THE NOBLE ART
Cassius at Philippi?
DENIS BROGAN
Nevertheless, 'the champion of the world' is still the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. We may tend to ignore this since Britain, the inventor of modern boxing, is no longer a country producing great stars. Perhaps the role of the Marquess of Queensberry has put people off? But a world champion is a world champion.
The fact that the two contestants in the most recent fight for the championship were black, represents two things: one, an impor- tant sociological theory that we owe to the late A. J. Liebling and the other to separat- ing the men from the boys which has the unfortunate result of writing off most British practitioners of the Noble Art.
It was Liebling's theory, which he several times discussed with me, that what made good boxers was hunger. Some of the greatest pioneers of the Noble Art were Jews. For example, it was either Dutch Sam or Mendoza who invented the uppercut— I have forgotten which, And of course there have been very distinguished Jewish practi- tioners at all weights right into this century. But more and more prosperity has done away with the desire of young Jews to come up the hard way by becoming profes- sional boxers. It has also done away with the desire of the Irish to come up the hard way by becoming professional boxers. So we have Italian champions at all weights, and above all we have Negro champions.
Of course, the Negro in the boxing world, like the Negro in the baseball world, was artificially kept back or indeed bleached— for certain distinguished quasi-white boxers were in fact Negroes, as some baseball players were Negroes before this sad fact was admitted. Cassius Marcellus Clay or, as he now calls himself, Muhammad Ali, and Joe Frazier seem to be the best heavy- weights in the world, and they are among the blackest heavyweights in the world. My learned younger brother Willie has assured me that the Negroes are extremely well shaped to be boxers. The distribution of their muscles, the length of their legs, their powers of rapid movement make them al- most certainly better equipped for the game than are most white athletes, especially, if I may say so, British athletes who are ill designed for the highly competitive world of first-class boxing. And it is one slight sign of grace that few in the United States, as far as I know, seriously resent the fact that it was two black men who fought for
large sums of money and a great world honour last week. True, my old friend Alastair Cooke seems to be unnaturally exultant at the defeat of Cassius Clay (or Muhammad Ali), apparently because Muhammad Ali has no military enthusiasm for defending Christian civilisation in Vietnam. On the other hand, Joe Frazier is a patriotic Christian who would fight in Vietnam if he were called up. I can't really share Mr Cooke's indignation at the lack of martial spirit on the part of Muhammad Ali. (It may be pointed out that the great Jack Dempsey, perhaps the last white champion of the world who could be seriously considered as a rival to the great black boxers, managed to avoid military • service in the First War.)
Boxing has for a long time past provoked some unpleasant emotions. There are serious historians who think that the American rage with what they thought was the cheating of John Carmel Heenan, the Benicia Boy, when he fought (under the old bare knuckle rules) the English champion Sayers was more serious than the irritation provoked by letting css Alabama get to sea during the Civil War. And certainly an astonishing example of racial and national passion in this great sport was that, for example, whites found it intolerable that Jack Johnson (one of the greatest boxers who ever held the world championship) should be insulting the white race by his easy mastery, and they induced Jim Jeffries to come out of retirement to slap down the 'Uppity Nigger'. Alas, Jeffries, 'stupid, slow, long past his best, never at his best a match for Johnson, was a set-up for the first black Champion of the World, who was also extremely bland, intelligent, and possessed of an ironical sense of humour.
It is rather odd for me to remember that I have seen Jack Johnson, John L. Sullivan, James J. Corbett, Georges Carpentier, and some of the other great boxers of this century. Monsieur Carpentier runs a very smart bar near the Etoile, and when I last saw him surveying the scene, he looked in first-class condition. But the greatest of champions since Johnson was Joe Louis. He was taken for a ride by promoters but revenged himself on Nazi pretensions when, in his second bout, he made a monkey of Schmeling, the Nazi champion.
It seems from the admirable account in the Times—by far the best account of the match I have seen—that both Muhammad Ali (otherwise Cassius Clay) and Joe Frazier showed good manners after the fight which perhaps came easily to both of them. Of course, Cassius Clay or Muhammad Ali had and has the great fault of being an 'uppity nigger', but that must be forgiven in so great an artist and one who in the immediate moment of defeat showed grace under pres- sure. There is reason to hope there will be a return match which will make still more money for both of these eminent athletes, and it is possible, though very unlikely, that a white hope may turn up who is actually white and can be left alone in a ring with Muhammad Ali or Joe Frazier for more than a minute. And for a great part of the world there will be a certain amount of Schadenfreude in the thought that this most celebrated sporting event in the world now seems to be the property of the Blacks, and even the most flat-footed, toothless K u-Klux- Klanners can hardly deny the evidence of the ring. And even he is no longer going to take out his rage in murderous assaults on Negroes, as happened when Jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries.
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