Who Fights Who

Ex-Sailor Bob Murphy wades into a fight with the free-swinging enthusiasm of a shore-leave sailor for a barroom brawl. Last week, facing Jake LaMotta at Yankee Stadium, Murphy was right in his element, throwing punches with the thumping regularity of a piston--if not with a piston's precision.

In the first round, Murphy's wild uppercuts, jabs and crosses chopped a cut in LaMotta's chin. LaMotta, whose own style is modeled on an alley-fighter's slugging tactics, never had a chance. By the end of Round Seven, bleeding from seven cuts, his eyes puffed almost to closing, and gagging on his own blood, durable Jake LaMotta, whose proudest boast is that he has never been knocked down, had had enough. Too weak to rise from his corner for Round Eight, LaMotta called it quits.

"Workin' at Our Trade." The victory brought Murphy just what he was looking for: a probable shot at the light-heavyweight (175-lb.) title held by Joey Maxim. The probability also goes to show the tangled state of U.S. boxing. Only four months ago, Seattle's Harry ("Kid") Matthews knocked the stuffing out of Murphy (one judge scored it 8-2). Since then, Matthews has knocked out two heavyweights and last week, far from the glamour of Yankee Stadium, he was knocking out another, Heavyweight (210 Ibs.) Bill Peterson in a Boise, Idaho arena. But Matthews was as far from a crack at the title as ever. Reason: the International Boxing Club, which controls most of the big boxing arenas (and most of boxing's title holders) in the U.S.

After Murphy's victory, I.B.C. Promoter Jim Norris was asked if Matthews was offered a chance at Maxim's crown. The answer: "No." To Matthews' manager, Jack Hurley, who has refused to sign a contract with I.B.C., the answer was expected. "The I.B.C. dictates who fights who and when and where. They're big business. But I'll fight; I'm trying to keep the independents [managers and boxers] in business . . . Better we stay out here, workin' at our trade."

Everybody Gets Rich. Taking a professional skeptic's view of the whole affair, New York Herald Tribune Columnist Red Smith summed it up with a tart comment on who fights who these days and why: "You can't blame Hurley, you can't blame Murphy and you can't blame the promoter [Norris]. Chances are all three will win in the end. Let Matthews be passed up just a little longer, and there'll be such outraged cries from coast to coast that the bout will make everybody independently wealthy."

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