Word: liston
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...alone. Entrepreneur Cohn also bought a swimming pool company, invested in a New York City bus line, a small loan company, a national travel agency, helped form syndicates that promoted two Patterson-Johansson heavyweight championship boxing matches in 1960 and 1961, and last year's Patter-son-Liston fight...
...Pretend You're an Egg." In Las Vegas, Cassius was the show-and Liston his straight man. Both of them knew how good the publicity could be. At one of Liston's prefight workouts, Cassius pranced around outside the ring gleefully hurling insults at "that big fatty." "You can't punch hard enough to break an egg," snarled Liston. "Whoopee!" yelled Clay, squaring off: "You just stand there and pretend you're an egg." Handlers rushed in to pry the fighters apart. "How did it look?" Clay whispered to a friend...
...whole idea, Cassius insisted, was "to make Liston mad." One night Sonny slapped Clay's face when Cassius taunted him in a casino on the Strip. Just before the fight, Cassius bounced into the ring, solemnly shook Patterson's hand, started for Liston's corner-then threw up his hands in mock terror and dived for the seats. The crowd almost busted laughing. No sooner was Patterson counted out than Clay was back, shaking off cops, grabbing a microphone, proclaiming "That was a disgrace. They should apologize for wasting my time on that farce." At Liston...
...Maybe the Movies." By week's end, the haggling over a Clay-Liston fight this fall was in full swing. Leaving his managers to work out the details, Cassius flew to New York to cut an album for Columbia Records and ponder the future. "Maybe after Liston...
Clay promised to knock out Liston in eight rounds. On paper, his boast might seem almost reasonable. Liston is somewhat heavier (215 lbs. v. 205 lbs.) and has a longer reach (7 in.), but Cassius is taller (6 ft. 3 in. v. 6 ft. 1 in.), faster, and has a big advantage in age (eight years). Yet few experts see it Clay's way. "Nobody's gonna beat Liston 'cept old age," said Joe Louis. "Clay doesn't know how to fight," agreed a ringwise trainer. "Liston will break him in half...