Fifty years ago today, in one of the most famed fights in boxing lore, a young Cassius Clay stopped heavily favored champion Sonny Liston in Miami Beach to claim the heavyweight title.
The brash kid who would become Muhammad Ali recorded a stunning technical knockout over Liston, and afterwards wanted the whole world to know about it.
Excerpted from Milton Gross’ column in the next day’s edition, here’s how the Post covered the monumental bout that “shook up the world”:
It was mid-afternoon in the house of 46th Street in the northwest section of Miami where Angelo Dundee heard Cassius Clay stirring in his bedroom. He heard the sound of a Dee Dee Sharp record begin and then as the music he heard Clay’s voice:
“I want to rumble,” Clay shouted. “I’m ready to rumble.”
“I knew,” said Angelo, who has trained the 22-year-old new heavyweight champion of the world in 19 of his 20 straight pro victories, “that the kid was ready. He was awake and he was ready to go.”
The world may not be ready for Clay. Neither was 7-1 favorite Sonny Liston, whom Cassius forced to quit on his stool as the bell rang for the seventh round here last night. Liston came out of the fight and went to the hospital looking as though he’d been the victim in a rumble. One eye was cut, the other near shut and Clay, brash, loud and righteously arrogant, said:
“I made that Ugly Bear look like an amateur. I just played with him and I whupped him so bad like I said I would and you reporters wouldn’t believe me. I whupped him so bad–and wasn’t that so good.”Â