his sorrow in defeat everybody's sorrow. Even in Los Angeles, Quarry's home, he was the center of attention and had the majority of the people behind him.

After the fight a huge crowd surrounded Patterson on the parking lot. He answered questions quietly, signed autographs and made at least two women cry by his presence. On the other side of the parking lot Quarry's brother was in a fight with a detractor until the police came. At this point Jerry's mother walked up and said coldly to another Quarry: "Mike, why didn't you step in and whip him? You could have."

"Hell," someone said, "the old lady's got more guts than Jerry."

Later that night Quarry returned to the warm circle of his friends. The champagne popped, but he really only deserved a warm beer.

[Dubblechin]

Sports Illustrated
December 11, 1967

Jimmy Ellis Gets His Own Show

He was always the other heavyweight from Louisville. Saturday he emerged from the shadow of Muhammad Ali, ignored some advice from his former boss and used his own devices to beat Oscar Bonavena

Mark Kram

Charlie Goldman was always dealt the big kids, the ones with the wild hands and stone legs. He gave them a hook and, with the patience of a dancing master, made their legs move, and nobody ever did his job better than Charlie Goldman. He is not in business anymore because the big kids stopped coming around. So, at 79 and in poor health, Goldman no longer is seen in his battered derby hat leaning over ropes and whispering into empty heads apothegms like: "Always finish with a left hook because dat leaves ya set to start another series of punches." Or: "Don't buy nothin' on the street, especially diamonds."

Goldman could never forget Rocky Marciano, whom he shaped out of nothing. Rubbing his gnarled little hands, the product of more than 300 fights, he acted always as if he wanted to reach out and build another Marciano. Finally, along came Oscar Bonavena. "Yeah, look at him," said Charlie, his eyes alive. "He's clumsy like Rocky was in the beginning." Goldman never had to worry about Bonavena buying diamonds on the street, but he could never even nick the lumber between Oscar's ears. Eventually, Bonavena fired Goldman, dismissing him as just a feebleminded old dreamer.

Saturday afternoon in Louisville, with the sensitivity of a mountebank, Bonavena dedicated his fight with Jimmy Ellis to Charlie Goldman. The fight was the first semifinal match of the World Boxing Association's heavyweight elimination tournament. It drew 3,000 people, and the vast Freedom Hall at the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center was really just a television studio. Even so, the bout provided Ellis and Bonavena with $75,000 each and it demonstrated once again that Bonavena, who sometimes resembles a runaway beer truck, is paid more for courage than for talent.

Conveniently for the promoters, the tournament is now rid of Oscar Natalio Bonavena, among others, and everything is falling neatly into place for Sports Action Inc., ABC television, the sponsors, and the World Boxing Association, a band of confused bunglers who authorized the tournament. Ernie Terrell, a guitar player who is box-office poison, was eliminated, and then Floyd Patterson, the ever-popular Captain Ahab of boxing, got his. Sports Action has not made a dime out of its caper yet, but ABC's ratings have been quite high, thus allowing the W.B.A. to proclaim itself the savior of boxing. The promoters of each fight, except for the one bout in Germany, are not proclaiming anything.

Artistically, the tournament has been just palatable. The first two fights in Houston, Ellis vs. Leotis Martin andTerrell vs. Thad Spencer, were good, solid performances. The third bout, Bonavena vs. Karl Mildenberger, removed the German contender. The fourth match, between Jerry Quarry and Patterson, was interesting only because of Quarry, who has inspired spectators to bet not so much on his ability as on the round in which he will begin to run away.

Last week's production was hardly memorable. Ellis, a sort of picture fighter, did the best he could with Bonavena, a difficult opponent who has no style and does not fight from a right-handed or left-handed stance. Ellis did succeed in following his fight plan, which was not exactly what Muhammad Ali advised. Early on Saturday Ellispicked up the phone and it was Ali on the other end saying, "We goin' to dance, baby, dance." Ellis told his old friend, for whom he once was a sparring partner, "I'll dance, but not like you. There's more than one way to win a fight."

Ellis was going to move a little, slip, slide and wallop. The idea was to work everything off a stiff straight jab while keeping the short-armed Bonavena at a safe distance. Ellis did just that in the early rounds and owned Bonavena. "I expected Oscar to come out fast, but Bonavena kept backing up so I just went out and took charge," he explained. The first punch Ellis threw in round I discouraged the Argentinean. It was a left hook that came close, but missed.

Bonavena did not need the message translated. He was impressed by the power of the punch, and chose to back up. With two-thirds of round 3 over, Ellis caught Bonavena high on the temple with a right-hand chop, but, as at various other times during the fight, he could not find the second punch, the finisher. Bonavena went down, then rose to survive the round.

Ellis began to neglect his jab in the fifth and sixth rounds. Instead of snapping it out fully extended, he merely flicked his hand. Without the jab to contend with, Bonavena came rushing in low, battering Ellis with clumsy combinations. Ellis suffered little damage, simply because he either spun Bonavena or folded on top of him. He did, however, acquire a couple of bruises, one on the point of his right hip and the other on the inside of his thigh.

Tiring somewhat in the eighth, Ellis took a butt over the left eyelid, which later needed seven stitches. Because of his fatigue, he started lying inside too long. "Bop, bop, bop, Jimmy," shrieked Angelo Dundee, his manager, "get the hell outta there, Jimmy."

From the ninth on Bonavena went after the cut, but Ellis protected the wound (it was not deep) by grabbing in close and keeping his eye to the right on the outside of Bonavena's body. The tactic allowed Bonavena to score to the body, which was not as serious an inroad as it might have been since the Argentinean is not effective to the body. Still, Bonavena was on his way to winning the 10th when, near the ropes, he walked into a jolting left hook that sent him sagging to the floor. Bonavena recovered, seemed to slip, and then stumbled to the center of the ring. In the 11th, he thundered out after Ellis who was moving in slow motion. His punches had no zing to them, but Bonavena, now the aggressor, was no longer strong either. He did hurt Ellis, who lay on the ropes and looked absently into the lights as Bonavena flaccidly attempted to beat him to the body. Dundee berated his fighter in the corner after that round, and in the 12th Ellis jarred Bonavena with a short hook, and then seemed to hold him up. "Let him fall," screamed Chickie Ferrara, an Ellis corner man, "let the big ape drop."

It was not the first time Ellis appeared to hold Bonavena up. "Three times," said Dundee, "he does it. A bad habit. He's got to learn to let them fall."

There are several other habits Ellis must unload. He is a bad listener (meaning he does not follow instructions from his corner), and he concentrates too often on throwing one punch. "After the first knockdown," said Ellis, "I went one-punch crazy. I set nothing up." Ellis can be faulted, too, for what appears to be either a poor sense of pace or a tendency to tire easily. "It's not a physical thing," said Dundee. "He's had all sorts of tests made, and he's all right. It's a mental thing, and we'll work on it until Jimmy's kicked the problem."

Despite these failings, jimmy Ellis appears to be the best performer in the tournament, and a solid bet the rest of the way. He has style, is certain of his moves, rips hard with either hand and takes a good whack. But Dundeemay have difficulty freeing Ellis from his hang-up, making him believe that he is a special person and no longer the flop who fought the best middleweights during the early '60s and took unbearable punishment trying to make the weight. More than anything, though, Dundee must make Ellis believe that he is no longer the professional sparring partner, Muhammad Ali's shadow.

The rules of a sparring partner's conduct came easily to Ellis, but they are the kind of rules that have to mark any man who has pride. Soon, the sparring partner has no identity, and he becomes a part of the scene, like the smell of wet gloves or a heavy bag. The sparring partner does not punch the light bag or skip rope while the champion is on stage. He does not interject any comment when the press is talking to the champ. He must not look for reporters but let them seek him out and, when asked a question, always remember who provides the bread and pitch for the champ. Also, he must respect the champ's privacy and position, and sit with the champ or go places with him only when asked. With Ali, Jimmy Ellis knew his place. He was the very model of a proper sparring partner.

"It was Ali's show," says Ellis. "He paid me well and treated me good. It was not my way to brag." Ellis did not have to boast because Ali did that for him. which was standard Ali; his bragging about Ellis reflected greater glory on his own limitless abilities. " Jimmy Ellis," Ali repeated often, "could beat any heavyweight in the world today but me—and he is my sparring partner."

Though the relationship between Ali and Ellis was not strained, it did not cut deep. They were never close friends. The two men belonged to different worlds, and their association really only existed because of their common boyhood in Louisville. Ali is driven by more sophisticated dreams than is Ellis. For the most part, Ellis has remained untouched by the same world and social revolution that Ali embraced and then helped to make. Certainly, there is evidence to show that Ali sought to protect his friend; he ordered the Muslims to leave Ellis alone, and little or no pressure was applied to convert him to the faith. Still, Ellis was to some degree suspect by association. Ellisthought that he might have to quit the Ali camp because of it. He discussed the problem with his father, a Baptist minister.

"I told him not to worry," says his father. "It was not important what he was accused of as long as he was certain in his own mind of who he was and what he stood for, and this has never been a problem for James."

"We were friends as kids and we are friends today," says Ellis. "Even in camp he didn't run with me, but still he helped. But we are entirely different people. His world ain't mine and mine ain't certainly his."
Privately, Ellis has always believed he could beat Ali, but he refuses to say much on the subject. His new identity is still quite strange to him, and occasionally he wonders how it will feel to be a champion. "I can't imagine how it will be," he says. "It's like a dream to me. A man wants, a man works. He hopes, but nothing ever comes. But now I know it will happen."

If the title ever does become a reality, Ellis will wear it gracefully. He is an easy man to like, not because of his humility or because he is the tenor in the Riverview Spiritual Singers of Louisville, Ky., but because he works at his mean business and he is never out to cop a plea, despite the fact that his has been a tortuous trip up from the bottom.

"When I fought Georgie Benton in Philly," he says, "I got a split-decision loss. It was the fourth one. I got $500 and a lot of equipment for the fight [a good purse for Ellis in those days]. But I was going to quit. I was bitter, for the first time. I didn't go near the gym for four months. It wasn't the loss, but what I had to go through. It was hard, harder than I ever let on to anyone. I'd get up every morning at four, run, shower, eat breakfast, go to work and handle a jackhammer for eight to 12 hours, come home, go to the gym, spar, work out. Tired? I was nothing but tired and for what? No money, split decisions. No, it didn't make sense. So my wife told me to write to Angelo Dundee. I did."

The letter read:
"I am thinking of quitting boxing, but before I do I would like one more shot to see if I could make it. I'd like to sign with a good manager in New York, if you do not think you have the time to handle my career. I hope you will be able to help me.
Jimmy Ellis
P.S. Heeeeeeeeeelp."

Ellis, of course, got help, and his next fight, the final match of the tournament, will be for $125,000. Oscar Bonavena had all the help he needed, but he never really believed there might be a boxing mind comparable to his own, and so he ignored the man who had seen in him the promise of another Marciano. One can still hearGoldman, who worked long hours to make his dream come true:
"Don't follow his head fakes, watch his body. That's it. Fake with your body, not just the head. Beautiful. Beautiful. Jab. Jab. Feint. Hook behind the jab. Now the straight right. Now, the jab. Beautiful."

Or, he told Bonavena:

"I told you not to smile in the ring. Number one, you need all the people on your side and they don't like smart alecks. But that don't matter so much as the udder ting. I told you why Sonny Liston don't smile in the ring? Years ago he was smilin' in a fight, the guy hit him and broke his jaw. When you smile, your mouth's open. People smile in the ring and they get broken jaws."

And people who smile at Charlie Goldman's advice get broken up. They also lose tournaments.

[Dubblechin]

Sports Illustrated
February 12, 1968

A Brand New Jerry Quarry Wins The Big One

The unpredictable Californian trained hard for a change, developed a good left jab and trounced blundering Thad Spencer to earn a shot at the WBA version of the heavyweight title

Mark Kram

He had a night-court pallor, a consumptive face and a jockey's body, and he reminded one of Sparrow in The Man With the Golden Arm, the stray who collected other people's dogs. This little ghost was a collector, too—for the telephone company. Faking a cop, he made an excellent move on the fighter's corner, and suddenly there he was handing Thad Spencer a piece of paper. It was a summons and it said that Thad Spencer owed a $318 phone bill.Spencer, his hands gloved, dropped the paper as if it were a burning coal, and his manager, Willie Ketchum, kicked it away, babbling: "Git it outta here, ya crazy punk, the fighter's on!"

The afternoon did not improve for Thad Spencer and, much to the bafflement of those who had made him an 8-5 favorite, he was seldom on—or ever close to it—against Jerry Quarry in the last semifinal of the WBA's heavyweight elimination tournament last Saturday afternoon in Oakland, Calif. Quarry's performance was a thorough and balanced piece of work, artistically glinting in areas, and in the 12th and final round he ended it with a knockout, which was really just a technical knockout. The action boggles the mind.

Spencer, being clubbed savagely, did not drop to the floor, but the referee stepped in with only three seconds to go and called it a knockout. It was, of course, a minor point but one of sufficient weight to be compared with all the other nonsense that saturated the area last week, such as Shirley Temple announcing her decision never to run again; or the ceaseless excavation by fans of the barnacled "white hope" pitch; or, finally, Charles (Sonny) Liston, his face almost angelic, saying at a California State Commission hearing: "I never accepted any advice from Blinky Palermo." Blinky is now athletic director in a large iron-barred building in Lewisburg, Pa.

Liston got his license back in California, and Ambrose Bierce, for years a Bay Area scourge for Hearst, would have gleefully cackled at his flawless put-on. Jack London would have viewed it differently. A racist, London spent considerable time in Oakland, which sits on the water like a dark-cowled nun. He pirated oysters there, but contrary to sophisticated opinion he did not commit suicide because of the place. It was London, whose contempt for Jack Johnson was boundless, who created the "white hope" aura around Jim Jeffries, and it is Oakland's misfortune that this dubious heritage from London helped revive the repugnant term.

One doubts if Quarry, naive and ignorant of much around him, had ever understood the expression before coming up to Oakland, but he does now. "It's what they want; they want a white man," said the 22-year-old Quarry, who has always been painfully sensitive to the opinions of others. The large crowd waiting outside his dressing room could not have pleased him more. He walked out of the room, and there the ring announcer, who was acting beyond the call of duty, asked for quiet and said: "Don't try to shake Jerry's hands because they're sore. But please give a big hand to a fellow I think is going to be the next champion."

"Gee," Quarry whispered into a reporter's ear, "I think I've really won the crowd to my side, and that's pretty important."

Had he won their respect as a fighter or only their attention because he was white? Before the Spencer fight, it seemed likely that the latter was true. Quarry had not had many winning or fine fights, and in his own town of Los Angeles he had inspired loud cynicism—not without cause. He had fought two dismal draws with Tony Alongi, had lost to a man ( Eddie Machen) who for his own good should not have had a license, had proved disgusting againstBrian London and then had stolen two fights from Floyd Patterson.

Quarry's sometime fans might have tolerated all this if he had not so often excused himself with complaints of low blows and references to the physical disabilities he has suffered. Though in excellent health now, Quarry has had a difficult time physically. At 13 he had nephritis, and he was sent home from the hospital, he says, with the prospect of being a semi-invalid the rest of his life. Somehow, he beat that sickness, but misfortune kept trailing him. He got a broken arm when hit by a baseball, and then a broken knuckle slugging an umpire over a disputed call, another broken knuckle in a street fight, a broken back when he dived into a pool but never reached it, two more broken knuckles from street fights and a cracked ankle bone while sliding into a base.

In Oakland he was still reciting this chronology of disaster. "I'd like, you know, to be less emotional about what people say about me," he says, "but I can't. It seems like I'm always being put in the position where I got to prove something, prove to the people that I'm real. There have been some tough moments. For two weeks after theMachen fight I considered quitting, but I changed my mind. Suddenly, I didn't want to be called a quitter. I thought about how people would come to my children and tell them that I could have made it big but that I was a quitter. Now I consider the Machen loss the best thing that could have happened to me. If I would have won in the condition I was in maybe I would have never learned the importance of conditioning."

Quarry apparently forgot the importance of being in shape before the second Patterson fight. He was not in condition and had nothing left after the sixth round. But he was prepared for Spencer, a prince of the night and neon whose persiflage succeeded in angering Quarry, a man devoid of any sense of humor. Soon the ill feelings between the two were very real, not the work of a publicity man's creativity. "He's a fool," said Spencer, "when he says he's gonna take me out on the street and whup me if I open my mouth again. Why, I was born in the street. You wait, when I'm through he's gonna be catchin' the first thing smokin' outta town after the fight."

After the fight, it was Spencer who should have left town, although he did not. A crowd of 12,110 that paid some $115,000—outside of the fight in Germany the only good gate in the tournament—watched one of the dumbest fights ever made. Spencer's stupidity almost equaled Quarry's periodic brilliance; his tactical blunders were endless. He let Quarry take him repeatedly to the ropes, where Quarry is quite destructive and gets the maximum leverage on his punches. Worse, Spencer tried to trade punches with Quarry early in the fight. Quarry is an instinctive counter-puncher and is at his best when he is hit. Spencer must have known better.

Certainly Spencer's manager, Ketchum. had to know how to beat Quarry. His experience in boxing spans 32 years and, even though they may censure his machinations in the underground, few will deny his ability as a manager and strategist. He began on New York's East Side driving a hearse—hence, the nickname The Undertaker—then became a delivery boy for Fight Manager Hymie Caplan, who eventually got busted running crooked poker games. Suddenly Ketchum was managing all of Caplan's fighters. Later he managed four champions—among them Lew Jenkins and Davey Moore—and he trained Marcel Cerdan for a number of fights. Old now, but still exuding vulpine cunning, Ketchum wanted this fight desperately, principally because the sight of his fighters eating plunges him into deep depression over his own fiscal stability. But also he was quite fond of Spencer, this affection countering the charge that he is similar to the manager who said: "Hell, they say I never took care of Beau Jack. Why, I just bought him a new shoeshine box."

"Why, Willie?" he was asked. "Why did Spencer fight such a dumb fight?"

"He knew," said Willie. "He knew better."

"Well, why?"

"He was told," said Willie, looking over to Spencer who was listening to his father. "I told ya, Thad," said the father. "Get your rest. Stop runnin' around and worryin' about gettin' tickets for all your friends. How many friends ya think ya got now?"

"Feint and stick," continued Ketchum. "Don't follow him to the ropes, box the sucker, don't fool with him early, keep to the jab, tie him up, ya can't stay in close with this guy, and then make ya move after the sixth round. He didn't do nuttin' right. He couldn't even git his punches off."

"What's that a reflection of?" someone asked.

"A lot of reflections."

There had been much concern about Spencer's condition for this fight. He looked dull in the gym, and those who watched his workouts knew he was bad. On a particular afternoon Machen, Spencer's friend, had to go up in the stands and whisper in the ear of one vociferous critic. Near the end of his training Spencer seemed to respond, and against Quarry he looked in relatively good shape—relatively, because you don't move among the dark bars and sweet-scented chicks without leaving a part of yourself behind.

"Nobody," said one fighter, "nicks Thad for anything. He knows what he's doin'. He fights the way he romances. He gives them nothin'."

Machen, a master in ring technique but defeated by everyone, disagreed.

"Nate," he said defensively, talking to Nate Cohen, a gentleman with grace and style who has a part of Spencer, "you babied him. You let him eat $10 worth of Chinese food just a couple of days ago."

Machen continued: "Willie, he didn't want anybody around. Then when he sees he's slippin' he calls me in. What you want—a miracle? Ten days before a fight? Quarry could have been had—but go tell it to a mountain now."

Spencer, maybe because he was trapped, gave too much of himself this time, and he gave it early. The first round, which was enrapturing because of the number of cruel exchanges, was one of the finest anyone can hope to see. Quarry hurt Spencer in the middle of that round, and it may well be that Spencer never recovered. A left hook followed by a right hand made him look like a dying flower. He was bent over and hanging onto Quarry's legs, but somehow he recovered. "Spencer's attitude changed," Quarry said later. "He was worried after I put the two punches on him."

Quarry's two knockdowns came in the last seconds of the fourth and 10th rounds. The fourth was an extremely close round in which Quarry caught Spencer with a left hook and sent him banging to the floor. Spencer seemed to be up at the count of five when the bell rang. It is conceivable that Spencer might have had a slim chance for a decision going into the 10th round. Digging into Quarry's liver and staying with the jab a bit more, Spencer won the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth rounds as Quarry had difficulty getting any rhythm in his punches. The 10th ended Spencer's hopes for a crack at Jimmy Ellis and $125,000 for the final match of the tournament. The blow, at the end of the round, came as Spencer missed with a right in a corner, and Quarry spun him slightly. Spencer then started to slip and Quarry sent a triphammer of a right hand to his head, almost knocking him through the ropes as the bell sounded. The Player, as Spencer refers to himself, was through. He fought valiantly, but, because of the way he fought and because of a crippled ankle (smashed in his boyhood) that impedes any move to retreat, he was perfect for Quarry.

Quarry, who weighed in at 193� (Spencer was 200�) and was actually 191 right before the fight, has advanced rapidly. He has striking abilities. He has a good jab, recently acquired. He is punishing and artistic at close range, and he is vicious and accurate when going to the body. At long range he is not ineffectual, but he is limited, his punches often being wide and weakened. He also will not lead. Hammer him with a jab, box him and stay away from him early in the fight and he can, perhaps, be bagged.

There are two other aspects to Quarry as a fighter that prompt speculation. One, will he respond to future fights as he did for Spencer? Has he finally unloaded his desultory approach to the conditioning process? And two, how unnerving and destructive is his close relationship with his family? His father, Jack, is co-manager, which gives him part of one-third of his son's purses. The intrigues between Father Jack and the other manager, Johnny Flores, both of whom are constantly and openly sabotaging each other, do not contribute much to Quarry's peace of mind out of the ring—or to his concentration in it.

The history in boxing of families that have a lot to say about a son's or brother's career form a possibly ominous portent for Jerry Quarry. Will he win in his own camp? Will his detractors come to love him? Will he overcome the "white hope" stigma? The answers to these questions, and others in Quarry's soap-opera saga, should be provided by Jimmy Ellis in April.

[Dubblechin]

Sports Illustrated
April 22, 1968

CALIFORNIA ARITHMETIC

Jimmy Ellis of Louisville will be in double jeopardy next Saturday when he meets California's Jerry Quarry inOakland for the World Boxing Association heavyweight title. The two hazards are Quarry's powerful counterpunches and the state's "simplified five" scoring system, which aids sluggers, handicaps boxers and could easily be manipulated to favor one fighter. The winner of a round gets one to five points, usually one, and the loser none. But if the winner scores a knockdown he gets as many as four, thus making up for four poor rounds with a single blow. It is the knockdowns that open the way for outrageous decisions, but California judges sometimes don't even need them:

On February 15, Bantamweight Jesus Pimentel of Los Angeles was awarded a decision over Sho Saijyo of Japan. Even L.A.'s chauvinistic Mexican fans were infuriated and littered the ring with refuse. The rest of the card had to be canceled.

L.A.'s Raul Rojas was behind on two cards, and even on the third, going into the 12th round of his March 29 featherweight title fight with Colombian Enrique Higgins. In the 12th, Rojas knocked Higgins sprawling into the ropes (he took a mandatory eight count) with a forearm blow to the head. For this Rojas received three points from each official and went on to an easy decision, 11-6, 10-5, 10-6. What may have been a close Rojas victory, or more likely a draw, became a walkaway.

In Quarry's two fights with Floyd Patterson he came off with a draw and a split decision. In neither fight would he have come close under another scoring system. In total, Patterson won 12 of 22 rounds and Quarry no more than eight. In the first fight, judges gave Patterson two points for a knockdown and Quarry three. In the second, Quarry was given three points by one official for a knockdown that was thought by many to be the result of a slip, and this was the deciding factor in the split decision.

"The situation is vicious and obvious in California," says one Los Angeles fight manager. "This state is notorious for bum decisions."

It would be shocking if another championship—even a WBA version—were decided by a questionable verdict.

[Dubblechin]

Sports Illustrated
May 06, 1968

Right On The Money

Jimmy Ellis, his days as Muhammad Ali's sparring partner far behind him, crashed home an effective right hand to win the WBA version of the heavyweight championship and, finally, a chance at better paydays

Mark Kram

For the old man life has always been hell. His eyes tell you where he has been, his hands tell you what he has done and even now, though his belly is full, when you look at him you think of lost men plucking guitars on city steps or a kid's empty, mountaineer face caught behind the flutter of a soiled window shade. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, his eyes always say.

Machines failed, crops failed in the dust. Goodby to all that. He left East Texas for the road, a road of night fires, of boxcars where people killed other people, a road of sadistic railroad bulls. Keep away from Denver Bob, he uses a whip—after he clubs you across the chin. Don't run from Fort Worth Red. With gun or knife, Red never misses.

The old man, Jack Quarry, reached out last week just one more time for a piece of a world that had always been inaccessible. He sent his son, heavyweight Jerry Quarry, out to retrieve his pride, broken a thousand times on a thousand lonely nights, out to make up for all the injustices, all the cold city nights when nobody understood.

Saturday night in Oakland Jerry Quarry, his youth just as unrooted as his father's, his suspicions and resentments just as strong, was out in front of the largest viewing audience in the history of televised sports. From Morocco toTokyo, people watched him go against Jimmy Ellis for the World Boxing Association's heavyweight championship. He was the white boy, with the crumpling right hand and jaw of ingot, who was to be the key to another abundant, glamorous era in boxing.

To many more, less interested in the status of boxing, those in the large cities and small towns who are scared or just simply combative, he was a symbol. Nowhere was it more evident than in Oakland. The Black Panthers, the militant Negro group, were restless. White vigilante groups, behind curious leadership, demanded recognition. The intense atmosphere did not move Quarry. He accepted no bigoted allegiance and resisted the dementia swirling about him. His behavior glittered.

Quarry's performance in the ring was less striking. A crowd of 14,000 paid to see him exhibit lifelessness, inexperience and much ineffectual punching. It watched Ellis, once almost ruined in the middleweight division, create a tactical masterpiece that, though soporific to television viewers and the live crowd, was demanded against the deadly counterpunching of Quarry. Ellis was intelligent and cruel with his long, slashing right hand. Even more than the right and his ring generalship, his jab was the decisive weapon. His fight belonged to those who appreciate delicate artistry, not to those who only recognize heavy-handed slaughter.

The California judges, as always, remained shamefully insensitive to anything resembling subtlety of skill. The referee scored the fight 7-6 Ellis. One judge had it 10-5 Ellis; another, who should never have been given a pencil, called it a draw, 6-6. " California's a nice place to visit," said one manager, "but put a gun in my back before I fight there." Quarry himself concurred: "If they'd given me the decision, I'd have given it back. I didn't deserve it."

Quarry's candor was refreshing. He knew he did not come close in this fight. Quarry is always waiting to counter, especially on the ropes where he feels secure. He cannot lead and is unskilled at finding openings. Ellis refused to follow him to the ropes, and in a fight cluttered with undramatic moments the most interesting moves came whenEllis would walk backward and leave Quarry hanging bewildered on the ropes. "Let 'im lay there talkin' to himself," screamed Angelo Dundee, Ellis' manager. "Make him fight in the center of the ring."

Ellis, who is a habitual gambler in the ring, for once followed orders. When Quarry did come off the ropes he was confused and his punching was un-rhythmic. His usually quick hands were slow and errant. He seldom reached Elliswith the vicious body attack he sometimes has displayed; and his right hand to the head looked like it had an iron weight tied to it. He did catch Ellis with a left hook in the 13th round and then followed up with a right hand, but suddenly he dropped his guns. "Quarry had the fist but nothin' up here," said Ellis' cutman, Chickie Ferrara, tapping his finger on his head.

Ellis only occasionally forgot his instructions. Throughout his training he honed his jab and he seldom discarded it during the fight. The most vital blow in boxing, the jab is both an offensive and a defensive measure. It is the one sound opening for every advance; it is also extremely effective in destroying a big puncher's concentration. Ellis' did do that to Quarry. Only a gambler with a big heart can beat the jab. Quarry, whose youth seemed to make gambling easy, has the heart but he refused to move against the jab. Had he taken its sting and pain and stayed on top of Ellis, the fight might have turned around.

Ellis, to be certain, could not gamble in any way against Quarry. He has too much past (a lachrymose career among the middleweights of short money and much punishment) and he does not have enough future. He is 28 now, and he has been a black fighter for over a decade. To be a black fighter, even the least carnivorous of managers will agree, is a "stomped down life, a stone-hard road." Few pamper the black fighter. He has to fight from the moment he steps in a gym. It is an axiom among white fight managers: "You have to find out early if the black boy has any dog in him."

The managers do find out early. But they know, too, that a white fighter remains a property. While often the black boys unload freight or work on the docks during the day, then spend long dreary hours in the gym at night, the white fighter is "romanced"—no job, no fights over his head, the best equipment, expensive sparring partners.Ellis, hardly bitter but certainly no fool, survived this separate and unequal treatment and learned his trade the way few fighters ever do. His two years as Muhammad Ali's sparring partner were another sort of embarrassment. "I have my secret thoughts," says Ellis, "but why bring them out and have them kicked around?"

Ellis' aversion to controversy was sharpened by his time with Ali. The fighters, though friendly, were never close. Often, in camp Ellis seemed to be just a phlegmatic, machinelike figure, but he was never obsequious to Ali. That alone separated him from those who fluttered about the champion. With Ellis it was a matter of holding on to his pride.

"We were in Chicago," says fighter Willie Johnson, "in trainin'. One day Jimmy belts Ali right on the chin. Ali's legs do this little number and he fall right into the ropes. He weren't seein' nothin'. He was stone-cold shook up. But that was nothin' the way Herbert Muhammad, his manager, was. Right off, Herbert, well he want Jimmy out of the camp. Jimmy needed the job, but he wouldn't go see nobody and play up to them. Herbert cooled but he didn't let Jimmy work for a few days."

There were other tense moments in Ellis' relationship with Ali. When Ali still had the house in Miami and Ellis was working with him, there was quiet exchange over second-class treatment. At meals the guests, brothers and various backslappers were served first. Often, when it came time for the sparring partners to eat, there was not much left. Ellis put up with this for a while, then one day announced he was going into town for his supper. This dinner protocol and his sleeping quarters—the size of a closet—were soon changed.

"I was made out to be nothin' but a sparring partner," says Ellis. "It bothered me to be run down like that. I was more than that. I knew it. I think I've proven that now."

Before last week's fight Ellis seemed quite annoyed at the unceasing "white hope" prattle, even though Quarry bluntly refused the odious designation, thus mollifying the bellicose Black Panthers. More than anything, what disconcerted Ellis was the fact that Quarry had a large following among the black population in Oakland. "If Quarry wins, boxing will be great again," said one black man in the gym. A black fighter countered: "Us spooks is like crabs in a can. One tries to climb out and five others reach up and pull him back."

Ellis is now too far along to be pulled back by anybody. He, like Quarry, received $125,000 for the fight, and Ellis is only interested in the money. He has become the black fighter who grabs the money and runs. He is not interested in becoming a legend. The heavyweight title, suddenly awash in chaos and backdoor politics, will be difficult to reunite. Ellis is the WBA's champion, Joe Frazier holds the title in five states and Ali, exiled and smothering in a morass of litigation, is the champion of the "thinking" part of the universe. Nobody, of course, has accused those who legislate in boxing of ever having a single sensible or unselfish idea calculated to dispel the confusion.

It is fairly certain that an Ellis-Frazier fight is quite remote. Sports Action, Inc., which packaged the tournament, will try desperately to make the bout, but the people behind each fighter will be inordinately recalcitrant. The eight-man WBA tournament, despite some dismal performances and severe losses absorbed by Sports Action, can be viewed as a success if only because it brought movement to the heavyweight division. Constant coverage on ABC television helped and the ratings—three fights drew the highest ratings in ABC's sports programming for the year—indicate a respectable growth in boxing interest. The packagers have profited from the tournament. Sports Action will make $100,000, admittedly a meager sum for one year's work. But one guesses the Sports Action people are relieved they no longer have to deal with the Quarry family.

Father Jack and his family, 41 strong including relatives, are pleasant, passionate and tribal people. The championship for Jerry meant much to Jack. With victory, he finally would be convinced that he was an entity, that he belonged to a world that had rejected him. He came to California, just off of a boxcar, with an East Dallas pocketknife and the clothes on his back. But now he was not a man to be taken lightly. He had his own ideas on what came next and who would reap the benefits of his son's ascendancy. But there was not much illusion left in him, and he knew when the dream had died.

"Tell you this, I give the fight to Ellis 8-6," said Father Jack, his hands twisting over his knuckles. Each knuckle had a letter on it, and when the hands were extended the letters read: Hard Luck. The city nights, you could tell, were still cold, and people were sitting inside bright, warm houses and Jack Quarry was very hungry.

[Dubblechin]

Sports Illustrated
June 17, 1968

Champs Galore

New York has one, California has one and the universal state of Ali recognizes only its own. Angelo Dundee, in a way, has two. Now a movement has begun to settle matters

Gilbert Rogin , Morton Sharnik

The word we use in our business is resurgence," says Harry Markson, who is managing director of boxing forMadison Square Garden. "It's a nice-sounding word." Mrs. Aileen Eaton, the promoter for the Olympic in Los Angeles, prefers "renaissance," which, admittedly, has a nice sound, too.

In short, there's a boxing boom. For example, last October in Mexico City 90,000 watched the bill on which Manuel Ramos beat Ernie Terrell. "Which is a lot of people even if you close your eyes," says Angelo Dundee. In March the Garden set an indoor-record gate of $685,503 for the doubleheader in which Buster Mathis was knocked out by Joe Frazier, who as a result was somewhat capriciously recognized by New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Maine as the world heavyweight champion. And in April the largest "live" audience in the history of boxing—more than 120 million—saw Jimmy Ellis outpoint Jerry Quarry to become the heavyweight champion of the world in the nations, states and cities that belong to the World Boxing Association. This, by the way, was the final bout of an elimination tournament that Teddy Brenner, the Garden matchmaker, has characterized as "a complete success in that it successfully eliminated all the fighters."

Then the boom, which to a great measure was stimulated by efforts to find a successor to Muhammad Ali, nearly became a bust. Although everyone assumed that the two pretenders, Frazier and Ellis, would meet to determine who was really the champ, nothing of the sort took place. Ellis went back to his old Kentucky home, and Manager Angelo Dundee said that Ellis might just shoot a little pool, bowl, fish for cat and perch and lend his tenor to The Riverview Spiritual Singers of Louisville until some new contenders were developed.

Meanwhile, Frazier agreed to fight Ramos in the Garden on June 24. Ramos, who is 6'3", is the Mexican heavyweight champion; more to the point, he is really the only Mexican heavyweight. He is reputedly fast, well schooled and has a good punch, and he has beaten Eddie Machen as well as Terrell; he also once went eight straight fights without a win. Against Frazier, however, Ramos is deservedly a 4-to-1 underdog, and as Markson ruefully observed last week, "I wish he was Mexican-Jewish."

More confounding were the rumors about Ali. "All over L.A. people are talking about Ali fighting again," says Heavyweight Charley Powell. "In the gyms guys are whispering, Ali's coming back, Ali's coming back.' I asked one guy what the hell was he whispering about, and he didn't know. That cat Ali drives everybody crazy."

One rumor has it that Ali will fight Bob Foster, the new light heavyweight champion, in Salt Lake City. Another hadAli going 10 rounds apiece with Mathis and Quarry on the same night, also in Salt Lake. This extravaganza presumably fell through when Quarry 1) went hunting, a) was gashed in the forehead by the recoil of his rifle and b) got a poison-oak rash, and 2) went swimming off Newport Beach, Calif., where a) he got caught in a riptide and was swept 300 yards to sea, and b) went under twice before being rescued by a surfer. However, according to one Aliologist, the proposed bouts were merely another Ali put-on. " Ali's just promoting himself," he said. Indeed, last month Ali had his best take on the lecture circuit—an estimated $30,000.

But there have been attempts to make an Ali fight. Henry Winston, an Oakland soul brother who owns an ambulance service, has been trying for the past eight months. "Winston got close to the mountaintop," is the way Chauncey Eskridge, Ali's attorney, admiringly puts it. " Ali doesn't sit around and think about fighting," he says, "but if there was some economic advantage he'd like to fight again. There are a bunch of ordinary fight states where he could be licensed, but the promoters feel they'd be doing him a favor. They insist he take a straight percentage."

The reason Salt Lake keeps getting a call in these rumors is that the Utah commission acquiesced to the Ali-Floyd Patterson rematch, which was switched to three other states before it never came off. But, as Eskridge implied, there's no way Ali is going to fight in Utah: 40% of a live gate in Salt Lake wouldn't pay the bills at Ali's kosher butcher.

As a matter of fact, a promoter had Ali-Eduardo Corletti made, but the fight fell through when Herbert Muhammad,Ali's manager, balked at 40% and a two-fight contract. Corletti, who is rated second by the WBA and seventh by The Ring, is an Argentine who resides in Rome and frequently fights in London. His high ranking is rather mystifying, as his most notable win was over George Chuvalo, who has had many notable losses, and Corletti was once knocked out in five by Raymond Patterson, Floyd's kid brother, who now works in a filling station in Savedalen (pop. 5,075), Sweden. Says London Promoter Jack Solomons: "Corletti's a powderpuff puncher who has to struggle to beat fighters who are not even ranked. With Corletti in the ring you can go to the toilet and when you come back everything will be just as it was when you left."

Says yet another promoter, "The truth is if Ali wanted to fight, he'd take low-ball to do so." But often of late Ali has said he was too involved with the bigger fight—freeing 22� million blacks—and the likelihood is he is done with boxing. Shortly after his title was taken from him, Ali said he'd come back to bug the game, and so he has. "There I'll be, wearing a sheet," he said, "and whispering, "Ali-e-e-e-e-e, Ali-e-e-e-e-e.' I'll be the ghost that haunts boxing, and people will say Ali is the real champ and anyone else is a fake."

And, in the best of all possible worlds, he would be champ. The heavyweight championship is, in a sense, an apostolic succession, what the late Joe Liebling termed a laying on of hands, in that in most instances the current champion defeated his predecessor, who in turn defeated his. and so forth—or so back. When a champion voluntarily retired, as in the cases of Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano, he sanctioned the tournament to discover his successor, so that the descent remained unbroken. However, Ali hasn't blessed either Frazier or Ellis—or Waban (Tugboat) Thomas, for that matter—as his legitimate heir.

Be that as it may, the rumors of All's comeback are growing fainter and are being drowned by the noisy preparations for battle. Last week Angelo Dundee called Ellis and told him of an offer of a $125,000 guarantee against 40% of the gate to fight Floyd Patterson on August 10 in Stockholm, which Ellis somewhat reluctantly accepted. "I had hoped to stay home and catch up with my family," he said. "But Angelo says when we go. I was lying in the weeds when he took me and managed me to the title, so he knows his job."

The Patterson fight would be the start of something big—the inevitable confrontation with Frazier. "That will be a big one," says Dundee, "but first we have to steam it up. We have to stir up controversy, make the fans choose sides. It has to be boiling before we jump in."

What Dundee is really saving is that Ellis has to come to a boil before the public will jump in. "I won the title, but I didn't excite the fans," Ellis says bitterly. "That's what some writers say. They rap me for not being exciting. People say. 'James, why didn't you go get Quarry when he was on the ropes?" Well, maybe I should have and maybe I could have, but maybe if I had I wouldn't have come home with the title."

Cus D'Amato has said, "A fighter's image is often an illusion. It's not dishonest; that's the business. It's the color, the glamour of the guy that brings in the customers. Ellis needs two fights in which he can appear dynamic."

Says Ellis, "I won my title by beating everyone in front of me, all top-rated fighters—Oscar Bonavena, who knocked Frazier down twice, Leotis Martin, who Frazier ran from, and Jerry Quarry, a guy Joe Frazier is still not anxious to meet. How did Frazier get his championship? By reaching down and picking out fighters ranked 43 and 45 [Chuvalo and Mathis], fighters so far down he had to find them with a microscope."

But more makes up the illusion of a fighter than whom he fought. Beginnings, style and record contribute, too. Frazier became a star in 1964 when he won the Olympic title, and this image was nurtured by the careful handling of Cloverlay, the corporation of 581 shareholders that manages him. He is undefeated as a professional and fights with an indomitable, straight-ahead, relentless style which, in its own way, is reminiscent of vintage Liston. Sonny, incidentally, will fight Henry Clark at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on July 6 and a convincing victory would put him back in contention.

Ellis, as he says, came out of the weeds. Four years ago he was a broke middleweight with five losses; next he became Ali's sparring partner. Although he is undefeated as a heavyweight and is an exceptionally able fighter, he hasn't thrown off his lackluster antecedents and he realizes that he must lick Frazier to gain the public's adoration.

First, he would have to prove himself against a desperate Patterson getting another of his last chances at the title. Floyd would also be fighting in what he calls "my place"; he has had three bouts in Sweden without a loss and is regarded as something of a national hero. Ellis, with his sneak right hands, would have a good foil in Patterson, who can be knocked down in the early rounds. Ellis also prefers an opponent such as Patterson, who would carry the fight to him and provide him with an opportunity to counter, which he does so well. However, Patterson still has a good left hook, and if the fight went the distance, his pressing tactics would test Ellis' stamina.

It is likely that the Frazier-Ellis fight will occur early next year and will be promoted either by the Garden or bySports Action, Inc. or even by both. Sports Action, which put together the WBA's tournament, is the successor to the moribund Main Bout, Inc., which promoted several of Ali's last bouts. The outfits are similar except, as Bob Arum, secretary of both, explains, "Sports Action's lighter." By that he means it has only one Negro officer, Jimmy Brown (arrested on an assault charge early this week), while Main Bout had three—Brown, Herbert Muhammad and John Ali, the Black Muslims' national secretary.

Sports Action feels confident it will land the fight, and it already has a date and site, namely, January 13, 1969 (about the same date the Garden has in mind) and the Astrodome—Judge Roy Hofheinz's son is Sports Action's executive vice-president. The reason January 13 was selected is that the National Home Builders' convention is inHouston at that time, and Mike Malitz, Sports Action's president, claims there is a guarantee of sorts from the Home Builders to purchase 10,000 seats for $350,000. Malitz further asserts that Sports Action has two advantages over the Garden in obtaining the match: it has a contract with Ellis, which enables it to designate the local promoter and site for his first title fight, with the right to waive this privilege for such lesser defenses as Ellis-Patterson, and it has an exclusive on the ancillary rights to all Ellis fights through 1969. Secondly, Malitz contends that if Sports Action has to bid with the Garden for the match, it will be no contest. "On the right date, the Dome in any kind of bidding war will beat anyone," he says.

The Garden's strong point is that it has the power base—the building, the organization and the boxing continuity to assure big gates for big fights, while Sports Action has to go outside New York, where gates cannot be taken for granted.

Money will surely be the major factor in making this match. "The time for glory is past," says Ellis. "Now I'm fighting for money. Money is what boxing's all about, and if Frazier wants more money than me then he don't want to fight. I don't care what they give him, but it ain't going to be 50-50."

To which Yancey Durham replies, "Joe's the champ. He'd be the one who would put people in the place, so we'd have to get the big money. If Angelo thinks different then maybe we won't fight. We don't need Ellis. We can make money with any fighter, and Ellis can't draw flies."

Another obstacle is who gets top billing. But, as Dundee says, "Money, big money, will knock over all obstacles. When you talk Frazier-Ellis, I dream of 10 figures."

Whether those are the figures young Hofheinz dreams of is something else, as is whether he could, in truth, outbid the Garden. Perhaps the solution is for Sports Action and the Garden to get together. "We're two camps," Malitz said last week, "but we're certainly not armed camps. We can do business with the Garden. The question is, can they do business with us?" If they can, gentlemen, you may be interested to learn that Jimmie (The Greek) Snyder has already made a line—2 to 1 Frazier. You can also lay 1,000 to 1 that Robert Goulet won't be called upon to sing The Star-Spangled Banner.

[Dubblechin]

Sports Illustrated
September 16, 1968

Defense Of A Dubious Title

Jimmy Ellis, the man nobody believes in, fights Floyd Patterson, the man everyone thinks is through, the winner's prize being a new image

Mark Kram

Muhammad Ali, it seems clear, was wrong. The heavyweight division, which dominates boxing, has survived his departure. The World Boxing Association's eight-man tournament gave urgently needed continuity to the division and exposed new faces. Madison Square Garden, which tried to subvert the tournament, failed but created its own champion and is once again in a position to be constructive or destructive among the heavyweights.

Certainly, the exile of Ali, the absence of his presence—that rare blend of volcanic improvisation and serene certitude in and out of the ring—left a void and scattered disinterest, but it also opened up the division. With Muhammad at the top, it was fast becoming inert. It was obvious that Ali, long before his impeachment, was running out of opponents. Each of his title fights had become a performance and an exercise in desperate, high-powered flack.

With Ali gone, three fighters emerged, each of whom attained confidence and polish. The tournament produced Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis, the WBA champion, and the Garden gave us Joe Frazier. Any of the three, but particularly Ellis, could now provide sharper opposition for Ali than that which he encountered in any of his title defenses. It is seldom that any division these days can develop three such fighters at the same time, all having youth, ability and public identification.

Yet the progress of the heavyweights has once again been retarded. Quarry, the Californian with powerful gate appeal and striking (but untutored) skills, has never been healthy, and now his future is seriously in doubt. First, just a few months ago, he nearly drowned while swimming. And recently he suffered a bad back injury in a motorcycle accident. It is questionable whether California will ever give him a license again, or if he will even be able to fight.

A major fight for Frazier at this point also seems remote, mainly because he, too, developed a sudden fondness for motorcycles. "I got a stupid fighter," says his manager, Yancey Durham. "I told him he was too stupid to drive one. I got on with him and he nearly killed us both. 'Look,' I told him, 'you got a Chevrolet and you knocked that to pieces, and then you did the same with the Cadillac. Now it's a motorcycle. Man, you gonna kill yourself.' "

Frazier neglected the warning and, only a few weeks ago, while driving his motorcycle home to Beaufort, S.C., he collided with an automobile. His leg injury may be more severe than the public statements indicate, but even more alarming to the Frazier camp is the fighter's sudden change in character. All fighters, when training, talk of retiring, but Frazier is forever bringing the subject up. He seems to have lost—perhaps only temporarily—his edge, that great joy for combat that he so often exuded.

Jimmy Ellis, who defends his title against Floyd Patterson September 14 in Stockholm, is a different sort of problem: no one really believes in him. The fight with Quarry in April, in which he won the title, surely did not help his reputation. A brilliant fighter on the ropes, Quarry was determined to make Ellis fight him there. Ellis refused, and the fight was marred by long dull periods.

Ellis was abused by the press and the public, but it was Quarry who was at fault; the inflexibility of his fight plan ruined the show. While Ellis took the rap, few observers appreciated the discipline he exhibited, or the beauty of his whiplike right hands. Instead, his victory was contrasted with the passion and violence of Frazier's humiliation of Buster Mathis. Ellis—it was unanimous—had no star quality, in or out of the ring.

The result is that Ellis is difficult to sell. He is constantly being compared to Frazier, an Olympic hero, primitive, and a heavyweight whose style is so reminiscent of Henry Armstrong. Ellis, on the other hand, is a gospel singer and a former sparring partner of Ali, and after you have said that you have said it all. He is simply a silent, pleasant man, devoid of anger and opinion, who does not inspire enthusiasm. His personality, unfortunately, has obscured his talent.

Ellis is often regarded as a poor imitation of Ali, but this is far from accurate. Ali was a magnificent dancer, but Ellisonly gives the impression of movement. Ellis is always in punching position, his feet planted and his weight balanced, ready to shift. His grace and the splendid control of his body allow him to throw punches from weird positions, especially the right hand, which he loops over. The right hand is similar to Ali's, and it may be quicker and deadlier. Multitudes would disagree, but Ellis may well be the most complete fighter in boxing today. There is no question that he has smoothly handled much tougher opposition than Frazier has. Ellis destroyed Leotis Martin, a sharp puncher whom Frazier ducked repeatedly. He nearly broke his hands on the head of Oscar Bonavena, a clumsy, difficult opponent who once floored Frazier twice in one round. And he beat Quarry, an instinctive, cruel counter-puncher.

"Jimmy is hard to mess around," says Shotgun Shelton, his sparring partner. "He uses trickoration. He's a thinkin" fighter. He lays traps, waits for you to fall in them, then he sets up and...pow! That's trickoration. There is no pattern to his style. What Jimmy does is to tell you, 'Now watch my right hand,' and then he hooks you. He jabs, jabs and then throws a right hand. You look for the pattern and he feints a single jab and hooks off of it."

Still, Ellis has one serious defect, which could be disastrous for him when he does finally meet Frazier. Ellis is an anxious fighter whose energy is bled by his self-constructed anxieties. Before a fight, sitting there and dripping sweat, his face is pale, vacant, almost frightened. Once he is in the ring, all the anxieties locked inside him explode into thrilling fury in the early rounds. Then, usually around the eighth round, he becomes dangerously weary and quite vulnerable. Ellis' tendency to tire seems to be Floyd Patterson's only hope in Stockholm; Patterson's chances of beating Ellis improve with each round he survives. Floyd, of course, knows he is being "used." He still has one of the biggest names in boxing, or sports for that matter, and the Ellis camp hopes that Jimmy will emerge from the fight—assuming he wins—with a new "image" which will divert much of the attention now being drawn by Joe Frazier.

But Floyd could be quite troublesome for Ellis. He has nothing to lose, and for one of the few times in his career he will enter the ring unencumbered by mental distractions. He is also aware that an impressive performance, even in defeat, will not only help him remain an entity among the heavyweights but will contribute greatly to the movie career he is now pursuing.

One hopes, however, that Patterson's film future does not rest too heavily on such a performance, because Ellis, using no trickoration, should end the fight somewhere between the second and fifth rounds. To be specific, I believe he will complete his evening's work (pay $125,000) in the third round with one flashing, beautiful right hand that Patterson will never even remember.

[Dubblechin]

Sports Illustrated
September 23, 1968

Hashup And Hashish In Sweden


Nobody really won—Jimmy Ellis lost ground in his fight for public acceptance, Floyd Patterson saw a fine effort wasted, the Swedes were melancholy about it all and the draft dodgers Just kept smoking
Mark Kram

A strange country, Sweden, the poet Wordsworth thought, a place of leafless trees and icy crags that tinkle like iron and, always, that pervasive melancholy. But the weather and "feel" of Stockholm would have betrayed the poet most of last week. Warm and softly beautiful, the city seemed idyllic and very far from reality, with the Viking-like barques gliding through the canals, the band playing in the park, sunlight glinting off statuary and American draft evaders sitting under trees smoking hashish.

That was Stockholm before it all faded suddenly. It figured that Russian winter would trail Floyd Patterson into town when he left his training camp on the edge of the Baltic Sea, and at fight time Saturday night being in Solna Fotbollstadion did, indeed, feel like being on an icy crag. The sky was an Ingmar Bergman sky, strangely colored, and a cold wind beat through the stands as 32,000 people, bolstered by beer and aquavit, sat and waited for Heavyweight Champion Jimmy Ellis to provide a quick and absolute final end to one of the strangest careers in ring history.

But that was not to be. Patterson, the Captain Ahab of boxing who, many think, should retire and cultivate his neuroses, created a thrilling piece of work, making his finest (perhaps only) fight since he knocked out Ingemar Johansson in their second match. With some style and much grit, he took Ellis across 15 rounds and, with a spectacular last stand in the 13th and 14th rounds, missed by a thread winning his third heavyweight championship. It was a fight that only the most idiotic of the large Patterson cult believed he would survive beyond the early rounds. The Swedes left the stadium visibly moved by his performance and almost apoplectic over the decision. Floyd? Well—just listen to Floyd.

"The referee decides," said Patterson. "I have nothing to say about the decision. I do not wish to detract from Jimmy's fight."

"Do you know Ellis may have suffered a fractured nose in the second round?" he was asked.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I busted his nose."

His pacifist stance and passiveness in close defeat, which long ago became tiresome to many, seemed particularly eccentric this time. He was hardly passive in the ring, though, as he stayed with Ellis in a tough, cruel fight that saw the WBA champion come fearfully apart. The nose was fractured in the second round, and it streamed blood until the end. Ellis also damaged his left thumb in that round and took a nasty gash over his right eye (six or seven stitches) when Floyd caught him with another jab after the one to the nose.

Unquestionably, the nose distracted Ellis and hurt his fight, but Patterson's effort cannot be underrated. If you believe that Ellis won (the referee, Harold Valan, the only official, scored it 9-6 but many newsmen had it exactly opposite), he most certainly won it in the 15th and final round. The fight appeared even until that point, but thenEllis, sensing his dangerous position, the screams from his corner piercing his ego, finally stepped out and did what he was supposed to do, did what he is capable of. He had fought a long, hard fight but he reached back for what was left in his hurt body and laid it all on Floyd. He dug a left into Floyd's liver and stayed right on him and in the middle of the round he caught him with a pair of whistling right hands, and Patterson was on his way out.Patterson's eyes stared out blankly now, pain masking his face, but Ellis could not finish him.

Patterson was in serious trouble other times early in the fight, once in the third round from a left hook and a right hand in close and then again in the fifth from two right hands, one high on the head that seemed to freeze him in midair. Yet he escaped what he calls "the black spot," that one flashing moment of instant darkness that has haunted him throughout his career, usually early in a fight, when he seems to be most vulnerable. Over the years he has been knocked down 22 times, eight times by Johansson alone.

The fact that Ellis did not knock Patterson out or even down does not necessarily reveal any inability to punch. Twice after catching Patterson, Ellis appeared to hold him up, refusing to let him drop. A number of things combined to make this fight close. First, Ellis, by his own admission, had underestimated Patterson. Second, Ellis, though he looked extremely sharp in the gym, was constantly worried about his weight, so much so that he did nothing the final two days but sit around eating "like a pig." He weighed in at 198 pounds, much too heavy for his style of fighting. Third, Ellis concentrated entirely too much on his right hand, and too often failed to put punches together.

Fourth, Patterson made some rounds look quite close by volleying, with some of his old notable hand speed, in the last minute.

The result is that Ellis' reputation has once again been damaged severely. He shares the splintered heavyweight title with Joe Frazier; Ellis is the World Boxing Association champion and Frazier was made in New York. The two are involved in a battle for public recognition, and Ellis is losing despite the fact that his record is much more impressive. Ellis needed a big victory over Patterson—say an early knockout—but he came away from this fight with a disputed success that exposes him to discredit.

Floyd has no identity problem. He used to have a few hundred other problems, mostly imagined, while he rusticated in one of his many retreats in upstate New York. He is no longer a factor in the heavyweight division, but he still has a dedicated throng that bleeds with him after each fight. He is to many a classic anti-hero, while still others marvel at his gentleness in such a mean business. When Floyd traded punches with Ellis in the 14th round,Ellis went down slowly, and Floyd, tagged quite well himself, seemed intent on joining Ellis on the floor. It was not a knockdown, the referee ruled, just a slip. Floyd was not aware of the ruling, but there he was—good old Floyd—trying desperately to help Ellis to his feet.

The Swedes, without a doubt, love Patterson and they have all but put a statue of him in Kungstradgarden. They admire his softness, they claim, but one guesses the Swedes understand and share the melancholy he exudes. One of the most advanced societies in the world, the social welfare state of Sweden may be paradise on earth to many, but the people do not seem to be terribly happy—not even the army of drunks who are forever falling off bicycles or stumbling around town. "We think too much," said one Swede. "We sit in the parks all day and think too much."

The Swedes also have a lot of foreign company in the parks these days. Many of the American draft evaders are there and they, too, are doing much thinking. Harold Conrad, the principal promotional figure in this fight and the one who swayed Patterson away from retirement, wanted to give the Americans tickets to the fight, but after a session with his associates in Sports Action he was persuaded that the gesture might be "bad form." It was highly doubtful anyway that the Americans could have been lured away from the park and the hashish.

"Are you interested in the fight?" one was asked.

"Does Patterson or Ellis turn on?" he wanted to know.

"Hardly."

"What do you think of Sweden?" he was then asked.

"No soul," he replied. "That's what we think. The people are nice, but completely spiritless. It makes you sad just being around them."

Floyd Patterson, then, always the wounded introspective, has meaning for the Swedes, but the extreme sympathy for him is really only sympathy for themselves. Floyd does not need sympathy anymore. He has money and he no longer is, he says, engaged in lonely struggle with himself, no longer the kind of person who could get so tormented that he would have to get out of bed and write his thoughts down or go into the gym at 3 o'clock in the morning and work out. Ahead is a possible acting career and behind him—at long last—is a career that helped him conquer ignorance and a weird childhood, a career that was often shattered and derided, and finally one that was at once sad, unbelievably comic and altogether unreal.

[Ambling Alp II]

here is the fourth fight of the seven fight tournament.
Jerry Quarry vs Floyd Patterson (II).
ABC's Wide World of Sports
Olympic Auditorium,Los Angeles California 28.October.1967.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=GKmmAExQYOg

Thanks for posting this; I didn't know it was now on Youtube and had never seen this fight. I had heard for years that it was a controversial decision.
It was kind of a strange fight. Quarry looked good early on, but did almost nothing after the 6th round. Patterson was effective on and off throughout the fight.

I judged the fight by their scoring system. Basically, the loser gets zero point for the round, the winner of the round usually gets one, and usually two if he scores a knockdown.

I gave Patterson rounds, 1,5,7,8,10, and 12; all 1-0.
Gave Quarry rounds 2 and 4 2-0, and rounds 3, and 6 1-0.
I scored rounds 9 and 11 (which had very little action) even.
That totals 6-6.
The ref had 6-6 as well, the two judges each had it 7-6 for Quarry.

Round two could have gone 1-0 since Paterson seemed to be leading the round, until Quarry scored a knockdown at the end of the round. However, people almost always give a guy extra credit for a knockdown regardless of what else happened in the fight.

In round 11, I scored it even, thought I gave Quarry credit for a couple of punches that I'm not sure that actually landed cleanly.

Overall, a decent fight. I think Quarry got a little lucky here.

[yancey]

here is the fourth fight of the seven fight tournament.
Jerry Quarry vs Floyd Patterson (II).
ABC's Wide World of Sports
Olympic Auditorium,Los Angeles California 28.October.1967.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=GKmmAExQYOg

Thanks for posting this; I didn't know it was now on Youtube and had never seen this fight. I had heard for years that it was a controversial decision.
It was kind of a strange fight. Quarry looked good early on, but did almost nothing after the 6th round. Patterson was effective on and off throughout the fight.

I judged the fight by their scoring system. Basically, the loser gets zero point for the round, the winner of the round usually gets one, and usually two if he scores a knockdown.

I gave Patterson rounds, 1,5,7,8,10, and 12; all 1-0.
Gave Quarry rounds 2 and 4 2-0, and rounds 3, and 6 1-0.
I scored rounds 9 and 11 (which had very little action) even.
That totals 6-6.
The ref had 6-6 as well, the two judges each had it 7-6 for Quarry.

Round two could have gone 1-0 since Paterson seemed to be leading the round, until Quarry scored a knockdown at the end of the round. However, people almost always give a guy extra credit for a knockdown regardless of what else happened in the fight.

In round 11, I scored it even, thought I gave Quarry credit for a couple of punches that I'm not sure that actually landed cleanly.

Overall, a decent fight. I think Quarry got a little lucky here.

You think Jerry got a "little" lucky, eh?

Patterson won both of the Quarry fights.

I know someone will try to make a case for Quarry (one of my favorites), but Patterson got screwed twice.

In retrospect, the '67 screw jobs might have simply been preparing Floyd for an even bigger heist in Sweden a year later.

[Woller]

Interesting to see that the reporter from A.P. did not even know the scoring system used for this fight.

How low can you get?

[yancey]

Interesting to see that the reporter from A.P. did not even know the scoring system used for this fight.

How low can you get?

Maybe the AP reporter realized that the scoring system used was ridiculous and chose not to deal with it.

[Woller]

In that case he must have been an idiot!

On the other hand he was not alone. "Boxing Illustrated" had reporters who had problems with the 10-point must system in the Ali-Terrell fight. They wrote that the only scoring system usable was the round scoring as in New York.

How low can you get!

[yancey]

Floyd Patterson - Jerry Quarry 'I'

Scoring by California Points System

Referee - John Thomas
Jerry Quarry.............. 1 3 0 0 0 .... 0 0 0 1 0 = {5}
Floyd Patterson.......... 0 0 1 1 1 .... 0 1 1 0 0 = {5}

Judge - George Latka
Jerry Quarry............. 1 3 0 0 0 ..... 0 0 1 2 0 = {7}
Floyd Patterson......... 0 0 1 1 1 ..... 1 1 0 0 1 = {6}

Judge - Dick Young
Jerry Quarry............ 1 3 0 0 0 ....... 0 0 0 1 0 = {6}
Floyd Patterson.........0 0 1 1 1 ....... 1 1 0 0 1 = {6}

Independent Press-Telegram {Dave Lewis}
Jerry Quarry............ 1 3 0 0 0 ...... 0 0 0 1 0 = {5}
Floyd Patterson........ 0 0 1 1 1 ...... 1 1 1 0 1 = {7}

Quarry knocked Patterson down twice in round 2, so all the scorers gave him 2 extra points in that round, in addition to the 1 for winning that same round. That gave Quarry a total of 3 points won in round 2 alone.

However, Patterson knocked Quarry down in round 7 (iirc), but only received 1 point total for winning that round. In other words, he was not given any extra credit for the knockdown he scored!

Anyone else see some inconsistency here?

If the scorers had credited Floyd the extra point for the knockdown he scored, he wins a majority decision.



Similar highly questionable scoring happened a little over four months later in the second go round.

Patterson won both Quarry fights, in my estimation.

[yancey]

Floyd Patterson - Jerry Quarry 'I'

Scoring by California Points System

Referee - John Thomas
Jerry Quarry.............. 1 3 0 0 0 .... 0 0 0 1 0 = {5}
Floyd Patterson.......... 0 0 1 1 1 .... 0 1 1 0 0 = {5}

Judge - George Latka
Jerry Quarry............. 1 3 0 0 0 ..... 0 0 1 2 0 = {7}
Floyd Patterson......... 0 0 1 1 1 ..... 1 1 0 0 1 = {6}

Judge - Dick Young
Jerry Quarry............ 1 3 0 0 0 ....... 0 0 0 1 0 = {6}
Floyd Patterson.........0 0 1 1 1 ....... 1 1 0 0 1 = {6}

Independent Press-Telegram {Dave Lewis}
Jerry Quarry............ 1 3 0 0 0 ...... 0 0 0 1 0 = {5}
Floyd Patterson........ 0 0 1 1 1 ...... 1 1 1 0 1 = {7}

What did Quarry do that was so extra special in round 9 that he was awarded 2 points on Latka's card?

There was no knockdown in that round!

The scoring system used in Cali, at least back then, was notorious and produced some very controversial decisions for many years.

Nice guy Floyd should have never agreed to the second fight being held in California.

[scorpio83]

Il Duce, before you post anything else, could you please tell me how good was Jerry Quarry? What was his strength and weaknesses? I know that he was one of best contenders during the Golden Era of the Heavyweights. This source was from wikipedia with Quarry's overview. "Quarry was a durable and smart counter-puncher/action fighter, often noted for his surprising agility in the ring. He had fast hands, an excellent left hook, and punched well with both hands. He also had a remarkable chin, although his major flaw was a tendency to cut easily and the bad luck to box in the era of Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Patterson and Norton." What they don't mentioned was how good was his skills, left jabs, right hand, body attack, footwork, defense, speed and cut.