Champion from Algeria

Raul ("Little Mouse") Macias was obviously among friends. Every Mexican who could make it was in Los Angeles' Wrigley Field last week screaming for Macias to murder that little Frenchman in the other corner. But French Bantamweight Alphonse Halimi couldn't understand a word--and couldn't care less. A grown-up guttersnipe from the back alleys of Algeria's Constantine, Alphonse learned long ago that the guy with the busted bottle, the quick pocketknife or the padded fists, is the only enemy.

So Alphonse went to work with a street fighter's will. He put his head down, leaned on his opponent and swung. He had weighed in at 117 1/4 Ibs., but he worked like a heavyweight, swung looping haymakers, careless of where they landed, confident that they hurt. Macias (118 Ibs.) had little chance to use his shifty speed. When he had his man worn down, Alphonse stepped back and began to box. Even the pro-Macias Mexicans in the crowd of 20,000 fell into silent acquiescence when the officials gave Halimi the decision that made him bantamweight champion of the world.

Dead Ends. Bull-necked little Alphonse Halimi is the latest of the ring toughs that France breeds in its brawling hinterland on the far side of the Mediterranean. Even Parisian roughnecks from la zone (outer slums) are no match for scrappers who slug their way out of the free-for-alls of such dead ends as Algiers' Bab-El-Oued, a kind of Disunited Nations where Spaniards, Italians, Maltese and French mix it up with Moslem natives. Former Middleweight Champion Marcel Cerdan, killed in a plane crash in 1949, was born in the Foreign Legion town of Sidi-bel-Abbes. Former Bantamweight Champ Robert Cohen beat his way out of Bone in Algeria. French Featherweight Champion Cherif Hamia hails from Guergnon, another swarming Algerian town.

Battling Bachelor. Halimi, who carries Cerdan's picture with him everywhere, is as tough as any of them. The youngest of 18 children of a poor Jewish postal inspector, he quit school at twelve and became a tailor's apprentice. Five years later he sewed himself a pair of green and red trunks, decorated them with a Star of David, and became a boxer. As an amateur, he was champion of France in 1953, '54 and '55. When he turned pro in 1955, he went back to Algeria to begin his career. Along with every other fighter who preferred to do his scrapping with his fists, he beat it out to France again when the nationalist rebellion closed North Africa's prizefight palaces. He lost only one of 21 bouts on his way to the title.

A bachelor, who says he is married to La Boxe, Alphonse, 25, takes his profession seriously. Before last week's fight he prayed for victory in a Los Angeles synagogue; he still wears his handmade trunks in every fight, even when TV's demand for a readily identifiable black or white pair means putting other trunks on top of them. Now there are no outstanding challengers to bother him. Back in Paris, he will have time to relax and enjoy his $50,000 purse. His fans will find him with Cherif Hamia and the rest of les durs (the tough guys), rolling down the boulevards resplendent in the turtleneck sweater, tight, pointed shoes and busted nose that are the cachet of his trade.

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