Word: cassius
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...lithe, 180-lb. six-footer whose wrists are bigger (8 in. around) than Cassius Clay's, Aaron, 31, is a superb fielder, a dangerous base runner (19 stolen bases in 22 attempts) as well as a natural hitter who says, "I just grab a bat and look for the baseball. If it's near the plate, I swing at it." Technically, he does almost everything wrong: he stands at the very back of the batter's box (where it is practically impossible to reach pitches before they break), has a hitch in his swing, hits...
...true that both Clay and Listen were Olympic champions, Cassius in the butterfly stroke and Sonny in the high dive...
...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...
...bills to ban the sport; in Washington, Senator John Tower called for a Congressional investigation. But fix and fraud are not synonymous. The truth was simply that a big, tough, fast young boxer hit a woozy old stiff in the face. Nobody will ever be sure just how hard Cassius Clay's punch was, but it was hard enough to make Sonny Liston call it a payday...