Word: cassius
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Nobody can deny that Cassius Marcellus Clay, 23, has an affinity for fantasy. Last week in Lewiston, Me., Cassius fought a fight that did not seem to be a fight, threw a punch that did not look like a punch, scored a knockout that the referee did not realize was a knockout, and set a record that turned out to be no record. In the process, Cassius clearly established himself as the heavyweight champion of the world and a consummate actor-in the theater of the absurd...
...went hippity-hopping around the ring, effortlessly slipping Sonny's ponderous punches. Clay hung his arms at his sides; Liston attached his arches to the canvas. The pursuit grew slower and slower, stopped altogether when Clay unloaded a solid right to Listen's head. Straining to reach Cassius with a left hook, Listen bent forward and swung. From somewhere in the general direction of his right hip, Clay flicked a right-hand chop that traveled no more than a foot to the side of Sonny's head. Listen sank to the canvas, rolled over onto his back...
...neutral corner. But he didn't. He ticked off the seconds by pounding on the ring mat with a wooden mallet. When McDonough reached twelve, he quit. Liston was still on the floor, and Clay was still in the middle of the ring. Unable to pull Cassius away, Referee Jersey Joe Walcott, who seemed even more confused than the spectators, gave up and walked away. He never got Clay to a neutral corner; he never picked up the count. Another eight seconds passed. At ringside Nat Fleischer, editor of The Ring and high priest of boxing, screamed at Walcott...
...others watching on closed-circuit TV. "Fix! Fix! Fix!" they chanted. "Fake! Fake! Fake!" At ringside, Joe Louis conceded that Clay had landed a right, "but it wasn't no good." Snapped Canadian Heavyweight George Chuvalo: "It's a phony, a real phony." Even Cassius was confused. "I think I hit him with a left hook and a right cross," he said. "But I want to see the video tape...
When he saw the tape, Cassius had a new story. The punch that flattened Liston, he insisted, was his secret "anchor punch"-so named because it anchors opponents to the floor. The punch was taught to him by a darkface comedian named Stepin Fetchit, who learned it from Jack Johnson, first of the great Negro champions. Said Clay: "It's a chop, so fast you can't see it. It's karate. It's got a twist to it. Just one does...