Word: liston
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...third favorite sport," he says. "Basketball is two. Boxing is No. 1." At 28, Jones certainly has a No. 1 physique: he weighs 248 Ibs., has an 88-in. reach (9 ½ in. longer than Muhammad Ali's) and a 15-in. fist (as big as Sonny Liston's). To prepare for his ring debut in November, Jones goes to a Manhattan gym daily to spar four rounds and punch a 150-lb. bag for another six. He then shadowboxes, works out with his trainer and does calisthenics before finishing up with six miles of roadwork. Some...
...superbly displayed his talents for promotion in 1964, when he was matched for the title with Champion Sonny Liston, a great, seemingly invincible giant of a man. Clay called Listen an "ugly old bear" and pranced around carrying a bear trap to the delight of the photographers. Budini Brown, Clay's corner man and cheerleader, gave his fighter the perfect line: "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." That is precisely what he did. Cassius attacked, disappeared on those marvelously fast feet, attacked again, disappeared again, until the bear was beaten, helpless in his corner...
Defeat came to Muhammad Ali, and with it the ghosts of a Miami night. Sonny Liston had been a tired man, worn by poverty and prison. At 35, he was old for a fighter?even for a slugger who stayed put and blasted. He got into the ring with a strong, fast, young Cassius Clay, who had nothing to lose and a crown to gain. Last week Muhammad Ali was a tired man too, pummeled in the ring for 24 years?amateur and professional. At 36, he was old for a fighter?especially for a boxer who must move...
...glory that Ali did-and for the rest of their lives they can take solace from the fact that they once held the most coveted title in boxing. Three of the ex-champs since Joe Louis are dead: Rocky Marciano was killed in a plane crash in 1969, Sonny Liston died of an overdose of drugs in 1970, and in 1975 Ezzard Charles succumbed to the lingering muscular disease that killed baseball's Lou Gehrig. Louis and the other five surviving champions have coped with life without the title in a variety of ways...
Floyd Patterson, 43, gained the championship by winning a tournament after Marciano retired in 1956. Patterson lost the title to Ingemar Johansson in 1959 and then won it back in 1960, making him the first man ever to regain the championship. After two first-round knockouts by Sonny Liston, he retired in 1972. Patterson now operates an amateur boxing club and is New York's acting athletic commissioner. After he lost his title, Patterson was so humiliated that he sometimes wore disguises. Now he says: "What I've been looking for throughout my whole life I have found...