Waiting for Cassius

Round and round the manager circled, pudgy fists flailing, alligator shoes tap-tapping on the hardwood floor.

"Jab!" he shouted. "Weave! Bob! Jab!

Jab! Hit that moving target! Bust his nose! Rattle his teeth! Cut his eye!"

No emotion registered on the fighter's coffee-colored face. Blacksmith's arms folded across his chest, the giant looked impassively at his tubby little mentor and sighed: "Yessir, Mr. Benbow, yessir."

Thunder from the Right. Boxing has been Hugh Benbow's love ever since he left home at 15 with $50 pinned to his underwear. Forty fights later, Lightweight Benbow quit the ring to become a businessman, but his affection for the sport remained. He made one fortune in costume jewelry, lost it in the 1946 market crash, made another in Texas oil. Now 63, Benbow is back in boxing as manager and father confessor to Cleveland ("Big Cat") Williams, 33, who on Nov. 14 in Houston will fight Cassius Clay for the heavyweight championship of the world.

Benbow first saw Williams in 1960, when the Big Cat was knocked out in the third round by Sonny Listen. Even on his back, Williams was impressive. Part Negro, part Cherokee, he stands 6 ft.2 1/2in. and weighs 215 lbs.; his reach is 83 in. (4 in. longer than Clay's), and his 48-in. chest tapers to a 32-in. waist. "That fella could be great if he was trained properly," Benbow decided, and in 1962 bought up his contract for $20,000. Over the next two years, Williams won seven fights, lost only one, developed a thunderous right-hand punch to go with a devastating left hook. Finally, in November 1964, the Big Cat got a real chance: he signed to fight Ernie Terrell for the World Boxing Association's version of the heavyweight title. Benbow gave Williams a crisp new $100 bill and told him to celebrate.

Magnum in the Belly. Cleveland did, and it almost cost him his life. Flagged down for speeding, he got in a scuffle with a Texas state trooper--and caught a .357 magnum bullet in the belly. Four operations (plus 30 days in jail) later and 58 lbs. lighter, he went to work on Benbow's 2,600-acre cattle ranch in Yoakum, Texas, tossing 80-lb. hay bales to rebuild his atrophied muscles. Finally, last June, Williams scored a third-round TKO over Tod Herring, the tenth-ranked heavyweight contender, thereby won a shot at Champion Clay.

Manager Benbow insists that the Big Cat will demolish Cassius; "Clay is a stinker, a bum, a clown," he says. But regardless of what happens Nov. 14, he figures that his and Williams' share of the pot will top $500,000, and he has already decided how to spend it. "I'm going to have a stable of 40 to 50 young fighters," he says. "I want them from every race and creed, from all over the world." Benbow plans to build a woodworking plant on his ranch; his boxers will spend their days turning out "the finest cabinets a man can buy," do their training evenings. He already has advertised for applicants in The Ring and claims to have received 50,000 responses--including one from a would-be boxer in the South Pacific islands of Tonga who stands 6 ft. 2 in. and weighs 224 lbs.

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