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By Root 599 0

went on to win an Olympic title, and he is a good professional now. Drake has a choirboy face, wavy hair, and big, powerful calves—the kind that, when you see them on a fighter, you know he is going to depend on a lot. Small torso, big legs, you know he will keep moving. Big torso, short legs, he has to be a slugger. Big torso and big legs, he’s a heavyweight. The other fellow, Rinzy (for Rizzerio) Nocero, had the big torso. When Nocero came up the aisle, he had with him Freddie Brown, who had patched Marciano’s eye the night before; Whitey Bimstein, Freddie’s partner in the training and seconding business; and Jimmy Coco, their colleague who carries the bucket. It was a corner strong enough for a champion, and it indicated that somebody, somewhere, thought Nocero had a future. It turned out no. They all looked self-conscious, because they are sociable fellows and they felt lonely. A cowbell clanged in the obscurity, and a few brave Brooklyn voices called on Ray and Rinzy. It was the kind of match that in a small neighborhood club would have produced a near riot. But the few hundred fans who had followed the boys from Brooklyn were lost in the empty vastnesses. Fight writers I knew had arrived, and were taking up their posts behind the typewriter ledges around the ring. I felt sheepish alone with the expert in the cash section. It looked as if I were spying on my acquaintances.

At the bell, Nocero rushed in and threw a wicked left hook. Because of Marciano, all the Italian fighters now want to be bulls. When Johnny Dundee, fast and flashy, was the Italian idol, the kids from Italian neighborhoods were all bouncing off the ropes. Drake would jab Nocero silly, cross the right, hit him between the eyes with the top of his angelic head, and then try to tie him up. Seeing Nocero struggling to throw him off, my expert got the idea that it was jujitsu again. Nocero was just trying to get his arms free. The public conscience had found a fellow expert in the row in front of us, which was just beginning to fill up. This second expert had a voice like the Honorable Ray H. Jenkins.

“Seeyit?” my man would scream. “The dirty dog!”

The gentleman in front would say, “Whah, that referee would let him carry a stick of dahnamaht into the ring and hit th’othuh fellow ovuh the haid with it.”

All this time, Nocero was catching elbows and heads, and Drake was lying on him. I thought Drake was murdering Nocero, but the two experts thought Drake was being abused. “Seeyit? Seeyit?” the first expert would yell when Nocero swung himself around with Drake leaning on him, as in the start of a dance team’s whirl, with the girl hanging on the man’s neck. But Rinzy is a strong boy, and he took some of the bounce out of the Drake legs by belting their owner in his narrow waist. The experts outguessed me on the decision, though. They said Nocero would get it, and he did. What we agreed on was that it was a bad decision. The next time I saw Freddie and Whitey, they said Nocero had deserved to win, but I think they had a parti pris. “Anyway,” Whitey said, “they’re bound to fight again.” Between rounds, they had used everything on their boy but an iron lung, but Whitey said the kid had been feeling great.

After that, the main bout was mild, but it had its moments of beauty. Senor Zulueta, older, more somber than when I had last seen him, with the weight of maturity on his bones—he went 135—has no more rash moments. Perhaps the gay breath of carnival could again inspire them, but I doubt it. He is like one of those vaudeville jugglers who never changed their routine, or Braque, who paints only little dead fish. He jabs, with exquisite deftness, and blocks the counter by turning his forearm, so his opponent’s glove strikes his elbow. If he misses the jab, as the most accomplished juggler sometimes misses a trick, he follows with the elbow, a more effective weapon. So, just as in the case of the juggler, you don’t know whether he has missed on purpose. With his right he hits just as accurately, but without putting much behind it. He does not care to advance