"Best Bum of the Lot"

Garrulous Jack ("Doc") Kearns, 67, knows how it feels to manage real champions; he handled both Jack Dempsey* and Mickey Walker. He dismisses all the big fellows fighting today with one word--"Bums"--but adds quickly that he is handling "the best bum of the lot." His bum is Light Heavyweight Joey Maxim (real name: Joseph Antonio Berardinelli), 26, a clever, stand-up boxer from Cleveland with a machine-gun left and an accurate right.

A month ago, when the two of them arrived in Britain for Maxim's go at the light-heavyweight title, Kearns got on his soapbox as soon as the Queen Elizabeth docked at Southampton. "Joey," he proclaimed, "takes a punch better than any fighter I ever handled, and that goes for both Dempsey and Walker." Without much doubt, 174-lb. Joey Maxim had been underrated too long. What the trade knows as a "spoiler," i.e., a clever boxer who enjoys making less refined punchers look like chumps, he has taken a lot of the bounce out of better-known heavyweights. Four years ago, Joe Louis observed after Maxim dropped a decision: "He's still got that Army rust. But he's clever, a good boxer. You'll see . . ."

"Get Out of It, Joey." The problem this time was to keep Maxim from overtraining. With five solid weeks of training before his boat trip, Joey reached his peak three times before the fight and had to be told to rest. But when he returned to his drills in Jack Solomon's cramped, smoky

London gym, Joey belted sparring partners with a crispness that belied his onetime reputation as a cream-puff puncher. By last week, as he climbed into the ring at Earl's Court to fight Champion Freddie Mills for the light-heavyweight championship of the world, he was the 1-to-2 favorite.

Champion Mills, a Dorset man with a huge head and bushy black hair, came lunging across the ring at the bell. He started throwing punches to the body. Then he threw a long overhand left with a discus thrower's motion; it crunched into Maxim's face and almost ended the fight. But Joey covered up and held on.

From Maxim's corner, Manager Kearns kept up a stream of chatter: "Step back. Get out of it, Joey." His fighter, one ear cocked for instructions, did as he was told. In the seventh, Joey got the go-ahead signal. He began exploding left hooks and right crosses against Mills's jaw. He loosened two of Freddie's teeth; the champ's handlers fished them out of his mouth after the round. They fished out a third tooth after the eighth.

"Why Shouldn't I?" The end came after one minute and 44 seconds of the tenth round, when a hard left to the solar plexus left Mills standing helpless. Maxim followed with a pistonlike left and a short right to the head; Mills went down and sank back on his haunches like a bemused Buddha, wiping his nose as the referee counted him out.

There was a sporting British cheer for the new light-heavyweight champion. The loudest voice of all was that of Manager Kearns, who felt so good he decided he might as well claim the heavyweight championship too. He told London: "The N.B.A. calls Ezzard Charles the champion. You guys call Bruce Woodcock the champ. So why shouldn't I call my guy the champ? Let 'em all be champs."

* In an A.P. poll of sportwriters last week, Dempsey was the overwhelming choice (251 votes) for fighter of the half-century. Second: Joe Louis with 104 votes.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.