Sport: Boxing: Numero Uno

In the Cantabrian ports under a steely drizzle, the boats lie abandoned, as if it were a night of atomic catastrophe. Now 30 million people clench their jaws and trace terrible right-hand uppercuts in their mind's eye. A farmer near Cestona is said to have wagered he will eat his motorcycle tires should the challenger fail to win.

So ran part of the prefight coverage in Madrid's daily Pueblo, and the dramatic, portentous tone was by no means inappropriate. All Spain was indeed locked into the recent match between...

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