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 West Germany's Peter Weiland and the new idol of Iberia, Jose Manuel Ibar Urtain, 26, a heavy-thewed, bull-necked Basque whose professional record showed 27 fights and 27 knockouts.

All that Matters. Two nights later, that record was not even remotely jeopardized. At 1:37 of the seventh round, Weiland hit the canvas for the fourth and last time. No matter, really, that Weiland, a flabby 232 lbs., had fairly waddled around the ring, that at one point he had all but apologized to Urtain for landing a punch, that after he had been counted out he bounced back to his feet. What did matter to the sellout crowd of 13,000 at Madrid's Sports Palace was that Spain had its first European heavyweight champion in 37 years--and at last Spanish sport had a Numero Uno to lead the nation out of the doldrums of bad bulls and mediocre matadors.

The man who has his countrymen shadowboxing is prototypically Basque, not only in physique but also in the delight he takes in exercising his remarkable strength. And in betting on it.* Stone lifting is a passion among the Basques, and as a youth Urtain never missed a chance to accept a wager. At the age of ten he won 25 pesetas for moving a 175-lb. stone from a pathway; at 14 he acquired a chicken by hefting a 300-lb. stone five straight times. He turned pro at 21 but soon ran out of competition, even though he gave his opponents ever larger handicaps. Barely taxing his 19-in. biceps, he set his official record with a 414-lb. stone, lifting it 14 successive times before stopping; the rest of the field sensibly quit. Urtain had become a champion without challengers and without a career. Two years ago he decided to turn to boxing.

It took Urtain barely 17 seconds to belt his first professional opponent through the ropes. Since then, he has averaged about five minutes to a knockout, or slightly less than two rounds per fight. In so doing, he has generated a furious debate between those who regard his opponents as so many patsies and those who see him as "a Titan," "a Hercules," a larger-than-life hero who is miraculously real. Intensifying the "hurricanes of polemic," as one sportswriter puts it, is Urtain's utter lack of finesse as a boxer. He is as unpolished as the stones he used to lift, a slugger who at every outing shows a pervasive ignorance of his trade's finer points. Basically, he is a swarming, dervish-like flailer who leaves ringside observers arguing about which was the actual knockout punch.

How he would fare against a rated U.S. heavyweight such as Jimmy Ellis or Leotis Martin is anyone's guess. There is considerable question as to how well Urtain can take a punch; his jaw seemed suspiciously fragile in the Weiland fight when a patty-cake left by the West German put him in a daze for a few moments. Still, Spaniards have ultimate faith in their boy. Insists Roberto Duque, president of the Spanish Boxing Federation: "If Urtain ever learns to box, he'll be world champion."

* Urtain's father used to win bets by lying on the floor of the family tavern and allowing booted farmers weighing well over 200 lbs. to jump off a counter onto his chest. He died of an ulcer.

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