The Croatian Candidate

"The only thing Clay is afraid of is that he might not get a chance to fight Chuvalo," says Angelo Dundee, the champion's manager. Although the epithet is no doubt infelicitous in this decade, Chuvalo is patently a White Hope and, consequently, big box office.

"White Hope," Chuvalo said the other night, driving back to camp from Avon Avenue. "It makes you feel funny. But it's preposterous to call me a dirty fighter. Now, I don't mind the image of being a rough, tough fighter."

At camp, Ungerman, who had driven out with Mel Newman, one of the backers, showed a film of the Jones fight he had had specially made. Although Jones has complained that Chuvalo kept stepping on his feet, Chuvalo did not appear at all dirty. When it was pointed out that he had often held Jones about the waist with his left arm, Chuvalo seemed genuinely contrite, said he had not realized he had done it so often and would, in the future, desist a little. "It's all different on film," he said. "I didn't realize Jones threw so many punches. Even when I knocked him down it seemed different. It's closer on film than I thought it was."

Ungerman then showed the third Patterson-Ingemar Johansson fight; prior to the Jones fight, Chuvalo had studied a film of the Machen-Jones fight. "We find the movies very refreshing," says McWhorter. McWhorter is not one of those stereotyped trainers who lounge, arms draped over the uppermost ring rope, occasionally muttering to their fighters to keep their lefts up. In fact, McWhorter gets right into the ring with Chuvalo when he is sparring—a somewhat comic figure in a fedora, brim turned up all around, a tattered yellow coat sweater and a pair of shapeless trousers, low in the scat, that might well have been bought secondhand from a burlesque comedian; he is slightly crouched, peering as closely as a dentist, continuously exhorting. McWhorter has also devised a drill that Chuvalo calls "hand beat." Wearing the same outfit, with the addition of a pair of 16-ounce gloves, McWhorter has Chuvalo practice combinations by striking the gloves, which he holds in various positions. He is, furthermore, an advocate of long, strenuous workouts; Chuvalo has boxed as many as 12 rounds in a single session but, then, Chuvalo is what they call "a good trainer." Says Ungerman with awe, "One night, when George was training for the Jones fight, I came out to camp, and there he was outside swinging a sledge hammer, hitting a tire prior to going to bed."

While the movie unfolded, Chuvalo lay back on the rose carpet in the sunken living room; two pillows, one of which Ungerman had solicitously provided, supported his head. Chuvalo was staying in a bungalow which houses the waitresses during the months that the golf course is playable; he trained in the clubhouse beneath an elegant chandelier and before a mural which depicts a country scene much in the manner of Grandma Moses. The sparring partners, with the exception of Cody Jones, who was in his room painting an elaborate portrait of a lady with finicky hair ("I like to paint hair," Cody says), sat around eating Ungerman's barbecued chicken. It was, Chuvalo estimated, about the 50th time he had seen the film.

"Look at that," McWhorter was saying in the dark. "Look at that. Patterson won't hit back. He's a leader. See that. See that, George. I think we box him a little bit. See how he misses, George. You step back. He come in like that, you hit him, he won't wake up until tomorrow. Look at that. Look at that. He's off balance. He's worse than an old washerwoman. We're not Johansson. He try to lunge with the left with us—he dead. When I turn George loose, he going to go. Beat him and beat him and hit him and hit him. To the body. To the head. I'm going to get him so he can fight for three minutes.

"He's going to weigh 209 for Patterson. For Jones, we supposed to come in 209. When we left camp we were weighing 206. Something must have happened—we come in 211.1 like that weight—209. Under 10 his body feel faster. Over 10 it feel heavy. You not, but it's psychology. Feel faster, you faster. Those little numbers."

Chuvalo never got to see Johansson knocked out that night; the film kept sticking in the middle of the fifth round, the frame abruptly burning—a violent, darkening image. When the lights were turned on, Chuvalo took one of his pillows over to the wall, stood on his head and did a neck exercise.

"Marciano used to do that," Ungerman said.

Beyond the great picture window, as on the Feast of Stephen, the snow lay round about; the glass itself was remarkably cold.