The Sweet Science - A. J. Liebling [55]
After the last preliminary Whitey Bimstein, the trainer of one of the participants in it and an old friend of mine, came down from the ring, his face wearing an expression designed to apprise the world that there had been a miscarriage of justice; the officials had called it a draw. Whitey’s fighter, less experienced in mimesis, looked as if he were glad to have escaped with his life.
Now Marciano’s faction began pushing its way toward the ring along a narrow path left between the massed undertaker’s chairs on which the International Boxing Club mounts its patrons. Cops and bodyguards cleared a passage, and then the fighter appeared, wrapped in a blue bathrobe with a cowl over his head. He would have four men in his corner: Columbo, Weill, Goldman, and Freddie Brown. Weill would handle the strategy, Goldman the tactics, and Brown the surgery. Columbo was there just because he couldn’t live if he weren’t. Goldman and Brown are old fighters—small men with mashed noses and quick eyes. Columbo is young, and in his white sweater he looked like a college cheerleader. Weill is onion-shaped and authoritative; Marciano, when I first met him, used to call him “Mr. Weill.” The demeanor of all was confident, but what was especially impressive was Marciano’s back when he had seated himself on the stool in his corner. It looked as wide and as immovable as a blue wall. There was a brief fashion show as Floyd Patterson, a young light heavy who is coming along, and Sugar Ray Robinson were introduced from the ring. They were both sharp, but I thought Robinson, in yellow haberdashery and a black suit, had it.
At about six minutes after eleven the fight began, and it was lucky I had Dr. Moreno’s scenario with me, because from where I sat I missed occasional fractions of action. In the June fight, Charles had moved out faster than Marciano, stepping in and hitting him away with rights. This time, however, he was acting like an intelligent, cultured, well-mannered, sensitive person, gracefully poised. I could but recollect the time-honored Egan’s description of Richard Humphries, the Gentleman Boxer, in his second contest with Dan Mendoza, at Stilton in 1789. “Humphries had lost that commanding style which was so prominent in his last attack; and he seemed to labor under an impression that he had a superior to encounter with; he did not maintain his ground with his usual confidence, but suffered his opponent to drive him, and even, upon some occasions, there was a sort of shrinking from the blows of his adversary.” Marciano, forcing the fighting, missed most of his punches, but he came back to his corner grinning. For him it was a pretty good start.
Meanwhile a considerably more acrimonious round had been contested behind Marciano’s corner, where his seconds, coming down from the ring, had found themselves with nothing to sit on but photographers and account executives’ friends. Columbo, hopping up and down with excitement—he was probably the only person in the Stadium so affected by that round—had aroused the wrath of an Athletic Commission inspector sitting to my right. The inspector ordered Columbo to sit down, so that he, the inspector, could see; if Columbo had sat down, he couldn’t have seen. The function of a second during action is, as Freddie Brown says, “to see if he can see anything” worthy of communication to his principal between rounds. Weill said to the inspector, “He got a right.” Columbo started to say something, too, but Weill cuffed him on the back of his head. Marciano,