Clawed by a Tiger

"Are you really a cannibal?" the reporter asked. "Yes," replied Dick Tiger, white teeth gleaming wickedly in his walnut-colored face. "I ate up the governor of Nigeria because he was making the natives restless--and right after that, I got real hungry and ate half the British garrison at Nsukka." The odds makers decided that the muscular Igbo tribesman was only half kidding. Last week, as he stepped into the outdoor ring at San Francisco's chilly Candlestick Park, Tiger was a 1-2 favorite to beat one of boxing's most durable champions: Middleweight Gene Fullmer, 31, the brawling, broken-nosed Mormon elder who won his title back in 1959, has successfully defended it seven times since.

Cauliflowers & Scars. Fullmer was puzzled by the odds. "I don't understand it," he said. "I'm the champion. I've fought everyone who deserved a shot at the title --and I've beaten them all." He might also have pointed to age: at 33, Tiger was two years older than Fullmer. But age can be deceptive, and the experts rated Fullmer a tired, sorely battered champion.

An artless, flailing swinger, he learned his trade in tough Utah mining towns; as a professional, he won his 55 fights (v. 4 losses) over a twelve-year career simply by wading in, accepting three punches for the chance to land one roundhouse of his own. "I don't have any particular ability," he admitted. "I rely on condition." But the punishment he took showed in his ravaged face--the cauliflowered ears, the network of tiny scars across his forehead and cheeks, the huge mounds of scar tissue that bulged above his eyes.

In Tiger (real name: Richard Ihetu), Fullmer faced someone just as strong and a lot fresher. Of 59 fights since he turned professional in 1952, Tiger had won 21 by knockouts; not once had anyone knocked him off his own feet. Some of the opponents were easy marks--and his list of conquests included such improbable names as Black Power, Mighty Joe, Super Human Power and Easy Dynamite (whom he kayoed in one round). But he won the British Empire middleweight crown in 1958, earned a shot at a world title with sharp, knockout victories over Britain's Terry Downes and Cuba's Florentino Fernandez. "I think I know how to beat Fullmer," he said before the fight. "Stay on top of him all the time."

"Daddy! Daddy!" At the opening bell, Fullmer characteristically folded his arms in front of him to ward off punches and lunged forward--straight into a barrage of overhand rights and crisp left hooks that snapped his head back and opened a small cut at the edge of his left eye. Desperately, Fullmer began to elbow and butt, trying to bull Tiger into the ropes. Ruthlessly, the Nigerian Tiger mimicked him, tactic for tactic. By the ninth round, blood cascaded down the champion's left cheek. Sitting horror-stricken at ringside, four-year-old DeLaun Fullmer screamed, "Daddy! Daddy!"--and his mother cradled his head in her arms. The ring doctor examined Fullmer's cuts between rounds, seemed about to stop the fight; when the champion protested, the doctor shrugged and climbed out of the ring. At the end, Fullmer's eyes were puffed almost shut, his face was covered with cuts, and his white satin trunks were smeared with blood.

The judges' decision was unanimous and lopsided. Dressed in pajamalike native costumes, half a dozen Nigerians swarmed through the ropes to congratulate New Champion Tiger, while Manager Marv Jenson led the battered ex-champ sadly out of the ring. Afterward came the expected talk of a rematch--but Fullmer was not so sure. "If I feel like I can't take him," he said, "there won't be one." And he added: "You can't be sorry when you get beat by a better man."

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