Scorecard

WILL AND ABILITY

Santa was very good to Dick Tiger this Christmas. Although a 12-to-5 underdog, he won the light-heavyweight championship from Jose Torres a few weeks ago and now he has been selected Fighter of the Year. If these distinctions were awarded for gentility, Tiger merited them, for he is a wholly admirable man, but, in the main, championships are won by a superior force of arms, and Tiger did not make this point against Torres, to say nothing of his feckless showing in losing the middleweight title to Emile Griffith last April.

Indeed, Torres was manifestly the better fighter and proved it—when he chose to fight. That he did this so infrequently is inexcusable. All Torres had to do was jab and the fight was his, but even this small effort was beyond him. Dick Tiger won not because he was more able but because he was more willing.

Acknowledging Torres poor showing, the New York State Athletic Commission has suspended him for medical reasons. Just what is the commission trying to say? Six weeks before the fight there were reports that Torres was suffering anew from pancreatitis, the malady that had kept him idle for a year after he won the title. Five doctors examined him and four found he was healthy and fit; the fifth said he was healthy but unfit because, reportedly, he was suffering from a psychosomatic ailment. Evidently the commission is now admitting it might have been hasty in allowing Torres to fight, as he must be reexamined before he may have another bout. But at the same time the commission is saying it still thinks it's all in Torres' head.

We feel that the commission's action is laudable, but its reasons are needlessly muddled, and the real issue has been obscured. The public has a right to expect a high standard of effort from a fighter, particularly a champion, and a commission should demand it. If there is any doubt that a fighter has given less than he is capable of, his purse should be held up pending an investigation. A fighter, such as Torres, whose performance was so palpably feeble, should be suspended and placed on probation until he demonstrates he wants to or can fight. He most certainly should not be rewarded with a quick return bout, as has been rumored in this case.

But the onus is also upon the commission. Any time there is a possibility that ticket buyers will be shortchanged, there should be an investigation—but not after the fight—and the fighter put on notice. There have been too many post-factum revelations in boxing: an injured hand, a bad back, a diseased pancreas. It is time for all concerned to realize that no fight is preferable to a bad show.

As for the Fighter of the Year—isn't there a heavyweight who calls himself Muhammad Ali?

BREATHTAKING LOGIC
A few months ago the Mexican Olympic Committee declared in a similar vein that much of the altitude problem was in the athletes' heads; "altitude psychosis" was the diagnosis. Presumably, nothing has swayed the committee from this opinion, but now, in almost the same breath, or lack of it, it has announced that the equestrian events have been moved from Mexico City (alt. 7,347 feet) to Oaxtepec (alt. 4,500 feet), because horses, no matter how imbued with mental health, might break down in a more rarefied atmosphere.

PETIT PRIX
Hollywood's latest stab at motor racing, a three-hour Cinerama film called Grand Prix, opened last week in New York. It contains approximately 10 minutes of unique and marvelous car stuff. There are scenes in which the viewer, in effect, shares the cockpit with a driver and rides the straights and corners of famous racecourses at Grand Prix speeds. In these episodes the film is a richer experience than watching the real thing at the circuit. The catch is that the rest of Grand Prix is as rewarding as driving on the Hollywood Freeway at 5:15 p.m. No fewer than three love triangles are formed to fill out the picture's excessive length. While there is precious little love in any of them, the small, shining corner occupied by Franchise Hardy, the French pop singer, may be enough to keep you from falling asleep between races.

TWOFER