Massive Sacks of Sport: Clay v. Liston

Cassius Clay Sacks Sonny Liston (1964)

Sonny Liston was a bad, bad, man.   He learned to fight properly in prison while doing a bid for robbery.   Upon his release, Liston’s skill set presented two options for earning lunch money: either rob folks on the street or beat them up legally inside the ring.   Sonny turned pro in 1953 and quickly earned a reputation as a serious hardheaded brawler with a left hook like a rocket-propelled wrecking ball.   Many fighters, including then-heavyweight champ Floyd Patterson, avoided him, but Liston’s victories kept rolling up against anyone who had the huevos to fight him.   Finally, after considerable outside pressure, Patterson gave Liston a title shot in 1962.   It was the original Tyson–Spinks: Liston batted Patterson around the ring like a truant ho for a minute and then put him to sleep.        

There was a rematch ten months later with the same result.

When Cassius Clay signed up for a 1964 title fight against Liston, he was tagged a 7 to 1 underdog.   Pundits and wise bookies everywhere thought it was a damn shame that a pretty boy like Clay had to go and get himself disfigured by an amoral thug.   Clay’s response to this, “if you wanna lose your money, then bet on Sonny,” made the pros think he was crazy.   But Clay was not without credibility.   Since earning a gold medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics, Clay stomped and infuriated half of the heavyweight division by moving around the ring like a coked-up hummingbird and dropping good fighters with punches that they could not see.

Fast-forward to the Miami Beach Convention Hall, with Clay and Liston up on the marquee…another easy night for the champ.   The fight started, and almost from the go, this cocky kid from Kentucky was smacking Liston at will.   Even nuttier, Clay was taunting the man who had made other heavyweight nobles wet their britches.  

Bam.   “What’s up Sonny?”   Bam-bam.   “C’mon pops, get it up.”   People were freaking out throughout the arena.   Sportwriters were shaking their heads in either dismay or high amusement.   A lot of folks felt their wallets losing weight.   Aside from being temporarily blinded from some liniment off Liston’s glove, Clay dictated the fight, making Liston look like a slow-moving heavybag.   Liston, after being bitchslapped by a mocha blur of wisecracks and taunts for most of six rounds, decided he had all the ass beating he needed that night and declined to leave his corner for the seventh round.

“Who’s the greatest?” Clay screamed towards the ringside sportwriters and VIP capos.   The one’s who weren’t sobbing over their monetary loses said, simply:

“You are.”

Clay changed his name the following day.   Fifteen months later Muhammad Ali and Liston got it on again up in hardscrabble Lewiston, Maine.   Ali put Liston away in the first round, inaugurating Liston’s slide towards oblivion.   Liston reached it with an overdose of heroin in 1970.   He was 38.   Muhammad Ali of course took the opposite path and went on to become the greatest American sports hero of the 20th century.