But Cuba, Si, U.s., No

After performing dismally for the first 2� rounds, Teofilo Stevenson, the illustrious Cuban heavyweight, hit Jimmy Clark on the chin with a right hand, which, as it turned out, was a kindness. While the blow crossed Clark's eyes and left him standing senseless, a loser by a knockout with just 23 seconds to go in the third round, at least it did spare the U.S. fighter from being robbed of the decision.

Although Stevenson had done little more than survive, slowly and awkwardly, while trying to hold the swarming Clark at bay, a check of the scoring showed that Stevenson had been leading two rounds to none in the eyes of one judge and was no worse than 1-1 on the card of another. And it is not without coincidence that those judges were both Cuban.

The third judge at Madison Square Garden last Friday night, Paul Konnor of the U.S., had Clark winning both rounds, which is the way everyone else had it, except for the two gentlemen from Havana.

Until the final minute, when he first dropped Clark with a hook and then destroyed him with the tremendous right, the best that could be said of the 6' 5" Stevenson was that he was having an off night. He was ponderously slow, often confused, and he certainly little resembled the legend who twice won Olympic and world titles.

"There is a fear in Cuba that Stevenson has lost something," said one Cuban later. "This is not the first fight lately that he has not looked like himself."

There was that, plus Clark, a 6'2�", 204-pound, 24-year-old senior at West Chester (Pa.) State College, who had fought and lost to Stevenson once before, but had found his weakness. To be effective, the Cuban needs a lot of room; in close, he is almost helpless. Stevenson's only response to infighting is to put his giant hands on his opponent's shoulders and to shove very hard. It works, but by amateur rules it also costs the shover points, a fact seemingly ignored by Romelio Santiago and Arturo Rodriguez, the two Cuban judges.

Throughout the first two rounds, and for most of the third, Clark kept Stevenson badly flustered with crisp jabs, jolting hooks to the body and darting moves to close quarters, from where he was free to do just about anything he wanted.

"He jabs too much," Stevenson complained later.

Until the end, the fight had gone exactly as Clark had planned it. And it was nearly a carbon copy of his fight with Stevenson in Havana's Sports Palace last February. There Clark had lost on a split decision: two Cuban judges gave it to Stevenson, both by 60-59; the American judge had scored it for Clark, 59-57.

"That decision was completely absurd," Clark had said before Friday's matches against the Cuban team, which the U.S. lost 8-3. "The decision was very unjust and I am looking forward to fighting Stevenson again. He doesn't intimidate me. That doesn't mean I don't respect him. I do. To tell the truth, it's an honor to box him. After all, he's the Olympic and world champion and he's got stature. He is supposed to be a puncher, but he never had me down, or even near it, in the last fight. I don't know about his right hand because it never landed. He kept missing with it; I could hear it going past my ear. Nevertheless, I am aware of it and I'll try to avoid it."