Word: lassman
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...lost the title. And Pep Barone, a Palermo factotum, who was a ubiquitous visitor at Liston's training camp. ("Sonny thinks Pep is good luck," explained Nilon. "He's very superstitious.") The tenderness of the hearings reached a high point with the testimony of paradoxical Edward Lassman, a member of the Miami Beach Boxing Commission, which gave its official blessing to the title fight. Now, in his other capacity as president of the World Boxing Association, Lassman wants to take Cassius' title away-because Cassius brags too much. Obviously, not everybody agrees: Lassman complained that...
...Part of Lassman's case against Clay is based on the controversial $50,000 contract, signed before the Clay-Liston fight, which gave Sonny's promoters the rights to Clay's first fight if he should become champion. This contract does appear to be a not very subtle effort to circumvent the 1963 WBA regulation prohibiting return clauses in championship fights...
...Lassman is not calling for an investigation of Cassias Clay's contract; he is demanding the dethronement of Cassius X. The heart of Lassman's case against Clay is the champion's personal behavior and its effect upon "the boxing world" and "the youth of the world," and here Lassman betrays himself as a fool and a bigot...
...Lassman can subscribe to any of these views, but he has no right to ban Cassius Marcellus Clay, or Cassius "Muhammed Ali" Clay from boxing for expounding the glory of Islam...
This is all so obvious that it is hardly necessary to point out what a mockery Lassman is about to make of boxing. Cus D'Amato tried for years to avoid a Liston-Patterson fight, but so long as Liston was kept twiddling his thumbs at the top of the contenders' ladder, a few of us were willing to accept Floyd as the best heavyweight around. With Cassius Clay exiled from the boxing world no one will recognize Doug Jones or Ernie Terrell as a legitimate champion. Much as Lassman might wish that only nice Baptist boys from healthy middle...