What Do I Have to Do?

Since he won the heavyweight championship in 1949, Ezzard Charles has knocked out five of the six challengers for his title without convincing fight fans that he is a worthy successor to Joe Louis. In Madison Square Garden last week, against reformed Playboy Lee Oma, 34, Charles tried again.

Challenger Oma made the demonstration as hard as possible. Though he appeared to be walking duck-footed into the champion's best punches, Oma never seemed to get hurt. In his flailing eagerness to please, Charles inadvertently struck low blows in the fifth and eighth rounds, and the crowd booed him. Even the fouls didn't seem to stagger Oma much. In the tenth round, nonetheless, before the crowd realized that Oma had actually been hurt, Oma came apart. Slack-jawed and befuddled from a final series of lefts & rights to the head, he staggered vacantly around the ring as the referee stopped the fight.

Champion Charles had not convinced the fans. They made the Garden ring with their verdict: boos for an uncommonly dull fight. All this left gentlemanly, music-loving Ezzard Charles nonplused and a bit plaintive. Said he: "I don't know what I have to do to convince them I'm the champ. I guess I'm like Stephen Foster. He wrote a lotta good music and they didn't appreciate him until he was dead."

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