Clinches

It was a tired referee that staggered out of a Manhattan ring last week where awkward Light-Heavyweight Champion Paul Berlenbach had been defending himself against flat -footed Challenger Billy ("Young") Stribling. The latter had spent all but three of 15 rounds hugging close to his rangy opponent, out of range of a vague but blasting left hand that has sent better men than he to sleep. It was the referee's frequent and unpleasant duty to pull the two wrestlers apart and insist that they box. Only in the seventh to the ninth round did Stribling look anything like the fast-stepping, hard-hitting leather-pusher that he was when he qualified as a challenger. Critics eyeing his flabby lethargy toward the end of the encounter muttered: "Overtrained!" None disputed the decision given Berlenbach, even in newspapers of Stribling's native Georgia.