The Sports Dope

They're still giving Cassius Muhammad Ali Clay a raw deal. Now that he's proven his boxing ability can embarrass anyone in the ring today, the press has turned to attacking Ali's "inhumanity." We saw the closed-circuit version at the Boston Garden, and it seemed to us that the champ was in a class far above the Chicago monkey by any and every standard.

Terrell threw barely a clean punch all evening. With his gloves and arms stationed in front of his face in the boxing version of a prevent defense, the 6'6" monster walked doggedly at Clay, cornering him against the ropes time and again. Then once he had the champ tied up, he started swinging furiously with his right, showering blows alternately on Ali's kidney and nape. Variations on the attack included a headlock before he started the pounding and a straight-on butt where he would plant his lowered head in Ali's midsection and drive at a turnbuckle. Among the few punches Terrell delivered face on were sneak shots delivered after referee Harry Kessler signalled a break.

Kessler, it might be noted, added to the wrestling match impression by duplicating the ineffectualness of the officials who scamper around the Arena Annex ring on Thursday nights. The TV screen showed Terrell pounding the champ below the belt, and there was Kessler on the blind side, running a second too late to a vantage point where he could see the foul.

True, he did issue two warnings in the whole 15 rounds, but they resembled the referee's scolding when the Graham brothers both enter the ring, pick up a fallen opponent, and, each carrying one leg, run him full speed into the turn-buckle.

Clay, it is true, won't lower Texas's publicized hate quotient by moving to Houston, as thirty seconds of lip-baring during the pre-round-one rule recitation amply displayed. But he never whimpered about Terrell's consistent fouling. Any humiliation he administered was both fully merited and infinitely more legitimate than the challenger's behavior. And if the champ did denigrate his beaten opponent, it was only after Terrell had alibied his defeat with a story of having an eye rubbed on the ropes, a claim that seemed totally unfounded.

Even more admirable than the way he bore Terrell was Ali's toleration of Howard Cosell, the New York big-mouth who now seems to have exclusive rights to conversations with Ali. Howie used every opportunity in the early period of Ali's reign to speak condescendingly and broadly intimate that every win was worthless or a fluke. Now he devotes his words to each challenger's courage and gameness. When Cosell started praising Terrell to Ali's face, we had faint hopes that the champ would make good his pre-fight threat that he would turn on the sportscaster next.