Muhammad Ali vs. Sonny Liston | Ring Talk with Lou Eisen

Join Lou as he discusses the fight between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston for boxing’s World Heavyweight Championship which is among the most controversial fights in the sport’s history. Sports Illustrated magazine named their first meeting, the Liston–Clay fight, as the fourth greatest sports moment of the twentieth century.

Discussing the greatest boxing controversies throughout history, Lou Eisen offers his opinions and insights in this fantastic live-streamed series of episodes. Watch live on TalkinFight.com every Sunday at 2pm ET.

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Transcribed:

[, Music, ] hi, my name’s lou eisen, and welcome to ring talk and today on ring talk, we’re going to talk about the biggest upset in boxing history and my favorite fight of all time.

The fight that took place february 25th, 1964 at the miami beach convention center between the impregnable impregnable undisputed world heavyweight champion, sunny liston and the upstart challenger cassius, marcellus clay, and one of the first things you have to understand about this fight is no one, and i Mean no one gave cassius clay a chance to beat sonny liston.

There were 103 sports writers present at the fight 99 picked liston of those 99 about 95 picked them in one round.

Three picked: listen in the second round, four didn’t three from new york and one from britain and their reasoning was.

This liston had only fought three rounds in the previous three years.

He beat patterson the first time in a minute in four seconds and then in the rematch a year later he beat him in a minute and ten seconds and before he fought patents and he fought wayne bethea and knocked him out in just over a minute.

Also before this fight liston hadn’t trained now, you think he’s defending the undisputed world heavyweight title.

Why would he train because ali was considered a flake? It would be comparable today, [ Music ] to having canelo alvarez fight, logan, paul and people would say well.

Why would i you know this? Isn’T a fight, logan paul’s, not a real fighter, he’s an immediate sensation, he’s not beating anyone he’s not trained, he has no amateur fights.

How is he going to beat a guy as great as canelo alvarez or how could he beat someone like tyson fury, it’s just not possible, and that was how ali was viewed back then cassie’s clay.

He was viewed as a flake, an amusing flake, a sideshow he he promoted his fights well, but no one really thought he had that much talent.

Of course, these were all older white people, older white media.

They were familiar with joe lewis, who was a magnificent fighter, and you can never say enough great things about joe lewis, but they were.

They were happy these writers, because joe lewis had been for lack of a better word.

He using it compliant to them.

Joe lewis was not an uncle tom, he he went about in his own way affecting changes in civil rights, but he had a severe stutter.

He wasn’t comfortable speaking in public or speaking up about black rights, although he felt strongly about it.

So he would go through back channels to do things, but they liked the fact that joe lewis never made wakes publicly, of course, in joe lewis’s time.

If he did, he never would have got a title shot and after he won if he’d made waves, he could have been physically hurt.

So lewis knew the times he lived in, didn’t allow for him to speak up.

You get to cassius marcellus clay born january 17th.

1942, who, right now it is june 6.

, so three days ago, would have been the sixth anniversary of the passing of muhammad ali and of course he can’t really physically.

He may be gone, but he’s always going to be here.

We got so much film as lennox lewis said, and tape of him talking and joking and fighting that he’s omnipresent he’ll be with us until the end of time as well.

He should be okay, so getting back to the fight sunday.

Listen was born in arkansas, and the thing about listen was the 25th of 26 children born to a small guy named tobleston, who had two or three wives and the 26 children actually by.

I guess by the time liston was born.

Probably 10 of them were living outside of the of the family area.

Lived in a one room, shack on the floor and we’re broke, did listen, go to school.

No listen didn’t go to school because there were no schools down there, specifically black schools network, near where he lived in the state of arkansas and he never been allowed to go to a white school.

So he had no schooling from the age of seven on.

He worked in the fields with his father, who was a cannabin farmer share proper and when the mule died, they hooked up the the um, the scowl to listen and listen’s father said you’re the mule now and years later, when they asked listen.

What did your father give you? If anything, you would take his shirt off and show you his back and say the scars on my back.

So listen’s father beat him so often that when he didn’t beat him, listen when asked him if he was all right.

Liston was a physically big man, not tall, but big.

He was six one and when he stood up straight, his hands went below his knees.

Very long, reach biggest fists in boxing history as big, if not bigger than primo carnera he’d, especially made the gloves.

So listen in when he’s older, you know collects chestnuts.

Sells them gets a one-way ticket to st louis to see his mother, who had left his father to live there when she saw him.

She said what are you doing here? I don’t want to see you and so listen.

You know live on the streets, let a life of crime ends up going to prison.

There’S a lot of speculation and talk about this true age and nigel collins, who’s, the uh one of the editors and founders of ringside seat magazine great magazine, who used to be the editor of of ring magazine, said we’ll, never know when i spoke to him, we’ll.

Never truly know everything about this now, we’ll never truly know how he died, and the interesting thing about listening is listen, didn’t know when he was born the day he was born and no one knows the day he actually died.

So it is still a mystery and the reason i say that is angela dundee’s brother chris dundee who promoted this fight at the miami beach convention center on february 25th, 1964 with bill mcdonald had posters that said sailor boy, sammy, listen 17 year old boxing sensation, and These are from 1934 and it’s hard to reconcile that you know with his age, because if he was 17 in 1934, that makes him 17 a mix and born in 1917, and that means by the time he fought cassie’s clay in 1964.

He was 47 and that just doesn’t seem likely that he could do that, but we don’t know even photos of liston when he was supposedly in his 20s.

He looked a lot older.

We just don’t know, listen his true age.

He was older than 32 when he, when he defended against clay the first time he was closer to 40, if not older than that.

So liston is starts boxing.

The official record says 1952, probably earlier, but by 1952, just before that, he’s in prison, jefferson city in san luis and as he’s imprisoned there, you know he’s a terrifying figure.

Everyone respected him in prison and even the guards were terrified of him, but he had a real proclivity for beating the hell out of people and that’s why he was in prison.

The mob had hired him as a head breaker at union rallies and the mob had their hooks in him and he got caught and he goes to prison.

He gets paroled, you know just after 1952, 52 53.

.

He starts on his pro career uh out of st louis handled by john vitale, who runs the local mob in saint louis, and he has a de facto manager pep baron, who also was a mobster and listens going up through the ranks, but he’s still getting in Trouble outside the ring he’s still doing his extracurricular activities for the mob.

So there’s a nightmare, listen sitting on the scoop of his sister’s apartment or how excuse me, and just with his sister the the front order house is: maybe a foot behind them they’re just talking.

That’S all they’re doing police walk.

Please don’t want spine, says: hey, you, n-words get off the stoop and they just ignore him.

Then he comes back and walks up the list, and i said you and word get off the stoop and listen said this.

Is my sister’s house we’re not doing anything we’re not smoking or drinking we’re just taking in the nighttime, the moon and the breeze? I told you ends to get off the stoop and these slabs listen.

That was a big mistake.

Liston stands up grabs the guy with one hand under its throat and lifts him up in the air terrifies the officers it would anyone and then beats him to a pulp, and then he has to go.

Do some more time in prison.

This time wasn’t pretty even killed guy, except when he got alcohol at him, which he didn’t have that night.

When he got alcohol in him all bets are off, he was, he was inhumanly strong and he he gets out of prison and restarts his career, but the st louis police come to and just say, listen and and to the mob.

They say you know one night, you’re out of town by 12 p.

m.

It was 6 p.

m.

At that point, you got six hours.

Otherwise we’re just going to hunt you down and kill you and call it self-defense.

So listen has to move immediately and he moves where the philadelphia another mobbed up city, where he’s under the control directly of blinky palmer, who, along with frankie carbo or the two mobsters who, on behalf of the lucasy family in new york, ran all of professional boxing.

Same thing happened in philadelphia.

They tried to arrest him one night.

The police report said it took 16 16 police officers with batons.

Think about that to take listen down.

He was still fighting them off successfully until they added the 16th cop and then palermo pulled strings gets him out, but once again they said the blinky palermo.

Listen, i don’t care what deals that the force made with you he’s out of town within a couple hours.

We’Re just gon na kill him, so now he moves to chicago they’re, trying to look after him.

There he gets into trouble there.

He always gets into trouble when he’s drinking and he goes out in his car and he follows people and carouses and grabs women and still working for the mob.

Still breaking people’s heads at union uh meetings still debt collecting.

Can you imagine listing coming to collect the debt from you when they sent listen? There was no more expectation of getting the money from you.

You were there to get a beating.

Finally, listen moves to denver beside.

He gets a house in a in a really ritzy white neighborhood, but he’s living only beside a couple doors down from a priest, he’d known from st louis and the priest, tries to keep an eye on him when in prison was found to be a tremendous boxer.

You know the priest called owl, wow, marciano’s manager and said: can we get a fight and of course, listen? Hadn’T fought professionally or amateur at that point, so they thought.

Is this guy joking or what so, when they listen gets out of prison, he falls into the hands of the mob.

They put him through a short amateur curve where he wins the aau heavyweight title everyone’s terrified of him.

He turns pro he’s doing really well and then he bumps into marty, uh marshall and the thing about marty, marshall.

Of course, uh liston was fighting him and he was doing well, but marshall throws a punch, misses list and then somehow comes back and hits himself in the face and listen laughed.

He thought it was funny and it was, but when he laughed marshall popped him with the right hand and broke his jaw, so listen fought the next six seven rounds with a broken jaw loses the decision comes back and beats him in a subsequent fight.

So listen is doing well he’s in and out of prison at times and by 1956 he’s probably the best heavyweight in the world marciano quits in 55.

They have a tournament in which patterson beats archie moore uh in a fight that was supposedly people said, was fixed because moore went down and out from a shot to the belly uh in the fifth round.

We don’t know if that fight was or wasn’t fixed, so and archie moore is never known to have participated in a fixed fight.

Patterson’S manager is customato.

He wants to keep patterson away from liston, because patterson had a glass chin from the waist up.

Patterson went down more times than any other heavyweight world champion, so patterson would fight guys like pete rademacher, who was the olympic gold medalist, never had a pro fight.

First, pro fight fights patterson drops him in the first round.

Patterson comes back to win, patterson, won’t fight.

All the top guys he won’t fight cleveland williams, eddie machin, sarah fully, and he certainly won’t fight sonny liston customato said we want to keep the mafia out of boxing but costumato himself, although not aligned with the mob, was not above using them to his benefit.

At times, and he really had no choice because back then in the 50s and 40s you couldn’t be involved in boxing.

If you were a manager, unless you were a member of the mob old manager’s guild, so there he is customato he’s steering patterson’s uh career along and liston.

You know most guys win the title clean out.

The division.

Listen did it reverse listen’s, beating all the top heavyweights he’s knocking up cleveland williams or fully eddie nature.

Those three guys had something in common.

They were beating, listen and then their eyes started to burn something been put on, listen’s gloves and put into their eyes and making and fully handled it made it to the distance.

Cleveland williams.

Didn’T cleveland williams, staggered lisbon in the second round of the first fight and listened his knees, buckled and then coming out for the third he knocked williams out, but not before he’d rubbed, his gloves in william’s eyes and liston or williams, couldn’t see and then listen just Pounded him into dust and winds by knockout and so they’re trying to keep him away from patterson, but they can’t do it anymore.

Even president kennedy said the patterson: don’t fight this guy he’s a mob guy.

You know stay away from, but patterson said this isn’t fair! There’S no way he should not have a chance of the title, it’s ridiculous now.

This is this.

This is the best fighter heavyweight in the world.

Next to me, uh before that, before the first list of fighting 62 patterson had fought three times against inga mario hanson from sweden.

First time he loses the title after getting knocked down seven times second match he wins fifth round t uh knockout, where he knocks johansen out with a left hook to the chin.

You see johansen on the mat and johansen’s left foot is vibrating.

Third fight is closed.

Johansen knocks patterson down this: is miami patterson rallies to win and beat johansen? So now we have the listing fight and the fights in chicago and before the first fight they’re interviewing everyone, and now we have young up and coming heavyweight cassius clay.

What’S your prediction, he said i predict listing in about a minute and a half patterson has no heart, he’s a chicken and he’s just going to see, listen and freeze and the first time listen hits him.

The fight will be over, and ali was just about correct.

The fight started, listening was terrifying or patterson was terrified.

Excuse me, listen walked out, patterson just stood there and listened and hammered him.

He fought liston’s fight, he didn’t use his foot speed or hand.

Speed gets knocked out minute four seconds a year later they fight again.

In a rematch, listen knocks him out six seconds later in a minute and 10 seconds and patterson once again just stood there and everyone thought.

Well.

You know it’s.

1963 liston is going to hold the title for at least 10 15 years.

It wasn’t even a matter of who could beat him.

No one wanted to fight him.

They offered henry cooper, the commonwealth champion a match and cooper’s manager said we don’t even want to meet, listen socially, let alone in the ring.

So by that time, he’s beaten lit.

He’S beaten patterson twice and the year before he fought patterson the first time he fought wayne betheat knocked him out around.

So, by the time he fights cassius clay february 25th 1964 he’s had three fights in three years: that’s it each fight going one round and no one gave clay a chance.

Also liston didn’t train for the fight.

He just refused uh the train but um uh.

So at that point apparently excuse me, as i’m saying this, the something is wrong with the audio.

You want me to refresh the browser.

I can try and do that i would have to ask: if can we stop tape for a second and then have me refresh it? So i’m probably not going to get an answer to that um.

I can try to do this on.

No, i can’t do it on my other browser, so i’m not sure how to go about this and accidentally press the camera.

The fix is usually refreshing, bouncers, so okay, so let me see i will try this not really good with stuff like this.

Um hang on a second great, so hopefully that’ll work, uh, i’m looking at the screen can’t see myself.

So i don’t know if i’m still on the uh.

Yes, i am there’s my ugly face.

So sorry for the interruptions there technical interruptions of my fault.

So we have this fight list and wins the world title at the time.

This is going on john f kennedy’s.

The president of the united states, the new frontier he’s giving americans a reason to believe that nothing is impossible even going to the moon and delivering a man back within 10 years is not impossible.

He’S giving americans he’s filling them with that precious commodity of hope.

Along comes a young man named cassius clay who in 1960 wins the olympic light heavyweight gold medal, and then he turns pro originally under archie moore, but he didn’t.

He didn’t jive well of arch, more archer, more wanted him to do.

Chores, clean toilets do dishes and clayton said i don’t do that.

My mother did that stuff, i’m not doing it.

The big difference between lisbon and and clay liston grew up in a poverty-stricken uh tenement farm in a one-room shack alley was part of the black middle class in kentucky lived in a house with two loving parents shared a room with his brother indoor, plumbing three meals.

A day – and you know he didn’t, have it as bad as many other people did so he wins.

He turns pro and leaves archie more for angela dundee and i’m still dundee.

Who was not only myself a good father, but i think the greatest trainer of all time gandhi looks at him and he he knows from having learned from the great charlie, goldman and ray you.

Don’T try to change a fighter’s natural style.

You, don’t you don’t tinker with it, you just improve upon it and he looked at clay and he thought well.

He people would criticize him these old writers.

He doesn’t take a punch, he pulls straight back, he doesn’t square up.

He keeps moving from side to side.

His hands are down and angela would say to them, but his style is only designed to work for him and him only and it does work for him.

He doesn’t have a scratch on him.

This is how he fights.

Why would i tinker with that? So when angela started to train him angelo knew that you couldn’t tell the young clay to do something because he wouldn’t do it, so he had to compliment him.

He would say i love the way you double that jab.

I love the way you pumped that in so quickly and then he would do it in in training, and at that point you know, clay was the first man in the gym.

The last man out running 10 to 20 miles a day and angela dundee was a master of the art of matching your fighter well in each fight so that he could beat each successive guy.

He was fighting but also learn something from them.

So he’s learning he’s getting a name he’s becoming big.

He gets to new york, he said he’s going to knock out doug jones and there’s a newspaper strike didn’t matter.

He still filled madison square garden with his mouth and he beats doug.

Uh, sunny banks drops him when he fights sunny banks, but he gets up and he drops banks himself and then ends up winning the fight against banks, so he’s moving up the ladder but he’s not perceived as a credible threat because he hasn’t really fought.

You know, banks and doug jones, really puffed up light heavyweights.

So then he signs to fight henry cooper, who had a tremendous left hook and cooper who they said had a you know skin as brittle as a 50 year old coda paint.

I think jimmy cannon said that they fight over in britain and they fill wembley stadium to like over 80 000 people who fills it cassia’s clay because he’s saying i’m the king, you have a queen, you don’t have a king, he wears a robe.

He wears this um uh gold, bejeweled gold crown into the ring.

He has a scepter and the audience is booing him, but he didn’t care and he’s fighting uh cooper and he’s circling him and he’s beating him easily, and he said that near the end of the fourth round.

You know he’s he’s moving and he out of the corner of his eye catches, cleopatra elizabeth taylor, in the audience cooper leans, in with the left hook, ali had backed out straight up and knocks ali clay down and clay was out his eyes rolled in the back Of his head, he manages to get to his feet: bell rings so angelo and his mentor.

At the time.

His main mentor was working with him.

Chicky ferreira grab him and put him back in the corner and they’re putting ice on his testicles they’re slapping him in the face slapping his thighs they’re using smelling salts and nothing is working now people.

This is a big misconception.

People say to ansel, took it razor blade and cut clay’s bluff.

He didn’t when he came into the ring before the fight he held his glove up and he said, look angelo and on his wrist there was an infantism, a little cut, a little teeny flap a glove, and he was going to tell the ref and angel said.

No, don’t you never know when you can use it to our advantage.

So when this happens, he gets chicky ferrara on boudini brown, everyone to gather around and he takes his index fingers and he rips a hole open in the glove and then the the by walkie-talkie.

The officials asked for someone back in the dress room: do you have a spare glove and they say? No, we don’t so angelo, just says i’ll tape over it and then he says to play, get him out of there now and he goes and he hits cooper and opens a huge cut over cooper’s left eye.

They can’t stop the bleeding the fight stop midway through the fifth round and it gave cooper an extra 15 seconds to cut in the glove.

It wasn’t a long time, like some people think but after the fight mob manager, jack nylon, who was the de facto manager he’s from philadelphia of listening, goes into the dress, room and says: keep drinking your milk keep getting your sleep now you’re fighting somebody listening because Now they thought it was safe if a guy like cooper, who wasn’t supposed to be that great a fighter, although he was a great fighter, could knock him down.

Liston, who had the best laptop in the business would just destroy him, so the fight’s on and and clay’s promoting the fight calling him a big ugly bear.

He goes to liston’s house in denver and puts a bear trap on the lawn before he does that he calls the local police and the media, so they get all this attention and listen is infuriated and he’s not training and he’s not training.

This is why he lost hubris he’s believing his press, clippings.

Everyone in his camp is saying this kid can’t fight.

This kid’s got nothing.

He doesn’t punch hard enough to bust an egg.

You don’t need to worry about it.

So he’s not training.

He’S he’s training by eating hot dogs at night drinking beer he’s not running 10 15 20 miles a day.

Like clay is every day he he runs a mile half a mile.

That’S all he does he doesn’t.

He doesn’t care to train he’s, taking an easing in training camp he’s saying i don’t know why i’m working so hard.

I have knocked this kid out one round and he looked at ali clay as a kid.

He wasn’t looked up by anyone as a viable contender for the world heavyweight title and when they get to the the weigh-in before the fight.

Now, the way it almost didn’t happen, the fight almost didn’t happen because uh clay had joined the nation of islam run by the alarm honorable elijah muhammad six months before the fight, but it wasn’t announced and just before the fight it broke on the day of clay Is a member of the nation of islam, which was a fringe uh religious set back at that time? Now the co-promoter bill mcdonald calls him into his office, and ticket sales aren’t going well anyways and, as chris dundee said later, no, we had a good guy olympic hero and a bad guy a mob guy.

Listening now we got two bad guys because the press is now going after play.

So he says bill mcdonald says: you’ve got to renounce that you’re, a member of the nation of islam, renounce the religion and then the fight, dawn and and plato says no, i’m not doing that.

I refuse to do it.

My religion is more important to me than the title.

This is united states.

We have a constitution, i’m free to worship as i want.

I won’t do it and mcdonald said the fight’s off.

So clay says fine goes out, gets on his big bus and he’s about to go back to kentucky, although he was living in florida at the time he’s about to go back home to kentucky to louisiana.

At that moment, angelo and brother chris walk into the promoter’s office and what’s going on how the ticket sales and he tells him the fight’s off and of course chris dundee knows austin’s a mob guy they’re expecting more money from the fight.

You can’t unilaterally call off the fight.

These guys will kill you what’s wrong with you.

Did you even speak to clay and listen to his side of the story, so angelo and chris go find cassius to find him on the bus, and all they do is listen to him for two hours.

They know he’s a member of the nation of islam.

For six months and chris dundee says he i i have a solution and and cassie says i’m not going to denounce my religion.

He says, don’t no one’s asking you to but mcdonald’s forget what mcdonald’s said he’s an idiot.

All you have to do all you could do how about this.

Instead of announcing publicly that you’re, a member of the nation of islam, your new name is muhammad ali, which it had been for six months.

Just wait.

One night win the title tonight: have a press conference tomorrow and announce it to the world.

At that point, it’s a feta complete, there’s nothing they can do about it.

Ali agrees goes into the ring that night and you know the press conference was wild earlier.

That day, he’s screaming at him he’s acting crazy.

I’M going to whoop you everyone’s going to have a heart attack at ringside.

No one will believe what’s happening in the shock the world and he walks in with sugar and yells.

I’M here with sugar, we’re here with two pretty dancers: listens here of listen, two flat feet: net footed boxers we can’t be beat and they take alleys.

The doctor takes ally, clay’s pulse and his heartbeat is racing, and he and and a reporter said.

Does that mean he’s immortal fear? Yes, the doctor said he may have a heart attack and the fight will have to be canceled if his heart rate doesn’t go down.

This was all play acting by clay.

Why? Because liston was a genuinely tough guy and the only thing tough guys ever afraid of especially in prison are crazy guys because you can’t predict what they’re going to do so.

He indemnified himself from liston’s menace by acting crazy.

You have to remember that when listen was shooting craps in vegas before the fight clay went to heckle him and liston was so frustrated and angry at him.

He took a gun and fired at him and the bullet literally went like a six inches above his head and landed in the wall.

Liston was a serious mob guy and that scared uh clay, but he regained his confidence and by fight time you know, he’s still nervous.

He was still scared, you’re still fighting somebody listed and listen used.

To put you know dozen terry cloth towels into his robe to make his chest look bigger and they’re after the weigh-in they go back to muhammad’s house freddie pacheco is a long-time doctor takes his pulse, it’s normal.

They get the ringside or to the arena they’re walking to the ring and when they get to the center of the ring, angela says to muhammad stand up straight: look down at him.

You look down at him you’re taller than him, and he was, and that was a psychological victory, because outside of nino valdez listen to never fought anyone taller than him.

Muhammad was six three and three quarters listening was six one and addly is talking to him and he’s saying: you’re, not getting lena horn tonight.

What they had done with liston many times was his management would say.

If you win tonight, you get to go to bed with linda horn and they put a lena horn look alike in in the crowd to to further spur on listening.

So the fight starts and angelo just said, run just circle him just jab and circle, and you see in that first round.

Listen can’t hit him he’s less than a foot from can’t hit.

Him he’s missing dozens of punches.

He cannot hit him, and this was all designed.

This plan by angelo dundee angelo, had seen that he’d seen all of liston’s fights and they watched hours of taped on listening him and muhammad, and he showed him and harry wiley.

Was there too the great harry wiley? Who trained sugary robinson and they had showed muhammad look? What liston always does it’s the same thing? Jab two steps forward double jab straight right hand, never deviated from that jab two steps forward: double jab straight right hand, listen didn’t have much much uh mobility, and so muhammad gaseous knows this going in.

He keeps circling and circling him and about halfway midway through the round.

He hits him with a left jab, and then he hits him with another.

Jab and and clay keeps hitting him with jabs and more jabs and they’re too quick liston can’t catch him and he’s starting to puff listen’s face up a bit now.

First round ends and people are shocked and he comes to the corner.

Cassia sits down angela slaps.

His thigh and says how about that? How about that you’re still here and they go out for the second round and he’s he’s jabbing, listen, listen still can’t hit him and then he’s stands flat-footed in the middle of the round.

Catches.

Listen with the counter right hand.

Right high on the head and listens, legs buckle and the announcer steve ellis says: listen is wobble, the champion is wobble, we haven’t seen this before and then clay starts to tee off on him.

Landing combinations, listen makes another effort to go, get him and he can’t catch him.

He simply can’t land a punch.

Clay is too slippery and too quick third round happens and now clay’s starting to really pay off he’s catching him.

Five, six seven punch combinations, easy works.

The broadcaster steve ellis says we call these combinations.

Listening can’t seem to avoid them.

Clay is catching the champion with every punch in the book and he’s having his way and liston hadn’t trained, he’s gassed by the end of the third round.

He’S uh he’s he’s.

I thought i would get him in two rounds he’s angry at his corner.

You said i could hit this guy once and he’d be down clay’s, not fighting his fight, he’s not fighting liston’s fight, he’s making, listen fight, his fight he’s making list in lunge.

Listen.

I had a habit of when he jabbed he would launch he put his chin out over his lead left foot which made him off balance.

So after the third round you know, they’re they’re listens desperate and he tells his trainers, joe palino and willie reddish, to go ahead and do it.

They take monsail solution, which is a coagulant used for cuts and they smear it on his gloves.

So when they come out for the next round and they get him close and they clinch, he rubs his gloves in clay’s eyes and as the round progresses clay’s starting to blink.

His eyes are fuzzing up and they burn like hell and he goes back to the corner and he’s screaming at angelo they’re blinding me they’re, blinding me and while that’s going on there’s members of the nation of islam, thinking angelo’s done this and they want to go After angelo and angela has to take his finger, put it in clay’s eye, put it in his own eye, which stings and he said, see i’m not doing this and he has all these towels.

So he gets.

Water washes pours the water in clay’s eyes, rubs him with the towel and throws a towel get rid of that towel new towel water rubs the eyes, get rid of the towel new town.

He keeps doing this and he says to clay, go out and run yard.

Stick him i mean using the jab, which is where they got the term eventually stick use the stick.

So his circling list – and you have to remember fighting listing of two good eyes – was difficult, but to be completely blind is suicidal.

So listen looked at him as the great writer jerry eisenberg said when he saw that clay couldn’t see.

He looked at him like a kid looks at a new red bike on christmas morning and clay just goes out and runs and he runs and he runs, and he shows that he’s physically stronger, because he grabs list and clinches him and pushes him back then he Starts to do what you did a lot later in his career, the pity pat punches on the head and then, as his eyes clear.

He starts going after listening and hitting him, and you can see when the fourth round ends.

Listening is dejected because that was it.

That was all he had fifth round comes out and now cassius clay is angry and he’s pounding, listen, six, seven, eight punch combinations and he’s so angry for listening, trying to blind him that he’s telling him what he’s throwing here comes a double jab and he lands It here comes a straight right hand and he lands it and he’s lining these huge combinations and he’s staggering listening, he’s beating the hell out of the champion that no one thought would ever lose jerry eisenberg before the fight said, there’s a way to be listed, but It involves having the seventh army come in and using their artillery to shell him for five years.

No one thought anyone could hurt, listen so he’s pounding him and he’s killing him in the fifth round and in the sixth round, comes out and he’s hitting him and he’s hitting him and liston can’t get out of the way and listen had a big mouse under His left eye he’s never been cut and then ali hits him with a straight counter right hand.

It busts the mouse open now, listen is not only bleeding, but the left eye is closing and listen had to know.

He had to know that clay was only a couple rounds away from knocking him out because he was young, he was strong and he was landing shots.

He was now sitting down on his punches, so he goes back to the corner after the sixth round and he spits out the mouthpiece they’re working on his shoulder because he said his shoulder hurts and, as you see on the tape of the fight, it’s a beautiful Moment, there’s cast his clay standing with his arms in the air, bouncing on his feet, doing a dance and then the referee barney felix talks to listen’s corner comes back and says over and raises cassie’s clay’s hand and, and steve l said it’s over.

It happened.

Cassius clay is the new heavyweight champion of the world.

Liston had become the first heavyweight champion since jess willard to quit in his corner.

He hadn’t trained.

He was out of gas he’d had his life beaten out of him by by clay, and it was over.

People said: well, it was a fix.

How could it be possibly be a fix? Why would the mob want to give up control of the most precious prize in all his sports? This defined listing his life had no worth other than being the world heavyweight champion, and this young um star upstart had done what he said.

One of the writers for the miami herald, the great edwin pope said it was electrifying, because ali stood over the ropes and you see him pointing – and i said to angela what was he saying to all the writers and he said to all of you and he Called him by the name, you bob eat your words.

You edwin eat your words.

You thomas eat your words.

James eat your words.

He was yelling.

I told you, i would do this and then he’s screaming comes over as we’ve all seen this interview to steve ellis and he says i want the world to know that sunny listening was not even a match.

I put him in the hospital i’m just 22 years old.

I just knocked out sonny liston.

I must be the greatest.

I told the world, i talk to god every day.

If god’s with me can’t nobody beat me, i shook up the world and he did.

He did what he said he was going to do.

He kept faith with his faithful.

He shook up the world, he beat liston, he outsmarted him and the key to the whole victory is angel.

Dundee said was with sonny liston everything came off his jab.

If you could take his jab away, listen was like a robot.

If i can’t throw my jab, what do i do next? He didn’t know what to do so.

He was resorting to lunging one punch at a time.

You walk to a caster’s clay, muhammad ali, in lunch with one punch at a time.

You’Re just waiting to get knocked out and ali took his jab away.

He circled the jab, as dundee said.

He just took it away, used his own jab counter punched.

Him ring mobility, and that was it listening was never the same again.

The next day at the press conference they showed x-rays supposed to be of lisbon’s shoulder taken in the hospital showing the muscle breaking away from the bone, and jerry eisenberg told me once he said.

Those weren’t even x-rays of listen, they’re, just x-rays.

They got from someone in the hospital to show it.

Nothing was wrong with liston’s shoulder.

He was throwing multiple left hands in the sixth round in every round.

He just quit.

He was a bully.

Listen was your your quintessential bully and when you stand up to the bully and say i have no fear of you, i’m gon na fight you and beat you and you do it.

The bully will always quit and listen quit and, of course, ali is now not only the undisputed world heavyweight champion.

The decade belongs to him.

He picks up the scepter of the slain president, and now ali is at the head.

Not only of the world of sports.

He’S the head of the civil rights movement he’s the head of the youth movement and now he’s the head of the anti-vietnam war movement.

They all coalesce under muhammad ali and what’s the first thing he does two days later, he says my name’s no longer cass.

He has clay, that’s a slave name, it wasn’t.

The original cassius clay was not a slave owner, he bought african-americans, but he freed them.

He was an abolitionist.

He was pro-union during the civil war, so he announces his new name, muhammad ali and then a week later.

He flies to south africa to see nelson mandela.

This is 1964, wasn’t allowed to see him, but knowing that he was there, kept mandela gave mandela hope until he finally met ali 40 years later.

This was the event that changed all of boxing forever because from then on it wasn’t managers talking about what the fighter was going to do.

If you wanted to make money in boxing, you had to put asses in the seats and to do that, you had to talk, you had to be provocative ally.

Did that all the big money and professional sports all sports started with muhammad ali and that first listing fight, which not only was the upset of the century but to me, was probably the most single most important boxing match.

One of the two, along with the second listing schmeling fight of all time ali, had changed the balance in the entire world.

He had become the first truly global world heavyweight champion and by the time he died on june 3rd 2016, there were 8 billion people on the earth, and, and gallup polls said at least just over 7 billion knew who he was no one has ever had that Impact before maybe other than gandhi on the entire world, without a doubt he was what he said he was.

He was the single greatest fighter and athlete and apostle for peace.

The world has ever seen.

He stood up to the bully, the bully of all bullies and he destroyed him, and he did it ten years later to george foreman.

This and many other reasons make him.

In my estimation, the greatest fighter, the greatest athlete of all time and the greatest person of the 20th century – i hope you enjoyed the show.

My name is lou eisen.

This is ring.

Talk have a great day.