How Cassius Clay shocked Sonny Liston and the world
Last weekend I was thinking about the epic fight between Cassius Clay, the then leading contender and Sonny Liston the undisputed World Heavyweight Champion at Miami, Florida, which saw Liston surprisingly losing his world title to Clay, who before then was seen as an upstart. That was 52 years ago.
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I was interested in the particular month. I wanted to be sure that it was in February, 1964.
Fortunately my son, Rasheed, was back in Accra for the weekend from Cape Coast where he is doing his National Service. I, therefore, asked him to check on Cassius Clay from his laptop and to get the date he first won the World Heavyweight Boxing Title.
He asked me who Cassius Clay was? I was really surprised. I then asked him if he had heard of Muhammed Ali. He answered in the affirmative. I told him Muhammed Ali was originally known as Cassius Clay before he became a Muslim in 1965 after he had joined the Nation of Islam.
Rasheed checked the date for the memorable fight for me and it was February 25, 1964, which makes it exactly 52 years ago this month.
The whole world was looking forward to this fight. Clay had just turned 22 (born January 17, 1942). He had won the gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the Rome Olympic Games in 1960, aged 18.
Mohammed Ali’s victims
Soon after the Rome Olympics, Clay, later Muhammed Ali, turned professional and made his debut on October 29,1960 winning a six-round decision over Tunney Hunsaker. By the end of 1963, he had a record of 19–0 fights, with 15 wins by knockout.
Some of his early victims included hard-hitting Doug Jones, British Champion, Henry Cooper and a veteran boxer and one time world champion, Archie Moore.
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The young Clay appeared to be so much in a hurry, talking a lot about his fights and opponents and predicting when he would stop them. This earned him the name “Louisville Lip”, after his home town. He also started boasting that he was “the Greatest”.
Taunting
This behaviour of Clay’s, especially taunting of his opponents, made him a popular boxer, even though many wanted a boxer to shut his mouth. But he rode on and his popularity soared.
By late 1963, just short of his 22nd birthday, Clay had become the top contender for Sonny Liston’s title. The fight was set for February 25, 1964, in Miami. Liston was an intimidating fighter with a criminal past and ties to the mob. Based on Clay’s uninspired performance against Jones and Cooper in his previous two fights and Liston’s destruction of former heavy weight champion, Floyd Patterson, in two first–round knockouts, Clay was a 7–1 underdog.
Despite this, Clay taunted Liston during the prefight build-up, dubbing him “the big ugly bear”. “Liston even smells like a bear”, Clay said. “After I beat him I’m going to donate him to the zoo.”
He declared that he would “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee,” and summarising his strategy for avoiding Liston’s assaults, he said, “Your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see”.
Clay turned the prefight weight-in into a circus, shouting at Liston that “someone is going to die at ringside tonight”. Many of those in attendance thought Clay’s behaviour stemmed from fear, and some commentators wondered if he would show up for the bout.
In Ghana Claymania had caught on very well. Boxing loving Accra fans looked forward to the night. If my memory serves me correct, Radio Ghana announced that they would relay the commentary from Miami to Ghana.
The President of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, was an admirer of Cassius Clay and he encouraged Radio Ghana to run the commentary. Later after the fight, Dr Nkrumah, being the sportsman that he was, invited Clay to visit Ghana.
Meanwhile, at the time of the fight, I was in form Four at West Africa Secondary School (WASS) at Accra New Town. When we got to know that there would be commentary on the fight from Miami we planned that by hook or crook we would sneak out of the boarding house to go and listen to the commentary.
Even though WASS was mainly boarding there were private houses in between the dormitories and one could get out of the dormitory without anybody finding out. It is still a miracle to me that we comported ourselves in the boarding house and didn’t take advantage of the situation to become wayward.
Commentary on radio
But on that night of the Clay-Liston fight, which was in the early hours of the following morning, we realised that there was somebody in a private house who had switched on his radio and was listening to the commentary.
That was how myself and my close pal and mate, Joe Mensah Obuor, with whom I shared many interests, and some other friends, went to stand behind somebody’s window to listen to the commentary on that great fight.
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We listened from the beginning to the end. The outcome of the fight was a major upset. From the commentary, we could hear that Clay, from the opening round, was able to contain Liston, putting the champion on the defensive. From the commentary we could feel Clay on top with Liston angry at the taunting and trying to go for an early knockout.
Even though we were not at the ring side, we enjoyed the fight as we all rooted for Clay. We could hear spectators shouting and clapping. Clay dominated the sixth round, hitting Liston repeatedly. The champion, Liston, did not answer the bell for the seventh round and Clay was declared the winner by TKO (Technical Knock-out).
Clay’s victory was received with wild jubilation across the world, especially, among Africans and people of African descent. Ghanaians particularly saw Clay’s win as a victory for the black race.
In winning this fight, Clay at age 22 became the youngest boxer to take the title from a reigning champion, though Floyd Patterson was the youngest to win the heavy weight championship, during an elimination bout following Rocky Marciano’s retirement.
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Clay, having changed his name to Muhammed Ali following his conversion to Islam and affiliation with the Nation of Islam met Liston for a rematch in May 1965 in Lewiston, Maine. It had been scheduled for Boston the previous November, but was postponed for six months due to Ali’s emergency surgery for a hernia three days before.
The fight was controversial. Midway through the first round, Liston was knocked down by a difficult-to-see blow. Ali refused to retreat to a neutral corner, and referee Jersey Joe Walcott did not begin the count.
Liston rose after he had been down for about 20 seconds, and the fight momentarily continued. But a few seconds later Walcott stopped the match declaring Ali the winner by knock-out. The entire fight lasted less than two minutes.
After this fight it was Ali all the way as he demolished all the boxers who dared to face him. White America was not happy that Ali had joined the Nation of Islam and become a Muslim. Ali was harassed and called upon to join the army to go and fight in Vietnam as his national service.
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After Ali’s title defence against Zora Folley on March 22, 1967 he was stripped off his title due to his refusal to be drafted into army service. His licence was also suspended by the state of New York. He was convicted of draft evasion on June 20 and sentenced to five years in prison and $10,000 fine. He paid a bond and remained free while the verdict was being appealed.
Ali was prevented from boxing for about four years until various court decisions forced the state boxing authorities to restore his licence.
Ali’s second coming
The second coming of Ali saw him fight in some of the greatest boxing tournaments the world has ever seen, twice against Joe Frazier (Smoking Joe) winning one and losing one and against the mighty George Foreman.
The world certainly can never forget “The Rumble in the Jungle” when Ali surprised George Foreman to reclaim his world title in Kanshasa, Zaire, on October 30, 1973.
This and other fights during his second coming placed him on top as probably the greatest boxer ever.