Free at Last?

Jimmy Ellis looked beautiful as he bounded into the ring resplendent in a gold satin robe with sparkling lapels. He pranced. He danced. And, while 18,079 fight fans in Madison Square Garden roared in anticipation, he tauntingly aimed a flurry of punches at Joe Frazier standing across the ring. Twelve minutes and four rounds later, Ellis looked awful. Eyes glazed and face puffed, he sat in his corner while Manager Angelo Dundee sponged his forehead and asked him questions. No response. Then Dundee pinched Ellis, pounded his knees and shoved ice down his trunks. Still no response. Mercifully, as the bell sounded for Round 5, Dundee surrendered, thereby awarding the heavyweight title bout to Frazier on a technical knockout.

Prefight speculation had it that Ellis, the fast and classy stylist, might be able to outmaneuver Frazier, the brawling club fighter. Circling and backpedaling, Ellis did score with enough combinations to win the first round. Yet, by the third round, it was apparent that he needed something besides style. Grinning after one exchange, Frazier chided his opponent: "Sissy, you can't hit. I'm takin' everything you got, man, and you ain't hurtin' me." In the fourth round, Frazier bulled Ellis into the ropes and felled him with two crunching left hooks. Ellis staggered to his feet only to be bludgeoned to the floor again by another murderous left. The bell sounded at the count of 5, and Ellis somehow made it to his corner to lose sitting down. Frazier, a disciple of Martin Luther King's, hopped around the ring crying "Free at last! Free at last!"

Free, he meant, of the controversy about who is the real world champion. Before the fight, Ellis was recognized as the titleholder by the World Boxing Association, while Frazier ruled in six U.S. states. The conflict produced such absurdities as two sets of posters for the fight, one giving Ellis top billing and the other placing Frazier on top. Now, with his 22nd knockout in 25 consecutive victories, Frazier holds the title of "undisputed" champion.

Or does he? There is plenty of dispute from Muhammad Ali (ne Cassius Clay), the fellow whom Ring magazine still lists as the No. 1 heavyweight. Shortly after he was stripped of his title in 1967 over a draft-evasion charge, Muhammad prophesied that he would return to spook the sport: "There I'll be, wearing a sheet and whispering, 'Ali-e-e-e-e, Ali-e-e-e-e.' I'll be the ghost that haunts boxing, and people will say Ali is the real champ and anyone else is a fake." Last week, at a telecast of the Frazier-Ellis fight in the Philadelphia Arena, Ali wasn't whispering. He shadowboxed in the aisle and wailed: "I want Frazier! I'm starting my comeback now!"

Even at Leavenworth. Nonsense or not, the presence of "the loudmouth," as he calls him, bugs Frazier. At 26, Joe is just two years younger than the champion-in-exile, and he knows that not until he defeats Ali in the ring can he completely shuck the "fake champ" label. Frazier's manager. Yancey Durham, has always told him: "Every time you're fighting, you got to think you're in there with Clay." Repeatedly asked about the former champ, whose conviction is currently under appeal, Frazier says: "I'd love to fight Clay, even at Leavenworth, if they jail him."

Though chances seem remote, last week one of Ali's lawyers announced that he was opening negotiations for a match with Frazier in Toronto in May. With no other worthy opponent in sight, Frazier and the rest of the boxing world could only savor the prospect. After last week's bout, Frazier allowed that he was going to take his 30% share of the gate, which should come to $300,000 or so, and go to Las Vegas to debut his nightclub singing act with a nine-piece combo called the Knockouts. Then, he said, "I'm gonna wait until that other fella can fight me. I'm gonna sing rock 'n' roll until that Muhammad Ali or Cassius Clay or whatever his name is can fight me." Of such stuff are dreams--and ghosts--made.

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