Return of the Ringmaster

First he was Cassius Clay, the lovable loudmouth who was going to "whup the world." Next he was the mysterious Muhammad Ali, spouting Black Muslim rhetoric. Then, slapped with a draft-evasion conviction and stripped of his title, he became the self-styled "champion of the people," a martyr to the black cause. Last week, 3 1/2 years after his last professional fight, he was Cassius Clay again --at least in the ring where, shuffling, stabbing and slugging as of old, he pummeled Irishman Jerry Quarry into swift and violent submission.

The return was a long, hard time coming. Repeatedly thwarted in his attempts at a comeback, Ali said earlier this year: "I'll believe I have a fight when I'm in the ring and I hear the bell." The bell finally sounded in Atlanta, a city that one member of the black-and-white group of promoters described as "too busy to hate." In sanctioning the bout, Mayor Sam Massell termed it a "demonstration of democracy." Georgia Governor Lester Maddox called it a travesty. Said he: "I hope he gets beat in the first round by the count of 30." Unable to block the bout legally, Maddox proclaimed a day of mourning.

Surprise Ending. Instead, it was a night of wild celebration. In an astonishing show of affluence and affection, black celebrities from all walks --Hank Aaron, Whitney Young, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Mrs. Coretta King, Julian Bond--converged on Atlanta to hail the return of the deposed champion. Streams of customized Cadillacs rolled up to the city's ancient Municipal Auditorium like chariots arriving for a Roman circus. Men in matching mink hats and coats and white knit jumpsuits vied for attention with glittering women in spangled gowns and beaded maxi coats. Diana Ross, looking supreme in a see-through blouse and a swept-wing hairdo she called "the liberated look," was upstaged by two chesty twins who bounced down the aisle in gold-sequined gowns cut to the navel. Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby provided some comic relief with a mock sparring match in the ring. The surprise ending came later, when 100 of the spectators, responding to engraved invitations to a postfight party, went to the suburban home of a local black gangster --and were met by a team of gunmen who relieved the guests of more than $100,000 in cash and jewelry.

The fight itself was a surprise of another sort. Ali, a puffy 238 Ibs. six weeks ago, had forced himself through a crash training program: "Up at five, to bed by ten at night. No lunch, no breakfast, my stomach burnin' with hunger, fightin' temptation, women of all races callin' me on the phone, and the only thing keepin' me from goin' out the window is thinkin' of that short walk to the ring, and all those faces there, lookin' at me and sayin': 'Why it's a miracle! He looks sooo beautiful.' " He did, weighing in last week at a rock-hard 213 1/2 Ibs. His measurements in fact differed in only one respect from those taken at his last fight in 1967: he had added 1 Jin. to his biceps. "I'm hitting much harder and sharper now," Ali boasted. It sounded like the old Cassius con, but his manager, Angelo Dundee, was quick to agree: "He's so close to being the Ali of 3 1/2 years ago that it's scary."

Ali tried to look scary when the two heavyweights met in center ring. Thrusting his nose into Quarry's face, he growled: "You're in trouble, boy." Snarled Quarry: "Shut up and fight." Ali did. Repeatedly scoring with lightning combinations, Ali made Quarry seem like the clumsiest novice--"a catcher" in ring parlance. Resorting to a lunging left hook, Quarry more often than not found himself swinging at air as the sidestepping Ali scored with jabs and uppercuts from all directions. In the second round Quarry did manage to bull his way in to land a hard right to the body. But when he tried it again in the third, Ali caught him with a head-snapping right hook that cut Quarry's left brow to the bone.

Bleeding profusely. Quarry returned to his corner where his father Jack, a former fighter, took one look at the gash and said: "If you go out there, you'll never fight again." Quarry leaped up in protest, but his trainer, Teddy Bentham, grabbed him. "Sit down," he said. "You heard what your father said." Bentham then threw in the towel and the referee declared Ali the winner on a technical knockout.

Hardly Destitute. The fight, which was beamed via TV satellite to Europe, South America, the Far East and the Soviet Union as well as to more than 200 sites in the U.S. and Canada, will net Ali upwards of $900,000. Though he needs the money to pay off legal fees, he is not exactly destitute. During his 43 months of professional exile, he made TV commercials, toured the college lecture circuit at $1,500 an appearance, received a $225,000 advance for an autobiography, appeared in a Broadway musical, made the rounds of the talk shows, got remarried, fathered three daughters and bought a 15-room house on Philadelphia's Main Line equipped with 15 color TV sets, 22 telephones and a swimming pool.

Just 28, Ali figures that even richer days are ahead. Present prospects are that he will meet Argentina's Oscar Bonavena in six weeks, possibly in Manhattan where his state boxing license was recently restored after a federal court found his banishment "arbitrary and unreasonable." Then on to Joe Frazier, the officially recognized champion, whom Ali refers to as "the No. 1 contender." Promoters predict that the Ali-Frazier matchup will gross a record $10 million--provided that Muhammad is still around to collect. That decision lies with the U.S. Supreme Court, where his five-year prison sentence for draft evasion is still under appeal.

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