Hashup And Hashish In Sweden

A strange country, Sweden, the poet Wordsworth thought, a place of leafless trees and icy crags that tinkle like iron and, always, that pervasive melancholy. But the weather and "feel" of Stockholm would have betrayed the poet most of last week. Warm and softly beautiful, the city seemed idyllic and very far from reality, with the Viking-like barques gliding through the canals, the band playing in the park, sunlight glinting off statuary and American draft evaders sitting under trees smoking hashish.

That was Stockholm before it all faded suddenly. It figured that Russian winter would trail Floyd Patterson into town when he left his training camp on the edge of the Baltic Sea, and at fight time Saturday night being in Solna Fotbollstadion did, indeed, feel like being on an icy crag. The sky was an Ingmar Bergman sky, strangely colored, and a cold wind beat through the stands as 32,000 people, bolstered by beer and aquavit, sat and waited for Heavyweight Champion Jimmy Ellis to provide a quick and absolute final end to one of the strangest careers in ring history.

But that was not to be. Patterson, the Captain Ahab of boxing who, many think, should retire and cultivate his neuroses, created a thrilling piece of work, making his finest (perhaps only) fight since he knocked out Ingemar Johansson in their second match. With some style and much grit, he took Ellis across 15 rounds and, with a spectacular last stand in the 13th and 14th rounds, missed by a thread winning his third heavyweight championship. It was a fight that only the most idiotic of the large Patterson cult believed he would survive beyond the early rounds. The Swedes left the stadium visibly moved by his performance and almost apoplectic over the decision. Floyd? Well—just listen to Floyd.

"The referee decides," said Patterson. "I have nothing to say about the decision. I do not wish to detract from Jimmy's fight."

"Do you know Ellis may have suffered a fractured nose in the second round?" he was asked.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I busted his nose."

His pacifist stance and passiveness in close defeat, which long ago became tiresome to many, seemed particularly eccentric this time. He was hardly passive in the ring, though, as he stayed with Ellis in a tough, cruel fight that saw the WBA champion come fearfully apart. The nose was fractured in the second round, and it streamed blood until the end. Ellis also damaged his left thumb in that round and took a nasty gash over his right eye (six or seven stitches) when Floyd caught him with another jab after the one to the nose.

Unquestionably, the nose distracted Ellis and hurt his fight, but Patterson's effort cannot be underrated. If you believe that Ellis won (the referee, Harold Valan, the only official, scored it 9-6 but many newsmen had it exactly opposite), he most certainly won it in the 15th and final round. The fight appeared even until that point, but then Ellis, sensing his dangerous position, the screams from his corner piercing his ego, finally stepped out and did what he was supposed to do, did what he is capable of. He had fought a long, hard fight but he reached back for what was left in his hurt body and laid it all on Floyd. He dug a left into Floyd's liver and stayed right on him and in the middle of the round he caught him with a pair of whistling right hands, and Patterson was on his way out. Patterson's eyes stared out blankly now, pain masking his face, but Ellis could not finish him.

Patterson was in serious trouble other times early in the fight, once in the third round from a left hook and a right hand in close and then again in the fifth from two right hands, one high on the head that seemed to freeze him in midair. Yet he escaped what he calls "the black spot," that one flashing moment of instant darkness that has haunted him throughout his career, usually early in a fight, when he seems to be most vulnerable. Over the years he has been knocked down 22 times, eight times by Johansson alone.

The fact that Ellis did not knock Patterson out or even down does not necessarily reveal any inability to punch. Twice after catching Patterson, Ellis appeared to hold him up, refusing to let him drop. A number of things combined to make this fight close. First, Ellis, by his own admission, had underestimated Patterson. Second, Ellis, though he looked extremely sharp in the gym, was constantly worried about his weight, so much so that he did nothing the final two days but sit around eating "like a pig." He weighed in at 198 pounds, much too heavy for his style of fighting. Third, Ellis concentrated entirely too much on his right hand, and too often failed to put punches together. Fourth, Patterson made some rounds look quite close by volleying, with some of his old notable hand speed, in the last minute.