By Mike Dunn

The reign of Jimmy Ellis as World Boxing Association heavyweight champion is a testimony to the wonders of Providence.

The man born 65 years ago in Louisville, Ky., wore the title of WBA heavyweight champion from April of 1968 until February of 1970. He wasn't a champion of dubious distinction by any means, but he had more than his share of good fortune. To his credit, Ellis made the most of the opportunities that came his way.

Consider that Ellis came along during what many consider to be the golden age of the heavyweight division. He started his career as a middleweight in 1961, but he was a 195-pound heavyweight by the mid-1960s. As a heavyweight, Ellis faced a real problem. To earn the crown and a place in boxing history, Ellis had to somehow beat out both Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, two of the all-time greats.

Ellis possessed quick hands and a stout heart. He had an excellent one-two combination and a surprisingly stiff right cross, which enabled him to score a number of early knockouts. (His final record of 40-12-1 includes 16 KOs in the first or second round!) What Ellis didn't have was the speed to contend with Ali, or the punching power to contend with Frazier. Under normal circumstances, those deficiencies would have left Ellis on the outside looking in. If he beat enough fellow aspirants to the crown, fighters who were among the top 10 like Jerry Quarry and Thad Spencer and Oscar Bonavena and Karl Mildenburger and Leotis Martin and Ernie Terrell and former champ Floyd Patterson, maybe he could earn a shot at the title and a decent pay day. If he did get his title shot, what then? Asking Ellis to outspeed Ali or outpunch Frazier would be like asking a sprinter to outrace an automobile. Ellis would give his best, no doubt, but he certainly wasn't going to whip Ali or Frazier.

Enter Providence, the hand that weaves its wonders in mysterious ways. For Jimmy Ellis, there would a double dose of fortuitous events that would propel him from the realm of fringe contender to the rarified air of heavyweight king.

First, Muhammad Ali would be stripped of his title by the World Boxing Association in the spring of 1967. When Ali refused to be inducted into military service on religious grounds, the WBA acted swiftly to dethrone the champ. That left the field wide open for Ellis and Frazier and a number of other hopefuls. Ironically, Ellis and Ali were both from Louisville and had come up through the ranks of the amateurs together. The two had become good friends over the years. Ellis, in fact, owned a victory over Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) during their days as amateurs. After Ali won his Olympic gold medal in Rome in 1960 and turned pro, Ellis was eventually hired on as Ali's sparring partner. Ali's misfortune in 1967 turned out to the foundation of Ellis's rise to prominence.

The second piece of fortune was Joe Frazier bowing out of the WBA heavyweight tournament. After stripping Ali of the title, the WBA selected what it believed to be the top eight contenders -- Ellis, Frazier, Quarry, Patterson, Spencer, Bonavena, Mildenburger and Terrell -- for an elimination tournament. In the opening round of the tournament, scheduled for August of 1967, Ellis and Frazier were to be paired off. It would have meant a swift demise to Ellis's title hopes.

Instead, Frazier opted out of the tournament. In March of '68, Frazier was matched instead with an old foe from the Olympics, unbeaten Buster Mathis, in the brand-new Madison Square Garden. Frazier took apart the 243-pound Mathis in 11 rounds -- avenging a loss to Buster in the Olympic trials of 1964. For his handiwork, Joe was subsequently named the champ in New York and five other states.

Ellis, meanwhile, was matched against a tough Philadelphia heavyweight named Leotis Martin, a converted southpaw with a record of 24-1, the best mark of any of the eight men in the tournament. On August 5, 1967, at the Houston Astrodome, Ellis and Martin got it on.

Martin was tough, to be sure, but he wasn't Frazier. Ellis staggered Martin twice with sudden right-hand leads in the first round. Martin rallied in round two, establishing a seesaw pattern for the fight. Ellis rocked Martin with another hard right in round three and rocked his foe again in round five. Ellis won both of those rounds handily. Martin had won round four, though, and went on to take rounds six and seven as Ellis appeared to tire. Ellis came back with a hard jab and timely combinations to win round eight.

Going into the ninth round, it was technically anybody's fight. Ellis had a huge advantage, though. He had opened a severe cut inside the upper lip of Martin in the middle rounds (with another right-hand lead) and the blood was flowing freely. The cut finally became bad enough by the middle of the ninth round that the referee was forced to call a halt.

Ellis, who was the underdog, had crossed the first hurdle on the way to the throne.

The next obstacle was Oscar Bonavena, the lumbering, powerful oak of a prizefighter from Argentina. Bonavena already had fierce ring battles with Frazier and George Chuvalo under his belt and carried thunder in either fist. He came into the ring in Louisville in December of '67 with a record of 31-3-1. In his first-round bout in the tourney, Bonavena had decked Mildenburger four times en route to a lopsided 12-round decision. The overconfident Bonavena had little regard for Ellis, which may explain why he was willing to come to Louisville to fight him. Bonavena, the favorite, declared that he would score a second-round knockout and that he would try not to hurt Ellis too much. After all, if Bonavena could put Frazier on the deck and beat Chuvalo and Mildenburger, how was Ellis going to withstand his two-fisted assaults?

Ellis responded with what was probably the best fight of his career. Using jabs to keep the bigger man at bay and hard rights to stun him time after time, Ellis handled Bonavena with surprising ease. Ellis fared better against the rugged Argentine than both Ali and Frazier, knocking him down twice while winning a clearcut 12-round decision. In the fourth round, a sneaking, stinging right to the jaw -- Ellis's specialty punch -- sent Bonavena stumbling backwards to the canvas. It was a stunning sight, like watching a man chase a bull. It was supposed to be the other way around. Bonavena, who had obviously not trained properly, nevertheless came on in the middle rounds when it appeared that Ellis was tiring. Ellis was nothing if not resilient, however. He rebounded, as he did after faltering in the middle rounds against Martin, and seemed to get stronger in the eighth and ninth rounds. Bonavena, foiled in his attempts to land cleanly with blows to the head, was beginning to take on an air of desperation. In the 10th round, another stinging right and a left hook to the chops from Ellis caught the South American clumsily charging in and sent him down again. It was over at that point and Bonavena knew it. Bonavena was out of steam and had little to offer in the final two rounds of the fight.

Ellis held on for a very satisfying victory. After defeating favorites twice, he now had a berth in the WBA finals. Ellis would face the winner of the Quarry-Spencer semifinal bout, which was scheduled to take place in February of '68 at the Oakland Coliseum.

Spencer had beaten Terrell in convincing fashion in the opening round and was seen as the No. 1 contender going into the Quarry fight. The hard-punching Quarry had built an early lead in his first-round match with Patterson, knocking down the former champ twice. Quarry appeared to get tired in the middle rounds and gave the impression of coasting his way to victory. Patterson came on strong, but Quarry's early lead held up and was the difference in a narrow decision.

Quarry went into the Spencer match with the stigma of being a six-round fighter. Quarry wilts in the second half of fights, was the rap against him. Like Bonavena against Ellis, Spencer went in very overconfident. Spencer boasted that he would thoroughly trounce the 22-year-old bomber.

The fight must have been a shock to Spencer from the outset. Quarry rose to the occasion, continually beating Spencer to the punch. A right hand to the temple area just 30 seconds into the fight had Spencer holding on for dear life. Spencer tasted the canvas twice, in the fourth and 10th rounds, and was literally out on his feet when the ref intervened with just 3 seconds remaining in the 12th round. It was a mighty impressive TKO win for Quarry.

The WBA finals would pit Quarry vs. Ellis. The eagerly anticipated WBA heavyweight championship bout was scheduled for April 27, 1968, also at Oakland.

Quarry, with his pummeling of the top-ranked Spencer, was the favorite. There was some sentiment for Ellis, but even his upset victories over Bonavena and Martin didn't convince skeptics. Ellis couldn't quite remove the taint of being Ali's sparring partner and the tag of being a blown-up middleweight.

Would Ellis really be able to stand up to Quarry's lethal body attack? If Spencer couldn't keep Quarry in the center of the ring, as Spencer had vowed he would do, then how was Ellis going to pull it off? Quarry would lure Ellis to the ropes, where Quarry's counter-punching was most effective, and Ellis would fade like a flower in the desert. Here, the hand of fortune was once again in the corner of Ellis. Literally.

The man who devised the strategy that enabled Ellis to win a very dull 15-round decision over Quarry was Angelo Dundee. Ellis's association with Dundee, who had been Ali's trainer, came as a result of Ellis being Ali's sparring partner.

Having Dundee at his side gave Ellis a wide advantage over Quarry, who had his father Jack talking to him between rounds. The difference in ring savvy between Angelo Dundee and Jack Quarry is like the difference between a cum laude graduate and a student on academic probation.

Dundee instructed Ellis to avoid following Quarry into the ropes. By staying back, Ellis frustrated the counter-punching strategy of Quarry and Quarry was simply too young and inexperienced at that point in his career to change tactics in midstream. In the center of the ring, Ellis continually beat the exasperated Quarry to the punch, landing right-hand leads to Quarry's lantern jaw during the infrequent exchanges that took place. Quarry, who later said that he was suffering from a sore back, waited and waited for Ellis to come to him. It never happened.

Quarry did very poorly over the first 10 rounds. The combination of Quarry's unwillingness to take the initiative and Ellis's willingness to stay in the center of the ring, endure the cascading boos of the crowd, and refuse to give Quarry the chance to counter-punch from the ropes put Ellis well in front. Quarry came on in the final rounds, but it was not enough. At the end of the night, Ellis had his had raised as WBA heavyweight champion. The man who could defeat neither Ali nor Frazier had been given a golden opportunity and had seized the day.

Ellis successfully defended his title once, earning a controversial 15-round decision over Patterson. Ellis had his nose broken in the first round of the fight and was soundly beaten by the erstwhile champ from the ninth round on. Most spectators, including ABC fight announcer Howard Cosell, saw Patterson as being comfortably ahead when the final bell tolled. Referee Harold Valan saw it differently, though, and his voice was the only one that mattered that September day of 1969 in Sweden.

In February of 1970, Ellis and Frazier entered the ring together at Madison Square Garden. At stake was Frazier's parochial claim to the heavyweight crown and the WBA belt worn by Ellis. For the first two rounds, Ellis kept Frazier off stride by jabbing and moving. Ellis, who never lacked for courage, even mixed it up occasionally.

For two rounds, Ellis managed to stem the rising tide. Frazier, a notoriously slow starter, had warmed to the task by the third round, though, and things went south in a hurry for Ellis when Frazier's devastating hooks began to find their mark. By the fifth round, it was mercifully over. Ellis's dance in the spotlight had finally come to an end. Frazier's powerful hooks had turned out the lights.

As a contender, Ellis would have one more major opportunity to grab his share of the national stage. In July of 1971, he engaged Ali in a 12-round bout for the NABF heavyweight title. After losing to Frazier in the Fight of the Century five months earlier, Ali was going about the process of reestablishing himself as the top contender for the crown. Ellis, coming off of impressive wins over rough opponents George Chuvalo and Tony Doyle, was trying to do the very same thing. It was billed as "The Inevitable Fight." If anything was inevitable, it was the outcome. Ellis, accustomed to Ali's style after countless rounds of sparring, fared pretty well in the early rounds. Ali slowly began to assert himself, though, and by the seventh round had things under control. Ali eventually knocked Ellis out in the 11th round. After Ali landed some crisp, hard punches that had Ellis stunned and virtually helpless against the ropes, Ali backed off, not wanting to pour it on against his friend.

Ellis regrouped and went on an eight-fight winning streak against journeymen, building his record and keeping himself within shouting distance of another crack at the crown. The first real contender he faced after the Ali loss was Earnie Shavers in June of 1973. Shavers knocked him out in the first round. The KO defeat marked the end for Ellis as a front-line fighter. Still, he lingered on for two more years. He won just twice in his last seven bouts, retiring finally in the summer of 1975.

No one will rank Ellis among the elite of those who have borne the title of heavyweight champ. At the end of the day, Ellis should be regarded as one who always gave his best effort, as one who exhibited an abundance of heart, and as one who seized the opportunities that Providence laid at his feet in those glory-filled months between the summer of 1967 and the early months of 1970.

Everything considered, that's not a bad legacy at all.

Mike Dunn is a boxing historian and writer who resides in Lake City, Mich.