Sport: The End for Eddie

To his 20-ft.-square world. Heavyweight Eddie Machen brought unquestioned skill and uncommon pride. A strong, lithe Negro from Redding, Calif. Machen was no classic heavyweight—only 23 of his 41 victories were by knockouts—but he was easily the most talented boxer in a division that was dominated by a bunch of classless pugs. He taunted opponents gleefully (“What’s the matter—can’t you hit me?”), beat them with eye-catching combination punches. Until 1958 he was undefeated; he ranked as the No. 1 challenger and seemed sure to get a crack at the title held by Floyd Patterson. Then Machen had one dreadful fight. Traveling to Sweden, he took on little-known Ingemar Johansson, was standing idly in mid-ring when Johansson unloaded his “toonder and lightning” right hand and flattened Machen with a flash first-round knockout.

Eddie Machen was never quite the same afterwards. Unable to get good fights, he had money troubles, suffered severe fits of depression. When he did fight, Machen showed enough of his old form to climb back until he again ranked as the No. 1 challenger—but a title fight for a man knocked out so easily seemed far away. Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston might agree to fight, but would anybody come to see it? Fortnight ago, on a highway near Vallejo, Calif., a state policeman found Machen in a parked car with a loaded gun, muttering about committing suicide. Bundled off to Napa State Hospital, he went berserk, knocked out two attendants. Last week, described by doctors as an “acute schizophrenic,” his boxing career apparently at an end, Eddie Machen, 30, was committed to a mental hospital.