There has never been…..nor will there ever be again…..an athlete to stand in front of a television camera and control the stage quite like Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali…..for in so many ways, he truly was The Greatest…..whether he was responding to an interviewers question…..or reciting his poetry to any “gathered crowd”…..or “trash talking” an opponent in the…
Cassius Clay began taunting and provoking Liston almost immediately after the two agreed to fight….as he purchased a bus….and had it emblazoned with the words “Liston Must Go In Eight”….when on the day of the contract signing, he drove it to Liston’s home in Denver…..and woke up the champion with the press in tow at…
Cassius Clay’s outbursts reached their peak at the pre-fight weigh-in/physical the morning of the event…. when title fight weigh-ins, before this, had been predictable and boring…..but when The Louisville Lip entered the room where the weigh-in would be held wearing a denim jacket with the words “Bear Huntin’” on the back and carrying an African walking…
On that February night in 1964….when Cassius Clay morphed into Muhammad Ali…..who would have ever thought that this brilliant young man would within the next decade…..become the demographically best known….most recognizable…..most revered….and best loved human beings on planet Earth. The space and time that Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali covered in less than 15 years…
At age 22….the boxing genius Cassius Clay….precursor to The Greatest Muhammad Ali…. was already a psychological boxing genius before he entered the ring against the one fighter in the world that no one wanted to face…..for this young man figured it all out before he even entered the ring against Sonny Liston…..as Clay knew that there wasn’t…
There is nobody who ever entered the boxing ring….that could sell a fight like Cassius Marcellus Clay / Muhammad Ali…..as The Greatest carried this nickname because he was not only the greatest to enter the ring…..but also the greatest in front of a mike before or after a fight….as well as the greatest showman inside and outside…
