For All the Cheese

It isn't easy to ignore Cassius Clay. But the World Boxing Association is giving it a game try. The W.B.A. is anti-Black Muslim, anti-return-bout contracts and antinoise. It also controls what there is of boxing in 39 states (notable exceptions: California and New York). So last September it declared the heavyweight title vacant, and last week in Chicago it staged a new "world championship" fight between two harmless creatures named Ernie Terrell and Eddie Machen.

Terrell, 25, is a 6-ft. 6-in. rock-'n'-roll singer who uses his right hand mostly for shaving: in a sparring session, newsmen noted that he threw 23 consecutive left jabs. Machen's main claims to fame are that he was out pointed in twelve rounds by Floyd Patterson, flattened in the first round by Ingemar Johansson, and confined for five weeks to a California mental hospital. The best fight of the evening occurred when two fans in the $20 seats unaccountably started punching each other in a dispute over tickets and somebody knocked over Terrell's water bucket. Then the boys on the program took over.

Ernie's basic strategy was to jab, feint and collapse on top of Eddie. Eddie's strategy was martyrdom. In the first round, Ernie bloodied Eddie's nose; in the 15th, he tackled him and knocked him to the canvas. In between, Ernie massaged the back of Eddie's neck and the seat of his pants. For good measure, he gave the referee a couple of pats too. That won him a unanimous decision that 6,587 fans booed for 15 minutes. Said Joe Louis, who spent the evening suffering in Ernie's corner: "Terrell fought like an amateur." But try telling that to Terrell, who immediately started chattering about a fight with Clay. "I'm the champion," he insisted. "The W.B.A. says so." Hooted Cassius: "Why don't they just admit that I'm the king of kings?"

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