Clay out of contextno threats, all work

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32540, 25 February 1971, Page 24

Clay out of contextno threats, all work

(By JOE NICHOLS, oj the New York Times News Service, through N.Z.P.A.) MIAMI BEACH.

Cassius Clay has stepped completely out of character, surprising long-time acquaintances as well as some 200 paying customers at his training session.

Known as much for his love for conversation as for his prominent role in heavyweight boxing history, Clay was in the ring for the equivalent of 10 rounds yesterday and never uttered a word.

No threats, no pleas for the little people, no predictions of what he was going to do to Joe Frazier in their clash for the heavy-weight championship of the world at Madison Square Garden on March 8.

Just work —and work was what he certainly did in the steamy gymnasium. CROWD APPRECIATIVE He did his usual shadow boxing, then three rounds each with Stanford Harris, a hydrant-like heavy-weight, Rufus Brassell, a shifty light heavy-weight, and Ronnie Harris, a clever welterweight. Despite Clay’s silence, the onlookers appreciated what went on and they loudly applauded at the end of each round.

Once his ring stint was over, Clay wrote a few autographs and went directly to his dressing room, his expression not changing from the serious frown that it had had all during the ring work. In the dressing room, for a time he was quiet. And then he began to talk, quietly and without any of his theatrics—at least at first. He gave a run-down of his regiment for preparing for a fight and stressed that running was the most irfiportant part.

“That’s the main thing,”

he said. “It toughens up the body. The sparring and shadow boxing are important but without lasting power you can’t do much in the ring.”

When asked why he was so quiet today. Clay gave—for him—an unusual answer. “Talking is not important,” he said. “And neither is that staring that goes on in the ring at the introduction to the fight. The fight is the big issue.” TRAINER TALKATIVE But if Clay was quiet, his trainer, Angelo Dundee, was not. He forecast Frazier’s only chance of winning would be by an early knockout. “Clay will win because he is a super heavy-weight,” Dundee said. “He’ll win because it’s meant to be, but he cannot get careless in those first rounds because Frazier is a good fist fighter. “However, Frazier cannot win after the sixth. If Clay does not make a mistake he'll take it by a knock-out in the | eleventh or twelfth round..”