Sport: Bloody Mess

It was a roughhouse brawl. They hit with the backs of their gloves, they hit below the belt, they hit after the bell. They spat blood, dripped blood, slobbered blood. It was the sort of fight a reputable U. S. citizen would be horrified to see in a waterfront saloon. Yet last week this primitive performance was billed as a top-notch heavyweight boxing match—staged in New York's Yankee Stadium to select a September challenger for the world's championship. And 18,000 presumably reputable U. S. citizens paid up to $11.50 a seat to watch it.

One of the contenders was 30-year-old Max Baer, onetime world's heavyweight champion who had not been in a ring for 15 months. The other was 24-year-old Lou Nova of Alameda, Calif., an inexperienced second-rater. By the eighth round, Has-been Baer was staggering, half-blind, and choking from the blood he had been swallowing ever since the third round, when an inch-long gash was opened on the inside of his mouth. Young Nova, unable to wind up the gory performance any other way, kept pecking at Baer's bleeding mouth and eye, kept pummeling his hideously swollen cheek, kept pounding wildly at his wheezing body.

In the eleventh round, the referee finally stopped the butchery, awarded a technical knockout to young Nova, who was in pretty bad shape himself. The 18,000 reputable U. S. citizens, sitting under the stars in Yankee Stadium, cheered long and loud. They thought it had been a good fight.

On June 28 Champion Joe Louis is scheduled to defend his title against barrel-bellied, beer-bibbing Tony Galento, another unfit.