AFTERTHOUGHT
Box on, lads
JOHN WELLS
With only a few short weeks to go before the Big Fight, writes Crispin Thugge, the Man with his Cauliflower Ear to the Can- vas. I confidently predict victory for Teddy Heath, the battling I-Speak-Your-Weight Machine from Broadstairs, against the reign- ing champion, Harry Wilson. For the last few action-packed days of training I have been a privileged ringside spectator in the downstairs gym at Smith Square as tough, phlegmatic Teddy has given as good as he has got, round after gruelling round, with old sparring partners like Enoch 'Knocker' Powell, the Demon Barber, and Wee fain Macleod, the piston-fisted midget of the square ring. It may be said that I am biased, but for my money Teddy has only to stay on his feet for the twenty-one days and nights of this marathon contest, and the coveted title will be his.
I am not saying it will be easy. His oppon- ent is a master of ringcraft, never above slipping a flat-iron into his glove, butting his man in the stomachs feigning dead or kick- ing the referee in the crutch if he feels a decision has gone against him. Wilson's foot- work is dazzling, a blur of twinkling plimsolls that makes his victims dizzy and bewilders the crowd. Coupled with his capacity for dis- tracting tactics, his habit of pointing at the
ceiling, the floor, behind his adversary's head or waving to the press benches before ham- mering home the damaging left and right to the groin, his speed and stamina make him a fighter who is not to be sniffed at.
Against this Heath offers honesty, sincerity, and a passionate belief in fair play. He con- fesses himself appalled, as he swills his mouth out with a beer-bottle full of cold water be- tween rounds and submits to the vigorous towelling of `Chinkie' Douglas-Home, his impassive, almond-eyed trainer, by the pros- pect of even touching gloves with Wilson socially. On the few occasions that they have met, under the showers or on the massage slab, Heath has always returned Wilson's ogling smile with a stony lack of recognition, and his condemnation of the title-holder's methods and tactics in private is scathing in the extreme. But the question will inevitably be asked, is moral uprightness enough? Physical uprightness, the critics will claim, is more difficult to maintain. How will Teddy Heath do it?
One shortcoming always attributed to this bulky boy from the seaside with the light- house grin is his failure to get through to his opponent: his static and inflexible manner that leaves him standing silent and immobile in the middle of the ring while an opponent dances round him punishing his front, back and sides with a flurry of whirling gloves,
after which he makes a textbook right hook in front of him when the adversary, panting and out of breath, is resting against the ropes.
Some commentators interpret this as a lack of sensitivity, a lack of instinctive timing, even a lack of any idea of what
the fight game is about. But they are wrong. Beneath the pale, champagne-bottle-shaped exterior, the gloves hanging limply on either side of the neatly-laundered shorts, beneath the dazed expression and the beguiling half. smile there is a raging passion to see Wilson spiralling out of the ring. Once let that passion be tapped, however lightly, and we shall see boxing from Heath such as we have dreamed of.
He has also been accused of a certain uneasiness about human relationships. Spar- ring recently he struck the corner-post three or four mechanical blows, only to be apprised by repeated kicks to the seat of his shorts from his partner, the Demon Barber. that he was facing in the wrong direction. He turned to confront the Barber, and then, rea- lising what he had done, turned back to apologise to the corner-post. It was at this moment that a kick of more than usual force from the Barber lifted him from the canvas and left him hanging on the ropes. But he is unlikely to make the same mistake with Wilson: his trainers at Smith Square have painted a rough caricature of the other boxer on his punchbag, and it is a delight to see this stock musical pugilist hammering home those mechanically accurate blows with a restrained rage that could all too easily be mistaken for boredom.
There are those who are expecting a walk- over: the odds at the back-street book- makers' present Wilson as the favourite. But I believe that such people are in for a shock. When Wilson begins his bloody dance round the Maypole, pummelling his chubby victim into a terrible jelly, he will not reckon with the bottled rage that lurks in the open gloves. the venomous hatred behind that tolerant smile. Then Wilson will go too far. And I predict that the eruption of our long-awaited SuperTed, rolling inexorably after Shifty- boots as he scurries from corner to corner for protection, smashing the champion's face into a bruised symphony of anguish and finally lifting him into the lights with that mighty right hook that no one has ever seen but that we Tory commentators dream of. will be a vision to inspire his supporters through those three long weeks of slogging misery.
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