Double K.O.

When British heavyweights climb into a ring with U.S. heavyweights, they usually wind up on the floor. Two more ended up that, way last week, on different sides of the Atlantic. The news was that they looked good before they looked bad.

In Manhattan, it was the highly touted heavyweight champion of the British Empire, Bruce Woodcock, an ex-Yorkshire railroad hand. Against tubby Tami Mauriello, No. 3 U.S. heavyweight, Woodcock showed he could dish it out, but he failed to keep after his man when he had him on the run. In the fifth round, the two were drubbing away at each other's midsections when Mauriello suddenly lifted his fire and landed on Woodcock's jaw. The Englishman, unbeaten in 25 fights, went down and tottered up a little too late. The referee had already counted ten.

In London, bull-shouldered Freddie Mills, late of the R.A.F., went down six times before the punishing fists of U.S. light-heavyweight champion Gus Lesnevich. Six times Mills got up and almost beat Lesnevich's face out of shape. In the tenth, Freddie forgot to duck again; he got up at the count of nine, a helpless target. The referee stopped the fight.

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