Cops And Robbers In Mexico City

He was doubled up at the bottom of the steps of his corner, and he was crying. Somebody had kicked him in the spine. His face and body were covered with blood, most of which belonged to Sugar Ramos. He reached out for a pail and put it over his head. A stone, just missing his trainer, glanced off the pail, and his handlers raised him to his feet and tried to carry Carlos Ortiz, the lightweight champion of the world, back to his dressing room.

The Mexico City cops, who could not police a flower show, were in front of the champion, their pistols drawn. Halfway to the dressing room, one of them put his gun in his holster and turned and took a swing at the head in the pail. He missed, but he did catch another policeman with his follow-through. The two cops began throwing punches at each other. Some of their colleagues stepped in and arrested them.

By this time Ortiz and his handlers had made it to the dressing room. Beneath the window of the room hundreds of Mexicans, waving their fists and flapping their mouths, assaulted the police who were guarding the entrance to the fighter's room. The rest of the mob screamed and threw handfuls of Mexican peanuts at the window. "Cover the window. Cover it," Ortiz shouted. Dabbing a towel at a small nick on the outside corner of his right eye, he then sat down calmly.

"I'll kill Ramos," he said, his voice rising with each word. "I'll kill him, if that is what they want. I'll commit homicide if that is what the commission wants."

"I wouldn't send him back in there for 50 million dollars," said his manager, Bill Daly, his head and face smeared with blood.

Meanwhile Sugar Ramos, his left eye bulging and cut deeply just below the bone ridge, sat by himself in his corner of the ring. The arena echoed with his name. He did not acknowledge the roar, but instead sat rigidly on his stool. He was waiting for Ortiz to return to the ring.

" Mr. Daly," said Sergio Vela, the secretary of the Mexican boxing commission, who had made his way down to Ortiz' dressing room, "you have 10 minutes to return to the ring. If you do not, Ramos will be declared the lightweight champion of the world."

"Listen, you punk," said Daly, "you couldn't get us out there if you put a machine gun on us."

"In that case," said Vela, "this is a fraud, and you will not receive one penny. Sugar Ramos is now the champion."

"Get lost, ya bean eater," Daly shouted. " Sugar Ramos is the champion of nothing, and you people are nothing. You aren't even good bandits. The Mexican people ought to be ashamed of what happened here tonight." And that was how the fight for the lightweight championship of the world ended last Saturday night.