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As I attempt to tune out the announcer's inane
comments designed to keep the audience interested in this one sided affair,
I am suddenly transformed, in my mind, to a long line leading to a movie
theater on the upper Westside of Manhattan on a cold February night.I'm with
a friend and we're standing right behind Lauren Bacall and Jason Robards,
married at the time, 1964, waiting to see what everyone, including these
celebrities in front of us, thinks will be a very compelling heavyweight
fight.
Similar to the Jones and Ruiz bout, this long ago title fight, featured a
big heavyweight champion and a challenger with fast feet and an even quicker
mouth. Also, as with Jones/Ruiz, the adage "a good big man will always beat
a good little man" was inserted into almost every discussion and story
written about the fight.
The good big man in this case was, of course, Charles "Sonny" Liston, the
reigning heavyweight champion, who had decimated every fighter put in front
of him on his rise to the heavyweight title, including the previous
champion, Floyd Patterson. In fact, Liston's dismantling of Patterson, not
once but twice, both inside a round, was so complete, so humiliating that,
after the second bout, Patterson had literally snuck out of Las Vegas in a
disguise consisting of a false nose and wig. Never before, or since, had a
heavyweight champion so perfectly fit the role of Goliath as Sonny Liston
did. He was the Hollywood studio typecast of a bully, even in this, the most
brutal of all sports. And Liston appropriated the role as if he had been
born to play it. No one before or since, including the young Mike Tyson,
utilized the dark art of intimidation, in and out of the ring, better than
Sonny Liston. He had perfected the technique as a "leg breaker" for the mob
in St Louis, where decades after his reign of terror on the streets, his
reputation was still mentioned with a sense of awe and the simple
declaration "you paid Sonny or you woke up in the middle of next week". I
remember the guy who gave me that quote as he kept looking over his
shoulder, speaking in a hushed tone, as if he expected Liston to come
barreling around the corner at any minute with malice in his eyes and bad
intentions in his walk. Sonny Liston, at the time, had been dead for twenty
years.
It wasn't that Sonny Liston was physically big, he was "only" 6'1" and
usually fought at a top weight of 225. It was the way he carried himself,
his history with the mob, the two stints "inside" on various racketeering
convictions and most of all the manner in which he had, up to this point,
thoroughly dominated most of his opponents. Liston didn't just beat his
opponents, he "beat them down" long before that term gained its current
convention and it defined the public perception that Sonny Liston was not
only fearsome but also an unbeatable fighter.
Thus it was generally assumed, at the time, by the "smart money" in boxing,
that a young, brash Olympic champion out of Louisville, one Cassius Clay,
would provide little more than a "speed bump" in Liston's trail of
destruction through the heavyweight ranks. Clay, who had yet to abandon what
he later termed his "slave name", had compiled an unbeaten record in
eighteen fights, although some believed he had gotten a "gift" in a ten
round win over Doug Jones the previous year in New York. Since Liston had
disposed of all contenders and literally run out of heavyweights to fight,
Clay was offered a title shot even though many of the self same "experts"
were convinced that it was a case of "too much too soon" for the unbeaten
Clay. He was generally being looked upon as the next sacrificial offering to
the hulking behemoth of a champion. The bout was set for the storied Miami
Beach Auditorium and the only questions that rejoindered as fight time
approached was who would Liston fight next and would the expected loss be a
devastating blow to Clay's career. At the weigh-in, this particular scenario
seemed to follow the script as Clay appeared to be on the point of nervous
collapse. His blood pressure rose to such a level that doctors in attendance
actually thought he might be on the verge of a heart attack and seriously
considered postponing the bout. Newspaper pundits ascribed the condition to
"Cassius Clay being scared to death". Given Liston's record, reputation and
demeanor, this particular assessment was not quickly discounted.
The fight was carried on the 1960s equivalent of PPV, that is, it was
broadcast "live" on a big screen in a movie theater. Cable television was in
its infancy in 1964 and used primarily in rural areas where television
reception, because of the topography and distance, was difficult to receive
"over the air". I went to the fight at a Loews theater with a friend from
Brooklyn, Vinnie Vitale. Vinnie and I mutually groused about the six dollar
admission, an unheard of amount to walk into any movie house in those times.
We were especially leery since we had been "burned" by the second
Liston/Patterson bout which lasted less than 120 seconds and for which we
had also paid six dollars in Brooklyn. We had figured out that the fight had
cost us over five cents a second, at a time when you could still buy a daily
newspaper for a nickel. We were hoping against hope, but realized a repeat
performance was a distinct possibility. As we waited in line and to pass
time against the February cold, Vinnie asked Jason Robards "who do you
like". It was Bacall who answered, in that famous breathy voice, "Liston in
four" and quickly turned her back (Bacall was, by far, the bigger fight fan
in that couple as had been dutifully noted in Walter Winchell's column, her
interest in the sport dating, no doubt, back to her days with Humphrey
Bogart). At least, I thought, for the six bucks I got to hear Lauren Bacall
deliver a line.
I clearly remember thinking that the picture on the movie screen, for six
bucks, was not as focused as I thought it should have been. Neither in top
form, sadly, was Joe Louis, who was doing "color" on the broadcast and who
seemed to be "in there for a check" much as he had been in his final fights
at the end of his career.
There were no "prelims", only the "main attraction" as the ring announcers
liked to put it, a "no frills" entertainment excursion long before that
phrase had dire meaning to air travelers. The fighters finally made their
way to the ring and to their respective corners. The introductions of the
"celebrities at ringside", from both the entertainment and boxing worlds
were next, including the "Brown Bomber" who took a moment from his
broadcasting duties to lumber into the ring along with Frank Sinatra who was
known to be a fairly knowledgeable fight guy. Finally, Clay and Liston were
introduced, and the referee motioned them to the center of the ring for
their instructions. As the fighters came together, Vinnie poked me in the
ribs and stage whispered, in the practiced tone of generations of Brooklyn
moviegoers, what many in the audience had already noticed and were
undoubtedly also thinking, "Holy ...., look at that, Clay is as big as
Liston". And Vinnie was right, the massive Liston, the Goliath, the leg
breaker from St Louis, the man who had sent Floyd Patterson sneaking out of
town, was eye to eye with Cassius Clay, the "Louisville Lip" who, the day
before, was supposedly "scared to death". It was to be, of course, only the
first of several surprises that evening, Liston was in against someone his
size. I wondered if Lauren Bacall was still certain about "Liston in four".
The fighters, finished with the instructions, turned, went back to their
corners, and though no one knew it at that moment, one was about to step
into storied and controversial legend, the other about to begin a slow, sad,
public downfall that commenced six rounds later when Sonny Liston sat on his
stool and relinquished the most coveted title in boxing. Liston's story
ended six years later in a bedroom in Las Vegas, the once feared fighter
laying at the foot of his bed, dead, under circumstances that are, to this
day, still in dispute. Clay, immediately after the fight, became Ali, and
his transgressions in and out of the ring, real and perceived, were overcome
by the enormity of his skill as a heavyweight champion. Sonny Liston went
into that ring that night in Miami Beach bigger than life, yet it was
Cassius Clay who came out of the ring the larger man and in the years to
come, Muhammad Ali kept getting larger, seemingly by the day, until he was
the biggest thing in the sport of boxing. Its amazing how easy memories come
back. Bernie McCoy
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